The man tilted his head, acknowledging the fact that perhaps Saul was going to cause him a problem. ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ he replied. His hand dropped to the ionic stunner at his belt, and one of the other men stepped forward, shouldering his mace. Hannah saw then that it seemed the visible corpse was not their only victim. Further spills of blood stained the floor, one still sticky and red with a couple of teeth lying amidst it. Were the others who had been assaulted still alive, or had they merely been dragged out of sight, just the one corpse left on display?

‘Let me show you.’ Saul unshouldered his backpack and dropped it to the ground, glancing at Hannah as he did so. She slid her gaze away from the corpse, to the fresh bloodstain, then back to Saul. What was he going to do? What could he do in this situation? What if they stole the hardware he’d risked his life a second time to retrieve? And what if they stole the payment he had brought to finance the installation of that hardware?

As he glanced down at his backpack then focused back on the man before him, Saul asked, ‘Did you kill him?’

‘He died for a bag of sugar.’ Grinning at that, the man stared at Saul challengingly. ‘Thought he was a tough guy.’

Suddenly Hannah realized that even if they paid whatever toll was demanded, they would still be in trouble. She felt she needed to communicate this to Saul, but how?

‘Inspectorate enforcers could be here at any moment,’ Saul suggested calmly.

Hannah then noticed that two of the four, including the man standing before Saul, wore badges on the shoulders of their body warmers: an emblem of laurel leaves enclosing an Egyptian eye. They were community political officers.

‘They’re not interested,’ the man said fatly. ‘Now open your pack.’

Saul nodded thoughtfully, reached round under the back of his jacket, as if tucking in his shirt, pulled his automatic from its holster and simply shot the man through the throat. He flew backwards till the door caught the rear of his legs and his head slammed down hard on the carbocrete steps behind him. Saul’s second shot punched straight through the chest of the next man, spraying gobbets of flesh over the wall behind him before he thumped into it and slid down it, leaving a wide and bloody trail. The woman threw her mace at him, before turning to run after her remaining colleague, who had already taken off. Saul stepped aside and the weapon clattered past him, then his next shot lifted the top of her head and sent her tumbling down the stairs. Steadying his gun hand, he next put a group of three shots into the back of the feeing man just as he reached the next landing. That dropped him as well.