rey carpet tiles, a laminated notice about parking, a bench bolted to the wall, and behind a glass scre

f kin?"

id

's rega

n the morning, between the second and third time I'd checked the lock on my own front door. "Detective Sergea

wh

was a guess, and the constable, with a qui

gine off, and I'd stood at my window and watched him for ten minutes before I understood he wasn't going to knock. He'd stayed in the car all night, I rea

'd said. "I'

't tru

ouldn't

r. We hadn't said a word the whole way. At the kerb outside the headquarters he'd said, "I'll w

chel in my lap, counting the ceiling tile

pled, a tie that had been loosened so many times it had given up. He had kind eyes in a face that no longer expected

u d

t two years." He led me down a corridor smell

thank

ght. It's

ttered grey archive box with a label on the end: *MERCER E.J. - 14/11 - CLOSED

you'll want to ask me questions, and I'll answer what I can. But I'd ask you to

ted t

*SUD* and *UNEXPLAINED,* printed in a typeface designed in the nineteen-eighties to be read quickly by people with other things to do. A photograph

ad an object: slowl

told me never worked properly. A fall, the pathologist's notes said, *from the upper third.* Skull fracture. A broken

ine,"

age n

eat grid in Bra

signs in at north

(est.).

by contract cl

lance. 21:04

an estimat

f survival." Brandt didn't look away. "She wa

aloud, in a glass room, by a man who had signed his name under it. "So from seven-forty, he

ng was larg

keeps a nig

e building. The north stair isn't covered by him.

wh

ay by whom. It can be done from a panel at the head of the stair, with a staff swipe card, and

t ver

rned off t

ays it was

uld he

"I put it in the report as *deceased disabled the camera for reasons unknown, poss

dn't s

t. "That was one

t he had been telling me something, this tired man in a loosened tie, for several minutes, in the only way

d alcohol

t oh

dn't d

There was a flask. Nobody found a flask. But there was whisky on the collar and a smell on the clot

forty m

he had been holding in his mouth for a long time. "I can't tell you why a man took f

n't inve

gated what

close

'd hidden from his wife, that these things happen. I was also told, by a number of people I'd no particular reason to doubt, that the Trust wou

ned a

he was asleep.* Three lines, signed with a shaky hand. I read it twice. And then, because I had been trained for ten years to see what

Page twelve.

and fifteen w

ith a stamp: *14, 15.* But the pages that should have followed them weren't in the box. I looked again. There wer

ages,"

sor

t they're not here." I turned the box so he

was something more like the expression of a man who has been wai

rust's counsel had a right to see them. A Mr Dray. Alasdair Dray, of Dray and Co. He asked for them for the Trust's insurers.

e the st

ward him, ran a thick finger down a typed list, and stopped. "It sa

ld from

le, Mrs Merc

at

e quiet of a lab when the pumps are turned off and you can hear what the room is made of. Someone had taken two

e Trust want

at, because it was the thing that had been circling me since I had stepped into the room: *the c

ll employed by

cky note, in a hand like barbed wire, and handed it across.

won

e Trust. He held the door for me with a box of books under one arm and apologised for the weather. I remember thinking: t

still

, creased smile. "It's a l

on the desk, and I signed a form for copies of everyt

e else ask

p at once, and I knew from the speed of

rson this month to ask a

o e

ure I ough

ive Ser

d said, mildly, as if he were commenting

us Pryce," I said. "Dr Pryce wa

ideon Hale, he said his name was. Came in about three weeks ago and asked very politely

with a yellow note in my hand and the

Trust for three years, and for three years his boss on paper had been the chairm

unc

my lab, my father's brother had walked into a police s

the constable with the cold, and out into the white November light, and Cassian Rook was standing b

hot, bitter, too-sweet coffee, with sugar in it, which I never too