“Trust me, those aren’t working,” said Melody. She glared at him sharply. “I thought we were weaning you off those things. So many pills can’t be good for you. It’s a wonder to me you don’t rattle when you cough.”

“I need a little something, now and again, to help keep me stable,” Happy said defensively. “I’ve got to do something to keep the voices quiet.”

Melody sniffed loudly. “If this is stable, I’d hate to see you when you weren’t. Forget stable, Happy, that horse bolted long ago. Why not settle for coherent?”

“You’re being mean now,” said Happy. “I wonder what these violet ones are for . . . ?”

“You have no idea what half that stuff will do to you, in the long term,” insisted Melody. “Have you even considered the side effects, or the cumulative effects?”

“I read all the little leaflets that come with the pills, very thoroughly,” said Happy.

“Yeah,” said JC. “Looking for loopholes.”

Happy knocked back a yellow and two reds. JC took a purple, just to keep him company.

The intercom on Heather’s desk buzzed officiously. Heather stopped typing to listen to something only she could hear, then nodded briskly to JC, Happy, and Melody.

“In you go, 007, 8, and 9. The Boss is ready to see you now.”

“How come no-one ever asks if we’re ready to see her?” growled Happy. He hiccuped, then smiled suddenly. “Oooh . . . They’re kicking in fast today . . .”

JC and Melody took a firm hold on his arms and headed him towards the heavily reinforced steel door that led to the Boss.

The current Boss of the Carnacki Institute was Catherine Latimer. She sat commandingly behind her Hepplewhite desk, while the three field agents arranged themselves untidily before her. She gestured sharply at the three chairs set out in front of the desk, and the trio immediately sat down, like school pupils called before their headmistress, for crimes not yet made clear. JC and Melody did their best to look contrite; Happy didn’t have the knack.

Catherine Latimer had to be in her late seventies but was still almost unnaturally strong and vital. Medium height, stocky, grey hair cropped short in a bowl cut, her face was all hard edges and cold eyes. She wore a smartly tailored grey suit, without a flash of colour anywhere, and smoked black Turkish cigarettes in a long, ivory holder; an affectation from her student days in Cam-bridge. (There were long-standing rumours that she’d made some kind of Deal with Someone, in her college days, but no-one had ever been able to prove anything.)

Every day she sent agents out on missions that could lead to their deaths, or worse. If it bothered her, she hid it really well. But every agent knew that if they fell in the field, she would move heaven and earth to avenge them.