Title: Vintage Spirits.

Characters: Peter, Nightingale. (sort of pre Peter/Nightingale ish)

Rating: PG

Word Count: This part 6750 words, over all 14,000 words.

Summary: A vague tip off leads Peter and Nightingale to an antiques fair in Surrey in search of mystery magical object. Peter wonders why so many people seem to think him and Nightingale are more than colleagues and Nightingale

Set shortly after the of Moon over Soho, week or so after Peter talks to Lesley.

Taking a drive out to the countryside was a lot of peoples idea of a good time. It wasn't mine however, especially not when it was seven o'clock on wet Sunday morning. Not even the fact that we were going to be right next to where they filmed Top Gear and there was a tiny chance that we might see the Stig bombing round the track in something that I could only dream about owning could fire any enthusiasm.

Crime didn't have a lie in at the weekend so neither could we. Not that what we were going to a crime scene. As far as I could tell no crime had been committed, not yet anyway. Nightingale had got a tip off from one of his dubiously human sources that a magical item, one that could be dangerous in the wrong hands, had ended up at an antiques fair in Dunsfold. The fair opened for traders at eight thirty, which was why we'd left London at an hour that I think should be illegal at weekends. Not that we got there for eight thirty in the end. Traffic out of London had meant that it was closer to nine by the time the Jag was safely parked in the field set aside for people buying and browsing the stalls.

This was in hindsight the point were our day started to go wrong. The traffic in London didn't count. There was always a traffic jam somewhere day or night. No, our first problem was that we didn't have a description of the object that was for sale. We did have a name. Unfortunately it wasn't the name of a person. It was the name of a cottage, Pinecote, in the wonderfully oddly named village of Abinger Hammer, which was about ten miles up the road from the fair. We hadn't been able to find anything remotely interesting about the cottage apart from the fact if you wanted to buy a little piece of history in the Surrey Hills the price tag would be nearly as eye-wateringly awful as central London. The Abinger Hammer itself was fairly unremarkable as well and I suspected that its history and that of a lot of little villages in the area were virtually interchangeable.

If it had been my contact giving me such vague information I'd have told them either to give me a bit more to work with or I wasn't going to take a look at it. Not that I had any contacts, but it was the principle of the thing. Whoever or whatever it was that had provided my boss with the intel must have got his trust, as there was no way Nightingale would have headed out of London and our jurisdiction otherwise. There was also the fact that we were working this one off the books as well. I guessed that once we'd found what we were looking for and worked out what sort of crime could be committed with it we be able to work out a charge of attempted something or of other. Everybody is guilty of something at sometime or another, and a lot of whether we went after them was down to what they were guilty of. Littering and murder are both crimes, but nobody expects the police to treat them the same.

We spent a while wandering up and down the rows of what I thought was probably over priced tat and things that weren't as old as Nightingale, but were now antiques. I wondered if he, like my Dad, thought about stuff they'd had as a kid and chucked out years ago and now turned out to be worth a bomb. Give another few years and I expected that I'd be thinking the same about the Lego and things I'd had, and which Mum had, when she'd considered that I'd outgrown them, packaged up and sent to my innumerable cousins. Their mum's had probably done the same by now. My childhood toys had probably seen more of the world than I had.

Eventually we decided to split up as we'd be able to cover he area twice as fast. Which of course meant that five minutes after we did I finally got a hint of vestigia off one of the stalls. It was a damp sort of feeling, with a smell like mould. I could have almost put it down to the weather, except there was nothing on the fold up plastic table that could smell like it. What I also got was the fact the vestigia was fading fast - whatever it had come from had already been sold.

I considered asking her about it myself and then realised that I knew pretty much nothing about what we were looking. Hoping that there was more that Nightingale had forgot to tell me I went off to find him.. It would bee worth knowing what he made of the vestigia, whether he thought it could be what we were looking or if I was about to start chasing off after something interesting that wasn't our case. Well yet at least. I doubted we'd let something leaving vestigia just disappear.

It took me a while to find Nightingale, and he seemed relieved to see me as he seemed to have ended up with a stall holder who was sure that he wanted to buy a vintage record player and was just holding out for better price. It was nice, and I knew it was the sort of thing that my Dad would consider a classic. I also knew there was an equally nice and unfortunately never used one back in the Folly.

