Drusher peered in through the doorway, glimpsing a brown, cracked object that looked like a broken earthenware pot. Except that it still had a residue of grey hair.

‘What’s this?’ Macks called. In the bedroom, her torch beam was illuminating a brown, fractured stick.

‘Arm bone,’ said Drusher. ‘Broken open to get at the marrow.’ He was remarkably composed. This was perhaps the most horrific sight that had ever greeted his eyes, but a professional detachment was masking his revulsion. The magos biologis in him was fascinated by the killing.

‘I think she was already dead,’ he said. ‘This is scavenging. A decent post-mortem will be able to confirm it. The feeder was big, but it took its time. Leisurely feeding, reducing the cadaver piece by piece, going for the most nutritional areas first. There was no struggle, no kill, although the carnodon probably made quite a bit of noise as it rendered down the carcass.’

‘Carnodon?’ she said. ‘You’re sure?’

‘I’d stake my professional credentials on it,’ he replied. ‘For what that’s worth.’

‘All right.’ Macks breathed heavily. ‘Can we get them in to clear this?’

‘Yes,’ Drusher said.

‘And can you work up something? I don’t know – a library pict, maybe one of your dandy watercolour sketches, so we know what we’re looking for?’

‘Glad to,’ he replied.

‘Good,’ Macks said. ‘ You look like you need sleep.’

He shrugged. ‘Where is the Magistratum putting me up?’ he asked.

Macks replied, ‘We’ll find somewhere.’

Somewhere turned out to be a torn couch in the empty room next door to Macks’ office. It appeared from the stale bedclothes that someone else had been sleeping there on a regular basis. Drusher was too tired to complain. Besides, as far as his relationship with the planet Gershom went, this was pretty much par for the course.

He fell asleep within minutes of lying down.

He woke with a start, and found he’d only been sleeping for a couple of hours. It was barely dawn. As was often the case, rest had freed up his mind, and there was now an idea buzzing around in it so busily it had woken him. He felt strangely energised. After years of tedious dead-end employment, he was finally calling on his primary area of expertise again, using old skills that he had begun to believe had long since atrophied. He almost felt like a magos biologis.

Drusher got up, tucked in his shirt, and put on his shoes. The building was quiet and dead. He went into the hallway, and tapped on the door of Macks’ office. When he got no reply, he let himself in, and started to rummage among the dossiers piled on the wire carts.

He heard a metallic click behind him, and turned. Macks, her hair tousled, stood behind the desk. The sidearm she had aimed at him was slowly lowering.

‘It’s you,’ she grunted, her eyes puffy with sleep.