Mango never sees patients directly, but made an exception for me as we have known each other for many years. Mango was keen to impress me and often boasted that she has modded famous film and TV personalities …

Harry was disappointed that there were no celebrity names, because that would be enough to make this a national story. The next couple of pages were dry, with long-winded details about how long Mango, Veryan and Helen had known one another, and a long list of details on dates when they’d met, both socially and for Helen’s treatment.

But Harry gawped when he read the last section, right before the box where Helen Back was supposed to sign her name.

In response to Agent Sander’s final question regarding my knowledge of any other persons connected to, or working for, the organisation: last February I attended a children’s birthday party at Mango and Veryan’s home.

Their son Josh seemed fond of a girl in her late teens, who I assumed was a local babysitter. I did not speak to the girl, but later that evening Mango had drunk a lot and told me in confidence that the girl was her ‘brilliant little lab rat’, and was responsible for the lab work on all of my genetic modifications.

I did not catch the girl’s last name, but her first name was Charlie. As always, Mango seemed keen to impress and boasted that Charlie was ‘a bad girl, who had done time in White Boulder’.

47 TEAM MANGO

Charlie was sprawled on a wrecked couch, watching her two foster brothers playing a basketball game on their Xbox when her foster father Navid called from the kitchen.

‘The British prime minister is about to make a statement.’

Charlie moved a bowl of M&Ms from her lap to a side table and hopped to the kitchen. Her step-parents sat at the dining table, looking worried as the screen on the refrigerator door showed Prime Minister Lawrence stepping up to a lectern outside 10 Downing Street.

It was past midnight in London, the weather was drizzly and dozens of cameras flashed as Lawrence spoke from behind an acrylic quarantine screen, while an aide sheltered him with a large umbrella.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, the past week has unarguably been the most difficult of my career. I am now able to announce that shortly before 5 a.m. on Thursday a team of SAS soldiers and Special Branch officers raided an address in West London, following a tip-off from a member of the public.

‘Three suspects were arrested, and a female suspect was shot and fatally wounded. The premises contained a laboratory, where we now believe the initial samples of the Killer-T virus were developed before release. Following on from this initial raid, a second home was raided nearby, and two more suspects arrested.