Epstein shrugged. Like everyone else, he had been frightened the whole period the shadow operator was in the alley off Tupolev. Even the experienced uniforms had backed off to let it do its work. They’d rather stand in the rain all day at a traffic intersection than get near an operator. Dazzling light poured out of its mouth when it saw the corpse. ‘This is really interesting,’ it said, watching Toni Reno through a couple of revolutions as if he were an expert performer of some kind. It vomited some more light, then approached Epstein. It had to stand on its toes to speak to him. Despite himself, Epstein bent down so he could hear. ‘I’ve got a little secret,’ it whispered in his ear. Nothing else. ‘I’ve got a little secret,’ and off along the alley, turning back once to wave shyly – more at Toni Reno, perhaps, than the cops – before it disappeared into one of the buildings, the vaporous air opalescing briefly around it as if responding to some phase transition. That morning it was running itself on a seven-year-old girl – a local mite dressed in the customary white floor-length frock of white satin sprigged with muslin bows and draped with cream lace; also what looked like her mother’s shiny high-heeled pumps – but its voice had three or four separate components, mostly male.

‘What does anyone get from an operator?’ Epstein said to the assistant.

‘They live by their own rules,’ the assistant agreed. ‘Was it the one that calls itself The Sea?’

‘I don’t know which one it was,’ Epstein said, meaning he didn’t care to know.

The assistant gave him an oblique smile. ‘It had on red fuck-me pumps,’ she predicted. ‘A seven-year-old kiddie in a wedding dress and red patent leather fuck-me pumps with five-inch heels, what do you say to that, you big hero?’

She dialled up her office and had them pipe over a holographic fetch of Toni Reno’s corpse, so that she could compare Tony and his loader side by side. In those circumstances neither of them appeared exactly real. Enka Mercury was colourless except for the faint bluish tinge to her face and hands. Toni presented as if he had been imperfectly modelled in a mixture of brown, red and yellow tones. While she came across as coy as ever, he only looked preserved and shiny and as if he was made of wood. One of his Fantin & Moretti hand-crafted moccasins had fallen off. The bodies circled at different rates until space seemed to adjust itself to accomodate them and they fell into a synchrony never experienced in life.

‘You see that?’ Epstein said. ‘It’s like they’re aware of one another.’

‘You’re uncomfortable with that.’

He shrugged again. ‘How does it happen?’

‘Perhaps it’s love,’ the assistant said.