‘I’m a model probator, that’s what I am. I play by the rules, I live a sober life.’

Zidarov laughed sourly.

‘I mean it,’ said Brecht. ‘You know your problem? You think you really are lucky.’

‘Yeah, I live the gilded life.’

‘You do. You really do. You’ve got it all. Don’t fucking throw it away.’

Zidarov looked up at Brecht, who gave him a hard look back. He almost asked him just what he meant by that. Maybe it was just what it sounded like.

He drained his glass. It was still early. Alcohol, just as ever, was proving to be a bad substitute for sleep.

‘Thanks for the pep talk.’

‘Yeah, fuck off.’

‘No, I mean it. I’ll try what you suggest.’ He rose from his stool, pressing his thumb to the reader on the surface to credit his account, plus an auto-donation for the local Ecclesiarchy temple. ‘Maybe he’s out there. Maybe he really is.’

‘It’d get Castellan off your back.’

‘For a while,’ Zidarov said, walking out. ‘Only for a while.’

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

After that, he did what he said he’d do. He got back to work, running down potential leads, one by one, using the local data sifted by his iris, not going back to the Bastion except to take a clattering mag-carrier to the depot entrance and retrieve his groundcar. If he stayed longer, he’d be spied by someone, and then he’d have to see Vongella, and that would annoy him. Best to stay in the city, keep his head down, try to salvage something worth using.

As he drove through Urgeyena, heading south on the Targutai Martyr multilane, alerts came in across the dataveil warning of possible unrest in the organised crime nexus, something to keep an eye on. They were sent to everyone in the sector. So now everyone knew there’d been a botched raid, and that he’d been the name behind it, and that it was going to make any Vidora in their sights restive. Great.

For his sins, he called on more names from Adeard’s extensive collection of semi-detached friends. No, no, probator. Nothing strange at all. Did I know him well? You know, not really. Parties. Friend of a friend, I guess. Yes, probator, I’ll let you know if I hear anything.

It was all he could do not to bang his forehead into the dataslate. The fog of tiredness just grew, spreading like a blood infusion. He needed to eat something again. His stomach growled, feeling like it was full of liquid, which it probably was.