The level of noise rose abruptly once more. I glanced at Selwyn, red faced and shouting his anger almost as loudly as everyone else combined.

‘—but it’s not very likely things will get that far,’ Mayer screamed over the din, ‘as long as you all fucking cooperate!’

‘Casey is right,’ said Rozalia, stepping forward and confronting Mayer with folded arms. ‘I can’t imagine anything more cynical and underhand than what Greenbrooke is doing. If I didn’t like him before, I like him even less now.’

‘Well,’ said Mayer, ‘if Mort Bramnik hadn’t intervened personally, things would be a lot worse than they already are, believe me.’ He looked around us all. ‘There’d already be an island-wide lockdown and a permanent curfew, and not just for the duration of the investigation. My advice is, let the agents do their jobs, and then we can get back to normal faster.’

‘And what if they decide they want to talk to us?’ asked Casey, stepping up beside Rozalia. ‘There isn’t any one of us who doesn’t know what those fucking assholes did to Wallace.’ I glanced over, seeing Wallace sitting quietly in one corner, his face expressionless as he rolled a glass of whisky betwen his hands. ‘Is that the kind of treatment we can expect?’

‘We’re going to monitor the entire process of the investigation,’ said Mayer, before the level of noise could rise again. ‘If any of you do get interviewed, I’ll be in the room with you at all times. That’s my promise.’

‘What’s going on, Kip?’ Rozalia demanded. ‘Why is Mort sending you down here to talk to us, instead of coming here himself?’

‘Yeah,’ said Casey. ‘He’s hardly been seen in weeks, but Greenbrooke seems to be around all the damn time. People are going to start wondering if Bramnik’s ever coming back.’

‘He’s back home right now,’ Mayer explained, ‘on our own alternate, and taking care of business the same as always. Believe me, nothing’s changed, and nothing is going to change.’

‘Fuck this,’ said Casey, stalking past Mayer and towards the door. He paused there and looked back at the rest of us. ‘All this is total horse shit. There’s some underhand stuff going on here they’re not telling us about – some cloak-and-dagger crap back wherever the hell it is the Authority come from.’ He pointed his finger at Mayer. ‘So you listen to me. Any one of those sons of bitches comes anywhere near me, and I swear I’ll kill them first.’

‘If the Patriots want to talk to you, Casey,’ said Mayer, his voice level, ‘you’re going to cooperate, just the same as the rest of us.’