‘I want you to know that we’re trying to find the reason,’ she said. ‘But, mostly, I want you to know that this was no one’s fault. No one knows why it happened. No one could have prevented it. I am so sorry.’

It was what he’d wanted to hear, but something was very wrong. ‘Is that it?’ he said, his voice reverberating around the room after the soothing tones of hers. So they weren’t blaming Kaz. But … ‘Are you telling me, us, that you knew about this risk?’

‘There have been a small number of tragic—’

‘You knew this could happen?’ he interrupted, his voice getting louder as the full impact of what she had said sunk in. Something felt like it could burst from his chest. If they had known … ‘You knew, and you didn’t tell us?’ He was standing, his legs knocking against the coffee table, his tea spilling into its saucer, and he had a sudden vision of hurling the cup against their perfectly muted windows, shattering every pane of glass in this false building, tearing it to the ground. ‘You didn’t tell us!’ he was shouting now; he heard something smash but ignored it. ‘You’ve been lying to everyone! If we’d known, if Kaz and … If we’d known that this might happen …’

‘Then what?’ she said, gently.

He stared at her, realised that his hands were clenched into fists. He unclenched them.

‘You promised us it was safe,’ Cris said quietly. ‘Everyone. You promised—’

‘Actually, I didn’t,’ she said. ‘I’ve only been here for three years. People have believed, assumed, it was perfectly safe for forty, fifty—’

‘So it’s our fault?’

‘No, no.’ She shook her head, and for the first time Karl noticed her expression was deeply sad. ‘I thought it was perfectly safe, too. I had my daughter … But there was no legal guarantee … I mean, they were just advertising campaigns.’

‘What about the previous director?’ asked Cris, keeping his voice soft. ‘The people who founded the company?’

She shook her head again. ‘For the pouch to be accepted, people needed to know it was safe … To believe in it completely.’

‘So you – FullLife – let them believe a lie?’ Karl said.

‘I don’t know.’ She reached for her cup. It rattled just slightly in its saucer. ‘Perhaps they had no idea … But since it started happening – and it was just recently, I promise you – we’ve been trying to understand … trying to work out why. At first it was just one isolated case. We had no reason to think it could happen to others. But then …’

‘People need to be told.’

Karl wasn’t shouting any more. He looked down at the floor, and saw the famous photo of Shulamith Firestone looking up at him from the cracked glass of a glossy black frame. He’d knocked it off the wall.

‘But it might not affect everyone—’ she began.