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.‘Cheery’ Chivers, ever dour, was looking glummer than usual.Brock’s heart sank as he looked around the table and saw that everyone else’s copies of the report were decorated with dozens of place markers and stick-on notes of many colours, signifying the depth of their study.His own copy, entirely free of such embellishments, looked hideously naked apart from the letter tucked in at the end of chapter one.He made a mental note to get Dot to stick lots of things in for the future, and wondered where they all found the time.As he listened to them droning on he told himself that it was good to suffer these things from time to time, to remind himself just why he’d always refused promotion above detective chief inspector.He suffered less of this than any of them, and some no doubt spent their whole working lives in such meetings, pale termites in the ant heap of number ten Broadway.By listening quietly, Brock was able to pick up much more from the exchanges around the table than he had from the impenetrable document.It seemed that some sort of power struggle was going on, though whether entirely within the police service or involving also the security services was not clear.The battlefield on this occasion was the ongoing allocation of responsibilities and resources between the centre—Scotland Yard—and the periphery— the thirty-three borough operational command units.The focus of this debate was Special Operations, and in particular the Major Enquiry Teams of SO1, to which they all belonged.In essence, it was the opinion of Sharpe— always, in Brock’s view, susceptible to conspiracy theories where his place in the organisation was concerned—that the Beaufort Committee would recommend that SO1 be shafted, sacrificed on some spurious altar of management theory.‘Did he say Beaufort?’ Brock whispered to Chivers.Cheery gave him a baleful look to see if he was joking, then reached to Brock’s copy of the report and turned to the introduction.Listed were the names of the committee of inquiry headed by its chair, Sir John Beaufort.‘Jugular Jack,’ Chivers snorted.‘Something, Brock?’ Sharpe was leaning forward over his papers, beaming his piercing stare down the length of the conference table.‘Just that I happened to come across Beaufort today.He’s got Special Branch protection, you know.He’s been getting death threats.’‘Well, let’s hope they come to something,’ Sharpe said acidly.‘I suppose we can always consider that as a last resort.Murder is one thing we should be able to do reasonably well.No, Lillian, that’s not to be minuted.’ He allowed time for appreciative chortles around the table before moving to the next item on his long agenda.5In the following days the initial turbulent activity settled into a pattern.New faces became familiar, actions became routine and the hope of quick results faded into a dull frustration.The weather settled too, into the soggy monochrome of autumn; leaves fell in earnest from the trees and people reached automatically for warm coats as if summer had never been.Kathy continued to visit Northcote Square each day, although no one seriously expected Gabriel Rudd to hear from his daughter’s kidnapper.She became part of the background at 53 Urma Street, saying little but watching and listening in the hope of catching some reference that might be useful in the hunt for Tracey.She found that the enigma of Gabriel Rudd became no clearer to her.She attended a number of impassioned interviews he gave to radio, TV and press reporters in his house, in which he spoke agonisingly of his loss and pleaded with heart-wrenching conviction for his daughter’s safe return.She also observed the careful way in which he positioned his interviewers and their photographers so that his studies for The Night-Mare always appeared to good effect in the background [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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