In Matthew’s experience, the Time Police and the Institute of Historical Research at St Mary’s Priory had very little in common. They had no joint purpose and no shared goals. St Mary’s – as they will explain at tiresome length, do not do time travel – so sci-fi. They ‘investigate major historical events in contemporary time’, and tend to regard the Time Police as a bunch of illiterate, knuckle-dragging morons whose job could better be done by semi-trained gibbons coming in one morning a week.

The Time Police, on the other hand, are time travellers and generally regard anyone pretentious enough to be investigating major historical events in contemporary time as being dangerously far up their own arses. It was generally felt on Time Police turf that the St Mary’s ‘Who us? But we’re only a bunch of harmless academics’ attitude fooled no one. They were certainly going to bring the timeline crashing down around everyone’s ears one day. And, in fact, had nearly done so on several occasions. And no one at Time Police HQ believed St Mary’s attempts to persuade the authorities that something hadn’t gone badly wrong with their infamous jump to Troy, because the evidence of the Time Map said otherwise, no matter how cleverly St Mary’s thought they’d buried the evidence. And dodged the investigation afterwards. And there had been one or two other instances they’d been lucky to get away with, as well. The prevailing feeling was that one day, sooner or later, St Mary’s famous luck would run out and those too-clever-by-far, dangerously over-educated imbeciles would do some serious damage. The upside being that it would at least give the Time Police a good reason to shoot them.

So – not a lot of common ground between them.

The difference between the organisations could possibly best be illustrated by their corridors. St Mary’s corridors are comprised of bare boards, and are littered with broken bicycles, pieces of sarcophagi, various bits of armour and spare welding equipment, together with the occasional dollop of chicken shit. The pockmarked walls are decorated with an eclectic range of official notices, graffiti, scribbled reminders, scorch marks, next week’s lunch menu, dubious stains and directions to the nearest defibrillation point.

Time Police corridors are furnished with the latest sound-reducing materials and contain neat notice boards displaying official bulletins, mission statements, the new diversity policy, instructions to walk in single file and forbidding running in the corridors.

Fighting in the corridors, however, was another matter.

Matthew rounded a corner, heaving his kitbag over his shoulder. His plans for the evening were simple: shower, change, get something to eat and settle down with a technical manual. Maybe watch a holo later . . .

There were five or six of them and they were waiting for him.