From the hallway, Roland was still shouting — that I should tell the officers Nora had started it, that if I cooperated he would forgive my disrespect.

He genuinely believed, even then, even handcuffed in a corridor, that the arrangement of power he had ruled by for three years still held, that he could still order me into compliance with a look and a threat.

It was the last thing about him that frightened me, and then it was the first thing about him that stopped frightening me at all, because I understood, listening to him bargain, that his power had only ever been the power we granted him by staying silent, and that we were not silent anymore.

“I’ve been doing the sensible thing for three months,” I called back, clearly, down the corridor.