The Chief Auditor shakes his head. “Bloody hell,” he grumbles, then, to me: “Do you know where Angleton is?”
I open my mouth-then pause. Now I can feel the electric flare of the geas tickling the fine hairs on my legs.
The blonde Auditor narrows her eyes. “Speak,” she commands.
I can’t not speak, but I still have some control. “I don’t believe Angleton has assigned it a codeword yet,” I hear myself saying, “but his disappearance is connected with an ongoing investigation and I don’t think he wants me to tell anyone about it…”
My legs feel as if they’re immersed in cold fire up to the knees. I gasp for breath, just as the Chief Auditor hastily holds up his hand: “Stay of execution! The subject has invoked the security variance.” He peers at me. “Can you confirm that you are cognizant of Angleton’s whereabouts?”
I nod, jerkily. The chilly, searing fingers recede down my calves.
“In your judgment, is Angleton working in the best interests of this institution?”
I nod like a parcel shelf ornament.
“Also in your judgment, would it impair his work on behalf of this institution if we continue to explore this line of enquiry?”
I think for a moment. Then I nod, emphatically.
“Very well.” Light glints on his spectacles as he looks at me for a few seconds. “On your recommendation, we will not enquire further-unless you have something you would like to tell us?”
Careful, Bob! This is an Audit board you’re up against. They’re at their most dangerous when they’re being reasonable, and they can turn all the fires of hell-imaginary or otherwise-on you if you don’t cooperate.
I take a deep breath. “I’m confused,” I finally say. “I thought this was an enquiry about the break-in and theft from my office safe, but you’ve been asking questions about Angleton and Mo instead. What’s going on?”
Wrong question: Auditor #3 smiles sharkishly and the blonde Auditor shakes her head. “It is not in the remit of this committee to answer questions,” says the Chief Auditor, a trifle archly. “Now, back to the matter in hand. I have some questions about office supplies. When did you last order stationery fasteners from office stores, and how many and what type did you request…?”
WHILE I’M BEING HAULED OVER THE COALS, MO RISES AT HER usual hour, makes coffee, eats a cereal bar, reads my text message. It’s along the lines of HELD UP AT WORK IN COMMITTEE. She frowns, worried but not unduly alarmed. (My texts range from verbose and eloquent-when I’m bored-to monosyllabic, when the entire cesspit is about to be ingested by a jet engine. This intermediate level is indicative of stress, but not of mortal danger.)
She leaves the dregs of the coffee in the pot, and the cereal bar wrapper on top of the other waste in the kitchen bin. She goes upstairs, dresses, collects violin and coat, and leaves.
Sometimes Mo works in the New Annexe; and sometimes she doesn’t. There’s an office in the Royal College of Music where her name is one of three listed on the door. There’s a course in philosophy of mathematics at King’s College where she sometimes lectures-and forwards reports on her pupils to Human Resources. And she’s a regular visitor at the Village, across the fens and up the coast by boat, where the Laundry keeps certain assets that don’t belong in a crowded city. Today, she sets out by tube, heading for the city center. She is on her way to ask Mr. Dower whether he did in fact mail his report. And she is in for a surprise.
Watch the red-haired woman in a black suit, violin case in hand, walking up the pavement towards the shuttered shopfront with the blue-and-white police incident tape stretched across the doorway. Traffic cones with more tape stand to either side of the shop front, fluttering in the light breeze. She pauses, nonplussed, then looks around. There is a police officer standing discreetly by, hands clasped behind his back. She glances back at the taped-off doorway. There is no dark stain on the lintel-the SOC officers and the cleanup crew did their job well-but the ward she wears under her blouse buzzes a warning. Her expression hardens, and she walks towards the constable, reaching into her handbag to produce an identity card.
“What happened here, officer?” she asks quietly, holding the card where he can’t help but see it.
He doesn’t stand a chance. “Who, uh, oh dear…” He shakes his head. “Ma’am. Murder scene. You can’t go, I mean, you shouldn’t…”
“Who’s in charge here?” she enquires. “Where can I find them?”
“That’d be DI Wolfe, from MIT 4. He’s set up shop round the back-that way, that alley there-who should I say-”
“In the name of national security, I command and require you to forget me,” she says, slipping the card away and turning towards the alley that runs around to the back of the row of four shops. The constable’s eyes close momentarily; by the time he opens them again, the woman with the violin case is gone.
Ten minutes later, the back door to George Dower’s shop clicks open. Two figures step inside: a uniformed detective sergeant and the woman. Both of them wear disposable polythene slippers over their shoes; she still holds her violin case. “Don’t touch anything-tell me what you want to look at,” he says, pulling on a pair of disposable gloves. “What exactly are you after?”
“First of all, what state is his PC in?”
“It wasn’t stolen, so we bagged it.” The sergeant sounds sure of himself. “If you’re wanting to scrape the hard drive, we can have an image of it available in an hour or so.”
Mo cools slightly. If the killer left the PC behind, then there’s almost certainly nothing left on it but random garbage, an entropic mess that not even CESG will be able to unerase. “Any memory sticks? Small stuff? CD-Rs?”
“We bagged them, too.” The sergeant picks his way into Dower’s workshop, which still reeks of rosin and varnish. A row of disemboweled instruments hang from a rail overhead, like corpses in the dissectionist’s cold parlor. Those tools that are not in their places on the pegboard that covers one wall are laid out on the bench in parallel rows, neatly sorted by size. The metal parts gleam like surgical steel, polished and unnaturally bright.
“Any papers?”
The sergeant pauses beside a rolltop desk, itself an antique, Victorian or Edwardian. “Yes,” he says reluctantly. “They’re scheduled for pickup tomorrow so we can continue working on the contact list. Receipts, suppliers’ brochures, estimates, that sort of thing.”
“I’m looking for an appraisal of a customer’s instrument,” she tells him. “It will be dated yesterday or the day before, and it relates to a violin. It may be in an unmarked envelope, like this one.” She produces an envelope from her bag.
“Like that-” The officer’s eyes widen and his back straightens. “Would you happen to have any information about the killer?” he asks. “Because if so-”
Mo shakes her head. “I do not know who the killer is.” The sergeant stares at her, seeking eye contact. “The victim was commissioned to prepare a report for my department. He was due to post it on the evening when the incident occurred. It has not been delivered.”
“What was he meant to report on?”
Mo makes eye contact at last, and the detective sergeant recoils slightly from whatever he sees in her expression. “You have no need to know. If it appears that there is a connection between the report and the killing, my department will notify Inspector Wolfe immediately. Similarly, if the identity of the killer comes to our attention.” She doesn’t add, in such a way that we can disclose it without violating security protocol: that much is always understood to be a minor chord in the uneasy duet of spook and cop. “The report, however, is a classified document and should be treated as such.” And she raises her warrant card again.
The detective sergeant is clearly torn between the urgent desire to get her into an interview room and the equally urgent desire to get her the hell out of this shop, and away from what was until a few minutes ago a straightforward-if rather unusual-murder investigation; but being on the receiving end of a Laundry warrant card is an oh-shit moment. It begins with the phrase Her Britannic Majesty’s government commands and compels you to provide the bearer of this pass with all aid and assistance, written atop a design of such subtle and mind-numbing power that it makes the reader’s breath catch in his throat as suddenly as if trapped by a hangman’s noose. He can no more ignore it-and no more ignore her instructions-than he can ignore a gun pointed at his head.