‘Personally. She worked for me. A field agent. Her name was Thea Inshabel. An interrogator. The daughter of a very old and dear friend, who had joined me to continue her late father’s work. She came to this system nine years ago to follow leads relating to a larger case I have been pursuing. She came at my request. Such investigations, magos, they take time. Years. I had not heard from her for some while. Her reports had become intermittent. I was concerned, but sometimes ordo agents in deep-cover operation are forced to go dark, for their own safety. Interrogator Inshabel was a very experienced and able operator. I was confident that she…’

He paused.

‘I should have sent someone to find her,’ he said. ‘I should not have waited so long. I owed that to her father. To watch out for his daughter…’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Drusher.

‘Now she’s dead,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Her bones lying, unclaimed and unidentified, in Marshal Macks’ morgue. Her reconstruction of Thea’s face brought me to Gershom. To find out what she had found out.’

Drusher tilted his head to the side, questioning.

‘It’s very difficult to get answers from the dead,’ said Eisenhorn.

‘I can imagine,’ said Drusher.

‘But there are means,’ said Eisenhorn. Thunder rumbled on the far side of a neighbouring mountain, and the first drops of rain began to strike the hall’s windows. ‘A process of divination, of psychometric assay. It is a testing and complex craft, and should be attempted only by those who are well trained, or those who are prepared to face the consequences.’

‘I’m not sure I know what you’re describing, sir,’ said Drusher.

‘In layman’s terms, magos, a séance.’

‘Oh,’ said Drusher.

‘The term we use is auto-séance,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Thea left nothing except her bones. No clothing, no effects, no trace of where she had been for nine years, where she had lived. So, when I first arrived, I conducted a psychic audience with the remains. It was… unpleasant and unrewarding.’

‘I…’ Drusher began, but didn’t really know what to say.

‘Thea had been dead for too long,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Her psionic essence was too far detached from her mortal relics. Also, I have reason to believe the means and process of her death were so reductive, so annihilating, that nothing sensible remained. I reached out and touched something, but it was not coherent.’

Eisenhorn shifted in his seat and took a sip from a glass of amasec that had been placed by his side. His hand was shaking.