Ros Myers looked up as Lucas North came onto the Grid. “We were expecting you back ages ago,” she said. “What kept you? Oh, and I should warn you, Harry’s on the war path.”

Harry Pearce had also heard Lucas arrive and stormed out of his office. “What have you done this time?” he demanded. He paused and inspected Lucas critically. “And where’s Adam? He’s not been shot, has he? I’ve just been speaking to a very irate gentleman who alleges you deliberately wrecked his shop. He did also mention something about a bullet hole in the window.”

“Adam’s okay,” Lucas replied. “He’s in the gents, trying to make himself a bit more presentable. He did look in a bit of a sorry state and he thought you’d rather he cleaned up before he came in.”

“And why is the irate shopkeeper phoning me?”

“He was demanding compensation and I thought it would be the least awkward way to get it cleared up. Well and cleaned up.”

At that moment Adam Carter came onto the Grid and Harry turned his glare onto him. “If you call that cleaned up, I dread to think what you looked like before. What happened?”

“You know we’ve been suspicious of Charles Jenkins for a while,” Adam said. “We spotted him go into the shop; it’s one of those which sells all sorts of things at cut prices. So we followed him in, thinking he might lead us to a dead letter drop. What we hadn’t realised was that he was meeting his handler in there. The handler was a pro and recognised me. He also saw Lucas on the far side of the shop. Not wanting to be trapped by us, he pushed one of the shelving units towards me, causing some of the contents to fall down, with the majority, it seemed, falling onto me.”

“The handler then legged it,” Lucas added, “but fired a shot through one of the shop windows. He wasn’t anywhere near hitting anyone, I think it was just to dissuade potential followers.” He grinned. “I went to help Adam, who wasn’t really injured, but what had fallen off the shelf were a number of kid’s ready-mix paint bottles, which had been followed by a couple of heavy boxes which landed on top of the bottles, causing the paint to squirt everywhere. He looked rather as if he’d had a multi-coloured shower.”

Harry seemed about to explode, but was distracted by his phone ringing. He went to answer it and returned a few minutes later looking much happier. “That was a section head from the Treasury, demanding to know why one of his members of staff, a Mr Jenkins, was covered in blue paint and what I was going to do about it. I told him I wasn’t sorry at all, and that I would be sending over two of my people to have a word with his colleague, so to make sure he didn’t leave their department. So, Ros and Jo, go and have a chat with the blue man, and Adam and Lucas, get your reports written up and then, unless I can think of a role for a couple of painters and decorators, you can go home.”

Harry returned to his office, singing, “I’m blue, da ba dee, da ba di.”