Harlon Nayl’s eyes didn’t so much as blink as the fist came at him. His left hand went out, tilting inwards, captured the man’s arm neatly around the inside of the wrist, and wrenched it right around through two hundred degrees. A bone may have snapped, but if it did, the sound was masked by the man’s strangled squeal, a noise which ended suddenly as Nayl’s other hand connected with his face.

The man – a thickset lhotas-eater with a mucus problem – shivered the deck as he hit it. Nayl kept hold of his wrist, pulling the man’s arm straight and tight while he stood firmly on his armpit. This position allowed for significant leverage, and Nayl made use of it. Harlon was in a take-no-prisoners mood, I sensed, which was hardly useful given our objective.

A little leverage and rotation. A ghastly scream, vocalised through a face spattered with blood.

‘What do you reckon?’ asked Nayl, twisting a little more and increasing the pitch. ‘Do you think I can get top C out of him?’

‘Should I care?’ replied Morpal Who Moves with mannered disinterest. ‘You can twist Manx’s arm right off and beat him around the head with it, he still won’t tell you what you want. He’s a lho-brow. He knows nothing.’

Nayl smiled, twisted, got another shriek. ‘Of course he is. I worked that much out from his scintillating conversation. But one of you does. One of you knows the answer I want. Sooner or later his screams will aggravate you so much you’ll tell me.’

Morpal Who Moves had a face like a crushed walnut. He sat back in his satin-upholstered buoy-chair and fiddled with a golden rind-shriver, a delicate tool that glittered between his bony fingers. He was weighing up what to say. I could read the alternatives in his forebrain like the label on a jar.

‘This is not good for business–’

‘Sir, this is my place of business, and I don’t take kindly to–’

‘Throne of Earth, who the frig d’you think you are–’