This was clearly only a pro forma protest, because as Lackridge spoke, he unlocked the door and led them quickly through the corridors. After a few minutes, Nick found that he didn’t need to half carry Malthan anymore, but could just point him in the right direction.

Eventually, after numerous turns and more doors that required laborious unlocking, they came to a double-width steel door with two spy holes. Lackridge knocked, and after a brief inspection, they were admitted to a guardroom inhabited by five policeman types. Four were sitting around a linoleum-topped table under a single suspended lightbulb, drinking tea and eating doorstop-size sandwiches. Hodgeman was the fifth, and clearly still on duty, as unlike the others he had not removed his coat.

“Sergeant Hodgeman,” Lackridge called out rather too loudly. “Please escort Mr. Sayre upstairs and have one of your other officers take Malthan to Dorrance Halt and see he gets on the next northbound train.”

“Very good, sir,” replied Hodgeman. He hesitated for a moment, then with a curiously unpleasant emphasis, which Nick would have missed if he hadn’t been paying careful attention, he said, “Constable Ripton, you see to Malthan.”

“Just a moment,” said Nick. “I’ve had a thought. Malthan can take a message from me over to my uncle, the Chief Minister, at the Golden Sheaf. Then someone from his staff can take Malthan to the nearest station.”

“One of my men would happily take a message for you, sir,” said Sergeant Hodgeman. “And Dorrance Halt is much closer than the Golden Sheaf. That’s all of twenty miles away.”

“Thank you,” said Nick. “But I want the Chief Minister to hear Malthan directly about some matters relating to the Old Kingdom. That won’t be a problem, will it? Malthan, I’ll just write something out for you to take to Garran, my uncle’s principal secretary.”

Nick took out his notebook and gold propelling pencil and casually leaned against the wall. They all watched him, the five policeman with studied disinterest masking hostility, Lackridge with more open aggression, and Malthan with the sad eyes of the doomed.

Nick began to whistle tunelessly through his teeth, pretending to be oblivious to the pent-up institutional aggression focused upon him. He wrote quickly, sighed and pretended to cross out what he’d written, then ripped out the page, palmed it, and started to write again.

“Very hard to concentrate the mind in these underground chambers of yours,” Nick said to Lackridge. “I don’t know how you get anything done. Expect you’ve got cockroaches too . . . maybe rats . . . I mean, what’s that?”

He pointed with the pencil. Only Malthan and Lackridge turned to look. The policemen kept up their steady stare. Nick stared back, but he felt a slight fear begin to swim about his stomach. Surely they wouldn’t risk doing anything to Edward Sayre’s nephew? And yet . . . they were clearly planning to imprison Malthan at the least, or perhaps something worse. Nick wasn’t going to let that happen.