‘Look at the map again. Here.’ Drusher flipped a switch. ‘Now I’ve taken away the bodies I can attribute to the cat. Cleans it up a bit, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted.

‘The old carnodon was hungry and opportunistic. It had no pattern. It just roamed and fed where it could. What we’re left with is a much more precise zone. Almost territorial. The killings here were like poor Rimbaud – swift, savage, clean. No feeding.’

‘But it’s still an odd crescent-shaped spread. How can we triangulate from that?’

‘Look at the map, Macks. Territory is determined not just by hunter but also by prey. The crescent-shaped dispersal covers an area east of the Commission of Works. There are none to the west because that’s an area interdicted by the Martial Order Division. It doesn’t kill there, Macks, because there’s no one there to kill.’

‘Oh Throne…’ she murmured.

‘And this is the good bit,’ Drusher smiled. ‘Look what happens when I mirror the dispersal, projecting it as if there were quarry in all directions. The crescent becomes…?’

‘A circle.’

‘Right, a circle. There’s your focus. There’s your bloody pattern. That’s its territory. Right there.’

Macks was driving faster than ever. In the back seat sat Edvin and a trooper called Roderin. Both were checking their riotgun loads.

‘You’re sure about this?’ Macks hissed.

‘I’ve very little left to stake on it,’ Drusher replied, ‘my professional credentials being long since used up.’

‘Don’t get smart,’ she warned. ‘You two ready?’ she called over her shoulder.

Edvin and Roderin both replied in the affirmative. Edvin leaned forwards.

‘I thought we’d got this thing, sir,’ he said. ‘I mean, I thought Falken had plugged it.’

‘He got the cat,’ Drusher said. ‘But the cat wasn’t it.’

Macks began to slow down, and it was lucky she did. A second Magistratum transporter swung out in front of them from a side street, and ploughed ahead.

‘Falken,’ Macks whispered.

They pulled up outside the Commission of Works. Falken had two troopers with him, Levy and Mantagne.

‘What the hells is this about?’ Falken asked belligerently. He was still half-drunk from the party in the morgue.

‘We’re onto a lead,’ Macks said. ‘Behave.’

Falken looked at Drusher. ‘I got it, stone dead. Boom-boom. What is this crap now?’

‘Something else,’ Drusher said.

They spread out in a line, entering the weed-choked waste behind the Commission of Works.

‘Macks?’ Drusher called. She came over to him.

‘I’d like a weapon.’

‘In the old days, you–’

‘I’d really like a weapon,’ he repeated.

Macks nodded, and lowered her riotgun in one hand as she pulled the handgun from her holster. She handed it to him.

‘The safety’s by–’

‘I know how they work,’ he snapped.

They pushed on.

‘So, this is all about territory, right?’ she said.