‘I’m Inglis,’ she said by way of introduction.

‘Fox,’ he replied, then, with a smile, ‘Malcolm Fox.’

‘You’re PSU.’ It was a statement, but Fox nodded anyway. Behind her, the office was more cramped than he remembered. Five desks with just enough room between them for anyone to squeeze by. The walls were lined with filing cabinets and free-standing metal shelves. On the shelves sat computers and their hard drives. Some of the hard drives had been stripped back to show their workings. Others were bagged and tagged as evidence. The only free wall space had been covered with head shots. The men didn’t all look the same. Some were young, some old; some had beards and moustaches; some were dull-eyed and shifty, others unapologetic as they faced the camera. There was only one other person in the room, presumably the man who had spoken over the intercom. He was seated at his desk, studying the visitor. Fox nodded towards him and the man nodded back.

‘That’s Gilchrist,’ Inglis said. ‘Come in and make yourself comfortable. ’

‘Is that even possible?’ Fox asked.

Inglis looked around her. ‘We do what we can.’

‘Are there just the two of you?’

‘At the moment,’ Inglis admitted. ‘High rate of attrition and all that.’

‘Plus we mostly end up passing cases to London,’ Gilchrist added. ‘They’ve got a hundred-strong team down there.’

‘A hundred seems a lot,’ Fox commented.

‘You’ve not seen their workload,’ Inglis said.

‘And do I call you Inglis? I mean, is there a rank, or maybe a first name…?’

‘Annie,’ she eventually told him. There was no one at the desk next to hers, so she motioned for Fox to seat himself there.

‘Give us a twirl, Anthea,’ Gilchrist said. From the way he said it, Fox got the notion that the joke was wearing thin for all concerned.

‘Bruce Forsyth?’ he guessed. ‘The Generation Game?’

Inglis nodded. ‘I’m supposedly named after the gorgeous pouting assistant.’