“I haven’t the slightest idea. Are you sure you want to keep it?”

Mrs. Spratt patted her son’s hand reassuringly “Let’s leave it a couple of days. We can make a decision then.”

They went indoors, where his mum’s friends harangued him about the positioning of speed cameras until he was finally able to tear himself away.

When he got home, everything was peaceful. The young children were all asleep, Madeleine was in her darkroom, and Pandora was reading in the living room. Apart from the quiet sound of Prometheus playing a sad lament on his lute in the spare room, all was calm in the Spratt household. Jack went into his study, switched on his desk lamp and stared at his iQuang computer. It took him another hour to finish his report. The next morning at ten, he would present it to Briggs and officially close the case.

Or so he thought.