‘Do you also have the Sight?’ Gaiman asked. From the look on her face, Ross was about to say that was also an operational matter, so Sefton quickly confirmed they did. ‘You’re the first police officers I’ve ever heard of who had the gift.’

‘Were you aware,’ asked Sefton, ‘of anyone before us who tried to bring law to the Sighted community?’

‘People say there was someone, but I don’t know who. Everyone seems to think that sort of went away a few years ago. I take it you’re investigating a particular case … and now, of course, I realize, having seen the news, that it’s obvious what that might be.’

‘We’re just putting together some background context,’ said Sefton, wishing he could share more information with this man. He was, after all, the only friendly human being they’d met who saw the world the way they did. A waiter arrived, and they all ordered tea. Gaiman asked for honey with his, and, while they waited, all aware that their conversation would get intense again once there was no possibility of being interrupted, talked about the bees he kept at his home in the States. ‘Each hive has its own personality,’ he said. ‘They have moods. You can’t really call a single bee an individual. The hive will sacrifice it for a greater good.’ Once the waiter had returned, he got them both to try a spoonful of the particular honey he’d asked for. It was, Sefton was pleased to discover, delicious.

When the waiter closed the door behind him, Gaiman put his hands on the table. ‘So … the Ripper…’

Sefton had got out his special notebook, which by now was a very randomly organized grimoire of notes and diagrams concerning ‘the matter of London’. Ross had got out her much more functional notebooks. ‘Sorry to keep on about it, but we can’t talk about operational matters. If you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions…?’

‘Sure.’

‘You told our boss that you’d been given the Sight via an artefact passed to you by a fan,’ began Ross. ‘We’re interested in any information you might be able to give us about what could be called the occult community in London. How, for example, did you get involved with them?’