“Yes. But I think your previous fish will have to be taken off the menu now. Why don’t you come here to give your traditional valediction, and we’ll discuss the terms of this. Refinancing.”

“Can’t do that, Rad. I told you, I’m only passing through. An hour from now I’m gone again. Be a week or more before I can get back.”

“Then,” I could almost see him shrug. “You will miss the valediction. I would not have thought you would want that.”

“I don’t.” This was punishment, another surcharge on top of my volunteered thirty per cent. Segesvar had me worked out, it’s a core skill in organised crime and he was good at his trade. The Kossuth haiduci might not have the cachet and sophistication of the yakuza further north, but it’s essentially the same game. If you’re going to make a living out of extortion, you’d better know how to get to people. And how to get to Takeshi Kovacs was painted all over my recent past like blood. It couldn’t have taken a lot of working out.

“Then come,” he said warmly. “We will get drunk together, maybe even go to Watanabe’s for old times’ sake. Old time’s sake, heheh? And a pipe. I need to look you in the eyes, my friend. To know that you have not changed.”

Out of nowhere, Lazlo’s face.

I’m trusting you, Micky. You look after her.

I glanced across to where Suzi Petkovski was lowering the canopy back over the turbine.

“Sorry, Rad. This is too important to juggle. You want your fish, send someone out to the inland harbour. Charter terminal, ramp seven. I’ll be here for an hour.”

“No valediction?”

I grimaced. “No valediction. I don’t have the time.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“I think,” he said finally, “that I would like very much to look in your eyes right now, Takeshi Kovacs. Perhaps I will come myself.”

“Sure. Be good to see you. Just make it inside the hour.”

He hung up. I gritted my teeth and smashed a fist against the crate beside me.

“Fuck. Fuck.”

You look after her, right. You keep her safe.

Yeah, yeah. Alright.

I’m trusting you, Micky.

Alright, I fucking hear you.

The chime of a phone.

For a moment, I held the one I was using stupidly to my ear. Then it hit me that the sound came from the opened pack beside me. I leaned over and pushed aside three or four phones before I found the one with the lit display. It was one I’d used before, one with a broken seal.

“Yeah?”

Nothing. The line was open but there was no sound on it. Not even static. Perfect black silence yawned into my ear.

“Hello?”