It was only 7 a.m., yet Vance’s office workers were already hurrying through the rain-soaked streets. The Central Criminal Court stood on Dundas Boulevard. It was an ugly lump of a building five storeys high. The concrete façade was textured so as to resemble the intricate pattern of logs seen in a Gandaro longhouse. Slitted windows like the embrasures of a medieval castle laid waste to the architect’s pathetic delusion: this was an Anglo building, at once threatening and ridiculous – a dictator wearing a party hat. An escutcheon was fixed over the chunky pediment. It was an enlarged version of the badges on the cops’ shiny caps. With mouth and beak, an auraca and a moa held aloft the Crown of the Republic against a field of southern stars. Beneath hooves and claws undulated a stylized strip of parchment, upon which was inscribed the motto of the Criminal Justice Department: ABYSSUS ABYSSUM IN VOCAT. Like a gawky schoolgirl, Tom bent to pull up the white knee-socks that completed his outfit; socks that he had hand-washed in the kitchenette sink at his miserable apartment.
