Read Online This Thing of Darkness by Harry Bingham - Free Book Online

Chicago,’ he says.
    ‘That’s OK. I don’t mind working hard.’
    ‘Tell me about it.’
    He stares at me appraisingly. I wonder how I look through his eyes. A small young woman in a neat white blouse. But one who can’t actually handle the kind of life that small, neatly bloused women are meant to lead.
    ‘So. You’ve got a burglary at Plas Du. What else did I give you?’
    It was a whole stack, in fact, but I only mention Derek Moon, the fallen security guard.
    ‘That’s a thin diet for you, isn’t it?’
    He means I normally like my cases fresher, bloodier. Corpsier.
    ‘Yes, maybe, but with crime the way it is . . .’
    Crime statistics: a favourite complaint of mine. The way crime always falls. The way each year brings fewer corpses, fewer Major Crimes for our dwindling team.
    Jackson says, ‘Fiona, falling crime is a good thing, remember? But look. Your priority, at all times, needs to be the EO job, OK? If Owen Dunwoody or Laura Moffatt tell me you’re letting things slip, I will jump up and down on your head. Probably literally. But in any case, you won’t have a job in CID afterwards. Is that clear?’
    I nod. My submissive nod. The one that actually means I actually mean it.
    ‘And no flying solo. No more interviewing people under caution when you haven’t even bloody told me you wanted to visit the site.’
    I do my nod again, but maybe not quite so submissive as the one before.
    Jackson doesn’t let that go. He says, sharply, ‘Fiona?’
    ‘Yes, sir. No flying solo.’
    ‘OK.’ And then he smiles and maybe I do too and then everything changes and there is light in the room again and I can stand up without wobbling and no longer feel the need to point upwards at my head.
    ‘Your OSPRE exam. Did it go OK?’
    ‘Made random guesses all the way through, sir.’
    ‘Excellent.’
    He wants to know when I hear the results. I’m not sure, but I think it’s six weeks, something like that.
    Then Jackson wants me gone. He’d quite like to do some real work, I think. But I have one last call on his patience.
    ‘Lichens, sir. Do you have any interest in lichens at all?’

 
    8
     
    Lichens. Neglected but remarkable.
    For one thing, they’re not one organism, but two. All lichens are joint ventures that combine a fungus and an alga. The fungus does the rooty, mushroomy stuff. The algae do the photosynthesis part. A neat trick.
    And they’re tough little critters. A few years back, a Spanish scientist, don’t ask me why, put some lichens on a spaceship and bounced them around in open space for a fortnight. Cosmic rays. Heat and cold. Total vacuum. Not great for the health, you’d imagine, but when they came back to Earth, they were just fine. All tickety-boo and ready to carry on lichening around.
    There are drawbacks to this way of life, however. Most pertinently, lichens grow slowly. So slowly, indeed, they can be used to date the exposed surfaces of rocks. And if some remarkably adept burglar chose to go skyhooking his way across a narrow cornice near Llantwit in order to gain entry to a corridor full of minor Picassos, then the lichens will bear the imprint of that skyhookery for years, and perhaps even decades, afterwards.
    My researcher from the University of Kent does indeed come to Plas Du. And finds that, sure enough, if you ignore the most recent growth – the stuff that has happened in the years since 2009 – the older lichens reveal a line of pointy metal hook marks running all the way from the corner to the window. The marks are so clear, we think we can even identify the brand of skyhooks.
    The process takes two weeks. In academic-forensic terms, two weeks is blisteringly fast, but to me, down in the dungeons, the moment can’t come soon enough. I chase Pam, the researcher, every day at least once, sometimes twice. But we get there. She gives me the confirmation I need. By phone and email, letter to follow.
    ‘ Fab ,’ I tell her. Tell her that she’s my favourite ever