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“Sunday Bloody Sunday” was a good tune.’
    ‘What the hell are you talking about, Nightingale?’
    ‘If you’re going to start talking Latin, how about quid pro quo. As in you give me quids and I work like a pro.’
    ‘I don’t have money to pay private investigators, Nightingale.’ He walked over to a table on which he’d placed photographs of the five victims. ‘Look at them. Five innocent people, killed and butchered. You’re a citizen, right? Time to do your civic duty. Find out what the freaks are saying.’
    ‘The freaks?’
    ‘The devil worshippers, the Wicca mob, the people who think that things go bump in the night.’
    ‘You’re asking me to solve your case, is that it?’
    ‘Not solve. Just get me some leads. Someone out there is butchering Goths and somebody must know who and why. Conventional profiling gives us the usual serial killer crap – a middle-aged white male who wet his bed and tortured his pets. But you and I know, despite what you see on TV, profiles don’t lead to convictions. It’s police work that gets convictions, plain and simple.’
    Nightingale stared down at the five photographs. ‘And if I get you leads, what does that get me? What’s the quid pro quo?’
    ‘What do you want?’
    ‘A bit of help now and then, maybe? Access to the odd database.’
    ‘Let you go prowling through the PNC whenever you feel like it?’ He shook his head. ‘That’s not going to happen. How about this? You help me with this case and I’ll make sure you don’t fall foul of the Private Security Industry Act of 2001.’
    ‘And why would that be a problem for me?’
    Chalmers flashed him a tight smile. ‘You can use your imagination, I’m sure. The word of a high-ranking police officer could smooth the way or …’ He shrugged. ‘Like I said, I’m sure you can use your imagination.’
    ‘That sounds like a threat.’
    Chalmers shrugged but didn’t say anything.
    ‘Fine,’ said Nightingale. He gathered up the photographs. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
    ‘I need to know why,’ said Chalmers. ‘Give me the why and I’ll probably be able to nail down the who.’
    ‘I said I’ll look into it,’ said Nightingale. He slid the photographs into his raincoat pocket. ‘I can’t promise anything.’
    ‘Well, I can make a promise, Nightingale. If you don’t help us crack this case I’ll make your life unbearable.’
    Nightingale smiled thinly. ‘Good to know you’ve got my back,’ he said. ‘I feel so much safer knowing that.’

3
    N ightingale jumped as the office door opened but he smiled when he saw it was Jenny. He was making himself a coffee so he reached for a second mug. ‘You’re early,’ he said. She was wearing a long Gucci coat with a large floppy collar and carrying a mustard-coloured Dior handbag. She dropped the handbag on her desk and hung the coat by the door. ‘I’ve got to get our VAT returns done today,’ she said. ‘And knowing the state your receipts are in I figured I’d need an early start. What happened to you yesterday? I looked for you at the reception but you’d gone.’
    ‘I went after they’d done the grave thing,’ said Nightingale. ‘I saw you drop the flower in.’
    ‘You should have stayed.’
    ‘I wasn’t close and it’s not as if I knew a lot of people there. Though it was a hell of a turnout, wasn’t it?’
    ‘Uncle Marcus was well loved, that’s true,’ said Jenny. Nightingale handed her one of the coffee mugs. ‘You should get in early more often,’ she said.
    ‘You’re welcome,’ said Nightingale. He took his coffee through into his own office where he’d set up a whiteboard on an easel. Nightingale had used Blu-tack to stick up the photographs that Chalmers had given him around the edge of the whiteboard. In the centre he’d fixed a map of London and he’d used a red felt marker to link the photographs to the locations where the bodies had been found.
    Jenny frowned at the whiteboard as she sipped her