‘They’re here,’ said Bequin, entering the suite’s lounge from the outer lobby. She had dressed in a demure gown of blue damask and a silk pashmeena, perfectly in keeping with my instruction that we should present a muted but powerful image.

I myself was clad in a suit of soft black linen with a waistcoat of grey velvet and a hip-length black leather storm coat.

‘Do you need me for this?’ asked Midas Betancore, my pilot and confidant.

I shook my head. ‘I don’t intend to be delayed here. I just have to be polite. Go on to the landing port and make sure the gun-cutter’s readied for departure.’

He nodded and left. Bequin showed the visitors in.

I had felt it necessary to be polite, because Eskeen Hansaard, Urbitane’s Minister of Security, had come to see me himself. He was a massive man in a double-breasted brown tunic, his big frame offset oddly by his finely featured, boyish face. He was escorted by two bodyguards in grey, armour-ribbed uniforms, and a short but handsome, black-haired woman in a dark blue bodyglove.

I had made sure I was sitting in an armchair when Bequin showed them in so I could rise in a measured, respectful way. I wanted them to be in no doubt who was really in charge here.

‘Minister Hansaard,’ I said, shaking his hand. ‘I am Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn of the Ordo Xenos. These are my associates Alizebeth Bequin, Arbites Chastener Godwyn Fischig and savant Uber Aemos. How may I help you?’

‘I have no wish to waste your time, inquisitor,’ he said, apparently nervous in my presence. That was good, just as I had intended it. ‘A case has been brought to my attention that I believe is beyond the immediate purview of the city Arbites. Frankly, it smacks of warp corruption, and cries out for the attention of the Inquisition.’

He was direct. That impressed me. A ranking official of the Imperium, anxious to be seen to be doing the right thing. Nevertheless, I expected his business might be a mere nothing, like the affair of the trade federation, a local crime requiring only my nod of approval that it was fine for him to continue and close. Men like Hansaard are often over-careful, in my experience.

‘There have been four deaths in the city during the last month that we believe to be linked. I would appreciate your advice on them. They are connected by merit of the ritual mutilation involved.’

‘Show me,’ I said.

‘Captain?’ he responded.

Arbites Captain Hurlie Wrex was the handsome woman with the short black hair. She stepped forwards, nodded respectfully, and gave me a data-slate with the gold crest of the Adeptus Arbites on it.

‘I have prepared a digested summary of the facts,’ she said.

I began to speed-read the slate, already preparing the gentle knock-back I was expecting to give to his case. Then I stopped, slowed, read back.