Everyone turned to look at her. She felt her face burn. Would she ever grow out of that? She shook her head at the officer and pretended to be busy with her scratchpad.

Needless to say, the notes never turned up.

To keep them all occupied over this period of inactivity, the Time Police ran series after series of simulations. Various hair-raising scenarios were encountered and dealt with more or less successfully.

‘Right,’ said a slightly stunned Senior Instructor Talbot at the debrief following one of their more . . . exciting . . . sessions. Assuming the expression of false enthusiasm so necessary to training officers everywhere, he said, ‘Does anyone have any suggestions as to how things could have gone slightly better?’

Jane, who’d made comprehensive notes in her book, swallowed hard and spoke up. ‘Actually, we should . . .’

‘We shouldn’t have dispersed all our forces in one go,’ said Smith, whom Jane suspected of reading her notes over her shoulder. She tried to keep on talking but Smith’s cool contralto swept straight over the top of her. ‘It left us vulnerable. We should have posted a second, smaller force on higher ground.’

The instructor nodded. ‘Good point, Smith. Well done,’ and the debrief continued with Jane red-faced and unsure what had just happened.

After that, it didn’t take her long to realise that any points she raised were either talked over or talked down. In team situations, it was Smith everyone looked to. Jane was thanked politely for any contribution she cared to make and then had to watch that contribution being quietly ignored. After a while she stopped contributing. No one noticed.

The worst part was accidentally discovering there had been a team night out the previous evening. Except they couldn’t call it a team night out because one member of the team hadn’t even known about it, let alone been invited. The first she knew was when Matthew and Luke came in late for breakfast the next morning. The two of them shambled over to her table where they sat, white and fragile, in pale-faced silence, sipping black coffee.

She nodded. They nodded back. Neither of them was eating anything. Not even Matthew, whose capacity for food was reckoned to be limitless.

‘Big night, last night,’ muttered Luke, followed by a silence as everyone present realised she hadn’t been included.

‘We looked for you,’ said Matthew, defensively. ‘You ­weren’t in your room.’

‘I was working,’ she said briefly, which had the double benefit of making her look good and showing them both she didn’t care.

‘It was a good night,’ said Luke. ‘First we went to . . .’

‘Sorry,’ she said, getting up and cutting him short. ‘Things to do this morning.’