‘It means you get to live a while longer, you pathetic little arse-wipe.’

‘What?’

‘Henry Plimpton – saviour of the universe.’

‘What?’

Stamping to attention, he snapped off a magnificent salute. ‘Hail Henry.’

‘Um . . . hail Henry,’ echoed Jane, loyally.

Farrell nodded, expressionless.

‘He never bloody salutes me,’ muttered Ellis. He opened his com. ‘Parrish, get your arse back here now.’

6

6

Back at TPHQ, their first duty was to return their weapons. Parrish was reluctant to hand his in. Going armed was the mark of a qualified officer.

‘What do you care?’ said Farrell, carefully depositing his weapon in the lock box and signing the sheet. ‘You’re always saying you can’t wait to get out of this place.’ But Parrish had found something else to complain about.

Scanning the assignment list posted on the wall, he said, ‘Team Two-Three-Five have had three assignments so far. We’ve only had one. Why have we only had one?’

Farrell shrugged. ‘Well, it wasn’t exactly a huge success, was it? The whole town knew we were there. And then you were bitten by a tiny dog.’

‘It wasn’t that tiny.’

‘And you nearly had to marry the daughter.’

‘Yes, but they gave us tea, which was nice,’ said Jane. She turned to Luke. ‘Will we be in trouble over that? What if Grint and the other team find out? Can they make trouble for us?’

‘How could we possibly be even more disparaged than we are already?’ said Luke, handing over his own sonic and string and scribbling his signature. ‘But they might make trouble for Ellis and North.’

‘That’s Major Ellis and Officer North to you,’ said North, calmly, appearing in the doorway. ‘And who might be making trouble for us?’

‘That idiot Grint,’ said Parrish.

‘That’s Lt Grint to you,’ said Lt Grint, appearing behind North in the doorway. ‘Report to me afterwards.’

Jane closed her eyes, wondering if the day could get any worse, but Parrish was made of sterner stuff. ‘After what?’

North intervened, physically placing herself between Parrish and Grint. ‘Can I help you, sir?’

‘I’ve come to look at the idiots who couldn’t even capture a civilian properly.’

‘Plimpton wasn’t doing any harm,’ said Parrish hotly, completely forgetting his earlier enthusiasm for the complete annihilation of the Plimpton family, their bloody dogs and most of Lower Spurting.

‘Who are you to judge? You haven’t seen what we’ve seen.’

‘Those times are gone,’ said North, quietly.

‘They’ll be back soon enough if you don’t get your idiot team in order.’

‘Hey,’ said Parrish, indignantly. ‘I have it on good authority that I’m lazy, careless and lacking in respect, but I’m not an idiot.’

‘You’re more than an idiot, Parrish. You’re a bloody liability. You and the rest of your idiot team. All you had to do was bring in one illegal . . .’

‘Which we did.’

‘. . . destroy his equipment . . .’