‘Water it down?’ Slvasta asked incredulously. ‘We either buy the horses or we don’t. How can that be watered down?

Arnice raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ll find out. Treasury chaps can be rather inventive when it comes to purchase proposals. Always have been. That’s just the way of it.’

Slvasta wanted to bellow in frustration. To think, when he woke this morning he’d assumed he would finally be making progress. ‘Then maybe it shouldn’t be the way of it.’

‘Ah, a revolution,’ Arnice said. ‘Now there’s a true goal for you. Be nice to your old upper-crust friends when it comes to putting us aristos in front of the firing squad, eh?’

‘I certainly won’t forget what you’ve done for me.’

‘I should think not. Starting with the Piarro at eight thirty tonight. Don’t be late.’ Arnice patted him on the shoulder and hurried on down the stairs to hail another group of officers.

Slvasta watched him talk to them, the easy chat and smiles. He almost envied the way Arnice knew everyone, knew what to say and how to comport himself. If it had been Arnice putting the proposal forward, it wouldn’t be diverted by Major crudding Rennart. He had the connections, knew the way to smooth progress. The embodiment of the very system that was thwarting Slvasta.

‘I’m out for the afternoon,’ Slvasta told Keturah and Thelonious when he reached his office.

‘But, sir, you’ve got—’

‘Don’t argue,’ he snapped at Keturah. ‘Rearrange things.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Her shell didn’t quite harden fast enough to conceal her resentment at the way she was being treated.

Join the club, he thought, and stomped out.

*

It wasn’t that far to the National Tax Office, a walk down Walton Boulevard towards the palace, then cross over at the junction with Struzaburg Avenue where the statue of the Landing Plane stood – a weird triangular sculpture, badly worn by time and constant bird droppings. Half a mile along Wahren Street, the granite façade of the Tax Office’s hall of records loomed over the delicate bundwine trees with their ruddy spine-leaves waving in the wind. Eight storeys of offices and archives with small dark windows that didn’t open. He’d been told there were more archives below it as well – ten basement levels, apparently.

The circular entrance galleria was clad in a drab brown marble, with broad stairs spiralling up all eight storeys, where it was topped by an elaborate glass cupola. There were two receptionists behind the curving desk, and five civic guards. If it hadn’t been for his uniform, he doubted he would have been allowed through the door.

‘Do you have an appointment, captain?’ one of the receptionists asked. He was an elderly man in a black tailcoat with a grey striped waistcoat. His glasses were thick pebbles. The whole place with its silent, timeless existence was draining Slvasta’s anger and determination away fast.

‘I’d like to see a clerk called Bethaneve, please,’ he said, hoping his rank was enough to ensure compliance.

‘Is she expecting you?’

‘She is dealing with a case for me. It has become an urgent matter for the Joint Regimental Council.’

‘I see.’ The receptionist wrote something on a small chit and handed it to a mod-dwarf, the smallest one Slvasta had ever seen. The creature disappeared into a little archway behind the desk. ‘If you’d like to wait, captain.’

Slvasta sat on one of the two wooden benches, which looked out of place in the big space. By the time the mod-dwarf returned, all his early determination had gone, evaporated into the cool air, and he was feeling slightly foolish at his impetuosity. But the setback in the policy meeting had been infuriating. He wanted to achieve something today. Just for once.

‘Bethaneve will see you,’ the receptionist said. ‘Office five-thirty-two.’ He gestured to one of the guards.

The five flights of curving stairs made Slvasta realize how long it had been since he’d done a run. He was breathing heavily when they started walking down one of the long corridors on the fifth floor. They must have passed fifty doors, his ex-sight revealed clerks sitting behind desks in their individual offices. The long rooms between them contained row after row of shelving, with every centimetre crammed with files and ledgers.

‘No ex-sight perception, please,’ the guard told him. ‘Tax material is classified.’

Slvasta almost protested that ex-sight couldn’t read entries on paper even if he could distinguish individual sheets, but of course that was one of the rules. It didn’t matter if it was relevant or not.

The guard knocked on a door.

‘Come in,’ a ’path voice said.

The guard opened the door. ‘I will wait until you’ve finished, then escort you out,’ he told Slvasta, and indicated a wooden seat back at the last junction.

Bethaneve was a surprise. He’d been expecting someone at least as old as the receptionists downstairs. Instead she was about his age, with thick unstyled auburn hair that hung just below her shoulders. She wore a green cardigan over a shapeless blue polkadot dress which had a slim white lace collar and a skirt that fell almost to her ankles, but allowed a view of her black leather shoes. It was the kind of outfit he would expect to see on a centenarian. But then it fitted the location, no matter how young and bright the wearer.

‘Thank you for seeing me,’ he said.

‘I’ve been here seventeen months, and nobody has ever asked for an appointment before,’ she said with a small smile. ‘Actually, I don’t know anyone on this floor who’s ever had a visitor. I’ll be talked about for weeks in the canteen.’

He smiled back. Bethaneve wasn’t as pretty as Lanicia. Her features were too broad, and her nose larger – which was an unfair comparison, he told himself sternly. For Bethaneve had a lightness which was especially noticeable in this small dreary office with its single high window.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It was just that I did put in a review request four months ago. You sent me an acknowledgement and said it was underway. I’d appreciate a progress report.’

‘Yes, that was unusual. We’ve never had a request from the military before.’

‘Is that a problem? I was told I had the authority to make the request.’ It was Arnice who’d suggested it as a way of tracking down his elusive quarry after he’d found nothing in the Erond regiment personnel records. Everybody on Bienvenido had a Tax Office file, the one inescapable constant.

‘As one of the Captain’s officers, you do, yes.’

‘So? How’s it going?’

She gave him an awkward look, then gestured to one of the shelves which covered two walls of the office from floor to ceiling. Black and red leather ledgers were piled up all along it, looking as if they were about to slide off. By the archive hall’s standards, it was akin to anarchy. ‘This is my investigation. I’m working through every variant of Nigel I could think of registered in Erond county.’

‘And you haven’t found him?’ Slvasta sighed.

‘No. Certainly not a trader as you described. However, there are some boatowners who have similar businesses, although none of them is called Nigel.’ She smiled.

Slvasta liked that smile, it animated her. ‘Ah, excellent. Can I see their files?’

‘These are just the registration ledgers,’ she said. ‘The actual files are still in the vaults. I haven’t requested them yet.’

Slvasta looked at her, seeing the smile fade. Looked round the woeful office. ‘You have a lot on. I understand.’

‘Oh,’ she blushed. ‘Yes. I’m sorry. If it’s really urgent I can order the files up. They’ll be here in a week. My supervisor has to approve the request.’

Slvasta started laughing. ‘Rushing it through, huh?’

‘It’s really quite quick.’ She shrugged. ‘By archive standards, anyway. It’s just . . . things are done in a certain way.’

‘Because that’s the way they’re always done.’