"I think I've found what we're looking for," I said loud enough for the stall holder to get that I wanted him to hear.

"Have you bought it?" Nightingale asked.

"Not exactly," I said as we made out way back to the stall. "It was there, but all that's left is a small bit of vestigia. I think she's already sold it." I wished we'd had Toby with us, but Nightingale had flat out refused to have in him the Jag. I'd pointed out he'd let him in the past. And he'd pointed out that all those trips had been of a quarter of a hour or less. He wasn't not having him in the car for a hour and a half.

"That is unfortunate," Nightingale replied. I could tell he was concerned about the vestigia hanging about, as presumably the thing, whatever it was was doing something. "Although she should hopefully be able to give us a description of both the object and the buyer, so it might not be a complete loss."

The stall with the vestigia was called Pat's Bric-a-brac, and consisted of a couple of tables and clothing rail at the back of a transit van. The titular Pat, proved to be a white woman in her early fifties with startlingly red dyed hair which had been permed within an inch of its life. It didn't look awful, despite the garish purple rain mac and leopard print leggings. She made me think of Jennifer Saunders character in Absolutely Fabulous. The scandalous auntie every teenager secretly wants because they know where cool parties and alcohol are.

Pat pulled up her hood against the drizzle that had just started, "See anything you like?"

"DCI Nightingale and my colleague, PC Grant," Nightingale said, taking out his ID. "We would like to know what you've sold today."

I don't think a rabbit in the headlights could have given us a more shocked look than we got off Pat as she said, "Just a couple of vintage coats and a glass bottle. Why? What's this about?"

There was no way the coats could have been on the table. They had most likely been hung on the clothing rail which Pat had attempted to shelter from the weather by covering it with a plastic sheet. Which left the bottle. Which made me think of genies. Okay they were more traditionally associated with lamps, but who knew where, if they existed, things like them hung out these days.

Nightingale seemed to be of the same opinion as me, about it being the bottle at least, as he said, "Could you tell me how the bottle came into your possession?"

"I got it from a house clearance. It's all above board. I've got receipts and the like if you want to see them," Pat said, folding her arms across her chest. "It weren't like it were jewellery or anything right valuable. I got it along with a couple of china dogs, a 1970s desk lamp, an occasional table and some decorative plates, Devon and Cornwall seaside scenes. They ain't anything anybody'd nick."

"I'm not accusing you of being complicit in anything underhand. Do you know the name of the property the items were from?"

Pat scratched her head and then shoved a handful of wayward curls back out of the rain under the hood of her coat. "Pine Cottage or something like that. I've got it written down somewhere if you really need it. I only went out there the once to get the stuff."

Nightingale nodded. "I see. Is there a reason why you didn't go back?"

"Like I said it were a clearance sale. I arrived late, got lost getting out there, right back of beyond place it were. Any how, most of what were left was tat or too pricey for me. I think they had a wardrobe or two and a sofa suite left when I went. There might have been some garden stuff too, but that's not my thing. They did have a cracking farm house kitchen table and all. But I couldn't get it in the van, and I didn't reckon as I could turn a profit on it for two-hundred and fifty quid."

I wouldn't have paid that much for a table either and I know my Mum would have said only people with more money than sense would shell out that much.

"Do you have a name or contact details for the buyer of the bottle?" Nightingale said, getting a notebook out of his coat pocket.

It wasn't the one he used when we were working an official police case, but with the stuff that we spend our time investigating there was no way you could keep it in the one that could called on to be used as evidence. There were records of all the old cases that the Folly had taken on in its couple of centuries of police involvement. They had probably looked into stuff before that, but until the Met had been formed they had literally been a law unto themselves.

"Yeah. He were a right character. I thought he might have been an theatre type, bit showy, thought might be a bit..." She made a limp wristed gesture. "Monty something it were."

Sometimes even the friendliest seeming people could be downright unpleasant about somethings. I wasn't anywhere near the worst I'd come across. Drunken football fans tended to be the most creative in their insults about just about everything, but you expected them to be wankers. It always seemed to be worse when you heard it from somebody who otherwise came across as nice.

