Mr Kleist sighed. “It is a theoretical possibility,” he conceded. “Though not in this case.”

“Did he make such a noise?”

“No, ma’am. In fact he was probably incapable of doing so or of performing the action you mention because his nose and mouth were both tightly secured by tape. No air movement would have been possible.”

“You checked for some infusionary device? Perhaps something concealed within the rectum, activated by…” She could not think how you would activate something like that.

“We checked the subject’s clothing and performed a second internal examination. There was nothing.”

“An accomplice. The septus delivered by a dart or some such thing.”

“Impossible, ma’am.”

“You were alone with him?”

“No. An assistant was present.”

“The assistant…”

“Is completely trustworthy, ma’am.”

Madame d’Ortolan turned to him.

“Then, unless you were somehow complicit yourself, Mr Kleist, it could only be that he was able to ingest a slow-release pill some time before.”

Mr Kleist displayed no reaction. “The arresting interception team assure us this would not have been possible. Also, we took blood samples before and after and there was no sign.”

“They must be wrong, all the same. The results must be wrong. Have everything analysed again.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Madame d’Ortolan turned and gazed out over the city as it subsided into darkness, strings of street lights curving into the clear distance of rain-washed air. After some time she put one hand to her lower lip, pinching it.

“And if they are not wrong, ma’am?” Mr Kleist said eventually, when he began to think that perhaps she had forgotten he was there.

“Then,” she said, “we would have the most severe problem. Because we would be faced with somebody who can flit without septus, and, if they are capable of doing that, they could be capable of doing almost anything.” Madame d’Ortolan stopped and thought for a moment. “That would be a perfectly terrifying prospect even if the individual concerned was utterly loyal.” She turned and looked at Mr Kleist. She could hardly see him. “However, I do not believe that to be the case.”

“It might be wise to act as though it is,” he suggested. “Provisionally, at least.” There was a small light on the table by her side. She clicked it on. Mr Kleist still looked dark, dressed in black or something near black, his face paler but still in shade.

“That had occurred to me,” she told him. “Have the husk killed and a full – and I do mean full – post-mortem carried out.”

“The person is not a husk, ma’am.”

“I don’t care.”

“I understand, ma’am.”

“What about the trackers?”

“We have another two teams on him in addition to the one that found him after Lord Harmyle’s murder. There has been nothing reported so far.”

“Are they optimistic?”

Mr Kleist hesitated. “If they are, they’re being unusually reticent about it.”

“Well, never mind how we lost him initially. Now that he is lost, what if he stays lost? What will he do next?”

“He may already have warned those who were on the list marked for assassination. We think somebody must have. The back-up teams have yet to report a success.”

“Not even Obliq?” Madame d’Ortolan asked, pronouncing her name with the sort of acidic tone she usually reserved for Mrs Mulverhill. “I thought they definitely got her.”

“Ah,” Mr Kleist said. “The team report they now think she may have been flitted an instant before the hit.”

“So he did warn them.”

“Somebody did. We doubt he had time personally.”

She frowned. “Your assistant heard the names on the list, didn’t he?”

“As I say, ma’am, he is above suspicion.”

“That is not what you said, and nobody is above suspicion.”

“Then let me rephrase. I have complete faith in his loyalty and discretion.”

“Would you vouch for him with your life?”

Mr Kleist hesitated. “I would not go quite that far for anyone, ma’am. As you say, nobody is entirely above suspicion.”

“Hmm. That list, then, the people on it.”

“We are watching them as closely as we are able to, waiting for an opportunity, but it is not easy and it is not looking promising. Obliq and Plyte disappeared entirely, untrackable, and the rest are awkwardly located, or staying too firmly in the public eye for us to strike. The relevant teams are still primed and in place, ready to resume action on your command the moment we have a clear shot.” He left a pause. “Though of course we have lost the advantage of surprise and concurrency. Even if we are able to pick one off, the rest will become even more suspicious and hard to get at, the moment they hear.”

Madame d’Ortolan nodded to herself. She took a deep breath. “Thus far, this has not worked out as we intended.”

“No, ma’am.”

She was silent for a few moments. A bird cooed somewhere overhead, and wings rustled. Sometimes, when one of the birds in the aviary was unwell or had been injured and was hopping about on the floor of the structure, broken-winged or too ill to fly, Madame d’Ortolan would let the cats in, to dispose of the creature. She always enjoyed the resulting kerfuffle, brief though it usually proved to be. She twisted in her chair and looked at Kleist. “What would you do, Mr Kleist? If you were me?”

Without hesitation he said, “We find ourselves fighting on two fronts, ma’am. That is not supportable. I would indefinitely postpone the actions against the Council members and withdraw all but the basic tracking teams involved. Throw everything at Oh. He’s the greater threat.”

Madame d’Ortolan narrowed her eyes. “Mr Kleist, I have worked for decades to get to just this point with the Central Council. If we don’t act now there is every chance they will approve the sort of invasively damaging policies that the Mulverhill woman has obviously been insinuating into the vacuous heads of an entire generation of students, technicians and agents for a decade or more. There are too many Mulverhills out there and their influence is growing. I can’t keep swatting them away from all positions of influence for ever. We have to act now. We may not get another chance.”

Kleist looked unimpressed. “Ma’am, I think the moment has passed, for now. Another may present itself in time. In the meantime, nobody seems to have any proof that you were behind the actions against the other Council members, or be prepared to speculate openly on the matter, so we have established, as it were, a stable front there. Mr Oh, especially if he is allied with Mulverhill, is an immediate and dynamic threat. Also, once he’s dealt with, we may be able to make it look as though he and Mulverhill were behind the attacks on the Council members.”

Madame d’Ortolan unwound herself in her seat to sit forward again, looking away from him. She released a long, deflating sigh. “Sadly, annoyingly,” she said in a quiet voice, “I think you’re right.”

Mr Kleist was silent for a few moments. His expression did not change. He said, “Shall I issue the relevant orders?”

“Please do.”

He turned to go.

“Mr Kleist?”

He turned back. “Ma’am?”

Madame d’Ortolan had turned to look at him again. “I take this very personally, and very ill. I shall expect Mr Oh to pay for this, in person. Once he has served whatever other purposes we require of him, I think I might ask you to tutor me in some of the techniques you employed in your earlier profession, so that I might apply them to him. And Mulverhill, for that matter. I severely doubt she’s innocent in all this.”

Mr Kleist gave a small bow. “I am at your disposal, ma’am.”

There was a small smile on Madame d’Ortolan’s thin lips. Her paper-cut smile, as he thought of it. The image brought with it, as it always did, the memory of the scent of lemons and the echo of long-faded screams. She waved one hand. “Thank you. That’ll be all.”