Properties in Ocean Domaisne, where most of the bankers, brokers and hedge fund managers lived, were said to have halved in value overnight. These expensive properties within the coastal gated community had famously been developed as a commercial enterprise. They were outside the rules and traditions of the feudal system, so were bought and sold freely and profitably on what was described as the open market. However, they also lacked the benign protection of manorial fiefdom, and so were utterly vulnerable to the whims of capitalism. There was no safety net from the seigniory, or from anyone else. They prospered alone, now they impoverished themselves alone.

The financial situation was looking bad in general. I listened closely to the news several times a day.

For now I felt relatively unaffected by the financial collapse. Jo and I discussed it nervously online every evening. We were cautious savers and investors. We had never actually owned much of value, so we habitually invested whatever spare money we had in fringe banks and small savings accounts. Most of these were linked to environmental schemes or projects. They did not pay much in interest or dividends so they were unattractive to people with real money. We had always assumed that in the event of some financial crash, if any of these savings were swept away our losses would not be great. And some of the places would probably benefit from their obscurity and manage to survive.

When the capitalists suffer, everyone else is affected to some extent. In my part of the island it soon became impossible to use plastic money. Cash was demanded everywhere. But even that meant driving around to find a bank that was still open and trading. There was always a long wait. Now there was a charge for withdrawing cash. Prices in shops were rising.

A spokesperson for the group that represented banking executives went on TV one evening. She claimed that the banks’ IT systems had been hacked. Not only was data missing, vast sums of money, in transit between transactions, had disappeared. Their IT experts were working urgently on the problem, and it was expected everything would be corrected. Normality would return soon.

This supposedly reassuring message, or others just like it, was repeated every day. The financial chaos continued, worsening all the time.

I was working on my new novel.

‘He called me again,’ Spoder said, when he called me again.

‘Jeksid? What did he say this time?’

‘He wants to meet you, and get some answers.’

‘Answers? From me?’

‘That’s what he said.’

‘I’ve been wondering,’ I said. ‘If he’s trying to make contact with me, why is he calling you?’

‘I can explain that. He contacted Police HQ in Ewwel, the first. They know of my links with you, and so they passed him on to one of the station houses here on Raba.’

‘You’ve never even been to Ewwel,’ I said. ‘Not as far as I know.’