‘Take her shoes, her bag, Anette,’ the American was saying. ‘Wrap them up in this.’

Anette did, gathering Olivia’s belongings and wrapping them in her satin shawl. Martin, Curtis and the American dragged Olivia into the woods. Audrey sat in the passenger seat, looking at her nails, muttering, ‘God, can you hurry up. It’s cold.’

Anette glanced between the receding men and the woman in the car, caught in two minds, the bundle in her arms like a dead baby.

‘Are you just going to stand there and watch?’

Blackness. Only the spotlight over Rashida, frozen in an unnatural contortion in her window. Gradually, the light over Rashida faded, leaving the room in darkness for a few seconds, before a spattering of tentative clapping became a torrent of applause punctuated by excited, relieved whoops. The audience rediscovered their voices, nervous chatter at first and then becoming more relaxed as the dining hall’s regular lighting came up again.

Rashida was gone and the tables cleared – dinner was over. The guests picked up their glasses and started to wander off to find their next scene.

Petra turned to find Ellis, but he had disappeared too. Shaken, she made her way back up to the Club Room, and found Olivia in her chair, her legs curled under her, waiting.

‘It’s a horrible story.’ She recited the lines she’d prepared on the way up. ‘If you felt that way when you were young, if those men were arseholes to you and Rashida, I’m truly sorry.’ It was obvious the death and the burial scene was a metaphor of some sort. Olivia wasn’t dead of an overdose and buried in the woods; she was sitting right here. Olivia didn’t expect her to believe it really played out like that. What she’d seen was just a show, an allegory. ‘There’s something I need to know, Olivia.’ Petra sat so that she could look Olivia straight in the eyes. ‘Will you tell me the truth?’

Olivia offered a half-shrug, a half-nod. ‘Go ahead.’ Petra knew it was the most she was going to get.

‘Have you and Rashida… caused the death of someone with every Metamuse season? Someone who was at the original Fallout Ball? Was Rose Devriendt right?’

‘In many respects,’ Olivia said. ‘She was an astute journalist. She had a history in immersive theatre, so she understood. She could cut through the effects and access the emotional intentions.’

‘But she didn’t understand everything?’

‘She didn’t recognise what motivated me to come back to life, if you can call it that. She didn’t understand that all I wanted was to avenge Rashida. I had given up; I was in limbo, waiting for her. Because of what they did to her, she had to live a long, painful, constrained life, and when she died four years ago she came back to me. We loved each other, you know?’