We prop ourselves up side-by-side on the bed in my pub room and go down an internet rabbit hole of authorship conspiracy. By eight o'clock, we've discovered that all four names on the list are conspiracists of one sort or another: my victim certainly favoured Bacon, and Nat's Marlowe; we don't waste time on wondering how the remaining two were going to die.

Instead, we alert their respective local forces to a possible threat to life and start digging into a link between the four.

By eleven o'clock, we think we might have got somewhere.

The link is tenuous, but it seems that all four reviewed a recent book by a fifth conspiracist, in various online Authorship Question forums and so on. The problem is apparently that the book's author had started backsliding and had wondered in said book whether actually maybe Shakespeare was Shakespeare after all. The book was not well reviewed by any of our names, or by many others – although our four were the most scathing.

We contact the suspect's local force and ask them to pick her up, because both Eastern Counties and Northumberland would appreciate asking some questions. We ask that, if she is not at home, her home force put out a general alert for her detention.

Then (duty done, as far as possible for the time being), I'm afraid to say, Nat and I give in and fuck like rabbits until the early hours.

*

She goes home before dawn to shower, change and see to the cat, then we reconvene at her nick. Overnight, we learn, the two remaining potential victims have been secured. She drops me at the train station. We agree to write off the one-night-stand and keep in touch professionally.