Gently, Endor slid the drawer open again. It wasn’t full of blood at all. It was full of dark rose petals. He laughed at himself. The rose petals were as black and red as the halls of the Theatricala. He dipped his hand in and slid it around. The petals were as soft and cold as snow flakes or random clues.

He took out the knife. It was double-sided and stained. He sniffed it. Blood. From the bathroom in 870 Arbogan, no doubt. He leant back into the seat, and took out the pict. Dance steps? Practice marks? Surely nothing so innocent.

Endor decided he had to get Liebstrum working on the Number of Ruin. He needed proper information. The Number of Ruin wasn’t something one took lightly. There had been a case, years back, an old fool…

Endor wondered where Liebstrum was. He hadn’t seen his interrogator in days.

He put his hand back into the petals, and found a card, a business card. On one side, it read ‘Cloten and Sons, Funerary Needs and Final Rituals’. There was a vox number and a street address.

On the other side, handwritten, was ‘Master Titus, you need to conclude your business with these men. Order number 87.’ 435, Endor thought, was divisible by 87 five times.

‘Hello?’ Endor called out.

The man poked his head around the dressing room door. ‘Sir?’

‘What are the chances of a man getting a drink?’ Endor asked.

Cloten and Sons occupied a grim ouslite building at the end of Limnal Street. Polished long-bodied hearses sat in the snowy yard. A brass bell tinkled as Endor went in.

‘Can I be of assistance to you, sir?’ asked a young, pudgy man in mourning weeds.

‘No, you can’t,’ Endor replied, ‘but he can.’ He pointed at the tall, slender man at the back of the musty little shop, a place of dark velvet drapes and samphorwood.

‘Master Cloten?’ the young man called. ‘For you, sir.’

Master Cloten walked over to Endor. He was no longer wearing the tall back hat, but he was unmistakeable. His face was hard and pale and sinewy, the face a man wore when he had spent his life dealing with grief.

‘How may I help you, sir?’ he asked.

‘Order number 87,’ Endor replied.

The man went to his heavy ledger, and heaved it open, but Endor knew he already knew the details.

‘Ah, indeed. Already fully paid. A nalwood coffin, and a confirmed site in the municipal yard. Headstone already inscribed. Eighteen paid mourners. We have two of our most saddest-faced boys ready, sir, a horse-drawn carriage. Full wreathes. Two hymns already chosen and applied. The choir of the Theatricala will attend and sing them. Well, everything looks in order.’

‘Good,’ said Endor, ‘and it’s all paid for?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I saw you in the street this morning,’ said Endor.

‘Quite probably, sir,’ the slender man agreed. ‘Death visits all the time. It stalks us, so to say.’