She looked almost angrily at him. As if she was already wondering if she’d made the right decision. ‘We work a full day tomorrow,’ she said. ‘We don’t put this before the job.’

‘Right.’

‘Then we go to this place, research the buyer, make them some sort of offer.’

‘Or—’

‘I don’t want to think about that until we have to.’

‘Okay.’

‘Then we resurrect Dad. We go to where he’s buried and dig him right out.’

He kept his voice even. He was amazed at such trust. He was going to be worthy of it, he was. ‘Absolutely.’

‘Right. So there’s something else we need to do, right now.’

He found his phone and started texting Quill. ‘You’re sure about the details?’

‘Yeah. I found in that ledger the name of an item purchased at one of those auctions two and a half years ago, a “scrying glass”. The name of the buyer was Russell Vincent.’

Chapter Thirteen

THIRTEEN

The next morning, Rebecca Lofthouse opened her front door to find, standing there in a business suit, an extraordinarily beautiful young woman. ‘Good morning, Superintendent,’ she said. ‘I’m here to drive you to Lord’s.’

Lofthouse stared at her. ‘I didn’t order a driver, and I’m not going to Lord’s.’

‘Forgive me, but you are.’

The accent was very RP. One of the better schools, without the mockney they tended to produce these days. There had been no threat in her tone. ‘I’ve got a meeting—’

‘We’ve postponed that for you.’

‘And you are…?’

‘I’m afraid you’ll never learn my name.’

‘Oh,’ said Lofthouse, feeling both relieved and a whole different sort of worried at the same time. ‘You’re one of the funny people.’

*   *   *