Her poker face was immediately back. Quill sighed to see it. After they’d defeated Mora Losley and thus solved the mystery that had loomed over Ross for her whole life, the analyst had opened up for a few weeks, become more talkative, cracked a few jokes, even. It had been wonderful to see. But now the cloud was back. ‘I’m still working through those documents we found in the ruins in Docklands.’

She was also, thought Quill, probably still considering the plight of her deceased dad, who, in the course of the team’s first – and so far only – op, she’d discovered to be residing in Hell. Whatever Hell was. Quill was pretty sure it didn’t map onto conventional thoughts about damnation. Ross had told them that she was aiming, in the fullness of time, to do something about getting her dad out of there, if they ever found a mechanism to do so. Whether or not she’d made any progress on that was between her and her copious notebooks. ‘Okay, but—’

‘That’s my own time, Jimmy.’

Quill raised his hands in surrender, and indicated for her to proceed.

‘Witnesses are saying to the press that the doors of the car weren’t opened at any point, meaning that the government service driver, whom I’ve discovered was one Brian Tunstall, must be the only suspect, presumably the “thirty-eight-year-old male” the Major Investigation Team have announced they’ve arrested in connection. The words that set off my searches might well be contained in his interview statement.’

‘Terrific.’ Quill took out his phone. ‘You get our two comrades over here. I am about to wake a detective superintendent.’

*   *   *

The first result of Quill’s call to his superior was that a hassled-looking lid came out of the nick, found Quill and Ross, and checked them through into the canteen. As in any nick, the canteen smelt of comforting grease and echoed with the clatter of cutlery and the sound of music radio from the kitchens. To venture any further into this bureaucracy, they were going to need their political muscle here with them. The food hall was full of uniforms looking pissed off, having just come off a shift where half of them would have been beaten on by protestors and rioters. Ross kept looking at her phone. ‘Now they’ve made an arrest, I’m waiting for those “the mob did it” stories on the news websites to change. They might give us more information to go on.’

‘In the meantime,’ said Quill, ‘there exist in this world bacon sarnies.’

*   *   *