She leaned forward, putting her mouth close to my ear. ‘I have no doubt now that Wallace had a hand in murdering Nadia. There’s every reason to believe he also helped to murder the first Jerry. That’s almost like he murdered you. Or did you forget?’

‘We should try and find Mayer,’ I said, trying to change the subject. ‘We can show him what we found. He can help protect us from the Patriots once we’ve explained everything.’

‘Maybe we should find out just what happened here before we do anything at all,’ said Chloe. She nodded towards the other Pathfinders. ‘One of the others might have seen Casey around.’

‘Yeah,’ said Rozalia, her voice full of venom. ‘The more of us out looking for that son of a bitch, the sooner we can kill him.’

From the sound of her voice, I had little doubt that Rozalia would try and kill Casey at the first opportunity.

Winifred Quaker stepped away from the other Pathfinders and came towards us. ‘Oh, thank God you’re here,’ she said, her thin arms wrapped around her chest as if to ward off cold, even though it was showing every sign of being a warm day. ‘Yuichi and Selwyn went around to your houses to see if you were there, and when they couldn’t find you we started to get worried that something might have happened to you.’

‘What exactly did happen?’ I asked.

She looked over at the charred ruins of the house and shook her head. ‘I guess it’s not hard to figure out, really. I woke up when I smelled the smoke. It’s everywhere, you know? It’ll be weeks before the stink is gone. You should have seen the flames.’

‘Hell of a way to die,’ I muttered, thinking of the lava licking its way towards me, down in the deep vaults of a dead world.

She darted a look at me. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t explain properly. Wallace is still alive.’

‘He is?’ I exclaimed, getting out of the jeep and stepping closer to her. I still had my satchel slung over one shoulder, my oilskin-wrapped treasure within. ‘Where is he?’

‘They took him to the base compound, to the hospital there,’ she said. Chloe and Rozalia had joined me beside the jeep. ‘Selwyn and Randall were the first on the scene, and they managed to fight their way inside to him. They’ve both got a couple of minor burns, but nothing serious. Wallace, though . . .’ She shook her head.

‘Go on,’ Chloe prompted.

‘He’s alive,’ said Winifred. ‘But I don’t know if he’s going to stay that way for long. I think he inhaled too much smoke.’