Nightingale was standing under a lamppost in a long oyster-white Burberry coat that made him look like something from an old film. All he was missing was a cigarette, a hat and a doomed love affair with a suburban housewife. Lesley stayed in the Sprinter van where she could keep an eye on Zach and avail herself of the coffee thermos and the emergency packets of Hula Hoops. I didn’t have the same luxury on account of this all being my idea in the first place.

We were joined by Kittredge, who turned out to be a tall thin man in a navy blue three-piece suit with a sour expression – although that might just have been a reaction to being out on Christmas Eve. He actually had a sprig of mistletoe in his buttonhole and I had sudden wistful thoughts of Dr Walid six hundred kilometres north in what I imagined to be the squat granite cottage of his ancestors, sitting in front of a roaring fire and toasting his family with a wee theologically unsound dram of the good stuff.

Kittredge frowned at me and turned to Nightingale. ‘We have a problem,’ he said.

‘The American?’ asked Nightingale.

‘She’s seen too much,’ he said.

‘Then you know she must be taken care of,’ said Seawoll.

‘Funny,’ said Kittredge.

‘Who cares what the Yanks know?’ asked Seawoll. ‘They’re not going to give a fuck about all this voodoo shit. Why should they?’

‘That’s not how it was explained to me,’ said Kittredge. ‘There are some things we’re supposed to keep in the family.’

‘Then I suggest we take our young American friend with us,’ said Nightingale.

‘Are you mad?’ asked Kittredge. ‘God knows what the FBI’s going to make of it all. Hasn’t she seen too much all ready?’

‘On the contrary,’ said Nightingale. ‘I don’t think she’s seen enough. Where is she now?’

Kittredge gestured up the street. ‘Round the corner,’ he said. ‘Sitting in a red Skoda Fabia that she borrowed off the second trade attaché’s wife’s nanny.’

‘You’re sure about that, sir?’ I asked Kittredge.

‘I’ve had a whole team watching over her since they dug you out of the ground,’ he said.

‘Touch of the stable door,’ said Nightingale.

‘Don’t you start,’ said Kittredge. ‘This was all routine until you were involved.’

‘I’ve been keeping secrets since before you were born,’ said Nightingale. ‘You’ll just have to trust me on this. Besides, the young lady is exceedingly clever. So it’s nothing she won’t be able to work out for herself.’

‘But at least she wouldn’t be an eyewitness,’ said Kittredge.

‘Fortunately,’ said Nightingale. ‘Seeing isn’t always believing.’ He turned to me. ‘Why don’t you go over and extend her an invitation?’ he said.