‘You took the mutability software from the hotel. He still has a police tracking device, and it identified you, your hotel room in Dearth. He’s currently trying to find out where you live through your associate, Spoder.’

‘This is ridiculous!’ I said. ‘I haven’t the least idea how to hack software. I have trouble enough with my own desktop.’

‘He knows you had the means and he believes you did it. He’s serious about killing. He murdered my husband, he’s going to kill you, and he’s going to try to kill me too.’

‘Kill you?’ I said. The conversation had become surreal. I couldn’t bring myself to believe a word of it.

‘He will if he gets the chance. I’m planning to get to him first.’

‘And that’s why you carry a weapon in the trunk of this car?’

‘One of the reasons.’

‘You know where he is, then?’

‘I know he’s on this island now but I don’t know where. He has a taste for cheap hotels, but there are many of those on the other side of town.’

I said again: ‘Frejah – is this serious? Are you being serious?’

‘Never more so.’

The engine of the roadster continued to throb noisily. It was a constant distraction and annoyance to me, worsened by the smell of particulate-heavy fumes. Raba has strict antipollution laws, and Frejah’s ludicrously powerful car was in direct conflict with them.

‘Can’t you turn off the engine?’ I said.

‘I never turn it off – in case I need to make a quick exit.’

That made me smile: I imagined her slowly and painfully re-inserting herself into the sculpted low-angle driving seat, elbows and neck and legs stiff. She saw the smile.

‘You really don’t understand, do you?’ she said.

‘Why don’t you just tell me straight what it is you know? Is that impossible? When we were driving to the airport we were speaking frankly—’

‘That was then.’ She held up a hand, and for the first time I noticed two of her fingers had splints, with bandaging around them. ‘Things have changed.’

‘Has someone beaten you up?’

‘People don’t get beaten up on Dearth. There’s no crime on Dearth – remember? This was a transgression, one night just before I left to come here to Raba. We call it a bodily impairment intrusion.’

‘Was it Jeksid?’

‘Not Enver himself. Three of them. They were masked. I assumed he had sent them.’

‘Were you hurt badly?’

‘These two fingers were broken. I lost a tooth. Bruising all over my back and chest. My neck was wrenched. One eye was blackened. I suppose it could have been worse. I’ll survive.’