‘The murder weapon,’ I said.

‘At last,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘Something I can relate to.’

‘James Gallagher was stabbed with a shard of a large flat dish,’ I said. ‘Whose chemical composition matches that of the fruit bowl which we have now traced back to a warehouse full of similar stuff.’

‘Identified as the property of the Unbreakable Empire Pottery Company,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘With you so far – wait. Is this where it’s going to get odd?’

‘That depends on how much you want to know, boss.’ I opened the passenger door for her to get in.

‘What are my options?’ she asked as I climbed into the driver’s seat.

‘Meaningless euphemisms at one end and your full-on Unseen University at the other,’ I said. ‘The Unseen University is a bit like Hogwarts—’

Stephanopoulos cut me off. ‘I have read some Terry Pratchett,’ she said.

‘Really?’

‘Not really. But her indoors buys them in hardback and reads out bits to me over breakfast,’ she said.

‘So what do you read for fun?’ I asked.

‘I’m partial to the odd misery memoir,’ she said. ‘I find it comforting to know other people had worse childhoods than me.’

I kept my mouth shut – there’s some things you don’t ask senior officers.

‘I’ll settle for meaningful euphemisms,’ she said at last.

I backed out of the car park before explaining.

‘All of the pottery found so far has had the same signature which indicates that it is special,’ I said. ‘But this signature fades with time—’ I was going to say that it was like the half-life of radioactive decay, but I’ve found to my cost that that just usually leads to me explaining what radioactive half-life is. ‘Like a painting that’s been left in the sun,’ I said. ‘The stuff in the warehouse is old, some of it’s very old, but the murder weapon felt brand-new.’

‘What about the boxes of plates that Kevin Nolan arrived with?’

‘Pretty faded,’ I said. ‘I suspect that it’s been stored somewhere else prior to Kevin’s delivery.’

‘Stored where?’ asked Stephanopoulos. ‘And by who?’

‘Someone’s going to have to go underground to find out,’ I said.

Three guesses as to who that was going to be.

17. Bayswater

17

Bayswater

Rule of underground exploration number one is, according to Sergeant Kumar, minimise the number of people actually underground at any one time. That way if things go wrong there are fewer bodies for the rescuers to dig out. That meant that the party would consist of me, because of my specialist expertise, and Kumar because he was experienced exploring underground. I asked him where all this experience came from.

‘I do potholing in my free time,’ he said. ‘Yorkshire and Dartmoor mostly, but this year I spent a month in Meghalaya.’ Which was a state in north-eastern India and essentially virgin territory for cavers – very exciting and dangerous.