‘Partly as I said – you’ve been pushing buttons everywhere. And partly because everything changed when Jane died. Her ex-husband is our last hope now of getting Veliko. But it’s difficult to say whether the fact that he killed Jane is going to make him more or less cooperative. We think he’s been in contact with Veliko again – it started a few months before Jane came to Bath.’ A fourth alternative name for Zac. Jane’s ex-husband.

‘That makes no sense. Whatever you think he did for Frederick Veliko, Zac’s clearly got away with it for a few years. You haven’t been able to prove anything, and I know better than anyone how hard you’ve been trying. So why would Zac take such a risk now? Why would he do something to mess it all up? His killing Jane, that was personal. But getting in touch with her brother again would be too dangerous – Zac isn’t stupid.’

‘He may have felt he had no choice. If Veliko wanted something, and Hunter said no, Veliko could make things extremely unpleasant for him. Once you cross the line as Hunter did, it’s hard to go back. We think the micro SD card you saw in London a couple of years ago was probably from Veliko, and Hunter was part of a chain passing it on.

‘It’s also fair to say that Veliko played on Hunter’s vanity – he’d have made him think they shared the same cause, that he had a unique role to play with his medical background, his understanding of data, his concern with the human condition and bettering it. Hunter’s a real believer, a zealot. Veliko would have seen that. And there are the personal links, the family links with Jane and her brother – we never underestimate those.’

‘So what do they think Jane and Zac did, exactly? Transported data for Frederick, the way Zac did with the micro SD card? Helped him to flee?’

‘Probably both.’

I think some more about Zac’s interest in all this. It is certainly true that he’s so good at surveillance culture he could write his own book on it, but I’d assumed that talent of his for tracking me was an entirely personal one. Something else occurs to me. ‘Could it have been Zac who encouraged the relationship between Jane and her brother? Could he have been the driving force behind whatever help they give Frederick?’

‘That’s something we were trying to establish, but we’ve struggled to find conclusive evidence. Our hope was that Hunter might lead us to Veliko, probably through Jane, possibly directly.’

‘That’s why Maxine recruited me, isn’t it? It’s why you were sent to target me after I moved to Bath.’