The office was done out in mid-century modern. There was a variety of cakes laid out on a wooden serving trolley with breads and croissants on the shelf beneath. Charlie went for a frosted lime muffin as Mango buzzed her assistant and asked for a pot of tea and two cups.

‘This tastes so good,’ Charlie said, as she bit the muffin and got moist lime sponge and tart raspberry cheesecake frosting. ‘It’s so fresh it’s still warm.’

‘I have to say I’m confused,’ Mango told Charlie as a bearded man put down a pot and two cups with saucers. Then to the assistant, ‘Close the door on the way out.’

There was something a touch sinister about the door closing, and the clack of a spoon as Mango stirred the teapot.

‘What’s confusing?’ Charlie asked, the tea and cakes making her feel British.

‘Your ingenuity reminds me of a younger version of myself,’ Mango began. ‘After I got home, I sat in bed reading a bunch of old news articles about the Rock Spring High bombing.

‘Some things didn’t make much sense. For instance, why would a smart individual like you make a bomb, but make no attempt to destroy the explosive residue or hide the rest of the explosives? And why bother slashing someone’s tires to make them late for school, so that you – a smallish thirteen-year-old – can sneak into a high school and place explosives inside a locker …’

Charlie finished Mango’s thought. ‘Why plant the bomb in Deion’s locker in a busy high school hallway with CCTV cameras, when it would have been easier to place a bomb under his car?’

Mango shook her head. ‘You got framed?’

Charlie was so used to not being able to protest that she shuddered and went on a tangent. ‘You said the FBI busted you for hacking. So, you know how it is: they put you in a room. You’ve hardly slept. You’re scared witless. Then they tell you you’ll get two years if you confess, and thirty if it goes to trial.’

Mango looked slightly tearful. Charlie was impressed by Mango’s intelligence and liked having one more person in the world who didn’t believe she’d half burnt two people to death.

‘The Janssens?’ Mango asked.

‘Who else,’ Charlie said. ‘My friend Harry – the skinny guy you saw me with at Makers Yard on Saturday – wants to go after them. I just want to put the crap behind me and start fresh.’

‘My wife, Veryan, and I started Radical Cake Collective in a unit in one of the Janssens’ strip malls,’ Mango explained. ‘Their property manager was awful. Extra charges for lighting improvements that didn’t happen, a leaky roof that damaged a four-thousand-dollar oven, cockroaches and mice coming through from the unlet unit next door.