Standing in Another Man's Grave

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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Rebus had lost count of the number of cases he'd worked, cases often as complex as this one, requiring interview after interview, statement after statement. He thought of the material in the boxes, now being pared over by those around him–paperwork generated in order to show effort rather than with any great hope of achieving a result. Yes, he'd been on cases like that, and others where he'd despaired of all the doors knocked on, the blank faces of the questioned. But sometimes a due or a lead emerged, or two people came forward to furnish the same name. Suspects were whittled down. Alibis and stories unraveling after the third or fourth retelling. Pressure was sustained, enough evidence garnered to present to the Procurator Fiscal.

And then there were the lucky breaks–the things that just happened. Nothing to do with dogged perseverance or shrewd deduction: just sheer bloody happenstance. Was the end result any less of a victory? Yes, always. It was possible that there was something he had missed in the files, some connection or thread. Watching the team at work, he couldn't decide if he would want them to find it or not. It would make him look stupid, lazy, out of touch. On the other hand, they needed a break, even at the expense of his vanity.

Exit Music

Standing in Another Man's Grave