Valeria raised his words on her chest and looked around the room, poised to squeeze one more contribution onto the page, but no one had an answer for Giorgio so she took the opportunity to dust her skin with dye and commit the discussion so far to paper.

‘At least the agricultural effects might be positive,’ Eusebio suggested hopefully. ‘If the uncovered crops finally get something close to the old cycle of illumination, that ought to lead to higher yields.’

He looked to Adelmo, but the agronomist spread his hands in a gesture of uncertainty. ‘Gemma’s bright enough to ruin the night, but it might not be bright enough to count as a signal for day.’

Silvio entered the room and spoke privately with Eusebio. Valeria heard a snatch of the conversation, as Eusebio’s voice rose in incredulity. ‘She told them it would happen?’

When the exchange was over, Eusebio looked agitated. ‘The meeting’s adjourned until tomorrow,’ he said. Valeria began gathering her papers, preparing to leave Eusebio huddling with his confidants to discuss Silvio’s news, but to her surprise he walked straight up to her.

‘Could you come with me to the prison?’ he asked.

‘Why?’

Valeria’s look of panic seemed to dispel his disquiet. ‘No one’s arresting you,’ he joked. ‘I just want you to come and talk to someone.’

‘You want me to keep a record?’ She fumbled with her box of dyes.

‘That wouldn’t hurt,’ Eusebio decided. ‘But actually, she asked for you by name.’

‘I’m not the only person in Zeugma with that name.’ Valeria trusted Eusebio not to form unwarranted conclusions, but she didn’t want to be known as having criminal associates.

Eusebio said, ‘She asked for Yalda’s adopted daughter. And she said something about Nereo’s force that the jailers were incapable of conveying precisely. So I’m fairly sure that she did mean you.’

There was nothing unusual about the sight of Zeugma lit by Gemma alone, but Valeria’s body had its own reckoning of the time and the disjunction rendered the streets hallucinatory. She followed Eusebio across the dark cobblestones towards an encounter with a madwoman.

‘She gave her name as Clara,’ Eusebio explained as they walked into the entrance hall. ‘I know everything else has to be nonsense. The guards probably half-remembered what she’d said, and when this bizarre thing happened they reinterpreted her words in the light of it.’

Valeria said nothing; she had no theories.

They sat in an interview room, waiting for Clara to be brought up from the cells. When the guard led her in, a chain looped around her melded arms, Valeria’s skin tingled all over. She’d never set eyes on the woman before, but the prisoner was beaming as if she’d just walked into the presence of two long-lost friends.

Eusebio gestured to Clara that she should take a seat. She complied, and the guard left them.