‘Hunter buying and owning publicly available material is not going to get him a one-way trip on Rendition Airlines. That’s all open-source information.’ George avoids calling Zac by his first name. He is Hunter, or your former partner, or Frederick Veliko’s ex-brother-in-law. Jane, on the other hand, is Jane.

I think some more about Zac’s passion for this subject. Is it akin to my own secret obsession with anything I can find about babies who supposedly died but in reality were stolen, then given or sold to someone else? I found cases of babies who were swapped at birth, so the mothers were told their babies had died but they hadn’t. Such things have happened.

George continues. ‘Hunter needed to understand the risks and nature of what he was involved in as deeply as he could without getting in trouble, without touching anything that was directly incriminating.’

‘One man’s cyber-terrorism is another man’s heroics.’ That was something Zac said to me once, but I don’t attribute the quote.

‘True.’ George pats the empty space beside him on the step, inviting me to sit. ‘Do you want me to tell you more about Veliko?’

I nod. My legs are wobbling. I quietly lower myself beside George, and notice that his cheeks redden. I’m careful to keep half a metre between us.

‘Veliko’s professional career was similar to Snowden’s, but he’s much more skilled. He was a senior advisor for the CIA with privileged access. They farmed him out as a telecommunications systems officer for private companies. What the companies didn’t know was that he was embedding the work he did with mechanisms for harvesting all that data. Think about the things you do every day, Helen.’ George has the excitement of a man who has discovered the key to immortality. ‘Your texts and emails, the websites you visit, your bank passwords and records, the videos you watch, the books you read, the Internet searches you make, everyone you communicate with, the communications themselves. All of these things are stored and searchable, so you can be tracked in real time.’

‘Without a warrant, George. Without cause. Without my consent.’

‘Yes.’

‘For our governments to do that is criminal. Snowden thought that too – that’s why he leaked that data and told us what they were doing. Presumably Frederick Veliko felt the same. Though you clearly think it’s a good thing for every person on the planet to be under constant surveillance.’

‘I think it’s a complex thing.’

‘A necessary evil. Is that what you’d say?’

‘Yes, if you like.’