Christopher Fowler-Ten Second Staircase torrent

The success of the pair in that case has both attracted extra funding for the Peculiar Crimes Unit but also the disapproval of the Home Office who are trying to shut the Unit down. Set up in wartime, the PCU is outside the regular Met police and answers straight to the Government and they receive all the odd cases.

It's not long before the two elderly detectives are called to a murder scene. A controversial artist has been drowned in her own 'installation', a display case, in a gallery in the former County Hall building. The only witness, a young boy who was part of a school trip, claims to have seen a tricorn-wearing man on a horse scoop up the woman and drop her in the tank. The press soon gets wind of this and nicknames the killer, The Highwayman.