‘No,’ she said. ‘I thought it was when you sang about cheese and tying up people’s gaiters.’

‘Funny,’ I said. ‘I once asked my dad’ — when he was sober — ‘how he knew what to play. And he said that when you get the right line, you just know because it’s perfect. You’ve found the line, and you just follow it.’

‘And that’s got the fuck to do with what?’

‘What Nightingale can do fits with the way I see the world. It’s the line, the right melody.’

Lesley laughed. ‘You want to be a wizard,’ she said.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Liar,’ she said, ‘you want to be his apprentice and learn magic and ride a broomstick.’

‘I don’t think real wizards ride broomsticks,’ I said.

‘Would you like to think about what you just said?’ asked Lesley. ‘Anyway, how would you know? He could be whooshing around even as we’re speaking.’

‘Because if you had a car like that Jag you wouldn’t spend any time mucking about on a broomstick.’

‘Fair point,’ said Lesley, and we clinked bottles.

Covent Garden, night time again. This time with a dog.

Also a Friday night, which meant crowds of young people being horribly drunk and loud in two dozen languages. I had to carry Toby in my arms or I’d have lost him in the crowd — lead and all. He enjoyed the ride, alternating between snarling at tourists, licking my face and trying to drive his nose into passing armpits.

I’d offered Lesley a chance to put in some unpaid overtime, but strangely she’d declined. I did zap her Brandon Coopertown’s picture and she’d promised to put his details on HOLMES for me. It was just turning eleven when Toby and I reached the Piazza and found Nightingale’s Jag parked as close to the Actors’ Church as you could get without being towed away.

Nightingale climbed out as I walked over. He was carrying the same silver-topped cane as he had when I’d first met him. I wondered if it had any special significance beyond being a handy blunt instrument in times of trouble.