‘Get me Didion Waite,’ he said, with dangerous delicacy. ‘I demand that he speak to me personally.’ Pause. ‘The White Binder.’ His gaze flickered to us. ‘I think,’ he said, almost to himself, ‘that I can see a way to turn this to our advantage. We must get to Metyard before every fool in London tries to catch her.’

He flicked a switch on the phone. There was a rustle before a thick-nosed voice filled the room.

‘Jaxon.’

‘Didion,’ Jaxon said silkily. ‘How are you?’

‘Well enough.’

Both of their greetings dripped with contempt. I knew Didion Waite was Jaxon’s long-standing rival, but Nick had yet to tell me what had started the feud.

‘I suppose,’ Didion said, ‘that you somehow found out about Metyard. Who told you?’

‘Oh, I have eyes everywhere, Didion. Even in your district.’ Jaxon had an unnerving smile on his face. ‘I always had my doubts about your little auction house, but I was led to believe that it would be, at the very least, a semi-professional establishment.’

‘How dare you imply that I am anything less than professional?’ Whoever Didion was, he had a grating voice. ‘Metyard was always going to be . . . a tad antagonistic—’

‘A tad antagonistic. Let me remind you that this woman murdered a thirteen-year-old girl, dismembered her corpse, and interred the pieces in a sewer.’

‘I had every assurance that—’

‘Assurances mean nothing, you bottle-headed imbecile.’ Jaxon’s knuckles whitened. ‘Was it you who tried to bind Metyard?’

‘No. I, ah, referred the task to someone else.’

‘That, Didion,’ Jaxon purred, ‘is because you are a coward. A disgusting, quivering coward.’

‘I am most certainly not—’

‘A craven. A yellow-belly. A lily-livered curl of besmirchèd slime, unfit for human civilisation.’

‘My heart knows no cowardice,’ Didion shrilled. ‘Damn you. I simply decided to—’

‘—palm the work off on an amateur, yes. You disgrace every binder who ever drew breath.’ Jaxon kept smiling. ‘Now. There are two potential outcomes to this fiasco, Didion. By rights, I should report you to the Underlord for your gross mishandling of a poltergeist. If Hector is informed, your establishment will be shut down. Finished. A mere echo of a memory. And you will most likely have your throat cut.’

Probably true. From what I’d heard about the Underlord, he loved a good old-fashioned throat-cutting.

Didion’s voice was shrinking: ‘And the second potential outcome?’

‘You allow my employees to intervene – and in the process, save your neck.’ Jaxon swung lazily on his chair, one leg crossed over the other. ‘If we bind Sarah Metyard, we claim her. In addition, I have the right to bind Anne Naylor, if the desire seizes me.’

‘Are you blackmailing me, sir?’

‘Didion, it appears you have finally cultivated a smidgen of intelligence. My heartiest congratulations.’