And here was that awkward moment. It always arrives sooner or later. Someone is missing. What do you do? Report him and cover yourself? Or count him in and cross your fingers he turns up in time? For lesser mortals this might be a dilemma. North had no such difficulties. For her there was only ever one way to do things and that was the right way.

‘Parrish is missing, sir.’

‘Get him.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Sizing up those in front of her, she selected the biggest person present. ‘Trainee Anders, please locate Parrish immediately and persuade him to join us. By whatever means necessary.’

An enormous and already armoured officer nodded and clumped out through the door. Several other people, possibly familiar with his seek and find tactics, winced.

Grint put away his scratchpad. ‘Listen up, men.’ His gaze fell on Lockland. ‘And non-men. We have a call for assistance and it’s a good one. You’ll like this. 1320BC. Valley of the Kings. Tomb robbers.’

He was regarded with even less enthusiasm than is normally met with in the small hours of the morning. ‘Oh shit,’ muttered someone. ‘History. I hate bloody history.’

Grint stepped back. ‘Bring them up to speed, North.’

‘Yes, sir. Location – the Valley of the Kings. Specifically, the tomb of Tutankhamun. KV62. Discovered almost intact in 1922 by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon.’

People were yawning and nodding. They knew this.

‘The tomb had been robbed on at least two occasions before discovery. We think this is one of those times.’

Someone raised a hand. ‘What has this to do with us?’

‘It’s not contemporaries robbing the tomb. It’s illegals. From our own time.’

‘How do we know this?’

‘Some years ago, we – you – did a good job of bringing down Atticus Wolfe and his criminal empire. The Time Police ended his illegal temporal activities and the civilian police took care of the trafficking, drugs and art forgery side of his business. However, when you take down someone that big, you leave a vacuum. There have been a number of contenders waiting to pick up where he left off and we think that tonight another of them is making his move.

‘Earlier today we received a tip-off that a large and well-equipped team was about to break into Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings. At the time we thought it was nothing more than a spot of temporal vandalism, but it seems we were wrong. Our estimate is that at least two or three pods are out there. The individual signatures are unclear because people are getting better at masking them, which is another sign this is a more professional operation than we first thought.