I saw a slight look of annoyance on Nightingale's face and I suspected he wasn't any happier with her than I was. Given that he'd grown up and lived his life in a world where it had been illegal I thought it was kind of telling that he never appeared to have an old fashioned attitude about it or it seemed about any kind of relationship really. I suspected that it might have been too close a subject for him.

"Rhodes that were it." She clicked her fingers. "Monty Rhodes. Do you think he were up to something dodgy then? I mean he seemed so nice, you don't expect people like him to be doing criminal stuff."

"We believe he may have unwittingly bought something that the original owners of the bottle never wanted him to have," Nightingale said.

It was true and a lie at the same time. Nothing about his face or tone of voice gave that away and I made a mental note never to play poker with him unless I was in the mood lose badly. Not that Nightingale had ever suggested playing anything with me, but

Pat looked at the picture of the unremarkable looking bottle. "What you mean there's something dodgy in that bottle?"

"I'm afraid I can't comment on that, not during an active investigation."

"No, I 'spose not," she said sounding disappointed, and I guessed this was probably the only exciting thing that was likely to happen at the fair. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"A description of the bottle would be useful," I said, deciding that I might as well join in, being as I was the one to find the stall in the first place.

"I can do better than that. Give me mo," Pat said getting a plastic folder out from under the table. "I take a photo of everything before I sell it. Had a load of stock nicked once. Down at Hastings, near the pier it were. Insurance company were right ars...well I don't wanna swear in front of policemen. But I take pictures now so they can't worm their way out of paying if it happens again."

"A very sensible precaution," Nightingale said. He leant forward slightly to get a better view of the pictures. "Which one is the bottle you sold today?"

"It's near the back, I ain't moved it out of current stock yet, I was gonna do it come lunch time. Usually tails off a bit then." She flicked through a load of small pictures of ornaments and glassware. "There we go." She point at a photo of a old bottle with what looked like string wrapped round the top of it. It was probably brown or dark green glass and the pound coin that was in the picture for scale meant it was about the size of a milk bottle.

As things go it was pretty ordinary looking. Which begged the question why had anybody wanted to buy it unless they knew something more about it. I think Nightingale was following the same line of thought as once he'd thanked Pat for her help he said he was going to call a friend for information about Monty Rhodes. By which he meant he was going to borrow my phone as he was the only person in London over the age of eight without a mobile. It had happened often enough that he just about knew how to use it without having to ask me how it worked each time now.

"Would this be the same contact who tipped you off about it?" I asked as I handed it to him.

"No." Nightingale got out a small, leather bound address book and looked through until he found the entry he was looking. "Gordon is an old acquaintance. He runs an antique business and I suspect knows most of the traders here. If Monty Rhodes runs any kind of legitimate business he will know about it."

At least we hoped he would, as his phone rang and rang until it went over to an answer phone and Nightingale left him a message to call him back if he knew anything. There wasn't much point in standing around getting rained on so we decided to shelter from the drizzle in the marque style tent that had been set up to serve over priced tea and coffee in paper cups to their captive audience. I suspected that the caterers would have fitted right in at the canteen at Camden nick, they seem to have the same opinion of tea making. If it wasn't orange and strong enough to discolour a stainless steel teaspoon in under a minute it wasn't a proper cuppa.

Nightingale didn't seem to mind. I guess when you've lived through two World Wars, a depression, rationing and seventy years of police canteen brews you can probably drink just about anything. Even he didn't get a second cup though. So I felt totally justified in tipping the remaining half of mine outside the tent when nobody was looking.

We were saved from having to consider slightly damp looking sandwiches by Gordon phoning back.

Gordon Morden, whose parents must have had a twisted sense of humour to saddle him with such a name, seemed happy enough for Nightingale to call him out of the blue on a Sunday lunchtime. And although Nightingale hadn't put him on speaker phone I could still hear most of what he was saying.

"I hope you know how many favours I had to call in to get this information for you."

"Gordon, we've been friends for more years than I care to remember," Nightingale said, "And I very much doubt you've called more than a couple of people. You never liked doing the leg work."

I'd expected Gordon to get annoyed at that, but he laughed. "You know me too well, Tommy."

