Silence.

There’s dead silence in the room for a moment.

Then Emma breaks it. ‘Okay,’ she says, breathing rapidly. But there’s color in her cheeks again, and she’s managing to smile at you. ‘So what’s the not-so-good news?’

‘Ah.’ Hamana looks over at you. ‘Well, clearly someone managed to jab you with something very nasty. And this island depends on tourism for its income. Clearly having a gang of junkies running around attacking people isn’t ideal for the governor, so… the local police have been scouring the island ever since you got here. But I’m very sorry to report that they’ve found nothing.’

Emma looks upset – no, more than that, she looks pissed off. ‘How is that possible?’ she demands. ‘And have they interviewed Justin yet? I’d swear on my mother’s life he had something to do with this.’

‘He did,’ you rasp out.

The room falls silent again.

Emma’s head slowly turns to face you. ‘What happened?’ she asks quietly. ‘Tell me everything. Wait, no – let’s get Alan in here. Then tell us everything.’

So you do.

You begin with spotting ****-Soo at the party, while she was away getting drinks. Emma shakes her head several times throughout the story – once when you describe following ****-Soo before he could get away, once when you talk about following him up the mountain and into the sugar mill – but her eyes fly open and she claps a hand over her mouth when you describe the punishment cage they strapped you into.

Alan stays quiet throughout, studying you intensely. You condense the part where Justin and ****-Soo injected you, and leave out the fight down in the smugglers’ tunnels almost entirely; ‘he slipped and lost his footing,’ you say shortly, not daring to look up at Emma. Then you describe stumbling through the jungle and coming across Alan.

‘Which… by the way, what the hell were you doing out there?’ you finish curiously, looking up at him. To your surprise, Alan stares at the ceiling.