Zidarov went back to his cell, and pulled up some files from his terminal. Some were ones he’d already studied, right at the start. Others were older, ones he’d intended to get around to but hadn’t had the chance. He cross-referenced Udmil’s name against the legal deposits on civil marriages. He pulled up births-and-deaths records from the municipal holdings. Then he delved into the mass of financial reports he’d commissioned from the analysers. At the time, he’d asked for them out of routine thoroughness, not expecting ever to use them. Now they took on a new interest for him.

Nothing in there would have given him any clue that anything was wrong, before he’d spoken to Elina. Now, however, he saw signs that what she had said could well have been true. Udmil’s industrial holdings had looked to be in trouble in the months prior to her marriage to Mordach. There were even references in the reports – most redacted – to interventions from Varangantua’s lending houses. Hard to imagine that, now. There was nothing, though, to suggest what might have been going on. Once the joint enterprise with Mordach was made official, it all got much better. Such things were decades old. No wonder it was not more widely known about.

He made some notes, then sent a few messages. One was to Vipa, in the medicae-bay, who answered straight away.

‘Any change, medicae?’ Zidarov asked.

‘She’s stable, probator. We might pull her through. Want me to let you know if she regains consciousness?’

‘I’d appreciate it. Whatever the hour – let me know.’

Then he was on the move again, reviewing the list of names he’d extracted while on the road. They scrolled down his reti­nal implant one by one. Just as before, Subject Eight was the one that seemed most likely to yield a result. By the time he’d reached the Luxer, he’d absorbed the main points he needed.

The man he’d selected was called Ginald Peravov. He was an Urgeyena native, a member of a family that had lived in the sector for a very long time. The Peravovs were moderately wealthy, making their money in medicae supplies over the course of a few generations. Ginald now ran a clinic of his own specialising in the higher-end commercial treatments – cosmetic enhancement, psychiatric disorders and, most lucrative of all, rejuvenat tech­nologies. The demand for such treatment was constant, whatever the economic reality. Those who wished to stave off the dead hand of age had to be rich. They also had to be committed – the procedures were, so he’d always been told, painful and invasive.