There was a moment of silence. Ngiri must have muted her comm, for her mouth quirked into a wry smile as she looked at Chetta. ‘Proctors. Even I can’t intimidate them much, on a personal level. Make them worry that they’re delaying the Emperor’s justice, however…’ Her face became alert and stern again. ‘Arctos, it’s Vass. I’m going to send you a pict-file of a man identified as Radimir Niklau. Consider him to be the prime suspect for the concerns we have spoken of previously. He is armed and extremely dangerous, and I want a shoot-on-sight order for anyone who even vaguely resembles him until we have one hundred per cent confirmation that he’s dead.’ Another pause. ‘Yes. So long as the city is still in one piece by the time we get him then there is no such thing as too much collateral damage. And I’m prepared to be flexible about the city.’

‘Good work,’ Chetta murmured to DeShelle and Tekoa. Her aide still looked a little disturbed, which was only to be expected if you’d just caught another glimpse of the face of the man who’d killed your colleague in front of you. Tekoa Yunn simply had the beam of a man who had been working hard and could now see that all his effort had apparently paid off. ‘Tekoa, as soon as everything settles down, feel free to leave here and go back to your rooms.’

‘For how long, high lady?’ Tekoa asked, uncertainly. Chetta tutted.

‘Until I say otherwise. This isn’t the Administratum. You work for me when I need you to do something, so long as you keep out of trouble the rest of the time I don’t care what you get up to.’ She turned away from his awestruck expression, and back to Ngiri. ‘Did he agree?’

‘He’s mobilising every proctor in the city,’ Ngiri confirmed with some satisfaction. ‘The watchmen are being promised bonuses for it too, although they’ll likely just end up shooting each other. One way or another, though, I’m hoping we can flush this man Niklau out. At the very least, he’s a dangerous witch. At worst…’ She shrugged, the massive pauldrons of her power armour exaggerating the movement. ‘Well, I almost hope he is the worst, in this case. Then at least we’d know we’d dealt with it.’

‘You’re prepared to put a lot of faith in the word of my aide,’ Chetta remarked, lowering her voice a little as Yunn’s assistants began to shut down the cogitators around them.

‘She seems sensible,’ Ngiri replied. ‘You appointed her yourself?’

‘I did,’ Chetta nodded.

Ngiri flashed a quick smile. ‘That says a lot, as well.’ Her expression sobered. ‘Are you going to explain the situation to your sister-in-law and her husband?’