‘Don’t worry,’ Jez sings. ‘She’s not cross with you. She gets it that you can’t be around her all the time. I’m going in the morning, anyway. Just need to finish knitting socks for my dog. You can’t access Spacetime past the hospital firewall, by the way.’

‘Yeah, I saw the signs. Thanks.’

I make tea. They won’t let me into the hospital in the middle of the night, but the sooner I get this over with, the better. Not only do I have to tell O that her sister has killed a man, but it’s possible that someone is using the same technology to come after O as well. Something as simple as a brief faint could be a serious thing if she hit her head on the way down.

Still. Clearly, O has been anticipating something. She put Stack on my tail and if Lorraine was here, then O has mobilized her resources to protect herself. But what does O actually know that she’s not telling me?

I’m working on answering client messages and trying to figure out my schedule when the outside buzzer for the flat goes. The video link shows a woman in trackies and a hijab carrying a big paper bag. Meera Bhango looks up at the camera and waves.

‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you and I ended up speaking with Olivia this afternoon,’ she tells me after she’s run up the stairs. She’s not even winded. ‘She told me you’d been tied up all day. As soon as I saw you’d received my message, I came over.’

‘But it’s almost three o’clock in the morning.’

‘I know, and I won’t stay long. I wanted to speak with you in person.’

The paper bag turns out to be a takeaway from the 24-hour Malaysian restaurant a few blocks away. She has even brought tea.

As we tuck in, she says, ‘I know it’s weird for me to just show up here. It’s a long story, but my company is involved in an ugly litigation with BigSky and I don’t really trust any digital form of communication. That’s why I suggested meeting in person. But you didn’t show up.’

‘I’m sorry about that.’

‘It’s OK, I got your message. Today when Olivia told me that this flat is secure, I thought it would be best if we just spoke here.’

‘What’s the litigation about?’

‘Oh, it’s intellectual property. You know my colleague Bernard? I’m not sure if anybody told you, but he brought research from BigSky to Little Bird and the solicitors are fighting over whether all of his work belongs to BigSky or only some of it. And now that he’s dead, it’s even more complicated because nobody can find a will. I hope this doesn’t sound too cloak-and-dagger.’