Nothing But Blue Skies by Tom Holt Page B

might be a little harder, but not hopelessly so. (After all, she was a ruthlessly single-minded public servant, at least when she was back home and had her regular skin on.) By the time she reached the first shop on her list, she had it all pat in her head.
    â€˜Hello,’ said the man in the pet shop cheerfully. ‘How can I help you?’
    Karen flashed her library card under his nose. ‘I’m an inspector from the Ministry of Agriculture,’ she said. ‘As you probably know, we’re compiling a complete goldfish database, so what I need from you—’
    â€˜Excuse me.’ There was something in the pet-shop man’s eyes that suggested he’d already had a long and tiring morning, which she was about to make longer and significantly worse. That made her feel bad, but it couldn’t be helped. ‘What do you mean exactly, a goldfish database?’
    Karen stuck a suffering-fools expression on her face. ‘As the basis for the National Goldfish Register,’ she said. ‘You know, as part of the government’s new initiative to get illegal goldfish off the streets—’
    The man sagged, like a suit that had fallen off its coat-hanger. ‘Illegal goldfish?’
    â€˜You don’t know about the goldfish initiative? For heaven’s sake, you run a pet shop. You must have got the booklet.’
    â€˜No,’ the man said wearily. ‘No booklet.’
    â€˜Oh. Well, that’s still no excuse. As part of the drive to eliminate fin-rot by the year 2006, as from the first of April next year all privately owned goldfish must be registered and inspected three times a year by Ministry ichthyologists. So,’ she went on quickly, before the pet-shop man could say anything, ‘it stands to reason we need to know who’s got goldfish, how many, where they live, the height, width and breadth of the tank, details of any relevant pondweed usually kept with the fish, the serial number of the water filter, which direction the tank points in during feeding, the colour of any walls visible from inside the tank - you know, all the obvious stuff. I’ll start by taking a look at your register.’
    â€˜Register?’
    Karen frowned ominously. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘don’t tell me you haven’t got a register.’
    â€˜I don’t know anything about any—’
    â€˜A register,’ Karen went on, ‘of all sales of goldfish within the last seven years, consisting of one master copy for permanent reference, a duplicate copy for official use and a third copy to verify the other two copies by. Which you should have been keeping all this time, but obviously haven’t. Oh dear.’
    â€˜Nobody told me anything about a—’ The pet-shop man didn’t bother to complete the sentence. The crushed look in his eyes suggested that he’d been there before, many times. He looked away. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘My mistake. I suppose you’re going to report me.’
    Karen clicked her tongue. ‘I should,’ she said. ‘Really I should. But . . .’
    The man looked up sharply. ‘But?’ he said, and the expression on his face was that of a fly caught in a web, unexpectedly told by the spider to get the hell out of there before it changed its mind. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help—’
    â€˜Let’s see,’ Karen replied. ‘If you can put together a list of everybody who’s bought goldfish, pondweed, fish food, anything like that over the past few weeks, I might just be able to turn a blind eye, this one time.’
    The man might have considered pointing out that he didn’t have that sort of information; if so, he thought better of it. Gift-horse dentistry is an unrewarding hobby; and he had bank and credit card counterfoils in his records, with names and addresses on them. ‘It may take a while,’ he said cautiously.
    â€˜I