Gertuda’s eyes flicked up to his, and he saw the echo of fear in them. ‘I don’t know about Naxi. Really, she’s probably fine. But you should be asking more questions, I think, about what’s going on here. Everyone I know is scared. Because she’s not the only one who’s gone missing. We all know someone who has.’

Zidarov felt a little colder. ‘Go on.’

‘It starts with topaz. It’s easier to get than ever. We all do it. You’d do it, if you had to work a stitching mill for fourteen hours a day. But that’s when they get you. If you can’t handle it. There are these men, sometimes women – they’re at parties, the ones running them. You never know who they are, but they seem to know who you are. And if you’re stupid, or just young, you take their invites, because they can get you topaz, and then they promise you there’s more upclave, and you go with them. And you never come back.’

She started to clutch herself, hold her arms in her hands. The hot drink didn’t seem to be warming her that much.

‘See, we don’t count for much, really,’ she said. ‘What have we got? Nothing, save that we’re young. And the old, the ones who should be looking out for us, they can take even that from us. We know where they go, the ones who go missing. We know what happens to them.’

‘Then you should report it,’ Zidarov said. ‘When it happens.’

Gertuda laughed again, more harshly this time. ‘Really? Report it to who – the sanctioners? You?’ She sighed. ‘That’s why there’s topaz everywhere, because, for a while, you can stop being afraid. It makes you vulnerable, but you still take it. And it’s worth it. To not be afraid of them, even for an hour or two.’

He wanted to tell her she was wrong, then. He wanted to tell her that she shouldn’t have to live like that, and that the enforcers were there to prevent it. But none of that was true. He’d even been in the place where they ended up, and he knew with perfect clarity that no one in a position of authority would ever do the damnedest thing about it.

That made him angry again, more angry than he’d been since this whole thing had started. No doubt Adeard had been one of those wolves, using his charm, slate and looks to bring new recruits for a machine that could never be sated. If he was dead, which looked almost certain, then it was something like justice. The problem was that many more had stood up and taken his place, and it was only going to get worse.