‘Nothing here, sergeant!’ called out one of the sanctioners from the far end, his voice echoing in the empty space.

Zidarov felt like staying on his knees. He felt like burying his head into the floor. Or maybe knocking it against it.

Draj came over to make him feel better.

‘You stupid shit,’ he growled. ‘You stupid, fucking shit.’

This was the place. It had been full. It had been active. He hadn’t been seen by them, he was sure of it. Just hours ago, an active unit. No one knew he’d come to observe it. Even Vongella had wanted it gone.

He holstered his Tzarina, and got up. ‘Looks that way,’ he said.

Some of the sanctioners were muttering. One pulled his helmet off, and shot him a breaking-fingers look.

‘Castellan’ll have your teeth, you stupid shit,’ said Draj, warming to his theme.

‘Cordon it off, sergeant,’ said Zidarov, wearily, trudging back towards the broken doorway. ‘I’ll call in a verispex. They might have left something.’

But he knew they hadn’t. The Vidora knew what they were doing. More than he did, it appeared.

‘Stay out of that wagon,’ growled Draj, after him. ‘It’s needed for things that aren’t a fucking waste of my fucking time.’

‘Was planning on walking back anyway,’ said Zidarov, not turning round. ‘I like to watch the sun come up on each new, brilliant day.’

Two hours later, he was sitting at a chipped and faded bar, ­cradling a mug of caffeine in both hands. It had a shot in it. Brecht sat next to him with the same drink, only without the caffeine. Both of them stared at the stained formica for a while.

He’d gone back to Vostoka, to a place both of them had visited many times before, one with a flickering sign over a basement doorway that looked as if you’d get murdered before you got served. The cramped interior hung with cotin smoke and conversation. A battered old audex hammered out some old-time slow-beat standards, the kind of thing that the municipal family planning departments pumped into haze dens to get the official childbirth rates up. The server – an old man with an iron plate for a jawline – ineffectually wiped the mirror behind the bar, managing to smear the few areas that weren’t already blurry.

‘I don’t understand it,’ Zidarov said, moodily.

‘It happens,’ said Brecht, draining his glass and motioning for two more.

‘I wasn’t seen. I’m sure of it.’

‘You’re not as quick on your feet as you were, my friend,’ said Brecht, pushing his empty shot glass across the bar. ‘None of us are.’

‘They didn’t see me.’

‘They might have had spotters.’

‘I’d have seen them.’

‘Yeah. Because you’re a Throne-bound psyker.’

‘Don’t blaspheme.’

The shots arrived. Brecht took his, Zidarov poured his into his caffeine, making the mix almost fifty-fifty.