His companion – shorter by a foot – had, by contrast, a round babyish face partly hidden behind a thick scraggly beard, and a black T-shirt displaying some obscure hacker in-joke. He said something briefly to his taller companion, then leaned down and began sorting through the box’s contents, pulling out pieces of rods and things that looked like coloured lenses.

The hacker-type dude turned towards us as we approached, and quietly said something to his friend. The latter’s shoulders tensed in the moment before he turned to greet us.

‘Casey,’ Nadia addressed the taller of the two. ‘I want you to meet Jerry, our new recruit.’

‘Mr Beche,’ said Vishnevsky, extending his hand. ‘I’ve been hearing about you.’

‘And this is Wallace Deans,’ Nadia continued, nodding to the shorter man, who wiped his hands on his trousers before taking his turn to shake my hand.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Wallace. I had the sense he was reluctant to speak to me, and he was clearly avoiding eye contact. His fleshy palm felt damp to the touch.

Wallace cleared his throat and turned to Nadia, at the same time reaching into one pocket and extracting an inhaler. He pressed it to his mouth and took a quick hit, then put it away again. ‘If you don’t mind,’ he said, ‘we’re just a little busy at the moment.’

‘I hear you boys are putting on some kind of show,’ said Nadia, with forced levity.

‘You could say that,’ said Casey. He bent to lift out of the box some kind of spherical device, studded with numerous lenses of different sizes and colours, then he let go of it, gritting his teeth in pain.

‘You okay?’ I asked, as Casey reached around to clamp one hand against his lower spine.

‘Sometimes I get a bad back,’ he muttered. ‘Wallace, hand me that thing, would you?’

Wallace picked the device back up and passed it to Casey. ‘Back in a minute,’ Wallace muttered, then disappeared in the direction of the bar.

‘What is that?’ I asked, nodding at the device in Casey’s hand.

‘This?’ said Casey. ‘Wait and see.’ He grinned, though he was clearly still in pain.

Wallace returned moments later with an entire bottle of Yuichi’s home-brewed whisky and a glass, both of which he set on a neighbouring table before pouring what struck me as a remarkably generous measure.

Nadia eyed the bottle. ‘Didn’t you get a warning about drinking too much, Wallace?’

‘I won’t keep it all to myself,’ Wallace replied, draining the glass in one swift motion before as quickly refreshing it.