Greenbrooke gave an almost Gallic shrug, and leaned back on his stool. I wasn’t fooled. He was acting friendly enough, but there was a hardness in his eyes that didn’t reassure me.

He grinned widely and glanced around at his compatriot, still standing by the door, as if they were sharing a joke. ‘I think you already know, Mr Beche,’ he said, turning back to me and affecting an air of polite confusion.

‘Is this about Barnes?’

Greenbrooke scratched at his cheek and rubbed one hand over his mouth as if about to broach a subject both difficult and embarrassing to him. ‘Well, here’s the thing, Mr Beche. I’ll be honest with you. I hate to drag anyone out of bed first thing, but I really, really want to know why you and Miss Mirkowsky first countermanded a direct order and then, to top it all, assaulted the man who gave you that order.’ Greenbrooke shook his head in wonder. ‘Why did you do that?’

I licked my lips, tasting salt. ‘There were people in trouble,’ I said. ‘And Nadia didn’t want to leave them to die.’

Greenbrooke leaned forward. ‘So you thought you’d endanger your own lives as well.’

I felt my face colour. ‘That isn’t how it was.’

‘Do you mean you were involved in the decision to disobey an order?’

‘What? That isn’t what I said—’

‘Wouldn’t it also be accurate to say,’ Greenbrooke interrupted me, ‘that Nadia Mirkowsky allowed her ungodly and unnatural desire for Miss Ludke to override her duty?’

I struggled to control my temper. Greenbrooke was studying me closely, waiting to see how I would react. I glanced past him, seeing the other agent’s hand creep incrementally closer to the butt of his gun, even as the blood sang in my ears.

‘I think,’ I said, as evenly as I could manage, ‘that her sexual preferences don’t really come into it at all.’

‘Even worse,’ Greenbrooke continued as if he hadn’t even heard me, ‘she assaulted a senior member of the Authority’s staff. You could have apprehended her at the time, or gone to Commander Barnes’ aid. Why didn’t you?’

My temper finally won. ‘Barnes,’ I said through gritted teeth, ‘was a fucking asshole.’

Greenbrooke leaned back again, with an expression of quiet triumph. ‘On the contrary, Mr Beche, he was trying to do his job, which is organized according to a set of strict regulations that exist – let me assure you – for very good reasons. The fact you did nothing to stop her or defuse the situation makes you, in my eyes, equally responsible.’

‘He was goading her!’ I shouted, even though I knew I was being deliberately provoked. ‘I haven’t known Nadia long, but she’s one of the bravest people I’ve ever met. She risked her neck to save three people’s lives.’