‘I can’t do anything about that, but perhaps I can ameliorate the pain it causes. Stop off on the way out and I’ll fix you one of my creations.’

‘Creations?’

‘Trust me.’

Josh scribbled me out a visitor’s pass, then had me sign a form on a clipboard as I looked about curiously. There were a few people moving around the corridors, but they walked in an unhurried manner, and no one was talking. Although busy, the facility was eerily silent.

‘Is it usually this quiet?’ I asked.

‘Management think that idle chitter-chatter distracts the mind from creative thought,’ he said, while selecting the best lemon out of a dozen he had below the counter and fetching a food mixer from a cupboard. ‘Do you play Scrabble?’

‘I once laid “Bezique” on the triple for two hundred and twenty-eight points.’

I’d stopped playing soon after. You’d have to, really. Every rack I’d pulled from then on was loaded with crushing disappointment.

‘Wow,’ said Josh, ‘you will so take the pants off us. We meet in the Wincarnis most mornings, between ten and midday. Join us.’

I told him I was leaving on the next train.

‘That’s a shame,’ he said. ‘Well, another time. You can wait in that room over there, and holler if you need anything. Don’t forget to stop by on the way out.’

The waiting room was painted in light hospital green, and contained only unbreakable chairs and faded posters on the wall. The largest was published by OffPop and depicted the twelfth Mrs Nesbit, looking winsome and mumsy and proclaiming that there were ‘cash bonuses for baby production beyond lawful allocation’. More welcoming were a couple of Welsh Tourist Board posters. One was advertising the local area with the now-universal slogan ‘Visit Wales – Not Always Raining’ and the second of Rhosilli beach, the wreck of the Argentinian Queen stranded high on the shore, with the inviting and unassailably true slogan:

There will always be the Gower

There was also the smell of hospitals about the place, a mix of paint, bleach and fresh laundry. I fed Mrs Tiffen two gherkins and a packet of stringy cheese and she began playing ‘Delilah’ again, but more quietly, as though the gravity of the surroundings called for it.

About ten minutes later a woman walked around the corner, deeply absorbed in a report. She had short hair and small, pointed features. Very like Lucy Knapp, which was hardly surprising, as it was Lucy Knapp.

‘Lucy—?’

‘Hey, Charlie,’ she said with a grin, ‘heard you were heading our way.’

I got up and gave her a hug.

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.

‘I’m on placement to the Advanced Redeployment Unit as part of the HiberTech Fast Track Management Scheme. Amazing work they’re doing.’ She looked around. ‘Where’s Chief Consul Logan?’

‘He died. Well, sort of killed, actually – by Aurora.’

‘Really? Why?’

‘He was going to kill me.’