He took off his gloves. Then he removed his hat and put the gloves inside it before laying it upside-down upon the counter. As the chief commissar turned, Prassan saw the back of his head where a section of his skull had been replaced with polished steel plate. His hair was combed over it badly, as if it could hide the metallic shine and the thick knots of pink scar tissue where it fused with his skin.

He turned and took in the look on the prisoner’s face. ‘Yes,’ Shand said as he stepped closer. ‘I have faced many foes on behalf of the Emperor of Mankind.’

Even Prassan felt fear then.

Shand motioned for Prassan to stay in the room. The two intelligence officers stood back against the wall. The chief commissar’s metal skull caught the light as he stood preparing himself for the interrogation.

He loomed over the captured traitor. An air of murderous disappointment flowed from him.

He did not need to look at the notes in his clenched fist. ‘Colonel Skall. Swabian Fusiliers. Commander of the troops on Creed Beach.’

‘Yes.’

Shand’s hand whipped out. The speed and strength of the blow was astonishing. Prassan winced. Blood started to flow from the colonel’s nose. He seemed to take a moment to catch himself.

‘It seems that during your time on Crannog Mons you have forgotten the correct way to address a commissar of the God-Emperor.’

‘You are the spokesman of a corrupt and heretical organisation,’ the traitor spat. ‘An Imperium that has become mired in superstition, abuse and heresy. I believe in the Holy Emperor, the Imperium of Mankind, and I believe in the Holy Temple.’

Each time the man spoke Shand struck him. The commissar was going to beat the man to death. By the time Skall had finished his declaration, one eye was swollen shut and his broken nose was now just a bloody smear on his face. Blood-flecked drool hung from his broken lips as he hissed, ‘I believe in Father Bellona. I believe in the cleansing fire of reform.’

Shand’s judgement was as quiet as a hiss from a punctured tyre. ‘You are a traitor to the Imperium of Man.’ His breath was short and sharp, taken in through flaring nostrils. The last blow whipped the man’s head right round and it hung limp on his neck, chin resting on his chest.

Prassan thought for a moment that the commissar had killed him, but after a long pause his head came up and he stated his creed once more.

‘I believe in the Holy Temple. The reform of the Imperium of Man,’ he whispered.

Shand did not strike him this time, but took his bolt pistol from its holster.