In all, it took us nearly half an hour to guide Wallace back to his own place. Casey seemed to decide it was his job to take the lead, as if we actually needed him to guide us there. Soon he was barking orders, telling us which way to turn, and I started to realize why Nadia had had such a low opinion of him.

The interior of Wallace Deans’ home resembled nothing so much as a dumping ground for domestic waste. The mess was, frankly, unbelievable.

‘How the hell does anyone live like this?’ I muttered through clenched teeth, once we had manoeuvred Wallace in through his front door. Even the air inside his home made the roof of my mouth itch. The furniture was nearly invisible beneath mounds of discarded clothing and pieces of dirt-stained machinery that sat on random oases of blackened carpet. I glanced through a doorway and saw that every kitchen surface was almost entirely hidden beneath half-gutted computers and other, less familiar pieces of junked technology.

I looked up, seeing a bundle of cables duct-taped to the ceiling. I followed it with my eyes, seeing that it terminated at a cramped table in one corner that supported at least four flat-screen monitors, arranged in haphazard fashion.

There was a constant faint but nonetheless discernible hum of electronics. I noticed that more cables ran across the floor, appearing to originate from several portable battery generators.

I looked at Rozalia, but she just shook her head, her mouth puckered up as if she’d eaten something bad.

By now, Wallace had recovered enough that he could just about put one foot in front of the other without immediately tipping over. We kept a tight grip on him anyway, and under Casey’s droning guidance we guided him up a set of narrow steps and into his bedroom, where we found a mattress covered over with crumpled, greasy-looking sheets.

Wallace managed to get one knee up onto the mattress before tipping face-first onto it. After a moment he started to make a noise that sounded like an aeroplane’s engine cutting out in the moments before it ploughs into the ground. The noise soon steadied, becoming more obviously the sound of a man snoring more loudly than I might otherwise have believed possible.

I looked over at Rozalia on the other side of the bed, and at Casey, who stood near the door. ‘That’s it,’ I said, moving past Casey and towards the door. I had a sudden, desperate need for a shower. ‘I’ve had more than enough for one night.’

‘Not yet,’ said Rozalia. ‘Help me get him on his side. Last thing we need is him drowning in his own vomit.’