Across the space-folding threshold, in the bright, rain-swept streets of Harrowby, the three specialists were managing the domestic consequences of their unusual second careers. It was five in the evening in Yorkshire, and the tea kettles were boiling in three terraced houses.
At the Dima home on Railway Terrace, Jo was packing her daughter Elsie’s school satchel while talking across the kitchen table to her neighbor Martin. ‘I have to take a ninety-minute overtime shift tomorrow afternoon, Martin,’ Jo said. He set a tin of biscuits on the table. ‘If I’m not back by four, can you pick Elsie up from the main school and give her tea with your lads?’
‘Not a problem, Jo,’ Martin replied, checking his pocket diary. ‘Herbie has football practice anyway. But what’s this overtime, then? Is the council finally paying penalty rates for that under-road drain job?’
‘Triple time,’ Jo said with a wry smile, tapping the heavy silver coin sitting on the mantelpiece. A coin that Tamsin at the university lab had valued at nearly eighty pounds in pure antique bullion. ‘And no foreman breathing down my neck. Just an honest crew who knows how to say thank you.’
Two streets away, Imran Bell was sitting in the cab of Sal’s delivery van. It looked over his laptop tracking data screen. ‘I’ll need to drop off the courier route for two hours tomorrow, Sal,’ Imran explained, showing him the compensation voucher. ‘I’m paying you fifty quid out of my own pocket to take…
