There was a commentary being piped out from invisible speakers next to each exhibit. Rigged up to a motion detector, the words began as someone approached, filling the air with a lilting female voice. Avigail didn’t pay much attention to what it was saying – that would be the usual FullLife promotional spin. Instead she stayed close to James, ensuring she was in his field of vision, pretending not to notice how his eyes followed her around the room. She pulled her hair up off her shoulders – it had been hanging loose and wavy down to her waist – and twisted it into a knot. He would be able to see her back now, the curls where her hair fell free to form ringlets around her neck. She waited a moment, then turned to look over her shoulder and held on to his gaze. His blush spread again, making its way beyond his neck this time. She walked towards him.

James had gone cold. He could feel the frost biting at his fingers, feel the shudder of it down his spine and see his life more clearly than he had ever wanted to.

‘You knew, didn’t you?’ Eva said. Her voice sounded low and level and her eyes were an accusation. ‘You knew something was wrong. You knew there was a danger …’

‘It’s more complicated—’ he tried.

‘Was it deliberate?’

‘No!’

‘Paving the way for something else, some new—’

‘I swear to you, no.’

James reached for her hand, and she pulled away from him with force, bashing her elbow against the arm of her chair. He held his hands out, palms facing her, trying to calm her down. The backstreet they were in was quiet, though he could hear traffic from the main road, and it was shady – the sun wasn’t reaching its way between the buildings here. He leaned on the table, which rocked towards him, unstable on its three flimsy legs.

‘Well, you’re here,’ she said. ‘Which presumably means you want to talk to me. Otherwise you’d have stayed hidden in your lab?’

‘I couldn’t stay there,’ he said. ‘They need to get someone else. I can’t do this …’

She was shaking her head in disgust. He cringed, pushed his glasses up on his nose, ran his hand through his hair. He could feel the futility of each action as he performed it. A pathetic routine.

‘I – we – knew that there might be a problem. A few isolated cases, that’s all. We didn’t understand …’

‘So you kept it quiet?’

‘I’ve been trying to find a solution. I love the pouch, you know? I wanted to fix it … That’s all I’ve been doing, for years now.’

‘Years?’

He cringed again.