Now, Ross attached an association thread between Tunstall and Staunce. ‘According to Lofthouse, Tunstall received six cash payments of ten thousand pounds each during the six-week period before his death. He was smart enough not to put them into his Barclays current account, but instead started up a deposit account with Mansion House, a bank based in the Cayman Islands.’

‘The main investigation would have looked into his financials,’ said Quill. ‘But they didn’t find that; it took the funny people to do so. So it was set up by someone with considerable knowledge of financial kung fu.’

‘The payments made to Staunce,’ continued Ross, ‘which he put into a more traditional Swiss bank, Heinkemann’s, are of the same amount and frequency, but happen in bursts, every few months, the first of which was paid ten years ago.’

‘That’d be when he became commissioner,’ said Quill.

‘They cease two years ago, but then there’s another payment, the day after the Spatley murder, and then Staunce is killed that same night. This gives us a clear association line between these two but we don’t know what that association is.’

‘We were given that on a plate,’ said Quill, pointing at the line that connected Staunce to Tunstall. ‘We didn’t have to work for it. I don’t like that. Kev, what have you got for us this fine morning?’

Sefton stepped forward and used a marker to add to the concepts part of the board. ‘Scrying,’ he said, ‘means looking deeply into. A “scrying glass”, the item Vincent is recorded as having bought at that auction, is something used in stories to answer questions or get info.’

‘As in “mirror, mirror on the wall”?’

‘That’s the one. I say “in stories” because I couldn’t find anything in my research that came from a real-world source.’

‘There’s nothing in the Docklands documents either,’ said Ross.

‘But this is one of those points where the shallowness of our research materials is obvious. I get the feeling, because it is so well documented in folk tales, that almost anyone at the Goat and Compasses would know what a scrying glass really is.’

‘Assumption,’ said Ross.

‘Professional instinct,’ said Sefton. ‘But, yeah.’

‘So did Vincent buy one,’ said Costain, ‘to see if he was still the fairest of them all?’

‘Someone,’ said Quill, ‘is about to equate us with Grumpy, Sneezy, Bashful and Happy. No, don’t sort out which is which – they were picked at random.’

‘No they weren’t,’ said Sefton.

‘At least,’ said Quill, ‘the mention of said object made Vincent suddenly very cooperative. I think we might shake some juice out of him today.’

Ross finally risked a look at Costain. He smiled back. She felt only relief that they’d sold their colleagues on her story. It was going to be difficult doing her duty today. After work, the two of them were going to set out on their own quest.