He thought it over, drumming his fingers on the desk, before seemingly coming to the conclusion that it was at least worth considering. ‘Wait here.’ He left the room and locked it from the outside. There was a window with wire mesh over it, and I looked out to the street. People on the other side of the road stared up at the edifice, not seeing me. I knew everything that they were thinking, though.

Somehow I felt that I was betraying Tibbot by keeping all of this from him; but he really was better off not knowing. Good, sad Frank Tibbot could go back to his quiet life and retire, never having got revenge for his daughter’s death, but all the safer for it. And I felt sorry for Rachel too. Like the dissidents, she had been dragged to an insane asylum to keep her quiet. No one listens to the mad.

I sat there for more than an hour, hearing that harsh building’s distant sounds, until, finally, I heard a key rattle in the lock. Grest came back into the room, carrying a folder of documents. ‘Your husband will be released,’ he said.

I gasped. The joy I felt was as if I were the one being pardoned from a death sentence, not him. ‘When?’ I asked, jumping up.

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Why not today?’

He snorted. ‘There was a set-to with one of our guards. Stupid, really. Especially when Hopkins broke his wrist in return.’

I was secretly a little proud of Nick. ‘But what’s that got to do with releasing him?’

‘You don’t understand how this works, do you? If he had just kept a hold of himself, I could have been able to get him out today. But Hopkins might object if your husband walks out of here without a bit of a stay in the cells to teach him a lesson. You don’t want to draw any undue attention right now.’

‘Will he be all right? You need him too.’

‘Hopkins and a couple of the others will stop by to make him understand. Nothing too serious. I’ll make sure he can stand at the end of it.’ I felt something harden in the pit of my stomach. ‘Now go home. You’ll see him tomorrow.’ He opened the door for me. ‘By the way’ – he checked one of the documents he was carrying – ‘it’s not really “Lorelei”. It’s “Anne”. “Anne Addington”. It seems she changed it.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘No.’ I wondered how many conversations like this had taken place there. Deals done. He examined me for a long time. I started to feel nervous again. ‘Some of my colleagues,’ he said. ‘They hate people like you. Doctors, their wives.’ We waited like that for a while before he gestured to the exit.