I tried to hide a laugh at the face Nightingale pulled at that. I really couldn't imagine anybody calling him that with any degree of seriousness. Apparently neither could Nightingale and he cleared his throat and said, "Not so well if you've forgotten that I asked you not to call me that."

"So what you doing these days?" Gordon continued undeterred. "They still got you working cases?"

"I'm still with Social and Economic," Nightingale replied patiently. I suspected he wanted to tell Gordon to get to the point and skip the social niceties.

Gordon didn't seem to get the hint however as he said, "Getting their money out of you, ain't they? You must nearly be up to compulsory retirement now, you weren't that much younger than me."

"I'll stay as long as they'll have me," Nightingale replied.

'You should have settled down with Annie from the canteen, she were sweet on you, and you'd have always had a good meal to come back to. Or have you finally found somebody who'll put up with you?" I could almost hear the wink down the phone. "There were rumours about her not having the kind of bits you fancied. Stepping out down Covent Garden of an evening, I heard."

"I never did listen to gossip. If I'm married to anyone it's the job," Nightingale said sidestepping the the question.

"Warrant cards and evidence bags don't keep you warm at night."

"Then it is as well I have central heating at home," he said, a little more sharply than before. " Gordon, I wouldn't have called you if I didn't need this information. Incase you have forgotten I'm on an active investigation. One which may be more time sensitive than I had previously thought."

"Time sensitive antiques? Well that's a new one on me. Right then, what do you want to know about Monty?"

"What he normally trades in, whether he is considered to be 'dodgy' in any way. And if at all possible a contact number."

"Dodgy? Monty? Never. If he's got himself caught up in something it's because he's not twigged there's anything off with it. He deals in a little bit of everything, mainly its stuff for city folk wanting to get that olde worlde look for their new place in the country. So old furniture, copper saucepans, clocks, painting and the like."

"Would he deal in ornaments or glassware?"

"If he thought there was some money to be made. Glassware is popular with trendy pubs these days. Sold a few bits myself the other week. Made a tidy profit I can tell you," Gordon said sounding pleased with himself. "And I can do you better than a phone number, I can give you an address as well."

Gordon chattered on for a bit after telling Nightingale that Monty's phone number and that his shop, Rhodes Antiques and Collectibles, was in Cranleigh, which by all accounts wasn't all that far away. Eventually Nightingale managed to get Gordon off the phone and he handed it back to me looking relieved that the call was over.

"So how do you know Gordon then?" I asked. I kind of liked finding out these little bits about his past. He didn't talk about it much, so when the opportunity to ask something about it appeared I usually took it. Not least because when it did it frequently ended with finding out something else about how magic worked or what kind of weird and wonderful things were out there that I'd never even heard of.

"Gordon. Sergeant Morden as he was then. He worked out of Holbourn until Ninety-Eight. He took retirement as soon as it was offered and joined his wife in her antique business." Nightingale smiled slightly. "I don't think I've ever met anyone who was quite so unsuited to police work as Gordon. But he put in the hours. I really do believe he only joined the force for the pension and the hope of retiring after thirty years."

Retirement seemed a very long way away to me. Not least because the government kept moving when it was supposed to be. You probably had to be a very particular kind of person to start a job and already be looking forward to retirement. Gordon seemed happy on it, so good for him.

"Having an old acquaintance who just so happens to be in the antiques business is useful," Nightingale continued as we walked back to the car. "Even if it does mean I'm going to have to think of a reason not to attend the party he's tried to invite me to."

"Is he that bad?" I said. A party sounded alright to me and Gordon hadn't sounded too bad.

"He can be a little overbearing sometimes and will no doubt be trying to impress his new friends in the polo playing set, but that would be no reason to refuse." He opened the car door, then paused and said, "It would however be rather hard to explain why I now look younger than when I first worked a case with him."

Yeah, I could see how that would be a problem.

We sat in the Jag and had a go at phoning Monty Rhodes and on the third attempt we actually got through. We couldn't tell him that he'd bought a magic bottle with might be about to do something magical and nasty in case he'd bought it for just that reason. It didn't seem likely, but if policing and magic had taught me anything it was to be suspicious of people who

Nightingale let me to the talking this time, and Monty agreed to meet us when he got back to his shop after lunch. Lunch sounded a good idea from where I was sitting and fortunately Nightingale agreed so we drove into Cranleigh where Monty shop was and had a look round for somewhere to eat.

