Pen breathed out hard and audibly. She hates the way I elide the fragile boundary between folk magic and bullshit.

‘Seriously?’ I said. ‘You’re standing in the garden in the middle of the night because something broke your tulips?’

Pen looked at me and shook her head. ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I’m laying down some more wards.’ She showed me the lump of white chalk in her hand.

‘The ones on the doors and windows aren’t enough?’

‘They always have been. Now . . . I don’t know. It’s weird, Fix. This is a warm night, isn’t it?’

‘Very.’

‘But I can’t stop shivering. Everything feels wrong, somehow. It has done ever since . . .’ She didn’t have to finish the sentence. By tacit assumption, all unfinished sentences could be taken to refer back to the night of Asmodeus’ escape. She might have had some more to say about how she felt, but it was then that I stepped into the light from the open doorway. Pen gave an audible gasp as she stared at my damaged face.

‘Oh my God,’ she said, dismayed and solicitous. ‘What happened? Don’t just stand there, you twerp. Come on inside and let me put something on those cuts.’ She shoved me toward the house, leaving chalk marks on the sleeve of my coat.

‘I was in a fight,’ I said, putting up only a token resistance.

‘With what? A combine harvester?’

I hesitated. Sooner or later, I’d have to tell Pen what had happened tonight but, given the mood she was in, if I did it right then and there I’d be guaranteeing her a sleepless night.

‘It was just an argument that got out of hand,’ I said.

‘At Coldwood’s crime scene?’ Pen didn’t sound convinced.

‘Well, some of these grass-green constables still need the rough edges knocking off of them . . .’

She let the lie stand, but since she knew that was what it was, she reneged on her promise of a hot poultice. She handed me a yellow Post-it note instead. Sue Book, it read. 10.30. Get back to her tonight if you can.

But I couldn’t. Not now. Sue might be shacking up with a sex-demon, but she was a humble librarian and she worked nine to five like most ordinary, decent people. If I called her up at three in the morning and interrupted her beauty sleep, I might get a tongue-lashing from Juliet. And pleasant though that sounds, Juliet’s tongue can strip rivets off steel.

‘She sounded like she’d been crying,’ Pen said, as Arthur the raven came swooping down from the banister to take up his station on her left shoulder.

Sue? Crying? That was unnerving.

‘Anyone else?’ I asked.

Pen shook her head.

‘Then I guess I’ll turn in,’ I said. ‘Unless you want to draw some more stay-nots. I’m good for that if you’ve got another piece of chalk.’