Peterson shook his head. ‘Shouldn’t the question be, “Where do you pee?”’

‘Never mind that,’ said Markham. ‘How do you shower?’

Luke drew himself up into full Time Police mode. ‘We are the Time Police. We go on missions – not holidays. Why would we shower?’

‘I’m not surprised to hear any of this,’ said Max.

‘Fun though it is to wind up St Mary’s,’ said Luke, ‘in the interests of accuracy, our missions don’t usually last that long.’

‘We know,’ said Maxwell. ‘Jump in . . . shoot everyone in sight . . . and jump straight back out again.’

Markham persisted. ‘Do you wear nappies, perhaps?’

Luke recoiled. ‘What? No! Can we abandon this topic of conversation, please? Jane, go and do your thing.’

Scarlet-faced, Jane fled down the path.

Luke leaned closer to Peterson, nodded his head towards Max and said in an undertone, ‘Is that it? Has she finished, do you think?’

He shook his head. ‘Not even a little bit. You have the life expectancy of a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher in a Harry Potter novel.’

Luke twisted round to address his bleary-eyed colleague. ‘Matthew, can you please tell your mother why I shot you?’

Matthew looked vaguely around. ‘Oh, hi, Mum.’

She smiled at him. ‘Hello again. Everything OK?’

‘Absolutely fine.’ He swayed a little. ‘Just need to take a moment.’

‘We all need to take a moment, I think,’ said Ellis, trying not to fall off his plinth.

Peterson stared in concern. ‘You all right?’

‘No, but I’m in the Time Police and we’re very brave about this sort of thing.’

‘Just as well given the way you’re all having a go at each other these days.’

Ellis sighed wearily. ‘Max, how are you?’

She moved straight into the attack. ‘Well, thank you. Slightly concerned you allowed my son to be shot.’

‘He triggered a radiation alert in central London. He’s lucky he was only shot once.’

‘Was there a radiation leak?’

‘No.’

‘Shooting seems overly harsh in that case.’

‘He was involved in a criminal act.’

‘I was helping a friend,’ slurred Matthew, painstakingly following the conversation.

Ellis turned to him in exasperation. ‘Who was also involved in a criminal act.’

‘Is this the same criminal act or a different one?’ enquired Markham with great interest.

Ellis, familiar with St Mary’s tactics, ignored this.

‘Perhaps,’ said Peterson, in his role of peacemaker, ‘we could have the whole story from the beginning.’

Lt Grint pushed up his visor and Max was distracted again. ‘Hey – it’s Grint. Look, everyone – Grint the Grunt is here.’

‘That’s Lt Grint to you,’ said Luke before he could stop himself, and waited to see who would kill him first.

Major Ellis made a valiant effort to gain control of the situation.

‘Lt Grint, if you and Anders would be so good as to secure the perimeter. Thank you.’