It didn’t take me long to gather up the few things I wanted to take with me. Some battered old Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat books that were my favourites when I was a kid. A framed photo of my parents, taken just before they went off to die on one last mission for the family. Molly studied the photo curiously.

“They look so young,” she said finally. “Not even as old as we are now. Much the same age as my parents, when they were murdered by the Droods.”

“We have so much in common,” I said, dropping the photo into a carrier bag along with the books. “I promise you; I will find out the truth about what really happened to your parents, and mine.”

“If you like,” said Molly. “I told you; I don’t believe in looking back.”

I rescued a dozen or so of my favourite CDs from the mess on the floor. (Molly drew the line at any of my Enya albums, which I thought was a bit mean. I don’t object to her playing her Iron Maiden in the car.) And that . . . was that. I looked around, but there wasn’t anything else I wanted to take with me. I looked down at the carrier bag. Not much to show, for ten years in one place. Not much to show, for a life.

“I did have some good times here,” I said.

“Yeah, right,” said Molly. “I’ll bet you were a real party animal at weekends.”

“No,” I said. “I hardly ever brought people back here. Because people only knew me as Shaman Bond, and this was the only place I could be Eddie Drood. The family discourages field agents from having close friends, or anything else. Close associations might dilute our loyalty to the family. And you can’t ever be really close to anyone, when the life you share is a lie. Agents in the field live solitary lives, because we have to. Because when you care for someone, you don’t want to endanger them.”

“And your family encouraged this?” said Molly.

“Of course. They wanted the family to be the most important thing in our lives, so we might never be tempted to turn away from them. I had more freedom than most, and I still toed the family line . . . right up to the point where they turned on me. I had friends . . . but I could never tell them anything that mattered. I had lovers, but never loves. It wasn’t allowed. All I had . . . was the work.”

“If you start getting maudlin on me,” Molly said firmly, “I will slap you, and it will hurt. I told you; never look back. All you ever see are mistakes, failures, and missed opportunities. Concentrate on the here and now! You’re running your family, you have all the best toys to play with, and you have me! What more could mortal man desire?”