"These days the Peelers stay out of here if they've got any sense, but s'never a hundred percent," agrees the next to meet them: a wiry young man with a West Wales accent, cigarette in one hand, who’s wearing a short leather jacket and no gloves despite the cold. He's a couple of years older and an inch or two shorter than Nix, heavily scarred and tattooed, and he eyes Reid warily from under a mop of sandy hair. "Spencer, yeah? I’m Gryff – Nix’s best friend.”

When he offers a handshake, it’s clear his ring finger is missing.

"We've been hunting all over for that kid," he says, nodding at Elodie. "Which reminds me - the Abbess's still out lookin'. Jack, bring her in?"

"On it," answers a tawny-haired woman who might be a hunter in her belted long leather coat and riding boots, her rifle strapped across her back; she whistles to the three dogs and trots off with them into the alleys.