He scanned forward. Udmil emerged after more than an hour. She looked much as she had done when he’d seen her in the flesh – rake-thin, severe, stepping gingerly as if contact with the ground might somehow infect her. As she emerged, the driver hurried to get the door for her. She got in, gave him his instructions, then settled into the huge seats of the passenger hold.

The holofield didn’t preserve audex, but he could swivel the viewpoint to gain a close view of her face. Her lips were clamped tight, her gaze was steely. She did not speak to her driver once instructions had been given. She did not appear to look out of the windows at the view. She sat erect, her hands in her lap.

Her first call was also in the commercia district, just a few blocks along. She left the groundcar and entered a high-end clothiers, the kind of place he’d have to take a death-loan out for in order to buy a new coat. He swivelled around to watch her enter, and saw attendants hurry to assist her up the steps. He took a note of the location and the time, then fast-forwarded the feed to her return. After that, she visited a place for lunch, where it appeared she dined alone. Then the groundcar took her back to the mansion where he’d first encountered her.

At no point did she behave like a woman consumed with fear, nor one resigned to bad news. She behaved as normally as her kind ever did. Presumably, this was the way many of her days played out – visits to high-end establishments, occasionally dabbling in commerce, rounds of fine wine, fine food.

Zidarov pushed through the next few hours, in which nothing happened. It was after nightfall when the next activity regi­stered, and he followed the car out of the gates. This time Udmil was dressed less conservatively. She wore jewellery – a large jetstone pendant and rings on her fingers. Her dress was tighter and lower-cut than before, exposing a figure that was toned rather than skeletal. Udmil Terashova had kept herself in rather good shape under all that exterior prudishness, whether by standard means or with some help from a friendly clinic.

The journey took a long time, as if the groundcar were deliberately tracing a circuitous route towards its destination. Eventually it pulled up at a tower in one of the most exclusive areas of the inner city, not far from the centre of the gilt-zones. The place looked much the same as Mordach’s tower, except for the granite aquilas over the main gate and the neon-blue flood-lumens angled up at the turbulent sky. As the car pulled up in front of it, attendants hurried down a long flight of stone stairs to greet her, some bearing scatter-field umbrellas. She was escorted inside with great ceremony and fawning, and the groundcar pulled off.