'Please make yourselves comfortable,' said Glokta. 'But out of sight, perhaps. We can expect visitors some time tonight.'

'Excellent. We love company, don't we lads?'

One of Cosca's men gave a wet-lunged chuckle, displaying two rows of shit-coloured teeth. A set so incredibly rotten I am almost glad to have my own. 'These visitors will come from his Eminence the Arch Lector. Perhaps you could take a firm hand with them, while I'm downstairs?'

Cosca glanced round approvingly at the crumbling hall. 'A nice place for a warm welcome. I'll let you know when our guests have been. I doubt they'll stay long.'

Ardee had found a place near the wall, her hood up, her eyes on the floor. Trying to fade into the plaster, and who could blame her? Hardly the most pleasant company for a young woman, or the most reassuring setting. But better than a slit throat, I suppose. Glokta held his hand out to her. 'It would be best if you were to come with me.'

She hesitated. As though not entirely sure that it would, in fact, be best to come with me. But a brief glance at some of the ugliest men in one of the world's ugliest professions evidently persuaded her. Cosca handed her his lamp, making sure his fingers lingered on hers for an uncomfortably long moment.

'Thank you,' she said, jerking her hand away.

'My particular pleasure.'

Sheets of hanging paper, broken laths, lumps of fallen plaster cast strange shadows as they left Cosca and his thugs behind and picked their way into the guts of the dead building. Doorways passed by, squares of blackness, yawning like graves.

'Your friends seem a charming crowd,' murmured Ardee.

'Oh indeed, the brightest stars in the social firmament. Some tasks demand desperate men, apparently.'

'You must have some truly desperate work in mind, then.'

'When don't I?'

Their lamp barely lit the rotting drawing room, panelling sagging from the cheap brickwork, the best part of the floor a single festering puddle. The hidden door stood open in the far wall and Glokta shuffled round the edge of the room towards it, his hips burning with the effort.

'What did your man do?'

'Severard? He let me down.' And we will soon find out how badly.

'I hope I never let you down, then.'

'You, I am sure, have better sense. I should go first, then if I fall at least I fall alone.' He winced his way down the steps while she followed with the light.

'Ugh. What's that smell?'

'The sewers. There's an entrance to them down here, somewhere.' Glokta stepped past the heavy door and into the converted wine cellar, the bright steel grilles on the cells to either side glimmering as they passed, the whole place reeking of damp and fear.