I was going to have to ask Professor Postmartin, our archivist, to do a sweep of the literature.
‘I don’t know if such things exist,’ I said.
‘You’re not religious?’ asked Danni.
‘Nope,’ I said.
‘You’re an atheist?’ asked Danni, who obviously wasn’t going to get off this topic however hard I hinted.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What about you?’
‘I believe in something but I’m not sure I’m religious.’
Danni snapped her notebook shut. I took the opportunity to saunter over and ask forensics how they were doing.
They thought that there was something written under the fresh paint on the bedroom wall, and they were consulting with friends at the National Gallery as to how to strip the paint without damaging the evidence underneath. I asked them to let me know if there were any symbols hidden under the paint, and they said they would.
I’d hoped that Danni had moved away from the tricky subject of comparative theology, but we hadn’t even got as far as Shadwell when she asked what my parents believed. Luckily I’ve been asked this a lot – not least by Bev – so I’ve got my answer down pat.
‘My mum is game for any branch of Christianity that involves singing and hellfire,’ I said. ‘She likes churches so much she switches to a new one twice a year.’
‘And your dad?’
‘My dad is a practising jazzman,’ I said. ‘He’s eagerly awaiting the true rapture when Duke Ellington rises from the grave and leads a band that will unite Louis Armstrong with Charlie Parker, and Sun Ra lands his flying saucer in Wembley Stadium to lead all the cool cats to the promised land.’
Danni snorted.
‘You’re taking the piss,’ she said.
‘Swear to God I’m not,’ I said. ‘My dad truly believes that if you played a set with Miles Davis, Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Philly Joe Jones and Betty Carter on vocals, the dead would be rising up by the first drum solo, when Philly hit the hi-hat.’
‘Jazz heaven,’ said Danni.
‘Or a jazz zombie apocalypse,’ I said. ‘You decide.’
‘Funny, right,’ said Danni. ‘But if you don’t think it was an alien, what if it turns out to be an actual angel. Proper angel. A messenger of God.’
‘Then I expect you to get their details when you take the statement,’ I said.
‘I’m serious,’ said Danni.
‘So am I.’
Danni probably would have persisted but I got a call from the duty officer at Richmond Borough, who notified me that there’d been a break-in at Althea Moore’s house and did I want to attend. I said I did and, foolishly, turned right across Southwark Bridge in the hope that the traffic would be less awful on the other side of the river.
It probably was less awful. It’s just that it was still pretty awful.
It took us over an hour to get Richmond to find the response officer, PC Tiffany Walvoord again, standing outside Althea’s house, tapping her feet and checking her watch.
‘My mistake,’ she said as we approached, ‘was coming back on shift the next day.’
‘Shifts,’ said Danni. ‘I remember shifts. Do you remember shifts, Peter?’
‘Luxury,’ I said. ‘In my day we had to scavenge our refs off whatever was left at the crime scene.’
‘Funny,’ said Tiffany. ‘Is this one of your cases?’
The answer was yes – judging by the hole in the door where Althea Moore’s Yale lock was supposed to be.
‘Someone knocked out the lock with magic,’ I said, and let Danni have a look.
‘Is there a signare?’ she asked.
You can often tell who’s done a spell by the distinctive vestigia they leave behind – this is called their signare. It’s a bit like handwriting, and just as prone to misinterpretation if you don’t pay attention.
While there was definitely still a vestigium clinging to the hole, it seemed confused, murky and very noisy. I’d have said it was done by a newbie if I hadn’t known that that particular spell wasn’t something you picked up overnight. Not if you want to pop the lock neatly. Otherwise, you might as well knock down the door with a battering ram or an impello spell – which is the magical equivalent.
I said there wasn’t one I could recognise, and we went in to interview Althea.
‘They stole my ring,’ she said as soon as she saw us.
The spring cleaning was obviously finished, and Althea was sitting cross-legged on her bed dressed in a pink satin pyjama top and blue tracksuit bottoms – her hair falling loose around her face.
‘Why don’t you tell us what happened?’ asked Danni, and readied her notebook to show she was serious.
‘Well I’d just said goodbye to that other policeman, the posh one,’ said Althea. ‘And I’d knackered myself getting the flat ready.’
‘Ready for who?’ asked Danni.
‘For me,’ said Althea. ‘I wanted a clean flat.’
Obviously, I thought, but why now? Why just after your ex’s visit?
‘Did David leave you feeling dirty?’ I asked.
Althea flinched at the question and gave me a nasty look, but sometimes being socially transgressive is what policing is all about.
‘No!’ she said. ‘No, God, no. What are you thinking?’
‘I think what my colleague is trying to ask,’ said Danni, slipping smoothly into the role of reasonable female cop, ‘is whether David Moore’s visit led to your decision to spring clean, or had you already planned to do it previously.’
Althea gave us a very understandable What the fuck? look, but answered anyway.
‘I was always planning to do it,’ she said. ‘But it was such a disgrace when David came round that it kind of pushed me over the edge. What has this got to do with someone stealing my ring?’
Danni left me to answer that question.
‘We’re just trying to clarify the timeline,’ I said, because I was wondering whether you were displaying an instinctive reaction to a supernatural something that I refuse to call an aura is not something I want taken down in evidence.
Danni leant forwards, angling slightly away from me to make clear her disapproval of her strangely rude and irrelevant colleague.
‘So you lay down for a nap,’ she said. ‘Was the door locked?’
‘Yes,’ said Althea, as were the back door and the windows, because she had been living in London for the last ten years and knew better than to leave her flat unlocked – thank you very much.
‘So the ring was stolen while you were having a nap?’ asked Danni. ‘Was anything else taken?’
‘No,’ said Althea. ‘Just the ring. There’s two hundred quid in the kitchen drawer and …’ She looked around her flat for potential valuables – it was a meagre haul. ‘My laptop. So they must have come here specially for the ring – right?’
‘It seems so,’ said Danni. ‘So where was the ring?’
Althea instinctively put her hand on her chest – just below her throat.
‘It was on a chain,’ she said.
‘Around your neck?’ asked Danni, to be sure.
‘I always wear it,’ she said. ‘Even in bed. Silly, really.’
‘So whoever stole it took it from around your neck?’ said Danni. ‘While you were asleep.’
Althea nodded glumly.
No, she hadn’t taken a sleeping pill, or had a drink or three. She’d had a cup of tea, read for a bit, drawn the curtains and gone to sleep.
Getting the chain over Althea’s head without waking her seemed unlikely, but if the thief had cut the chain – wouldn’t they leave the chain behind? Especially if the ring was the main target.
‘I have trouble getting it off sometimes,’ said Althea. ‘The chain gets tangled in my hair.’