The Earthbender had been travelling east, back into the West End, and had got off at Oxford Circus, a station less than a kilometre from the original Strip Club of Doctor Moreau. After we’d closed the club down, me and Nightingale had speculated that the Faceless Man’s new base of operations couldn’t be very far from Soho. He might be faceless but his chimeras, his poor little cat-girls and tiger-boys, weren’t exactly inconspicuous – hard for them to move around unnoticed and most sightings of them had been in the area. When I was chasing after the Pale Lady she’d headed for Piccadilly Station as if it was a safe haven. But they certainly weren’t getting around on the tube, with its ubiquitous CCTV cameras and the ever-vigilant Sergeant Kumar.

Now I knew there were other tunnels, secret tunnels and who knew what else, all going who knew where. Perhaps the Faceless Man knew where. Perhaps the Earthbender was helping him build more. A subterranean secret base in the fashion of a James Bond villain. The Faceless Man had the accent for it, true, but did he have a cat? I had a flash of him sitting in a swivel chair with a full-size cat-girl called Sharon perched on his lap while she’s talking to her BFF on her mobile. ‘And then he’s like “Do you expect me to talk” and the master’s all “No I expect you to die!” and he’s … What? I’m just telling Trace about last night.’ The thought made me giggle, which was nice – you need a bit of humour when you’re buried under a ton of rubble.

I reckoned the sly fucker had built his new lair under cover of the Crossrail construction work. Why not? The project had been sinking random holes into the ground for years and wasn’t even expected to be completed for at least another five – you could have stuck a whole hollowed-out volcano adjacent to Tottenham Court Road station without the public noticing.

But not without the contractors noticing or Health and Safety for that matter, I thought, and then I remembered a cool autumn night and coming across the Murder Team closing off a crime scene at the top of Dean Street. Had that been Graham Beale’s little brother? A top sub-contractor on Crossrail and a tunnelling specialist, as their family had been for more than one hundred and sixty years.

Could he have been done in by the Faceless Man to cover up his new base?

In which case it didn’t work, did it? I thought. Because now I know where to start looking for you, you freaky faceless phantom you.