The two orderlies led Rachel along the corridor with Larren and me walking behind her. ‘Could she have got out of here a couple of days ago?’ I asked. ‘Got to London?’

‘Of course not,’ he replied angrily. I pondered how true that was. Certainly security was tight, but it wasn’t a prison. And people sometimes broke out of those too.

The visiting room was a plain, windowless hole with a single iron-caged electric light, a smell of carbolic soap, and a table and four chairs bolted to the floor. I pitied anyone forced to meet a loved one in such a place. As we entered, Tibbot told Larren to wait outside and we would speak to him later. We sat at the table as Rachel took the chair opposite, with her face down. Tibbot placed a notebook and pencil in front of himself. Habit, I suppose.

‘Hello, Rachel,’ I said. She made no reply. ‘How are you feeling?’

She looked up. ‘Who are you?’ her voice rasped, as if it hadn’t been used for a long time.

‘My name is Jane. Jane Cawson.’

‘Cawson!’ she spat, jumping up and clenching her hands into fists. ‘That bitch!’

‘She doesn’t mean you,’ Tibbot muttered to me, placing his hand on my arm to reassure me that we were safe. ‘She means Lorelei.’

‘Bitch.’ She unclenched her hands, but remained standing over us, bristling with an anger that was all the stronger for having been repressed for years.

‘Why do you say that?’ I asked her, trying to adopt a soothing tone.

‘Why?’

‘Yes.’

She glared at me and pulled back her hair to reveal pale skin, wrinkling and lifeless; and from her left eyebrow up to her hairline, where it disappeared, a thin line of white scar tissue. ‘This. I’ll serve her back.’

‘She’s dead,’ I said.

There was silence, then she sat back down. ‘Dead.’ She sighed heavily. ‘I’m glad.’

‘You’re happy about that?’

‘Yes.’

It was an ugly reaction, but I only needed her to tell me what had happened; her personal feelings weren’t important right then. I checked the door was shut and lowered my voice. ‘Rachel, I’m married to Nick Cawson.’ She narrowed her eyes – it obviously made me untrustworthy, like Lorelei before me. ‘We know you were involved in what she did. We have to know what it was.’ If they really had been involved with a dissident group and crimes of subversion, then he was never coming home; but if it was something else, we might find a way. Rachel just watched us, still wary. ‘We need to know.’

Tibbot spoke in a calm, relaxed voice. He must have been used to these situations. ‘Rachel? Do you understand?’ She nodded carefully. ‘You and Lorelei Addington. Who was directing you?’

‘Directing us.’