‘I’m curious about what you hoped to achieve,’ said Blackstone. ‘Does the President imagine I would submit to the indignity of being hauled up for impeachment on the basis of a couple of files illegally removed from my assistant’s office? Nothing you have on that device of yours is admissible in anything even resembling a court. What did you hope to achieve?’

On her phone. Blackstone thought the data was still on her phone.

‘Just the truth,’ she replied.

‘Hell’s bells, we can stop looking for the cat, Governor,’ quipped McCutcheon. ‘It doesn’t have her tongue after all.’

‘The truth is negotiable, Miss Monroe, easily moulded, pliable. Like the ballistics gel you used to defeat our fingerprint scanner. The truth can be shaped to take whatever form we need it to take.’

‘Did that little pecker-head send you down here because he’s still got his panties bunched up about the homesteaders?’ Blackstone asked. He took a sip of his warm milk. It left a noticeable milk moustache behind in the hairs of his actual beard. He sucked at them, a disconcerting sight.

‘I am sure the President would want to know why his homesteaders were being attacked, Governor, when yours weren’t. And why only some of the Mandate settlements were targeted by road agents.’

The aide answered this one. ‘Well duh, because we don’t want a lot of sand niggers, and wet-backs and crazy fucking worshippers of the six-armed elephant God moving in here and fucking everything up for us. Didn’t we make that obvious?’

Blackstone lowered himself into an armchair. ‘God dammit, Ty, I thought we made it obvious to everyone,’ he said with a grunt as he sat down. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Agent Monroe. I’m not one of these cranks who thinks the Disappearance was the vengeance of God laid upon us for our wicked, wicked ways. I have no idea what it was. Could’ve been a bunch of alien space bats throwing a big butterfly net over us to scoop up our souls and blend them into a really tasty breakfast shake. Who would know?’

Caitlin shifted slowly from foot to foot, working through an imperceptible series of isometric exercises to keep herself warmed up and ready to explode if and when she had the chance.

‘But I am a crank about some things,’ Blackstone continued. ‘About culture, for one thing. Not race, as everyone imagines. You all assume I’m some sort of racist, when I’m not. Allow me to make myself crystal clear, young lady. Race is a myth. It does not exist. Black, white, red, yellow, slant-eyed, nappy-haired, hook-nosed or whatever, we are all brothers under the skin. I really believe that.’