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stuffed his pipe with a mix of eucalyptus leaves, Old Navy Rough Cut Shag and something that looked like carpet fibres from an Indian restaurant before waving Land from his office. ‘Off you toddle, play some golf, enjoy yourself, the place won’t burn down without you.’
    ‘It did before,’ Land reminded him as the door was shut in his face.
    Moments later, John May arrived, flicking off his elegant black raincoat and dropping into the opposite chair. ‘What did Land want?’ he asked.
    ‘Oh, some rot about shutting down the unit for computer work, I wasn’t really listening,’ Bryant replied nonchalantly. ‘You know how he’s been ever since he found out about his wife having an affair with the ball-washer at his golf club.’
    ‘I don’t think you should make so many off-colour jokes about him becoming a cuckold. You’re only getting away with it because he doesn’t know what it means.’
    ‘That’s the beauty of the English language. One can wrap insults inside elegance, like popping anchovies into pastry. You’re right, I shouldn’t mock, but it is such fun. Are you feeling all right? You’re as pale as the moon. I think you need a bit of a holiday.’ Bryant tried to contain a mischievous smile.
    ‘Oh, no, not me, I’m happy here.’ May usually felt much younger than his partner, but today he was tired and out of sorts. He had always prided himself on his ability to embrace change, and had at least retained a walking pace beside the growth of modern police technology, adopting new techniques as they arrived. Bryant, on the other hand, loitered several metres behind each development, and occasionally drifted off in the opposite direction. As a consequence, his knowledge of the Victorians was greater than that of the present Second Elizabethan era. He knew about Bazalgette and the development of drains, the last night of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens and the cracking of Big Ben, the cholera epidemic of 1832, the fixing of the first London plaque (to Lord Byron, in 1867), the great globe of Leicester Square and the roaring lion that had once topped Northumberland House, but could not remember his computer password, the names of any present-day cabinet ministers or where he had left his dry cleaning.
    ‘You haven’t had a holiday in years,’ Bryant persisted. ‘Unless you count accompanying your ghastly sister and her husband to traction-engine rallies. Raymond seems intent on closing the unit down for a few days, and Janice can run a skeleton staff for us, so how would you like to come on a jaunt with me, all expenses paid?’
    May regarded his notoriously cheap partner with suspicion. ‘What do you have in mind?’ he asked. ‘I still have hideous memories of that clairvoyants’ dinner-dance in Walsall where all the toilets overflowed. They didn’t see that coming, did they?’
    ‘This will be more fun, I promise. A trip to the country. It will do you good to breathe something you can’t see for a change. Down to the Devon coast.’
    ‘You detest the countryside. And it’s February,’ May reminded him. ‘It’ll be freezing, and there’s supposed to be bad weather on the way. What do you want to go there for?’
    ‘The International Spiritualists’ Convention at Plymouth Civic Centre. It should be more fun than it sounds. There’ll be talks, dinners, and demonstrations, not to mention the odd punch-up when the neo-Wiccans get plastered on porter at the free bar and pick a fight with the Druids. We have trade stalls and parties, an awards ceremony, and we always put on a spectacular show for the closing night.’
    ‘Next you’ll be trying to convince me that the people who attend aren’t utterly barking.’
    ‘At least they’re never boring, and they’re from all walks of life. We get judges, shopkeepers, call girls, all sorts. I’m conducting a panel on the incorporation of spiritualism in investigative techniques.’
    ‘For God’s sake don’t let Faraday or Kasavian find