It was at least vaguely possible that, by tonight, her dad would once again be alive.

*   *   *

That afternoon, the four of them took an unmarked car over to Marble Arch, parked with Quill’s logbook propped in the window, and looked around for the address they’d been given by Vincent’s PA. It turned out to be a very plain door to a mews flat, with what had been a stable made into a garage beside it.

‘It’s the same address as he gave to the auction,’ noted Ross.

Quill rang the doorbell. ‘Hi ho,’ he said. ‘It’s off to work we go.’

*   *   *

They were led up from an entrance hall by an assistant, and it became clear that this wasn’t one mews flat, but a whole row of them knocked together. Some of the rooms were just bare repositories of empty bookshelves and unlooked-at art, but some seemed thoroughly lived in. They were taken along a corridor with carpeting that made their copper feet tired and were finally shown into the presence.

Russell Vincent immediately stood up from his desk and shook their hands. ‘I’m sorry my office took so long to get through to me about this,’ he said. Sefton saw Quill leave that one unremarked on. ‘DI Quill, good to see you again. I’m glad it’s you handling this, but, ah, gosh, exactly what this is…’

Sefton hadn’t felt anything of the Sight on entering the building and he didn’t now.

‘What this is,’ said Quill, ‘is something many might find unbelievable, but I now strongly suspect you won’t.’

Vincent looked awkward. He was clearly wary of them, trying to find a way to run this meeting on his own terms. Here, Sefton thought, was a man who didn’t know whether or not he could trust these people who’d come asking questions. ‘The sort of thing you were asking about at the do the other night, but which I was a bit shy of. Before your approach became … official.’

‘Are you, Mr Russell Vincent,’ said Ross, using the official-sounding language they’d agreed on earlier, ‘the owner of a scrying glass?’

‘Yes,’ he said quickly, perhaps a little guiltily. ‘Actually, that’s why I wanted to meet you at this address.’

*   *   *

Vincent pulled a dusty cloth away from an object which stood in the corner of one of his many disused rooms. ‘This is it,’ he said, ‘my “scrying glass”. The romance of a name, eh?’ It was a full-length mirror on a stand which allowed it to be turned on a vertical axis, the sort of thing you might find, Sefton thought, in a Victorian lady’s boudoir. It certainly looked ominous: an absolutely smooth surface in which he could see the contents of the room reflected.