The Severed Streets by Paul Cornell Read Free Book Online Page A

inquiry, which, if we’re not careful, may lead to conflict and ire.Now, instead of drawing the names from the central register, I say we continue to name our own ops because that’s how we roll and I like it.So for this one, where we might well be venturing into Gothic and clichéd portrayals of our fair metropolis, how about…’
    He wrote on the card at the top of the Ops Board:
    OPERATION FOG
    The rest of the day was spent assembling all the evidence they had and building their initial Ops Board to the point where they all felt they were looking at everything they knew.They kept the news on in the background, but no fresh details came to light in the press.Ross had set up a bunch of hashtag searches on Twitter, but, as the day went on, they only revealed that London was panicking and gossiping in many different ways about the murder; no one signal was poking up out of the terrified noise.
    All in all, Sefton was glad to have put in such a productive day and, with the Portakabin getting stuffy, he was pleased when Quill sent everyone home.Home was now a tiny flat above a shop in Walthamstow with, on good nights, a parking space outside.Tonight he was lucky.The flat was half the size of the place he’d used as an undercover.It was like suddenly being a student again.Joe, who lived in a bigger place, had started coming over and staying most nights, which neither of them had commented on, so that was probably okay.Tonight he found Joe had just got in, using the key Sefton had had made for him two weeks ago, and was planning on heading straight out to the chippy.‘Best news all day,’ Sefton said, after kissing him, and they headed off.
    The streets of Walthamstow were full of people, loads of office workers coming out of the tube in shirtsleeves, jackets slung over their shoulder, women pulling their straps down to get some sun.They looked as if they were deliberately trying to be relaxed, despite the smell of smoke always on the air, even out here.But even the sunshine had felt sick this summer, never quite burning through the clouds, instead shafting through gaps in them.It felt as if the whole summer was going to be dog days.Or perhaps all that was just the perspective of the Sight.It was impossible for Sefton to separate himself from it now.Every day in the street he saw the same horrors the others did, startling adjuncts to reality.‘The opposite of miracles,’ he’d called them when Joe had asked for a description.There was a homeless person begging at the tube entrance as the two of them passed, an addict by the look of him, thin hair in patches, his head on his chest, filthy blankets around his legs.He was newly arrived with the ‘austerity measures’.
    ‘So,’ said Joe, ‘what did you do at work today?’
    ‘Can’t tell you.’
    ‘I thought you told me everything.’
    ‘Everything about the … you know, the weird shit.Nothing about operational stuff.’
    ‘Ah, so now there is operational stuff.’
    ‘Yeah.Kind of big, actually.’
    ‘Oh. Oh! You mean like what everyone’s been talking about all day?’
    Sefton sighed.Why had he been so obvious?‘And now I’m shagging a detective.’
    Joe worked in PR for an academic publishing house and was now doing the job of what had been a whole department. His work stories were about dull professors who couldn’t be made interesting.
    He lowered his voice.‘I saw about the murder on telly and thought the same as everyone else is saying, that it had to be the driver—’
    ‘I can’t—’
    ‘—which means it must really be something only you lot can see, like, bloody hell, another witch or something, like maybe there’s one for every football club?The witch of Woolwich Arsenal?The witch of Wolves?It can only be the alliterative ones.Liverpool doesn’t have one.Liverpool has a … lich.Whatever one of those is.’
    Sefton put a hand on his arm and actually stopped him.‘Could we just get those chips?’
    *   *   *
    They sat on the low wall