Broken Homes

and had a pile of guidebooks stashed by his bed. Nothing. Although I did note a copy of Cloud Atlas on the bedside table.
    Once I was satisfied I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself, I persuaded one of Duffy’s mob to run an IIP search looking for crimes at National Trust properties in London. The response was pretty instantaneous – a break in at West Hill House Highgate – unusual because the custodians didn’t know what was stolen. I was just noting down the crime number when Nightingale tooled up in the Jag. I went out to meet him and as we walked back to the house I filled him in as to how I got here.
    He paused to examine the burnt hole in the front door.
    ‘Is this your handiwork Peter?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes sir,’ I said.
    ‘Well at least you didn’t set the door on fire this time,’ he said. But his smile faded as he stepped into the hall. He sniffed and I saw a flicker of memory on his face – quickly repressed.
    ‘I know that smell,’ he said and went up the stairs.
    Negotiating the interface between the Folly and the rest of the police is always tricky, especially when it’s the murder squad. You don’t get to be a senior investigating officer unless you have a degree in scepticism, an MA in distrust and your CV lists suspicious bastard under your hobbies. Nightingale says that in the good old days, which for him is before the war, the Folly got immediate and unquestioning co-operation. No doubt with plenty of forelock tugging and doffing of trilby hats. Even post war he said there just weren’t that many cases and the senior detectives back then were still much more relaxed about paperwork, procedures or, for that matter, evidence. But in modern times, where an SIO is expected to match up specific villains to specific crimes and faces an exterior case evaluation if they don’t, you have to use a certain amount of tact and charm. A detective chief inspector is, by definition, more charming than a constable. Which is why Nightingale went up the stairs to talk to Duffy. He wasn’t gone that long – I think it’s the posh accent that does it.
    I asked him if it was definitely one of ours.
    ‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it,’ said Nightingale. ‘Judging from the smell I’d say he was cooked.’
    ‘Could you do that? I mean, do you know how?’
    Nightingale glanced back up the stairs. ‘I could set you on fire,’ he said. ‘But in that case his clothes would have burnt as well.’
    ‘Was it magic?’
    ‘We won’t know until Dr Walid has had a chance to examine him,’ said Nightingale. ‘I didn’t sense any vestigia on the body.’
    ‘How else could it have happened?’ I asked.
    Nightingale gave me a grim smile. ‘Peter,’ he said. ‘You of all people should know that it’s dangerous to reason ahead of your evidence. You say you sensed a vestigium at the door?’
    I described what I’d felt – the cutthroat razor terror of it.
    ‘And you’re sure you recognised it?’
    ‘You’re the expert,’ I said. ‘You tell me. Is that likely?’
    ‘It’s possible,’ said Nightingale. ‘I wouldn’t have been able to tell at your stage of apprenticeship. But I was only twelve at the time and easily distracted.’
    ‘Easily distracted by what?’
    ‘Peter!’
    ‘Sorry,’ I said and told him about the break in at West Hill House in Highgate.
    ‘A somewhat slender thread,’ said Nightingale.
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But what if I was to tell you that West Hill House was the home of Erik Stromberg the famous architect and German expatriate.’
    Nightingale’s eyes narrowed. ‘You think the book might have belonged to Stromberg?’
    ‘He got out before Hitler came to power,’ I said. ‘What if he brought some secrets with him? What if he was a member of the Weimar Academy?’
    ‘London was full of expatriates in the run up to the war,’ said Nightingale. ‘German or otherwise. You’d be surprised how few of them turned out to be practitioners.’
    ‘That book had to come from somewhere,’ I said.
    ‘True,’ said Nightingale. ‘But Whitehall had a bee in its bonnet about German infiltration and hence much of our manpower was devoted to spotting them and rounding them up.’
    ‘They were interned?’
    ‘They were given a choice,’ said Nightingale with a shrug. ‘They could join the war effort or be shipped over to Canada for the duration. A surprising number of them stayed. Most of the Jews and the Gypsies, of course.’
    ‘But you might have