Cranleigh couldn't seem to decide if it was a small town or a large village, so it had plenty of shops nearly all of which were shut. Useful. In the end we found a pub on the high street, and after ordering some lunch, I used their internet connect to try and find out more about magical bottles. I could have just asked Nightingale what he knew, but I wanted to be the one who came up with the answer this time. It would show him that I was able to do something other than make things explode with formae that weren't meant to blow anything up.

He seemed a bit preoccupied, looking at his food and only really picking at it. He was probably thinking about the case, I decided, that worrying about Gordon Morden finding out he'd not got any older.

There was a lot of stuff that didn't seem to apply, like bottles for dolls, YouTube clips of a Tommy Cooper magic trick and the story of an American couple who'd met by putting a message in a bottle and chucking it in the sea.

Eventually I went down the route of googling anything weird in this bit of Surrey and after reading a load of stuff that really wasn't any use at all. Well not unless you wanted to know about 17th diarist who thought they'd seen a puma, several old pubs that apparently had the ghost of jilted serving girls and one about a pond haunted by a girl who'd drown rather than let King John of Robin Hood fame see in with nothing on, I finally found what I was looking for.

Back in the 17th century, which as far as I could tell was ghost producing central, the had been a decidedly dodgy wizard living in the area. Matthew Pulver had lived in Friday Street in the mid 1600s. It was a couple of miles from Pinecote cottage, which was probably why we'd drawn a blank with that before we'd headed out to the sticks. A physician by training and a wannabe alchemist according to local gossip, he'd been rumoured to be involved in few dodgy things before the plague broke out in 1665. Pulver had then, by all accounts, tried to use the plague to further himself. The article didn't use the word zombie, I guess the person writing it had wanted to sound like they were a serious historian rather than a nutcase, but you could tell they'd had to work hard to find another way of putting it. After the death of a couple of villagers he had disappeared never to be seen again. I supposed they must have assumed he'd been murdered at the time and since there seemed to be no love lost between him and the locals and no impartial police force to investigate that remained all that was known. Until now at least. So I told Nightingale what I'd found out so far.

"Could he have killed people and trapped their ghosts in a bottle or something like that?"I asked. I'd seen some very weird things since I'd started working with Nightingale and I suspected before I'd finished my apprenticeship that I would see many more.

"It is hard to say, Peter," Nightingale replied. "Magic was still in the very early stages of being quantified. The traditions that eventually were codified into the Newtonian magic we use today were just one of many that existed at that time. I must admit it is not an era that I am overly familiar with."

Which was just great. "I don't suppose you know anything about him?" I asked. I didn't hold out much hope of it. Nightingale knew his stuff, but what he did best was the practical side of it. Yes, he was teaching me, but I also knew that before he set out any lessons for me he often had to read up on it himself first. It had surprised me at first that he needed to do this as I'd kind of thought of him as a sort of walking encyclopaedia of all that's magical. It hadn't taken me long to realise that while Nightingale was very good with the hands on part of magic, I guess because of the war and decades of dealing with London's hidden magical nasties, he saw the academic side of it as something just to be checked when needed and otherwise left alone.

"It's not an area that I'm familiar with. And if we are lucky Peter it is something that we needn't worry about." He got up. "I think we paid Mr Rhodes a visit."

Monty's shop was just off the high street. It looked like what you'd expect an antiques shop to look like. Old building, with those little bubbled glass panes in the bow fronted window, while the inside looked like it had been crammed full with as many bits of old furniture, paintings and ornaments as possible. There was a closed sign on the door, but the lights were on inside and I could see somebody moving about behind what I guessed was thee counter.

Hoping that it was Monty who was in there and that we hadn't got spectacularly awful timing and turned up in the middle of a burglary, I knocked on the door.

I'm not sure I agreed with Pat's assumption about Monty Rhodes private life, to me looked like he should have been presenting one of those antiques shows on the BBC. Short and round with bristling mutton-chop whiskers, a floral waistcoat whose buttons looked like they might give up at moment and a maroon silk cravat.

