Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway & Nicholas Cornwell

Author:Nick Harkaway & Nicholas Cornwell [Harkaway, Nick & Cornwell, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2023-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

Zoegar puts me back in the transport hood and drops me in the centre of town. It’s the deep part of the night by the time I watch him drive away, and even the party kids have gone home. The streetlamps reflect in sheets of black ice that were puddles eight hours ago, and the slush is turning hard where it’s pushed against the buildings and piled up at the kerbs. I smell woodsmoke and cold coming across the lake, and then the wind changes and there’s something else, hot and synthetic like burning tyres. A black cloud rising at the foot of Chersenesos, rising in a column, and fire engines blue and red and white crashing through the empty streets.

By the time I get there there’s not much to see. The fire’s out and the police building is wet and black at one corner. The firemen have everyone being checked out for smoke inhalation, because there’s nothing they like more than bossing cops, the few times a year they get to do it.

I walk through the lines like someone else’s ghost, everyone ignoring me. I see Felton and Tidbo. Two nurses up and one over, Kristoffsen J., the rookie cop from the hospital, has a nasty burn on her arm, but it’ll heal. The guy next to her keeps saying thank you, over and over. Figure she pulled him out of something. Good for her. I keep going, looking, not finding. I see Gratton and he waves me over.

“Arson,” he says. “Person or persons unknown. Fire bomb.”

“Where?”

“My office,” Musgrave says, appearing behind him. The medic working on her isn’t happy she’s walking around. “I’m fine, thank you,” she adds to him, “I’m a doctor.”

“You’re a patient,” he says, “in a post-crisis situation that may or may not be impacting your ability to make good decisions. Look up and to the left, please.”

Gratton makes a phone gesture, taps his watch. Yeah. Talk soon. Musgrave waits until the nurse has looked in both her eyes and down her throat, then peels him off.

“I’m fine. Cal, my car’s five minutes away. I don’t want to be behind the wheel. Drive me home, please.”

That’s so unexpected I don’t argue. Musgrave leans on me as we walk away.

“We need to talk,” she says. “Right the fuck now.”

“What about?”

“How much of a cop are you tonight?”

“You know exactly how much of a cop I am. What’s going on?”

She sighs. “I burned down the lab,” she says, and we turn the corner.

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