Before she could sit down, however, Smith was speaking. ‘Jane, dear, I understand you were injured on your last assignment and you don’t yet look fully recovered. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? You need to make a full recovery. Report tomorrow when you’re feeling a little more yourself.’

I am myself, she thought. This is me. She took a deep breath and felt the familiar hot flush start to spread across her face. ‘Who put you in charge?’

Smith’s bright smile never faltered for one instant. ‘The Time Police, Jane. I have seniority. Did they not explain the way these things work when you were doing your basic training?’ She paused significantly. ‘It was only a couple of weeks ago, surely?’

Jane’s flush had become very nearly incandescent. Any moment now she would burst into flames.

Luke apparently noticed none of this. He smiled at her. ‘Yeah – good idea, Jane. Makes sense to get your head down so you’re all ready to go tomorrow.’

She felt as if he’d publicly slapped her.

It was very important that no one – no one at all – had even the slightest inkling of the hurt coursing through her. Pride came to her rescue. She nodded and suppressed the unfamiliar but completely justified urge to punch everyone in the room. Her happy glow had disappeared, leaving plenty of room for the familiar sense of not belonging to come barrelling back and towing a shedload of humiliation behind it.

She blinked hard to dispel the pricking tears of disappointment. You don’t cry in public. Not if you’re in the Time Police. In fact, you don’t cry at all. Crying was a sign of weakness and weakness could be exploited.

Looking back over her shoulder, she could see the three of them were already sitting around the table, their heads close. As she walked away, she heard a shout of laughter. Luke was moving scratchpads and pens around to demonstrate something or other and almost certainly being cruelly amusing at someone else’s expense, she thought. Probably mine.

As she closed the door behind her, Smith was talking, making short emphatic gestures to emphasise the points she was making and Matthew was busy typing on his scratchpad. She wondered if they’d even noticed she had gone.

She trailed slowly down the corridor and eventually found her way back to her own room, where she sat on her bed, fired up her scratchpad and did a little digging on the Time Police site.

Sarah Mary Smith. Born in Scotland. Thirty-four years old. Considerably older than the rest of us, she thought. Probably why she thinks she’s in charge.

She skimmed through Smith’s list of qualifications – which were not that impressive – followed by her list of postings and promotions.