"You must be the policemen called me earlier. Had your mate Gordo on blower just now as well He said worked with you back in the day. Up in the smoke wasn't it?" He took Nightingale's hand and shook it vigorously. "So what is it you're looking for? A nice little something for the Missus? Got some lovely cut glass pieces, genuine Eighteenth Century they'd make a lovely anniversary present. Or..." He looked at me. "Is it something for your young man?"

It wasn't the first time we'd had people assume me and Nightingale were together and I doubted it would be the last. Even Seawoll had assumed it the first time he'd met me. I couldn't quite work out if I should be flattered that people should think we were together or not. In the end I decided that I'd just let them think what they wanted. It wasn't any worse than what I'd assumed Nightingale was up to the first time I met him. I mean who hangs about Covent Garden in a suit like that a one in the morning unless you're there to catch somebody's eye? If there was another reason for it I'd not worked it out. I'd considered asking him, but in the end decided against it as I couldn't work out if I'd be disappointed or not if it turned out he'd just been walking home from somewhere. Yes, I really had put too much thought into it.

If Nightingale was offended that Monty had thought we were together he didn't show it, and he said, "I'm afraid this isn't a social call Mr Rhodes. I'm enquiring about a Seventeenth Century glass bottle you bought today at Dunsfold."

Monty looked interested rather and worried, and said, "Do come in. It's a rotten day out there." He waited until we were inside and then added. "The bottle, yes. It was a nice little piece. I'll just go and get it. Although I can't think why the police would be interested in it."

As soon as Monty disappeared through the jumble of furniture and into the back room of the shop, I felt Nightingale searching for vestigia. So I followed suit. There wasn't, just the very faint trace that must have been left when Monty had taken the bottle into the back.

"It's not in as good condition as I'd hoped," Monty said as he came back into the shop a few moments later. Held in his hand was a rather grubby green glass bottle with a tatty piece of string tied around the neck. He tilted the bottle forwards for Nightingale and me to see. "The seal around the neck has been broken. Recently too." He shook his head. "The woman who was selling it at the Dunsfold fair hadn't seemed to have any idea what she had. If she had she might have taken better care of it. A genuine, unopened wine bottle from the Reformation."

"A far more potent spirit than that," Nightingale said as he took the bottle from him. Holding it by the base he held it up and looked at it. "It may once have held a fine vintage. However this is not the original stoppering. This is a witch bottle. They were very common in the Seventeenth century as a lucky charm to keep a house safe from spells and curses. People were very superstitious in those days."

"What?" Monty said, managing a look that was as much baffled as confused. "It's just piece folk history tat?"

"There may be a small, local museum who might be willing to take it by way of a donation," Nightingale said smoothly. "It would all depend on the provenance of it. Perhaps if it were associated with a famous historical figure or event it might be worth a little more."

Monty sat down, looking resigned to the fact that he wasn't getting it back. "That's were the problem is. I don't have one beyond what the woman at the antiques fair, Pat something I think it was, told me. It came from a house clearance. Some old woman who'd lived there for years and had no family popped her clogs. All the stuff worth anything was all getting sold off by the solicitors, the rest they let the house clearance company sell off as they wanted. Reckon they wanted to get the house on market. That's where the big money is round here."

Nightingale nodded and got out a notebook. I could see Monty looked a bit panicked about things now, and he started to shift uneasily from foot to foot. Definitely a bit jumpy. That didn't have to mean guilt about anything, it might just be the nervousness that a lot of people seem to get when faced with the police.

"There is a possibility this is one of the objects that was taken during a burglary," Nightingale continued. "Although I have no evidence to support than one way or another. Not yet at least."

It was the first I'd heard of any burglary and I suspected that it would also be the last. Yeah, I suddenly wasn't liking this investigation one bit, but I trusted that Nightingale had his reasons. At least I hoped he did, because I was going to ask him what he was playing at once we were away from Monty. I knew that we were working this one off the books, but it still made me uncomfortable seeing Nightingale talk Monty into handing the bottle over. There wasn't much else he could have done and I suspected that in the past a lot of investigations had got their results in similar ways. It didn't mean I had to like it though. I knew if Lesley had been there she'd have never let him do it, and part of me wished that she had been. I mean there was no criminal case for anybody to answer, well not apart from the person or persons unknown that did Pulver in the best part of four-hundred years ago, and we weren't going to be able to get them.

