Garofar didn’t reply. He heard the rain pattering on the plastek sheeting. He felt cold, colder than he should have, even in the damp, draughty room, half open to the Karanine weather. It had sounded like a pretty interesting assignment when Macks had put him on it. A major case: murders, killings, the talk of Unkara Town, the idea that external investigators had arrived. No one had outrightly said so, but Garofar was pretty sure they were connected to the ordos – big stuff, the sort of thing that didn’t happen in a backwater province, the sort of thing that could get an ambitious junior officer noticed, and maybe lead to advancement, because opportunities in the Karanines were scarce, especially when the marshal showed zero signs of ever wanting to retire, like she should have done years ago, and make way for new blood…

But it had turned out to be much less comfortable. Cold, wet, tedious, yet with a constant undercurrent of something Garofar felt was malevolent, like a storm waiting to break. It wasn’t the bodies. He’d seen plenty of bodies: accidents, bar fights, farming mishaps, plus a brief tour in the local militia during the last years of the civil war, before he joined law enforcement. Bodies didn’t faze him, though the number and the manner of death in this case was unusual. What unsettled him was something he couldn’t put his finger on, like they were poking at something that shouldn’t be poked, or opening a cage that had been locked for a damn good reason. And that lead investigator was a piece of work. Scary as hell in his own right. If it had been up to Garofar, the lead investigator would have made it onto the list of suspects, just turning up in town like that, with his cruel manner and his band of disreputable henchmen.

But it wasn’t up to Garofar. Hadeed Garofar was just a deputy with an assistant investigator’s ticket. He was local enforcement. He was muscle. He did as he was told.

‘Let’s check the cold store together,’ said Jaff. ‘I want to take some ambient measurements anyway.’

‘Yes, mam. Good,’ he said. ‘Measurements of ambient what?’

‘Just ambient,’ she replied. She buttoned her coat. Then she looked at him.

‘I hear an engine,’ she said, ‘approaching.’

‘The others must be back, mam,’ he replied.

‘Hmm. If they are, they’ve changed vehicle.’

‘How can you tell?’ he asked.

‘It sounds different,’ she said.

Deputy Cronyl had opened the gates to let the transporter enter the yard. He stood watching, his riotgun hooked over the crook of his arm as it came to a halt. Deputy Edde had appeared on the top wall to add cover.

The transporter was a cargo-4, an all-terrain variant, spattered in mud from the forest track. It pulled up beside the green ATV and the heavy, bronze Marshal Division transporter already parked there.