Betrayal. I could smell it in the air everywhere. Of whom, by whom, to what end, all these damn questions. All I knew was it was going to be a long time to breakfast, and for some, that time couldn't be long enough.
I'd got to the point where it was clear X was going to betray Y solely in order to get in with Z who had already betrayed X when I decided on Rice Krispies and apple juice.
In the meantime all I had was a quart of artisanal gin flavoured with star anise & bergamot to get me through. I found him face down in the gutter on Petty France. No breakfast for him. I don't like bergamot. I don't even like gin. I took a slug.
It was none of my business. I turned into St James's Park, but it was full of civil servants just released from the Tunnel, visibly haunted both by their own former selves and the knowledge they could be dragged back there at any moment. I began to think: maybe Coco-pops.
I found the next one floating in the duck pond, a pelican looking on disapprovingly, but not much more so than a pelican does in general. A single window in the Treasury still alight. A scrawled note on the bank with only three words: 'Our Precious Union'.
I decided to work on acquiring a taste for bergamot. After a couple of shots I decided it was about time I stopped asking the wrong questions. People think the solution to a mystery lies in the motive. Works sometimes. Not always. That light still burning in 1 Horse Guards.
Bound to be a third. Found by Admiralty Arch, just able to squeeze out some last words: 'Unless or Until!', dying eyes filled with self-stimulated outrage.
Meant nothing to me. Not any more. I called it in along with the others & walked through the Arch thinking waffles maybe.
Meant nothing to me. Not any more. I called it in along with the others & walked through the Arch thinking waffles maybe.
Some chance. When they finally let me out, the Inspector wanted answers. What lay behind this carnival of betrayal? What could I say, sitting there watching croissant crumbs escaping from the corners of his mouth, gently suspended by currents of air as they fell towards his desk?
So I said: 'Where you and I go wrong is in trying to fit motive and opportunity together. Sure, that's what we do for a living. It's one way of making sense of things. But it doesn't always work. We're dealing with a bloodbath that's hard to parse in those terms.'
'So maybe with cases like this, we should forget about motive. Maybe betrayal is its *own* motive. Maybe we should say: these guys don't *need* any other motive. All they need is an opportunity, and they'll create it if they can. '
Last thing he said to me before throwing me out was 'Just tell me this is the end of it?' I gave him an answer couched in the late style of Henry James and walked out into a street bright with morning and flaunting odours of xurros, sweet pastry and apricots.
