‘Your health,’ said Mordach. ‘How goes the investigation?’

‘Nice of you to ask. I’d begun to wonder if anyone cared.’

Mordach raised an eyebrow, and guided him to a low armchair. ‘A strange thing to say.’

‘Is it?’ Zidarov said, sitting down. ‘I can’t get a meeting with your wife. I can’t get a meeting with you. I’m investigating your son’s disappearance, so that’s what I call strange.’

Mordach settled down opposite him. ‘We’re busy people. Some things can’t be postponed.’

‘Like what?’

Mordach shot him a dark look. ‘Are you tired, probator? You seem… distracted.’

Yes, he was tired. Yes, he was distracted. ‘This is how I see it,’ he said. He took a long draught of the rezi. Then another one. ‘I was asked to take this case on. I make enquiries. I make some progress. The days pass by. I’d have expected, I think, your wife to contact me. Or you. To find out how things were going.’

‘I think Udmil and I expected to have updates once you had discovered something concrete.’

‘Fine.’ Another swig. ’So here it is. There’s no sign of him. No one I spoke to gave me anything. He was there, and now he’s not. I had some ideas, which I looked into, but they’re not delivering much. And so, I’m forced into considering some unwelcome possibilities.’

‘Oh?’

Zidarov took another sip. He looked at Mordach. Mordach looked back at him. The man had a stone-hard stare. It was the kind of stare that was no doubt useful in negotiations, the kind of look that told an interlocutor that he had more money than there were jewels in the Emperor’s Golden Throne, and that if he had to, he’d use it to drain you and everything you cared about clean of life and hope until he’d got what he wanted, and, when all that was done, he’d hardly have noticed the loss.

‘I’m not sure he’s missing,’ Zidarov said.

The room fell into silence. After an uncomfortable moment, Mordach took a small sip of his own drink.

‘An absurd suggestion. You had better tell me, probator, what makes you offer it.’

‘My gut. As you can see, it’s a significant one.’

Mordach didn’t smile. ‘So you think that this is all… some kind of game.’