Running Wild

Начало книги

However, as the Permanent Secretary impressed upon me at the Home Office this morning, virtually nothing is known about the motives and identity of the assassins.

"I say 'assassins,' Doctor Greville, but there may have been only one of them. I'm told that some sort of martial arts fanatic could have got away with it." Sitting beneath the portrait of his more illustrious predecessor, he gestured gloomily. "And as for the whereabouts of the orphaned children-they've vanished through some window in time and space. Not a ransom demand, or even a simple threat to kill them…"

He sounded almost aggrieved, and I commented: "All the same, I think we should assume that they're still alive."

"Should we? To be honest, Doctor, I'd rather you didn't assume anything. That's why I've asked you here."

He stared at me without hope, already regretting the decision. As we both well knew, the fact that I had been called in by the Home Office, after my unpopular minority report on the Hungerford killings, was less a compliment to me than a comment on the failure of the police, the CID and the intelligence services to come up with even a solitary clue to the sources of this horrific crime.

Читать дальше →