“That’s very good,” I replied. “SpecOps is always grateful for the contributions, although to be fair there are other divisions worse off than the ChronoGuard.”

“Well, I know,” replied my mother, “but it’s all so secret. What do all of them do?”

“Believe me, I have no more idea than you. Can you pass the fish?”

“There isn’t any fish,” observed my aunt. “You haven’t been using your niece as a guinea pig have you, Crofty?”

My uncle pretended not to hear; I blinked and the fish vanished.

“The only other one I know under SO-20 is SO-6,” added Polly. “That was National Security. We only know that because they all looked after Mycroft so well.”

She nudged him in the ribs but he didn’t notice; he was busy figuring out a recipe for unscrambled eggs on a napkin.

“I don’t suppose a week went by in the sixties when he wasn’t being kidnapped by one foreign power or another,” she sighed wistfully, thinking of the exciting old days with a whiff of nostalgia.

“Some things have to be kept secret for operational purposes,” I recited parrot fashion. “Secrecy is our biggest weapon.”

“I read in The Mole that SpecOps is riddled with secret societies. The Wombats in particular,” murmured Mycroft, placing his completed equation in his jacket pocket. “Is this true?”

I shrugged.

“No more than in any other walk of life, I suppose. I’ve not noticed it myself, but then as a woman I wouldn’t be approached by the Wombats anyway.”

“Seems a bit unfair to me,” said Polly in a tut-tutting voice. “I’m fully in support of secret societies—the more the better— but I think they should be open to everyone, men and women.”

“Men are welcome to it,” I replied. “It means that at least half the population won’t have to make complete idiots of themselves. It surprises me that you haven’t been approached to join, Uncle.”

Mycroft grunted.

“I used to be one at Oxford many years ago. Waste of time. It was all a bit silly; the pouch used to chafe something awful and all that gnawing played hell with my overbite.”

There was a pause.

“Major Phelps is in town,” I said, changing the subject. “I met him on the airship. He’s a colonel now but is still blasting the same old line.”

By an unwritten rule, no one ever spoke of the Crimea or Anton in the house. There was an icy hush.

“Really?” replied my mother with seemingly no emotion.

“Joffy has a parish up at Wanborough these days,” announced Polly, hoping to change the subject. “He’s opened the first GSD church in Wessex. I spoke to him last week; he says that it has been quite popular.”

Joffy was my other brother. He had taken to the faith at an early age and tried all sorts of religions before settling for the GSD.