Ian

The administrative reception at City Hall is a strangely bleak space, decorated like a hospital but steeped in a different flavour of misery. The light was strong but cold, and somehow it made all the punters look the same, like mannequins draped in grey dustcloths. Reflections on the perspex screen hid the staff but I knew who I was there to see.

Most of the clerks were women, and women have to fight for their autonomy and respect. Many of them would take personal offence if you tried to bribe them, irrespective of how they felt about their employer. But a man will look you in the eye, take your money, and forget he's done it before you even finish asking the question.

Matthew had the end booth that morning, easily spotted by his height. He was handsome in a sort of salt-and-pepper, older man sort of way, not really my type even when he was greeting me with a smile rather than a dark scowl. He wore a blue check shirt and a drab wool vest, collar tight under the neat knot of his grey tie.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I met his gaze as cheerily as I could, plonking one of the coffee cups I held down in the aperture of the screen, carefully angled so he could see the hundred-royal note peeking out where I'd tucked it into the cardboard band. "Matty! Long time, how're you doing?"

He treated me to a slightly different flavour of glare and called over to a colleague that he was going on break, reaching under the desk to press a door release. I knew the drill. To my left was the door to the interview rooms; I shouldered it open while the electronic lock was released and stepped through as Matthew did the same from behind the counter. He led me to one of the rooms – little more than a concrete cubicle with a rickety old table and ugly chairs – and gestured me to sit.

I slid the coffee across the table. His order hadn't changed in years, but he didn't drink. Instead, he slid the note out of the band and unfolded it. That brought a different expression out of him, though his surprise turned cynical without hesitation. "Paying your debts?"

I rolled my eyes at him and pulled out another of Lachlan's notes from the breast pocket of my shirt. I placed it flat on the desk, but kept my hand on top of it. "I need the registry information for an address."

He nodded. That was the other good thing about Matthew. If he took a bribe he didn't fanny around. "Leave it with me. If I can't get you a copy I'll pull the information and call."