The existence of that leverage had been another excellent reason to shuffle New Kiev from the Home Office to the Exchequer, as well. There was absolutely no way of predicting what she might have done if she’d been running the slavery investigation and it had taken her to places she didn’t want to know existed. It was entirely possible, however, that such a journey would have led her to publicly break with the Government’s handling of the case as a matter of principle, which would have been disastrous. As it was, with her good friend MacIntosh in charge of the affair, she’d been able to look the other way, confident he would get to the bottom of things… and safely insulated from confronting such ugly possibilities (and hard political decisions) herself.

All in all, High Ridge was rather pleased with how neatly he’d managed to turn a potential liability into an advantage and, at the same time, cover himself and his own party against charges of collusion with the accused. If it became necessary, he could always point out that it was his coalition partners, the Liberals, who’d dropped the ball. And the fact that the Liberal Party enjoyed such a towering reputation for moral rectitude, at least among its own voters and a certain segment of the news media, also provided an additional layer of cover. After all, if anything had been allowed to slip past during the course of the investigation, it had to have been an honest mistake on the part of such upright investigators.

Nor, for that matter, did it hurt to have New Kiev and her coterie of Liberal advisers—like the Housemans—to hide behind if any awkward questions were asked about fiscal and monetary policy, either.

That point might become particularly critical in the next few months, since the time limit on the graduated income tax was rapidly running out. The other tax increases could be legally maintained until the next general election, but not the income tax, and the disappearance of that huge fiscal surplus (which the Centrist-controlled House of Commons would never vote to renew) was the real reason Janacek and Houseman had been instructed to cut naval spending still further. Without those cuts, non-military spending would have to be reduced, instead, which was tactically unacceptable to any of the Government’s parties. High Ridge devoutly hoped they could finesse the cuts through without having to admit their true motives, but if they couldn’t, he firmly intended to lay the blame off on New Kiev. After all, everyone knew Liberals were the “tax and spend” party, and it was remotely possible that he could hang onto enough Independents in the Lords to sustain his majority there even if he was forced to cut New Kiev adrift. Possible, but highly unlikely, which was the reason it was so vital to get the cuts and new budget approved as quietly and expeditiously as possible.

Assuming all went well and they got away with that, it would still be useful to have New Kiev at the head of the Exchequer. If nothing else, the fact that she held such a powerful post in the Cabinet was a potent argument to bolster the claim that the current Government was, in fact, a broad-based coalition which embraced all political viewpoints and perspectives.