this?”
Skulk patched a task tree to Ferguson's desk slate. Ferguson poked about in it for a bit. “A” Division of Lothian and Borders Police currently had two other active murder investigations: one street stabbing from five days earlier, one domestic bludgeoning from last night. There were the usual traffic accidents, assaults, thefts. And then there was the investigation that he and Hutchins, Patel and Connolly had been working on for weeks: some thuggery arising out of a conflict between a local security company, Hired Muscle, and the Gazprom goons down at Leith Water. Gazprom hadn't been happy with Hired Muscle's security on the docks, citing pilfering and (in a typical Russian ploy, Ferguson reckoned) sabotage of crated space-industry components from the defence company Rosoboroneksport on trans-shipment to Turnhouse and thence to the Atlantic Space Elevator. Gazprom's own security staff had taken up the business dispute in the manner likewise typical of capitalism with Russian characteristics—with tire irons.
Ferguson called up his immediate boss, DCI Frank McAuley, and repeated the question.
“Everything,” McAuley said.
At five p.m. Professor Grace Abounding Mazvabo saved her day's work and leaned away from her desk, flexing her shoulders. The day's work wasn't really over—she had stacks of admin and grading still to do, and her book in any time left over—but the ritual was important. She switched on the kettle that stood on the windowsill and gazed out while waiting for it to boil. From her cramped and cluttered office in the top floor of New College on the Mound she had one of the best views in Edinburgh, facing north across the railway lines and Princes Street Gardens, over the towers of New New Town to the Firth and beyond it to Fife. As perks of a job went, this wasn't bad, even if it was the job's only perk.
The kettle boiled. Grace made herself a mug of instant coffee and sat back down, flipping her desk screen to the Edinburgh Evening News . She took in the headline and set down her mug with a bang and a hot splash.
BOMB PRIEST “MURDERED”
As she read the text, animated the photos, and listened to the little talking heads, Grace Mazvabo had her mouth to the back of her hand long after the slight scald had faded. And besides her grief and wrath, which were in truth not much greater than she usually felt at the murder of a stranger, she identified a sharper pang of guilt. The first thought that had flashed across her mind when she'd read the headline was: Oh dear Lord, it's started . She was guilty because she had been uneasy for some time about what might have just started, and she hadn't warned anyone, because…because, well…she was embarrassed to explain it to herself, let alone to anyone else.
She picked up the now cool mug in the fingertips of both hands, propped her elbows, sipped, gazed at the screen and examined her conscience. There was no evidence to support her suspicion. The police weren't pointing a finger. No claim of responsibility had been made. The victim was from the very base of the Catholic hierarchy. Blameless, obscure, well-liked—he couldn't have been more stupidly chosen, assuming he had been chosen. The action had been heedless of collateral damage, its secondary victims even more innocent in the world's eyes than the dead man. If this was what Grace dreaded to seriously suspect, the victim's symbolic value was the perverse opposite of what she'd have expected. Perhaps the pointlessness of it was the point. There is none righteous, no, not one …
Wait. No. Surely not. Surely, surely not. They couldn't be that crazy. She was running ahead of herself. She stood up and stepped over to a metal filing cabinet and retrieved a cardboard file. She leafed through its contents, slid it back in the divider and banged the drawer shut.
Oh yes , Grace thought. They could be that crazy .
She still hesitated to go to the police. Not without something more than this
Skulk patched a task tree to Ferguson's desk slate. Ferguson poked about in it for a bit. “A” Division of Lothian and Borders Police currently had two other active murder investigations: one street stabbing from five days earlier, one domestic bludgeoning from last night. There were the usual traffic accidents, assaults, thefts. And then there was the investigation that he and Hutchins, Patel and Connolly had been working on for weeks: some thuggery arising out of a conflict between a local security company, Hired Muscle, and the Gazprom goons down at Leith Water. Gazprom hadn't been happy with Hired Muscle's security on the docks, citing pilfering and (in a typical Russian ploy, Ferguson reckoned) sabotage of crated space-industry components from the defence company Rosoboroneksport on trans-shipment to Turnhouse and thence to the Atlantic Space Elevator. Gazprom's own security staff had taken up the business dispute in the manner likewise typical of capitalism with Russian characteristics—with tire irons.
Ferguson called up his immediate boss, DCI Frank McAuley, and repeated the question.
“Everything,” McAuley said.
At five p.m. Professor Grace Abounding Mazvabo saved her day's work and leaned away from her desk, flexing her shoulders. The day's work wasn't really over—she had stacks of admin and grading still to do, and her book in any time left over—but the ritual was important. She switched on the kettle that stood on the windowsill and gazed out while waiting for it to boil. From her cramped and cluttered office in the top floor of New College on the Mound she had one of the best views in Edinburgh, facing north across the railway lines and Princes Street Gardens, over the towers of New New Town to the Firth and beyond it to Fife. As perks of a job went, this wasn't bad, even if it was the job's only perk.
The kettle boiled. Grace made herself a mug of instant coffee and sat back down, flipping her desk screen to the Edinburgh Evening News . She took in the headline and set down her mug with a bang and a hot splash.
BOMB PRIEST “MURDERED”
As she read the text, animated the photos, and listened to the little talking heads, Grace Mazvabo had her mouth to the back of her hand long after the slight scald had faded. And besides her grief and wrath, which were in truth not much greater than she usually felt at the murder of a stranger, she identified a sharper pang of guilt. The first thought that had flashed across her mind when she'd read the headline was: Oh dear Lord, it's started . She was guilty because she had been uneasy for some time about what might have just started, and she hadn't warned anyone, because…because, well…she was embarrassed to explain it to herself, let alone to anyone else.
She picked up the now cool mug in the fingertips of both hands, propped her elbows, sipped, gazed at the screen and examined her conscience. There was no evidence to support her suspicion. The police weren't pointing a finger. No claim of responsibility had been made. The victim was from the very base of the Catholic hierarchy. Blameless, obscure, well-liked—he couldn't have been more stupidly chosen, assuming he had been chosen. The action had been heedless of collateral damage, its secondary victims even more innocent in the world's eyes than the dead man. If this was what Grace dreaded to seriously suspect, the victim's symbolic value was the perverse opposite of what she'd have expected. Perhaps the pointlessness of it was the point. There is none righteous, no, not one …
Wait. No. Surely not. Surely, surely not. They couldn't be that crazy. She was running ahead of herself. She stood up and stepped over to a metal filing cabinet and retrieved a cardboard file. She leafed through its contents, slid it back in the divider and banged the drawer shut.
Oh yes , Grace thought. They could be that crazy .
She still hesitated to go to the police. Not without something more than this
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