JC looked around the room, from wall to wall. As far as he could make out, there was no obvious progression, from past to present. No obvious pattern or design to the layout. Except that they were always in different places every time he visited. JC was convinced the portraits changed their positions all the time, when no-one was looking. Possibly fighting out savage alpha-dominance clashes, like antlered stags butting heads, for superior position or prominence. JC decided that coming up with ideas like that was a sign he’d been sitting there far too long.
JC and Melody and Happy sat side by side, hiding their impatience as best they could because it didn’t do to show weakness in the face of the enemy. Melody was playing a game of Angry Chavs on her phone. Happy was scribbling frantically in his private note-book, trying to get down everything he’d seen and heard and read in the Secret Libraries before he forgot it. So he could go on all his favourite conspiracy sites, boast of his new knowledge, and win all the arguments. Or at the very least, start a few new ones.
JC looked thoughtfully at the heavily reinforced steel door at the back of the Waiting Room. The only entrance to Catherine Latimer’s personal and very private office. The door was tall and broad and looked solid enough to stop a tank moving at speed. Happy had studied the door once, with his Sight cranked all the way open, and had to be carried out of the Waiting Room crying, with a headache that lasted for days. The Boss’s office was protected on levels that didn’t even bear thinking about.
The most obvious line of defence was Catherine Latimer’s private secretary, Heather. Who sat happily at her desk, day in and day out, typing away and running interference for the Boss, so the rest of the world didn’t bother her unnecessarily.
Heather was already there on duty when the three field agents arrived and gave every indication of having been there for some time, despite the early hour of the morning. She was always just Heather; if she had a surname, no-one knew, for security reasons. Or possibly because she liked messing with people’s heads. JC sometimes wondered if she ever went home.
Heather was a calm, easy-going, professional type, pleasantly pretty in a blonde, curly-haired, round-faced way. She dressed neatly rather than fashionably and looked like she would have trouble bench-pressing a bench. But you could only get to the Boss if you could get past Heather; and that didn’t happen. Heather was rumoured to be the most heavily armed person in the entire building, which took some doing, and more than ready to use excessive force on anyone who gave her any lip. Or tried to get past her without an appointment. As far as JC could see, she only ever stopped typing to ceremonially move a piece of paper from the in-tray to the out-tray. JC had never seen either of the trays empty.
Melody looked up from her game abruptly to glare at JC. “Correct me if I’m wrong, which I’m not, but we are an A team these days, aren’t we? One of the most successful field teams in the entire Carnacki Institute? Then why are we being kept waiting out here like errant schoolchildren summoned to see the Headmistress?”
“We are here because the Boss wants us here,” said JC. “And we are sitting patiently and very definitely not complaining because the Boss is Catherine Latimer. Voted most scary person in the entire world seventeen years running by anyone who knows anything about anything.” He looked across at Heather. “You work with the Boss every day, Heather. Do you find her scary?”
“Hell yes,” said Heather, not looking up from her typing.
Melody sniffed loudly and gave JC her best meaningful stare. JC sighed, inwardly. He knew it wasn’t going to do any good, but sometimes you had to do things anyway, to keep your team quiet. He gave Heather his best ingratiating smile.
“You’re looking very yourself today, Heather. Is that a new hairstyle? And wonderfully efficient, as always.”
“Don’t waste your famous charm on me, JC,” said Heather, still not looking up from what she was doing. “It’s no use asking me about anything because I don’t know anything.”
“Not even a hint as to what’s going on?” said JC. “For old times’ sake?”
“What old times?” said Heather.
“How soon they forget,” said JC.
Happy looked up from his scribbling. “You must know something, Heather. You run the Boss’s appointments book. Can’t you at least tell us what kind of mood she’s in? Are we in trouble? Answer the second question first.”
“She’ll tell you herself,” said Heather. “When she’s ready.”
And then she stopped typing and turned around in her chair to look at them thoughtfully, catching them all by surprise.
“I did hear,” she said, “that Kim is back.”
“Yes,” said JC. “She is.”
Heather waited a moment, until it became clear JC wasn’t going to say anything else. “Then why isn’t she here with you?”
“Sorry,” said JC. “That’s strictly need-to-know.”
Heather gave him a long, hard look and turned her attention to Happy. “I did also hear that you are back on the mother’s little helpers again.”
“You leave him alone!” Melody said immediately.
“It’s all right, Melody,” said Happy. “I can look after myself.” He smiled easily at Heather. “You do realise, I could slip absolutely anything into your coffee mug. And you’d never know until it was far too late.”
Heather looked at him coldly and moved her coffee mug to the other side of her desk.
They all looked round as the outer door flew open, and a thoroughly annoyed middle-aged man in a very expensive three-piece suit burst in. He stomped over to Heather’s desk and scowled at her, conspicuously ignoring the three waiting field agents. He had the look of a man who had lunched not wisely but too well, on many occasions, and for some reason had stretched his remaining thinning hair across his bald pate in a tragically unconvincing comb-over. His face was flushed, his eyes were blazing, and he had a mean, pinched little mouth. He planted both hands on Heather’s desk, so he could lean forward and glare right into her face.
“I am the newly appointed Minister for Supernatural Affairs!” he said loudly. “As in appointed first thing this morning! I didn’t even know we had a Ministry for Supernatural Affairs! I was promised Education, or Health, one of the big sexy top jobs, come the next reshuffle of the Cabinet. And this is what I get! Well, if the Prime Minister thinks he can shut me up by pushing me out into the backwaters, he’s got another think coming! I know how to get noticed. . If I have to run this half-baked Ministry, whatever it is, I will put my personal stamp on things! Oh yes. . I’ll reorganise this place till people’s heads spin and get everyone doing things my way! Till they’re afraid to do anything without checking with me first! I demand to see Catherine Latimer, right now, so she can brief me. And so I can brief her on all the changes that will be taking place around here!”
Heather smiled at him, politely, not budging an inch. “Do you have an appointment?”
“I don’t need an appointment! I am the newly appointed Minister, and I am in charge of this. . Department, or whatever it is.”
“No, Minister,” said Heather. “You answer to Catherine Latimer, not the other way round. It’s a common misconception, among the newly appointed. The Boss will call you in when she needs to speak to you. Go back to your office and wait.”
“Now you listen to me, young lady, this is precisely the sort of attitude I intend to put a stop to!” The Minister’s voice was rising sharply now. “All Departments in this Government answer to the Ministers of the elected Government, not to some jumped-up civil servant!”
“Not here,” said Heather. “The Carnacki Institute was founded on the orders of Her Most Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth I, in 1587. So we are therefore a Royal Prerogative, and not a Government Department. Which is why we’re situated here, in Buck House. Strictly speaking, we answer to the sitting Monarch, not the Prime Minister. Because all successive Governments have preferred it that way. Don’t ask; don’t want to know. Your Prime Minister really doesn’t like you any longer, does he? Or he would have warned you. .”