But you still delivered the death-blow, I thought. ‘Is it true that Casey was working for the Patriots the whole time?’

Wallace nodded. ‘Threatened to. Hand me over. To them. When I said. Didn’t want to. Hurt anyone.’ He swallowed again and made a gulping noise, and I realized he was crying.

‘You told the other Jerry that Casey wanted revenge against the Authority for some reason.’ I took care not to rush my words; Wallace’s eyelids were fluttering as if he was slipping in and out of consciousness.

‘Hacked. Into networks. Found out truth. About retirement.’

‘You mean our retiring to safe alternates?’ I asked, leaning forward.

He nodded. ‘Lies,’ he said. ‘Can’t send us home. They don’t know how to.’ He coughed. ‘The whole time. Bramnik. Mayer. All of them lying.’

I stayed for a while longer to try and get as much as I could out of Wallace until he finally slipped into what might have been deep sleep, or might equally have been a coma. I stared down at his prone form for some time, mulling over everything he had told me, before I finally went to find Chloe. I only stopped when the guard came in, his face twisted into a suspicious scowl, and asked me what the hell was taking so long.

I didn’t argue. I walked past him, pausing only once I was out of the guard’s sight to take off the white coat and dump both it and the clipboard under the desk and out of sight. I retrieved my satchel and made my way downstairs, where I discovered from one of the nurses that Chloe was waiting for me outside.

I stepped into the warm evening air and looked around until I saw her sitting against the wall, arms folded around her knees in a way that made her look much younger than she really was. Her right foot twitched rapidly from the effect of all the amphetamines she’d been taking.

‘Know what the doctor told me?’ she asked when she saw me. ‘Those bastards turned off Wallace’s morphine drip to get him to talk. He said he was surprised we didn’t hear the screaming the whole way across the island.’

‘We’ve still got an hour or so before we meet the others at the Mauna Loa,’ I said. ‘I’d prefer to walk back, if you don’t mind.’

She stood and followed me towards the compound gates, and on towards town. ‘So?’ she asked. ‘What else did Wallace say?’

My head was still spinning with the revelation about retirement. ‘I’ll tell you,’ I said, ‘but you’re not going to like it. Not one little bit.’