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you Billy? Do you know?”
    “How should I know? But the bloke who had this on, he was with me all the time. He never had any time to go off and do anything, you know, dodgy. I would’ve seen …”
    “Have you seen this before?” The other man spoke, for the first time. He gripped his hands as if holding them back from something. His accent was classless and without any regional pitch—neutral enough that it had to have been cultivated. “Does it jog your memory?”
    Billy hesitated. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Can I just … Who are you?”
    Baron shook his head. The large man’s face did not change but for a slow blink. The woman glanced up from her phone, at last, and made some little tooth-kissing noise.
    “This is Patrick Vardy, Mr. Harrow,” Baron said. Vardy clenched his fingers. “Vardy’s helping with our investigation.”
    No rank , Billy thought. All the police he had met had been Constable So-and-so, DC This, Inspector That . But not Vardy. Vardy stood and walked to the edge of the room, out of the immediate light, made himself an illegitimate topic.
    “So have you seen this before?” said Baron, tapping the paper. “Little squiggle ring any bells?”
    “I don’t know,” said Billy. “Don’t think so. What is it? Do I get to know?”
    “You told our colleagues back Kensington-side that the man wearing this seemed quote het up unquote, or something?” Baron said. “What about that?”
    “Yeah, I told Mulholland,” Billy said. “What were those names you said?” he said to Vardy, who did not answer. “I don’t know whether the bloke was weird or what,” Billy said to Baron. He shrugged. “Some people who come see the squid are a bit …”
    “Seen more like that recently?” Baron said. “The, ah, oddballs?” Vardy leaned forward and muttered something in his ear. The policeman nodded. “Any people getting unusually excited?”
    “Squid geeks?” Billy said. “I don’t know. Maybe. There’s been a couple in costumes or weird clothes.” The woman made a note of something. He watched her do so.
    “Alright, now tell me this,” Baron said. “Has anything strange been going on outside the museum recently? Any interesting leaflets being handed out, any pickets? Any protests? Have you clocked any other interesting bits of jewellery on any other visitors? I know, I’m asking as if you’re a magpie, all googly-eyed at shinies. But you know.”
    “I don’t,” Billy said. “I don’t know. It has happened that we get nutters outside. As for this bloke, ask Dane Parnell.” He shrugged. “Like I said yesterday, I think he recognised the guy.”
    “We would of course indeed like to have words with Dane Parnell. What with him and Mystery Pin Man seeming like they know each other and so forth. But we can’t.” Vardy whispered something else to him and Baron continued. “Because a bit like the specimen he was paid to look after, and indeed like Pin Man, Dane Parnell’s disappeared.”
    “Disappeared?”
    Baron nodded. “Whereabouts unknown,” he said. “No one on the phone. Give the dog a bone. Not at home. Why might he disappear, you might ask. We are very keen to have him help us with the old enquiries.”
    “You spoken to him?” said the WPC abruptly. Billy jumped in his chair and stared at her. She put her weight on one hip. She spoke quickly, with a London accent. “You talk a lot, don’t you? All sorts of chatting you shouldn’t be supposed to.”
    “What …?” Billy said. “We haven’t said more than ten words to each other since he started working there.”
    “What did he do before that?” Baron said.
    “I’ve got no clue …”
    “Listen to him squeak!” The woman sounded delighted.
    Billy blinked. He tried to take it in good humour, smiled, tried to get her to smile back, failed. “To be honest,” he said, “I don’t even like the bloke. He’s chippy. Couldn’t be bothered to say hello, let alone anything else.”
    Baron, Vardy and the