’For how long?’

‘Uh, just over a year, I think. Yeah – ten months, give or take.’

‘What ended the contract?’

‘They rotate all their security. The big families always do. It’s a short ride – they don’t like having outsiders get too close.’

Zidarov nodded. ‘What about the son? You knew him?’

‘A bit. Never worked with him direct.’

The jenezas arrived, carried on a steel salver. They were both the heavy local stuff, brewed from the thick brown malts cultivated in the rain-soaked agri-zones. The liquid was as dark as tar, the head thick like clotted cream. As soon as Zidarov looked at it, he wondered if he should have ordered something solid, just to keep things on track.

‘Anything worried you about him?’ Zidarov asked. ‘Anything unusual?’

Kharkev drank, then smiled wryly. ‘If he’d been my son, I’d have shipped him off-world in a cargo crate. The gilded, though – they’re a race apart. They don’t think like you and me. I guess he was no different. Never had much to do, far as I could see. Spoiled.’

‘Sexual partners?’

‘Dozens, but nothing significant. They’re bored, those slips. They take topaz, drink rezi, they sleep in a different hutch every night. I thought he wanted to be taken more seriously, sometimes, but I don’t think it came to much. You know – make the old man proud.’

‘Did they have a good relationship, then? Him and the father?’

‘Ach, they all hate each other. They stay out of each other’s way. But I think he wanted old Mordach to respect him a bit. See him as a man after his own heart. But they didn’t trust him with much.’

‘And the mother?’

‘No idea. I don’t think she cared much, to be honest. Not the maternal type.’

‘That wasn’t the impression I got, when I spoke to her. She seemed upset about it.’

‘About what? Someone’s finally done the little bastard in?’

‘Possibly.’ Zidarov took a long draught of the jeneza, and it warmed him all the way down. ‘I’m still trying to work out how someone could have got to him.’

‘Not easy. The houses they live in – they’re like fortresses. I’d say virtually impossible, unless someone on the inside had something to do with it. The only time they’re even slightly vulnerable is when they have to drive, or take an atmospheric transport. They have guards with them then, and the groundcars are all armoured, but still. That’s the weak spot.’

‘Interesting.’

‘But I guess you’d have heard about it, if they’d gone for a groundcar. There’d have been shooting on a major arterial, heavy-duty, hard to hide.’

‘Maybe. I could do with speaking to someone who really knew him. Someone who could tell me more about what he might have been doing, where he might have gone.’