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people were now standing by the sea wall, waiting to see the tidal bore as it burst through Blandford Passage. From this distance, more than thirty kilometres, only the white crest of the wave could be seen with the naked eye, but recent tides had been high and the telescope renters along the front had been illegally increasing their prices.
    Mander was pointing to the south of the Passage. From that direction, skimming along past Lawrence Island, came the hydrofoil. On the deepening blue of the presently calm waters of the bay it was the only sign of movement.
    ‘The tide will be through any minute now,’ Cro said. ‘Do you suppose the pilot realizes?’
    ‘He’ll know,’ Mander said.
    A few seconds later, the people who had hired telescopes bent to their instruments, and the tidal wave appeared. Several of the tourists pointed seawards, pointing excitedly, and children were held aloft on the shoulders of their parents.
    The waiter arrived to take their order, and Cro sat down.
    ‘Is this ... Mr Harkman on the hydrofoil?’ he said, when two beers had been brought.
    ‘I can’t think why else it should be late,’ Mander said, watching the other man for his reaction.
    ‘I heard he wasn’t rated above Regional Adviser. Would the boat be held for you or me?’
    ‘It would depend on the circumstances.’
    Well pleased with Cro’s reaction, Mander sipped his beer. Earlier in the day he had heard that the low-water berth at Poundbury was going to be busy all day, obliging the hydrofoil to wait for the tide. He assumed Cro hadn’t heard this, but decided against mentioning it because he liked Cro to have a few mysteries.
    Cro took a mouthful of beer. He wiped his lips with his handkerchief, then stood up again.
    Out in the bay the hydrofoil had slowed down, so that its hull had entered the water again. The boat had turned to face the flooding tide, and as Cro stepped down from Sekker’s patio and crossed the Boulevard to the sea wall the first turbulence reached it. The boat yawed and pitched dramatically, but as soon as the first large waves were past it turned again towards Dorchester, and accelerated through the choppy water in the wake of the bore.
    Still seated at the table, Mander looked at Cro with irritation. The arrival of any high-level appointee brought inevitable conflicts within the office, as the hierarchy unwillingly accommodated the newcomer, but Harkman’s appointment to Dorchester threatened the recent smooth state of office politics as surely as the twice-daily tides disrupted the calm waters of the bay.
    It was the vagueness of Harkman’s position at the Regional Commission that was the main problem. Mander had been told that Harkman was to be given access to whatever files or records he requested, and that Commissioner Borovitin’s authorization would be channelled through his own office. As Mander’s area of responsibility was Administration, this made sense, but he was still unsure of the nature of Harkman’s intended research. Cro was displaying an unnatural amount of interest in the new man, so Mander suspected that he knew more than he was letting on. His questioning of Mander was probably less for his own information than to try to discover how much Mander knew.
    Cro, a master at office manoeuvring, would be delighted to have someone working in his own department who had relative freedom of movement, as he would be certain to find some way of benefiting from it.
    ‘Do you want another beer?’ Mander said, when the other man returned to the table.
    Cro looked at his wristwatch. ‘I think we’ve time. The boat won’t be in for another ten minutes.’
    Mander took this as an acceptance, and summoned the waiter.
    In the bay, the flooding tidal wave from the north spread in a flattening semi-circle, the first turbulence subsiding. The rising tide still poured through Blandford Passage, and would continue to do so for another hour, but the initial violence of its arrival was past. In