The man was wandering over to the biggest branch of Quicksilver Dawn, the chain of occult shops that had sponsored one of the stalls at the New Age fair the team had attended when investigating the Losley case. All the meaningful customers that Sefton had identified seemed to dress slightly differently to the norm, but there had been very few in anything like the full-on Victorian dress seen at that fair. This, Sefton understood as he made his way to the door, was something J.K. Rowling had got right about the non-Muggle population: the askew dress sense. Maybe she knew more than she let on. He left the pub and sauntered across the street, enjoying the sunshine on his arms. Last night he’d had troubled dreams again. He had felt as if something was trying to get into his head, that the summer had got past his antihistamines and shoved its way right up into his sinuses and was rushing about in his brain, kicking down all the doors. He’d gone into the bathroom at 3 a.m. and splashed water on his face, and only slowly got back to sleep.

Now, in the distance, he could hear the drums of yet another protest march, heading for Parliament. The murders hadn’t deflated that movement; if anything, they had actually increased the number of protestors. The public, he thought, had sensed blood, and now it was as if their ancient hatred of those in power had started to be set free. If there was going to be a Police Federation strike, Sefton had already decided that he wouldn’t join in.

He went to look in the window of the shop. Just displays of completely ordinary Tarot cards and crystals on fake velvet in the window. There was an artificial spring that bubbled from a length of silvered tubing and twinkled as it fell delightfully into the limpid depths below. That might give his team an excuse to stroll in here one day this summer. ‘Hosepipe ban, sir. We’re searching the premises for free-flowing water.’ Even Quill, open to leaving the rule book behind now that they were working in the wild extremes, might blanch at that. There was nothing of Sighted interest in the window, nothing weighty.

Sefton paused for a moment and found that he was quite calm. He was undercover, he was at home with this sort of tension. He went inside.

*   *   *

The shop smelt clean and airy. The shelves were white, and enormous posters and paintings decorated the walls. Gentle, tuneless music wafted past. No incense; it would be too hard for the staff to put up with all day. There were those staff, twenty-somethings in black T-shirts with the logo of the shop; two of them were laughing at the till, everyday-looking kids, divorced from the clientele he was after.