‘As a total, distributed population,’ said Drusher. ‘We might attribute one or perhaps two deaths in a five-year period to accidental encounter and misadventure. Or we might explain multiple deaths to the action of a rogue animal, a man-eater, which, as I mentioned, is an extremely rare phenomenon. So a man-eater might have – and I stress it’s unlikely – killed eighteen poor souls… but it would not have eaten them all. That’s simply too much food, even for a large and aggressive ursid.’

Eisenhorn looked at him, steadily.

‘Interesting,’ he said.

‘Preliminary,’ said Drusher.

‘Then go beyond preliminary. What do you think killed them?’

‘Something else,’ said Drusher. ‘If examination reveals ursid feeding patterns, and I confidently expect it will be indicative of a non-frenzied pattern, then we might surmise that the local ursid population devoured found corpses. But they did not make the kills.’

‘Well surely,’ said Macks, ‘other ursids could have found and fed upon kills made by the rogue animal? You said it couldn’t eat them all itself?’

‘That’s possible, but again unlikely,’ said Drusher. ‘It’s a matter of territory. Minora are fiercely territorial. But let’s take a look.’

He walked over to the nearest gurney.

‘Do you have any–’

‘Oil of osscil?’ asked Macks, holding out a small pot.

‘I was going to say True Heart,’ he replied.

‘Don’t be smart,’ she said, but grinned. ‘Osscil or nothing.’

He took the pot, smeared some under his nose and unzipped the bag.

He stared for a moment.

‘Gonna throw up?’ Macks asked.

‘No,’ he said. He took off his spectacles and began to fiddle with them. ‘I just want to be able to see straight.’

Audla Jaff casually took the spectacles out of his hands and performed three quick, deft twists.

She reached up and put them back on his nose gently. They sat perfectly straight.

Drusher blinked.

‘Goodness me,’ he said.

‘Keep going, magos,’ Jaff whispered as she stepped back. ‘You’re impressing him.’

Drusher plucked a pair of surgical gloves from a carton, put them on and picked up a stainless steel probe from a tray. He hunched down and began to examine the exposed corpse. It was little more than a skeleton, blackened with old blood and tatters of congealed tissue.

‘There is some indication of an ursid feeding pattern. Tooth marks on the ribs here. If I can get a cast, I can confirm. Do you have an electro-macroscope?’

‘Yes,’ said Eisenhorn.

‘Then I can provide a comparative for you in a couple of hours. A side by side of bite marks and dental impressions. I think it will confirm the feeding patterns of several individual ursids. It’s not frenzied, just as I expected. They were scavenging.’

He looked up.

‘Was there feeding residue at the sites?’ he asked.

‘Feeding what?’ asked Macks.

‘Residue. Ursids are not clean eaters. They will tear chunks off. Scatter bones. Ribs, the bones of extremities.’