"I'm well rid, ain't I?" Monty said, as he watched Nightingale place the bottle into a bag and hand it to me. I took it and tried not to feel like we were breaking the law.

"Definitely."

"I don't suppose there's any chance of compensation, is there?" Monty asked hopefully. "Even if it's just cost price and maybe a little extra for bringing it to you."

"Being unaware that an item is stolen isn't a valid defence in court. However, if you which me to record how you came into possession of it, should it turn out not to have been stolen, I can."

"No, no," Monty said quickly. "I'll just chalk this one up to me doing my civic duty. It only cost me a tenner. You take it."

"Very nice to see such an attitude these days," Nightingale said shaking Monty's hand.

"Should I keep clear of her in future?" Monty said, still sounding a little jumpy. "Can't afford to lose too much stock."

"Patricia had no idea of it origins either. She seem to keep very good records of her purchase. The was just an unfortunate isolated event." He turned to me. "Come along, Peter. We need to get this back to the station."

"Did you really have to lie to him like that?" I asked once we were out of the shop and walking back to the car. "To make up a case? What if makes a complaint? How are we going to explain it?" Seawoll would have a field day it he heard about it and I doubted we be able to cover it up if it ever got out.

"I was not intending to dupe him, not at first," he said, sounding more concerned than apologetic. "But he had tampered with the seal. Or Patricia had. Look."

Opening the carrier bag I looked at where the waxed string around the neck of the bottle had come away. It didn't look too bad to me. The cork seemed pretty well jammed in the narrow neck and there was enough grime around it that it was probably also impossible to remove without breaking the bottle.

"Peter. Tell me if you can feel any vestigia?"

It was an odd question because we both knew there would be. It was how I'd found the thing in the first place. I had another check for it and was instantly glad I wasn't holding bottle. The same something that had been present at the antiques fair was there, only much stronger now. It was damp and musty like old, wet paper or damp leaves with something underneath, something that crackled, all cold, sharp edges, like broken glass. It felt far more unpleasant than it should have and I was glad when Nightingale closed the bag.

"The cord is a symbolic seal, there would have also been a wax disc when it was whole. The binding spell it is failing now the seal is gone. The magic that held what you can feel inside will be gone in a few hours at most. We need to get this back to the Folly, Peter. And we need to get it back there before it gets dark."

It had all been a bit of funny country jaunt until now, complete with a selection of colourful characters. The concern in his voice was clear and if I'd learnt anything working with Nightingale it was if it spooked him then we were up the proverbial creek with no paddle. "Do I want to know what will happen if we don't?"

"I can't be certain, but there is definitely something powerful inhabiting the bottle," he replied. "From what you found out I believe this bottle contains the spirit of Matthew Pulver, rather than some unfortunate that he murdered. I don't know enough about his level of skill as a practitioner know with any degree of certainty what he might still be capable of if he were to be released. The ghost of a wizard is always an unpredictable entity. From the little you found I very much doubt that it would be a pleasant experience for anybody should he do so."

It was definitely and 'oh crap' moment. The idea of the ghost of a mad scientist type being contained for several hundred years only to be let out by an unwitting antiques dealer seemed like the plot of a low budget horror movie. And we all know what happens to the black guy in those.

"I suppose we'd better head straight back," I said, thinking wistfully of the chip shop we'd passed. The sandwiches at the pub had been okay, but I'd got use to Molly Sunday lunches, and a cheese sandwich and somme crisps just wasn't the same. It would be a good hour and a half until we got back to the Folly even if the roads were clear. Which was something that never happened when you wanted to get anywhere in a hurry. If we had to deal with Pulver when we got back was a very good chance that we might not end up getting anything to eat until about seven or eight o'clock. There was no point asking if we could get some to take away as there was no way Nightingale would let me eat it in the car.

"It would be safest." He started walking again. "Don't look so worried, Peter. Once we are at the Folly it will be a simple matter of resealing the bottle and storing it somewhere secure."