‘Here’s some advice: if you’ve got a secret that you want everyone to know about, confide in a porter. There are just over seventy porters in the sector looking after nearly two hundred Dormitoria, who are now so familiar with Bonanza, Dynasty and Crossroads that they act them out in their spare time for fun. When they’re not doing that, they’re on the Open Network, gossiping, and last night you were the hot topic. Half think that you’re an idiot to kill Ned, as retribution will surely rain upon all our heads, a little under half think that you did the right thing but were out of your tiny stupid mind, and of the remainder, three people couldn’t give a toss so long as Gaer Brills comes last in The Great Albion Sleep Off – and one was convinced that the Gronk has returned to feed on the shame of the unworthy.’

‘Was the last one Jim Treacle?’

‘Good try. No. It was Laura. How can one Novice get into so much trouble so quickly? When I began in the mobile infantry nothing exciting happened to me for weeks.’

‘Then what?’

‘I lost sixty soldiers under my command.’

‘Your fault?’ I asked.

‘No, but they were all my responsibility, so it amounts to the same thing.’

She fell silent and wiped off some condensation that had formed on the interior of her window.

‘Aurora was asking me where Glitzy Tiara and Eddie Tangiers ended up,’ I said. ‘She said she checked the night pit and they weren’t there.’

Jonesy stared at me.

‘They’re in the snow at the back of the car park. I couldn’t be arsed to walk them to the night pit. What does she think I did with them?’

‘She’s of the opinion that you and the Chief are running some sort of farming scam that used to include Logan.’

‘I’m glad you brought that to me,’ she said, after staring at me in silence for a while, ‘and in return, here’s something that might interest you.’

She dug a sheet of notepaper out of her top pocket and passed it across. I read it briefly while driving along. On the paper were six names, but the only one I recognised was Charles Webster.

‘What’s this?’ I asked.

‘I was bored and in the records office. It turns out that Webster wasn’t the only employee from HiberTech who went missing at that time – every single name on that list ended up either redeployed or vanished. And get this: all had been working at the Sleep Sciences Division. Interesting?’

‘Kind of,’ I said. ‘What’s your explanation?’

‘Not sure. A purge, perhaps – they suspected someone of industrial espionage but didn’t know who it was, so went through the lot. I’ll bet good money Hooke was involved.’

‘Why?’

‘You heard Hooke was chucked out of the intelligence services for overenthusiastic interrogation?’

I nodded.