"I got three or four offers-like you, I imagine. I told the first that I’d accepted the second, the second that I’d said yes to the third, and so on. They don’t care. As for how I live, well… It’s easier than you think to make yourself indispensable, Miss Coldwine. Providing services, offering whatever it is people will pay for. Information mostly…" His voice petered out.

Bellis was bewildered by his candor, suggesting conspiracies and underworlds around her.

"You know…" he said suddenly, "I’m grateful to you, Miss Coldwine. Sincerely grateful."

Bellis waited.

"You were there in Salkrikaltor City, Miss Coldwine. You saw the conversation between the late Captain Myzovic and myself. You must have wondered what exactly was on that letter that had the captain so unhappy, that turned you back, but you remained quiet. I’m sure you realized that things could have become… very hard for me when we were hijacked by Armada, but you said nothing. And I’m grateful.

"You did say nothing?" he added with an anxiety he could not quite hide. "As I say, I’m very grateful."

"When we last spoke, on the Terpsichoria," Bellis said, "you told me it was vital you get back to New Crobuzon immediately. Well, what now?"

He shook his head uncomfortably.

"Hyperbole and… and bullshit," he said. He glanced up, but she showed no disapproval of his language. "I get into habits of exaggeration." He waved his hand to dispel the issue. There was an uncomfortable pause.

"So you can express yourself in Salt?" Bellis asked. "For this work you do, presumably you have to, Mr. Fennec."

"I have had many years to perfect Salt," he said in the language, swift and expert, with an unfeigned smile, and continued in Ragamoll. "And… Well, I’m not going by that name here. If you’d indulge me, I’m known here as Simon Fench."

"So where did you learn Salt, Mr. Fench?" she said. "You mentioned your travels…"

"Dammit." He looked amused and embarrassed. "You make the name sound like a hex. You can call me what you like, Miss Coldwine, in these rooms, but outside, I beg your indulgence. Rin Lor. I learnt Salt in Rin Lor, and the outer edge of the Pirate Islands."

"What were you doing there?"

"The same thing," he said, "that I do everywhere. I buy and I sell. I trade."

"I’m thirty-eight years old," he said after they had drunk some more and Bellis had fussed with the stove. "I’ve been a trader since before I was twenty. I’m a New Crobuzon man, don’t get me wrong. Born and brought up in the shadow of the Ribs. But I doubt I’ve spent five hundred days in that city in the last twenty years."

"What do you trade?"