‘I saw it. Him, her, whoever it was. It’s at the monastery. I want to go with them.’

‘What?’

‘I want to go with the search party.’

Harriet leant back and crossed her legs, tweaking her cat’s-eye glasses a little further down her nose so she could peer over them. Again, Thea tried to guess her age. She was one of those women who always looked around forty until a mannerism or slight tilt of the head gave them away.

‘I’m afraid I think you’re seeing monsters where there are only shadows, Thea; I really do. I’ve been with this company for a fair few years now and I can truly say that I don’t know where I would be without them. It’s not just a job. It’s a way of life. Staff here are valued, cared about. They are looked after. A company like that is not the wolf at the door you think it is …’ Thea opened her mouth, but Harriet held out her hand, palm up.

She pressed her lips together and smoothed at her hair, glancing around at the tables closest to them and then up at the walkway, like Delores could still be there, hanging from her ankles like a bat, listening in.

She sighed. ‘But … but … if that’s what you want. I’ll do my best. I don’t see the harm in it.’

Harriet had not been in that hospital room with Delores. She had not seen the way the woman had really only been interested in Thea’s answer, not Rosie or her injuries, or how she’d got them.

‘Do you think perhaps you have some trust issues?’ Harriet continued to stare over her glasses.

‘What?’

‘Well, your file. You’re twenty-seven. Father not a part of your life, no real relationships, yet you’re actually quite a good-looking young woman, under that fringe. The only significant relationship you have is with your mother, and she’s a conspiracy theorist—’

‘She’s not!’ Thea thought for a minute. ‘She’s … retired …’

Something was worrying her, but it wasn’t anything to do with trust issues. Over the past week as everyone around her had had their sleep gently massaged by Phase Two of the technology, allowing them to gain blissful extra hours of sleep – Thea hadn’t.

Slept.

At all.

With a suddenness that unnerved her, she had gone from luxuriating in her nearly three hours of sleep only to have it snatched away. No sleep at all, for night after night after night. Her fingernails were sore from trying to prise the discs away from her temples. They hadn’t budged. It was more likely she’d lose a fingernail before she got one of them to move.

Her mind kept trying to sing the same tune, a tra-la-la of ‘everything’s fine, everything’s fine’. But underneath that was another deeper melody, a discordant chord.