Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife.— Proverbs, Ch 17 v 1
We rejoin our heroes, Magariel and Atoziel, separately ensconced in Giuseppe's nightclub, where they have noticed the presence of Alex/Hezekiah. Magariel, as Maggie, is also recognised by PC Wells, who appears to be checking out the nightclub in civvies. He stands out rather from the fun-loving crowd, since as a twentysomething he is amongst the older clubbers, and also he is rather stand-offish and uninvolved. Wells and Magariel exchange a few words; he is a little surprised to see her here, and not entirely convinced by her protestations of innocence.
At some point in the evening Alex vanishes, but the angels didn't notice exactly when. Shortly after, Magariel realises that Giuseppe's has some back rooms, with a discrete door just past the main toilets, by the potted plants where the bouncers lurk inconspicuously. It's quite tastefully done, really. When Alex reappears, it seems that he has been in there; though not on drugs, Magariel thinks. Atoziel asks around in his typical bouncily curious manner; most of the patrons have no idea what's behind the door, but one says "Ah, so you want to know about the girls. They're worth it, but you'll need an introduction, know what I mean?" Knowing what he means, Atoziel slips him a tenner.
Magariel notices a smartly dressed man come out of the manager's office, to beam down benevolently on the club. Recalling that he saw this man chatting with Alex last night, Magariel points him out to Atoziel, who bounces over. At the same time, Atoziel's fixer wanders over to start making an introduction, then realises that Atoziel has beaten him to it. Ofanim! The man introduces himself as Giuseppe Fernando, owner of this fine establishment; to Atoziel's Seraph of Yves attunement his name is Harmash. Hmm. Atoziel starts negotiating for, er, hospitality, as one would, so a mildly concerned Magariel brushes past and casually attunes herself to him; he is being watched, but not with hostile intent. As Atoziel books himself a session with a prostitute, and incidentally discovers that the back rooms are actually upstairs rooms, Magariel leaves the club and phones Helophel and Boriel as backup from a nearby payphone. She then returns and assesses the nature of the club rather harder; observations suggest that there is relatively little drug use, and a moderate amount of making out.
Once Atoziel is finished (quite slowly for an ofanite), the four angels meet up a couple of street corners away from the club. They share information briefly and arrange to meet up later at Blakely's, when PC Wells is seen at the far end of the street. Magariel moves off, and Wells appears to be tracking her. Atoziel arranges to accidentally bump into him to get his true name — Justin Wells — and notes that he does seem a little preoccupied.
Before going to Blakely's Magariel pings her resonance on David. He seems to be in Beverley Road (as near as she can tell), at ground level and not moving. And in no imminent danger. This is considered reassuring.
In the small hours the angels meet up at Blakely's place and plan. It is intended that Boriel will make an anonymous call to the police tipping them off about Giuseppe's, having seen Wells there (just in case that wasn't legit). Then Blakely can get Jennifer in and ask her questions about Giuseppe's, and Magariel can attune to her. In the mean time, Blakely starts setting up a role for "Maggie" with the local Laurentines; living at the YMCA, from Kilburn, parents back in Ireland, that sort of thing ought to do. Of course, they'll need her to turn up at the Army Recruitment Office to take suitable photos.
Excel goes to work, only somewhat reassured by not having heard any conversations going on in the lab after he left work the previous night. Other than the usual mutterings of a researcher at work, that is. At lunchtime, he again takes advantage of McKenzie going out to sneak upstairs and try to plant a bug in McKenzie's flat. This time he manages to break his lockpicks in the lock, clearly a sign of diabolical influence (or at least a 666 roll on the dice). McKenzie in general appears to have stopped doing things in favour of thinking about things and scribbling a lot. He has found an odd resonance effect, and is trying to hammer out a theoretical basis for explaining it.
Magariel goes to the recruiting office to let the Laurentines patch her up with a minimal role. Blakely covers by claiming to have let her off this morning to do some Christmas shopping, and does some snooping of his own on the police case records. From the statements taken earlier, it seems that Jane was more of a club-goer than Jennifer, but not hugely so. She most often went to Giuseppe's, it being the local nightclub, and had gone out clubbing the night that she died.
Atoziel sets in on looking up heavenly and earthly records on Harmash/Giuseppe, who appears to be an Impudite or Balseraph (opinions differ) of Lust. A cautious, old type it seems, who actually does own the nightclub. He also has a car which could conceivably match the description of the one that dumped Jane Weaver in the river — but then so does half of London. He does have a role it appears, which is showing some signs of crumbling before Atoziel loses interest and starts in on PC Wells instead. His role (if such it be) appears to stand up to scrutiny, at least for that afternoon.
Boriel rings the Crimestoppers number around lunchtime from a carefully untraceable phone, mentioning that the police were clearly suspicious of Giuseppe's but their man wasn't looking in the right places. DS Martins checks with Blakely that he wasn't at the club last night, since the Doc has been known to go off investigating like that. At any rate, no one had actually been assigned to check the place out. By dint of hanging around the coffee room until the news arrives, Blakely finds out that apparently Wells had been trying to collect a few brownie points by checking the place out. This is a little out of character for the normally rather laissez-faire constable, and causes Blakely and Magariel to think worried thoughts about the possibility of him being a Djinn of the Game with the Humanity attunement.