Oskar had finally got the dog settled, although she whined and shifted as Nadia reached for the ignition. Something was making the animal nervous, but I was damned if I knew what it was.

‘The murderous asshole tried to kill Lucky,’ said Oskar.

‘That’s not quite how it was,’ said Nadia.

‘He tried to run her over,’ said Oskar, his voice rising in protest.

Nadia leaned towards me as she pulled on her seatbelt. ‘The drunken idiot got behind the wheel of a jeep after a night at the Mauna Loa and nearly hit Lucky.’

‘I noticed he likes a drink,’ I said, then stopped myself adding: and so do the rest of you.

Oskar laughed harshly. ‘You think?’

Casey pulled ahead of us in the SUV we had first arrived in, waving out of the window to us with his battered leather hat.

‘Wallace used to be a more-or-less functional alcoholic,’ said Nadia, echoing my earlier thoughts as she sent the car bouncing over the grass. ‘Although he’s been getting less and less functional with each passing day.’

‘So he’s always been like that?’ I asked.

‘It only really got bad after his arrest,’ said Oskar.

I looked at Nadia for explanation. ‘Some of Greenbrooke’s men caught him smuggling contraband from an alternate we’d been exploring,’ Nadia explained, seeing my expression. ‘They kind of went to town on him.’

I stared at her in surprise. ‘Does that kind of thing happen a lot?’

‘You mean contraband? More than you’d think. Alcohol, cigarettes – just the usual stuff. Anything that’s an improvement on the shit the Authority supply us with.’

‘And does Bramnik know this goes on?’ I asked.

‘Almost certainly,’ said Nadia. ‘Although he seems to prefer to turn a blind eye.’

‘So who gets the contraband?’ I asked. ‘And what does Wallace get back?’

Nadia grinned lasciviously. ‘Let’s just say there’s a couple of women among Bramnik’s staff who don’t mind granting certain favours in return for the right goods.’

‘So Wallace was . . .’

‘Yeah.’ She nodded, then twisted around to regard Oskar. ‘And not just Wallace.’

I glanced back at Oskar and saw the smirk vanish from his face. He peered out of the window as if he had developed a sudden deep fascination with our surroundings.

‘What kind of items?’ I asked.

‘Whisky – certainly not the home-brew variety Yuichi comes up with,’ she said. ‘Cigars, some electronic goods. Stuff like that, all from alternates we’ve been exploring.’

‘But surely they can get those things themselves back on the Authority’s own alternate?’ I asked.

‘Apparently not, if the girls on Bramnik’s staff are prepared to put out for it,’ said Nadia. ‘Makes you wonder just what it’s like over on their own alternate, doesn’t it?’