‘I know Matthew and Ellis. And North. And you. That’s at least four.’

‘Well, I’m not going to be there, am I, you dozy bint? You’ll have had me arrested and I’ll be on my way to the gallows.’

‘Firing squad.’

‘What?’

‘Firing squad. We’re in the Time Police. They’ll shoot you.’

He flung his arms wide in exasperation. ‘I can’t believe I risked my career and my life to save you.’

‘Well, there’s a coincidence. I was just thinking exactly the same thing.’

They glared at each other and then, as the realisation hit both of them, she said quietly, ‘Well, we’re both in trouble now, aren’t we?’

He shrugged. ‘We were in trouble before. We’ve just dug ourselves in a little deeper, that’s all. It’s obviously a gift we both share. I thought you’d done it. You thought I’d done it. There’s not much to choose between us, is there?’

Silence fell. They both stared at the floor and then she said, ‘Why is everyone already here?’

He blinked and refocused. ‘Sorry?’

‘You said everyone was already here.’

He made a visible effort to pull himself together. ‘Seriously, Jane? I gave you the date and it meant nothing to you? I thought you liked history.’

‘14th March 44BC?’

‘Tomorrow, Jane. The Ides of March?’

‘Oh.’

The old, smug Parrish was back.

‘That’s how brilliant I’ve been. Because this is a major event in time and everyone will turn up for this. Everyone. There’ll be St Mary’s – homing in like blowflies on a dead sheep, muddying the waters, getting in the way and initiating all sorts of crises. Then there’ll be all the amateurs in their homemade pods, come for a good look. Rounding them up will take the Time Police some considerable time. There’ll be any number of weird pods here so that’ll keep the clean-up teams busy. With any luck we’ll be lost in the crowd. At least until we can get ourselves sorted out.’

‘But our personal trackers . . . ?’

‘Yeah. There’ll be signatures all over the place. Time Police, St Mary’s . . .’

‘And us.’

He lay back and put his hands behind his head and yes, managed that smug Parrish look again. ‘Yep.’

‘So they’ll still be able to track us.’

He sighed, sat up and began to rummage in his pack. ‘I really need to sit you down and explain how thoroughly Matthew and I planned this. Did you think we just threw all this together at the last moment? What did you think we were doing while you were under interrogation? Did you think we’d just wandered off for lunch and forgotten you?’ He flourished a small device. ‘Neutraliser.’

‘Where did you get that?’

He smirked again. ‘Blonde.’

‘The one in Logistics?’

‘That’s the one. And you thought I was wasting my time there.’