He led Drusher to a room on the fifth floor. The elevators were out, and they had to use the stairs. Falken made him wait outside the heavy double doors.

The hallway was cold, and night air seeped in through the cracked windowpanes at the far end. Drusher paced up and down. He could hear the rattle and clack of cogitators in nearby rooms, and an occasional shout from down below. Then he heard laughter from behind the double doors.

Falken emerged. He was still chuckling.

‘You can go in now,’ he said.

Drusher walked in, the doors closing behind him. The office was large and grim, a single metal desk planted on a threadbare rug. Half a dozen wire-basket carts heavily laden with dog-eared dossiers and files. A cogitator, whirring to itself. Faded spaces on the walls where pictures had once hung.

‘Throne. I wouldn’t have recognised you, magos,’ said a voice.

She was standing by the deep windows, silhouetted against the night-time city outside. He knew the voice at once.

‘Macks?’

Germaine Macks stepped forwards to meet him, a smile on her lips. Her hair was still short, her face still lean, the old, tiny zigzag scar above the left-hand side of her mouth still visible. The other, newer scar on her forehead was half-hidden under her fringe.

‘Hello, Valentin,’ she said. ‘What’s it been now? Five years? More?’

He nodded. ‘Deputy Macks…’

She shook her head. ‘It’s Magistratum Marshal Macks now. Chief of Martial Order, Tycho city.’

He stiffened. ‘Mamzel, I can explain everything. I hope the fact that you know me of old might mitigate the–’

‘Falken was playing with you, magos.’

‘Excuse me, what?’

Macks sat down behind her desk. ‘I sent Falken up the coast to get you. Throne knows why you started confessing things to him. Guilty conscience, Valentin?’

‘I…’ Drusher stammered.

‘Falken was beside himself. He told me he didn’t think he could keep a straight face on the journey down here. Did you think you were in trouble?’

‘He… that is… I…’

‘Teaching the daughter of some small-time racketeer the art of watercolour painting? To supplement the pittance Admin pays you? Come on, Valentin! I’d hardly spare a chief investigator to go all that way to bring you in. You criminal mastermind, you.’

Drusher felt a little giddy.

‘May I sit down?’ he asked.

She nodded, still chuckling, and reached into a desk drawer for a bottle of amasec and two shot glasses.

‘Get this inside you, you filthy recidivist,’ she grinned, handing one glass to him.

‘I really don’t understand what’s going on…’ Drusher said.

‘Neither do I,’ she said. ‘That’s why I want some help. Some expert help. I said you weren’t in trouble, and I was lying. You’re not in personal trouble, but there is trouble here. And I’m about to drop you right in it.’

‘Oh,’ he said.