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changed tack. ‘Nikolai, this carnage had inside help.’
    ‘You don’t mean Dr Williams?’
    I think he almost smiled. ‘No. Dr Williams, Godrest his soul, does not interest us.’ He folded his arms and studied me with polite blankness. ‘You, however, do.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Your name, Nikolai Stais.’
    Not what I was expecting but I’d got tired of saying
I don’t understand
, so I just sat and looked at him.
    ‘Why did you keep it?’ he said.
    ‘Why did I keep my
name
?
My name?
‘
    ‘Just answer the question.’
    ‘I don’t understand the question.’ I tried changing tack myself. ‘Am I supposed to come up with something clever here? And then you recruit me because I’ve passed some kind of test? I don’t have a clever answer for my name. So I fail your test. Can I go now? My friend is lying out there on the grass and he’s dead. Do you get that? He’s dead. And I can’t do a thing to change that. So right now I don’t give a … I don’t care about my name, or your tests or whatever the hell else you’re doing. I want to go back to him and sit with him and make sure they do right by him.’ I stood up.
    ‘Sit down.’
    ‘No. I –’
    He hit me – one sharp punch that pushed me back in the chair with my head on my knees, gasping.
    ‘You will sit when I tell you to sit. And stand when I tell you to stand. Is that clear?’
    I nodded, still too winded to say shit. And scared.
    ‘Now,’ he said. ‘You will tell me everything you did tonight. Minute by minute.’
    This was a minefield; I had no idea what would blow up in my face. He picked up the talisman round my neck and turned it to catch the light. I grabbed at it and he jerked it away from me, snapping the chain.
    ‘Hey!’ I dived after it but he stepped to one side and kneed me in the gut. I hit the floor. Someone knocked on the door while I lay there retching. I heard the agent open it and hold a murmured conversation, then his battle boots disappeared outside. The lock clicked. When I could move, I crept to the window and peered out. He was striding up the driveway with one of the soldiers who’d been guarding the gate. The other one stood at the gatehouse door.
    I made myself breathe. Tried to think. My name. What didn’t they like about my name? I had to find Mace, and Frieda Kelleran, and ask them about my parents. But the immediate question was, should I wait for the agent to come back so I could get my talisman, or should I get out while I could? I knew the right answer. That didn’t make it any easier.
    I crawled into the tiny back room of the gatehouse where Mace used to make me hot cocoa when I came to sit with him on winter afternoons. The guards fought off boredom by letting us sneak in and out – those of us prepared to pass the time of day with them. They’d madea trapdoor for us at the back of a cupboard, behind the cocoa and sugar and tea bags.
    I hadn’t been through it in years and maybe it wasn’t still there. I took the shelf out and felt for the latch. The door opened easily. At the back of my mind, busy with getting out of there, came a thought that turned the sweat cold on my skin. The guards had played at those visits like a game, a prank for us to feel like we were fooling our teachers. But suppose you wanted to let someone slip into the grounds without going through the ID scan at the gate? Anyone could come and go at will through this little door. Anyone at all. Inside help, the man had said. From who?
    I squeezed through, tumbled into the bushes outside and lay still, listening, wondering what to do next.

CHAPTER 07
    Choices . I had some, and none of them looked inviting.
    I could find the ISIS agents, and say ‘Hey, give me back my talisman and I’ll show you a secret door in the gatehouse.’ And from what I’d seen already, how likely was it that they’d pat me on the back and induct me straight into their inner core? Yeah, very.
    But running … escaping through this door was as close as