Sentence The Fourhundredandthirtythird 

The flushed and fierce WPC Isa Urquhart stormed out of her meeting with DCI Bruce Bruse and DI Gordon Brevity, flounced into the canteen, where Jasmine Juniper-Green and Sam Smiles were on their third cups of coffee, threw herself into a chair at their table, picked up the nearest mug of Latte and downed it one, before turning to focus her gimlet eye on Smiles and, pointing her finger at his face said: “you'd better talk, Sunny Jim, make it snappy and tell it true, because I have just about had it up to here with all this tohubohu shit about my cousin and mentee being on a 'Special Secret Mission' authorised by the Chief Constable' and want to know everything that's going on and I don't give a flying fuck about the Official Secrets Act – I signed it when I joined the rozzers, just like you and everyone else and I'm a Black Belt in The Glasgow Kiss so, if you don't want to go home with

yer Grecian I suppose plastered right across yer fizzog like a rotten tomato, quit feigning ignorance and man up!” and that's exactly what he proceeded to do, as the sweat trickled down his collar and he could feel Isa's fury envelop him, until she suddenly said: “whoa there, China, back a couple of steps, how exactly do you know where Gertie and Pan are? how exactly do you know where Tavish, Tammy and Bernie are? and how exactly do you know who is in the House on The Hill?” at which point Smiles glanced desperately at Jasmine who said: “Isa, the bottom line is that no-one really knows where any of them are, right now, because they are in parallel universes, on different planes and in different Time Zones, and we don't know enough about the drug Pantagruel was using – how strong, how often, how frequent, or whether there might be an element of tachyphylaxis which could mean that Pan having used it before, could have reduced it's effectiveness, and so might be in a different place from Gertie, who has only – and accidentally – been injected once, and the only things we have to work with are diaries and letters which have been passed down through the decades and centuries and are being patiently and carefully examined and decoded to enable us to tell where they were – so as far as right now goes, we don't have a clue: particularly about Pan and Gertie, they have only just disappeared, we have only just now discovered their diaries, in the Imperial War Museum Archives,

but the information from the 13^th Century is very particular and precise and we have a detailed account, written by Tavish in 1265, which states clearly the names of several individuals who are at Hill House right now, and that is because they had been in the caves with the Americans and had escaped when the Big Bang Banged and the account is very precise about that, and an Armed Response Team has been mobilised and is taking up position around the House as we speak; this is very hush-hush because two of those individuals, according to Tavish's account, which is based on the recollections of a Romanian girl, Lolly, and her grasp of a strange language, but diligent work by the Priest in Stow at the time, Father Boisel, has been extraordinary in helping her recover suppressed

memories and translate them through Romanian back into English: the man is a Saint in my book, are Police Scotland Officers, who may be monitoring our radio traffic, so everything is off-radar and making use of back-channels, so that is why you have been given no details so far – not because you are a suspect, but because you are so emotionally involved and have to be kept behind the lines, for your own safety, and to prevent you rushing in like a hoon and beating them all to pulp – which I think I can safely say, is what all of us would like to do: but we must stick to protocols for if we catch these guys, and rescue the kids they are abusing, and want to make the charges stick, this has to be done strictly by the book!” and Isa suddenly felt utterly deflated, hung her head, chin on chest and simple said: “Fuck Me!”