Zidarov crumpled up the waxed paper and stuffed it into the compactor. Then he punched the loc-ref for Gargoza into the groundcar’s internal storage and told the machine-spirit to plot a course.

‘But I don’t think you’re the patient type,’ he said to himself, putting down the accelerator, already regretting his culinary choices. ‘Maybe we’ll find out.’

Gargoza looked more or less as he remembered it. The main complex rose up from a tangle of smaller buildings, once painted a cheerful red but now mostly scoured back to the gypsum render by the elements. A tattered sign proclaimed the name of the organisation’s headquarters, along with contact comm-numbers and the commercial slogan The Trusted Name In Distribution picked out in fading yellow.

Zidarov pulled up in the driveway outside, got out and locked the groundcar. A few workers looked over in his direction, but paid him little attention. They didn’t seem overly busy – a few idled in the shadow of the main building, a few more were walking across the courtyard towards a warehouse unit. They all wore faded overalls with the Gargoza logo stitched to the back.

He turned towards the headquarters, walked up the steps and into a shabby entrance lobby. A lone woman with vivid purple hair sat behind a large reception cubicle. In the background, he could hear music – the kind Naxi used to listen to, lutya dances with lyrics about young love and civic duty. As he approached, the woman sat up a little straighter and tried, ineffectually, to tidy the piles of paperwork that had been left scattered across the desk in front of her.

‘Probator, Bastion-U,’ he told her. ‘I’ll need your station supervisor.’

She hesitated for a moment. ‘He’s not in right now, ­probator. Can I take a message for you?’

She wasn’t quite careful enough – he caught sight of her hand slipping below the desktop and quietly depressing the alert.

‘You can,’ he told her, striding past the desk towards the doorway leading further in. ‘Tell him to get a better receptionist.’

The door was locked, but only with a slide bolt. He kicked it hard, and the fixing sprung off, sending the door slamming back on its hinges. He drew his Tzarina and pressed on further inside, walking down a long corridor with an olive-green plastek carpet and walls covered in stapled-up bills of lading. It smelled musty, and the carpet was sticky under his boots. The walls and floor shuddered every so often, as if the entire building suffered from tectonic instability.

One of the side doors opened as he passed it, and a woman’s head emerged.

‘Back inside,’ he snarled at her. She went white, and did as he told her.