‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I should report that my driver said that he wanted to apologise to a woman he once knew.’

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Quite sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Didn’t imagine it?’

‘No.’

‘Well,’ he said, face falling, ‘how about that? I’ll make a note.’

He opened Dave’s trip ledger and made a note. Only it wasn’t a note, it was a black cross. Once this was done, he hastily shut the book and drew in a deep breath.

‘An artefact from a previous life,’ he muttered, ‘a lost memory bubbling to the surface. But a memory without a functioning mind to give it relevance and context is no more than random words on a scrap of paper. Wouldn’t you agree? It’s really important to agree, you know.’

He looked at me with a pained expression on his face.

‘I agree.’

‘Excellent,’ he said with a palpable sense of relief. ‘You can retrieve your weapon on the way out. Drop in again to see us real soon, and don’t forget about the Scrabble. Wincarnis, most mornings.’

I thanked him and made my way to the exit. I looked behind me and noticed that he was removing his picture from the ‘Employee of the Week’ panel. I was only really happy once I was safely out of the complex.

The Wincarnis

‘ . . . Professional Winterers were not well disposed towards those who peddled quack Dormeopathy: the self-appointed Nightshamans, Morpheists, Dreamdancers or homeodormeopaths. Citizens often thanked the spirits for delivering them from the Winter, when in reality they should have been thanking us: the porters, the techies, the quartermasters, the Consuls  . . . ’

– Handbook of Winterology, 9th edition, Hodder & Stoughton

There was still plenty of time until my train departed, so I headed into town to meet Moody, as we’d arranged. I took a right at a shuttered apothecary’s, then crossed a bridge upon which an inept driver had wedged an articulated lorry which was now frozen into the bridge by a concretion of snow and ice. Beyond this was a main square of modest proportions, empty aside from two parked cars, a post box, a phone box and a bronze statue on a sandstone plinth.

Ahead of me and overlooking the square was the Winter Consulate, a domed granite-faced bunker that appeared to have been designed by someone whose architectural taste lay chiefly in harbour breakwaters. The style was termed Ultra-Permanence, and reflected the fashion for public buildings that could withstand the damage of glaciers, earthquakes and even a marble-sized meteorite. It reflected the mood of the Northern Fed: here to stay.