LaFlamme continued to analyse my client Spore's cryptic note - ‘Jackals dine' - for it's anagrammatic possibilities, with increasingly silly results. With Spore himself still unconscious or even dead in the doorway, this could have been viewed as negligent. But I decided in Spore's case it was ok.

"Perhaps we need a drop of liquid inspiration," she suggested, and I visibly winced. LaFlamme had administered this type of inspiration to me before with devastating results.

"I'm not sure I can handle being inspired right now," I protested, feebly - I knew it was a lost cause.

"Nonsense," said LaFlamme and poured two massive belters of bourbon. Why she didn't just get a funnel and inspire me to death was beyond me.