‘Surreal cop,’ said Sefton, also pointing to himself.

‘Good cop,’ admitted Quill. ‘Relatively. Which is weird.’

Ross just raised an eyebrow.

Tunstall looked between them, unsure if they were taking the piss.

Being interviewed by this unit, thought Quill, must sometimes seem like being interrogated by Monty Python’s Flying Circus. At least they had his attention. ‘Why don’t you tell us all of it,’ he said gently, ‘just the truth, as you saw it, and don’t edit yourself for something that’s too mad, because mad is what we do.’

Tunstall sat down at the interview table. ‘What does that mean?’

‘We have access to … certain abilities that other units don’t. Which means that, as Detective Sergeant Costain says, we are indeed willing to believe you. We know there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio. So telling the whole truth now might really do you a favour.’

The man looked more scared than ever.

*   *   *

It took until lunchtime to complete the interview and sort out the paperwork. Tunstall’s story was indeed impossible, and confirmed all the physical evidence. The man finally said he couldn’t remember anything else and needed to get some sleep. Quill ended the interview. He found his own attention starting to wander and baulked at the prospect of going back to the team’s nick for maybe only an hour or two of bleary discussion, so he sent his team home for the day and went back to his bed. Only to find that Jessica was home and wanted to play with trains. So that was what they did, until Quill lay his head down on top of the toy station and started snoring.

*   *   *

Kev Sefton felt that he was finally getting somewhere. Being the officer who’d become most interested in the London occult and who’d started to read up on it had given him some extra responsibilities, okay. But now, instead of being second undercover, he was first … whatever his new job title was. Doing that well made him feel better about being out of the mainstream of policing while London was going up in flames.