Hyacinth, it turned out, was the goth girl running the stall with death masks. It was noticeable that attitudes towards us had changed while we’d been upstairs having a beer. The stallholders definitely had us pegged as Old Bill now, and the customers, of which there were many more by then, had obviously got the same memo. Not that anyone was surly and rude, instead we moved in our own little bubble of silence as the punters hurriedly shut up while we passed by. We kind of like surly and rude, by the way, because when people are busy being affronted they often forget to watch what they’re saying, which is why me and Lesley whipped out our warrant cards before asking Hyacinth about the statue.

‘You people don’t come here,’ she said.

‘Give us your official address,’ I said. ‘We’ll come visit you there.’

‘Or,’ said Lesley, ‘you could come down to the station and give a statement.’

‘You can’t make me,’ said Hyacinth.

‘Can’t we?’ I asked Lesley.

‘Trading without a licence,’ she said. ‘Criminal trespass, receiving stolen goods, wearing heavy black mascara in a built-up area.’

Hyacinth opened her mouth, but Lesley leaned forward until what was left of her nose was centimetres from Hyacinth’s.

‘Say something about my face,’ said Lesley. ‘Go on, I dare you.’

Code of the police – you always back your partner in public even when they’ve obviously gone insane – but that didn’t mean you had to be stupid about it.

‘Look, Hyacinth,’ I said in my I’m-the-reasonable-one voice. ‘The guy who bought the statue was murdered and we’re just interested in knowing whether there’s a connection or not. We’re not interested in anything else, I swear. Just tell us and we’ll get out of your face.’

Hyacinth deflated and held up her hands. ‘I got them off Kevin,’ she said.

‘Kevin who?’ asked Lesley, but I’d already started writing the capital N in my notebook when Hyacinth confirmed it.

‘Kevin Nolan,’ she said. ‘The wanker.’

‘Did he say where he got them from?’ asked Lesley.

‘Nobody ever says where they get their goods from,’ said Hyacinth. ‘And if they do say, you figure they’re lying.’

‘So what did Kevin Nolan say?’ I asked.

‘He said he got them from Mordor,’ she said.

‘Morden?’ asked Lesley. ‘What, in Merton?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Mordor as in “where the shadows lie” from Lord of the Rings.’

‘Is that the place with the volcano?’ asked Lesley.

‘Yes,’ said me and Hyacinth at the same time.

‘So probably not the source of the goods,’ said Lesley.

I was about to say something incredibly geeky when we felt the demon trap go off.

It came as a shock, a sensation like a machete being hacked into the side of a carcass, like biting an apple and tasting maggot, like the first time I’d met a dead body.