With coffee and cake Eddie brought a pile of manila envelopes almost a foot high. Before Troy could say anything Eddie had nipped out and returned with a second pile even higher.
“You’re kidding. You called the pile an ‘alp,’ as I recall. This is a bloody mountain range.”
“That was more than a fortnight ago. Do you really think the work stops piling up just because you’re not here?”
“If it’s just sign-and-initial stuff, then just forge my signature.”
“It isn’t,” said Eddie as he closed the door behind him.
Troy stood in the window with his cup of coffee. All he had wanted the last God-knows-how-long was to be back in his job—not quite the same thing as being back at his desk, and he felt no more inclination to dig into Eddie’s pile of paperwork than he had to dig into Jack’s list of murders. Jack would not welcome such intervention. If he needed Troy he’d ask.
Troy did not need Eddie’s piles of files. He needed a murder of his own.
Winter sunlight danced its diamonds upon the river, sun slicing in over Southwark. He’d watched this a hundred—no, a thousand—times over the best part of twenty years, ever since Onions had plucked him out of the East End and installed him in this office. Up through the ranks … Detective Sergeant Troy, Inspector Troy, Superintendent Troy, and last year, Chief Superintendent Troy. Two and a half years as head of the Murder Squad. He’d never felt this way before. He needed a murder of his own.
Troy needed somebody to die soon.
“Boss?”
“Anything wrong?”
“Yes,” said Troy. “Nothing I should ever articulate even to myself. The idiotic tangents of thought.”