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54
Under arrest?" the Home Secretary cried. "Are you stupid? I am a Home Secretary! A representative of the Cabinet! I am a fragment of the Government!! Do you comprehend??"
"Yes!" Nelson said.
"I cannot be under arrest!" the Home Secretary continued. "I cannot be incarcerated! I cannot be put on trial! Don't you know anything?"
"I do understand," said Nelson calmly, "that no man's job designation seats him above the rules."
"Ha!" the Home Secretary replied, whose pallid face was becoming more sanguine with each occurring second. "We become the law! We are the law! The directive is ours! It is not to be expended in opposition to us!"
Sandra, Nelson, and I gaped in incredulity as the manacled man carried on. Alderman, progressing gradually, appeared from the bedroom and began to move toward us. The Home Secretary didn't seem to perceive; he just stormed on.
"We're the administration!" he bellowed. "We make the regulations. So clearly we cannot r
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IF THE TRUTH BE TOLD 55
I woke up early the following day to find that Sandra had already left, although she hadn't eaten breakfast. Instead, I found a note and a newspaper. I read the note first. Quintus There is terrible news this morning. I have gone to find out what the Commissioner knows about this. All the morning papers say the same. So here is the story in its most diminutive illegible form. I will return as soon as possible. SB Then I picked up the paper and found that Sandra had circled a headline, which read: Two Metropolitan Police Shot In Jewellery Shop Robbery Home Secretary Unharmed, Cabinet Shuffled The text was this: Two Metropolitan Police officers sustained gunshot wounds yesterday after apparently stumbling upon an attempted burglary in progress. Detectives Hector Nelson, 45, and Stewart Alderman, 32, were wounded while chasing suspe
IF THE TRUTH BE TOLD 56
"But why?" Sandra demanded, "I cannot believe you are willing to give up, so easily.""When I said, I was going to drop it, what I meant was that the Home Secretary angle has been shut off to me, but there are more than one way to skin a cat.""Please, Quintus, tell me, what you are planning to do?""Very well. Unless I'm reading it entirely incorrect, the crime concerned as much personality elimination as bodily slaying. What could be the reason? It seems to me that Tina must have been doing something her managers found unbearable, something that made her a burden rather than an advantage, and I don't think she was very careful about it.""Go on," Sandra pressed."She was besieged for a three-branched attack: first, to quieten her forever; second, to make sure she would never be contemplated well-thought-of, though she may have been much more than that; and third, to warn her co-workers of the significances of pursuing the trail she chose."
IF THE TRUTH BE TOLD 57
"As we move away from the fundamentals, things get ambiguous, Sandra. There is one conceivable response to the subject of why Tina may have focused against her employers. But there are many other probabilities. For what reason did Tina make those trips to the café near the West Finchley tube station. Her recurrent chance encounters with an enigmatic duo, who may or may not be the same as the Mediterranean twosome for whom the police are hypothetically searching. Maybe Tina and the couple were convening to arrange other, less observable meetings, and for this motive, these discussions were seen by Tina's MI6 as duplicitous.""It is likely that the Mediterranean pair, and the West Finchley team may be the identical people," Sandra interjected, "and that they might have been MI6 agents who were allocated to analyse Tina, possibly to deceive her, definitely to obtain whatever she may have been attracted to reveal."
IF THE TRUTH BE TOLD 58
"The three theories," I began, "are positively conceivable. Assuming what we recognise, we may deliberate them quite believable. But they are still theoretical. In extra words, they may be precise, but their correctness is by no way established. As such, they signify three areas of indecision. However, I do not regard these doubts as major flaws in our case, both because in all three examples, several reasonable replacements exist, and because these propositions are all efforts to respond consequential, or even relating, questions. We may never find acceptable responses to all these distant inquiries, but the fundamental of our case is built on solutions to other, more dominant, questions. Do you understand?" "I do," Sandra replied, "but I don't see where you're going with it." "I think Tina Davis was assassinated," I continued. "I think MI6 played a main role in her death, and I think so founded on deliberations dispassionate of these doubts. I think Tina was doing
IF THE TRUTH BE TOLD 59
59 Sandra raised her eyes suddenly and gave me the same sort of inspection, as if she’d never really seen me before: and I guessed that for her it was much more a radical assessment. I was no longer the man she’d tricked rather easily with her charms and feminine ways, but the man who had discovered her duplicity. I was accustomed by now to seeing this new view of me when people had tried to deceive me, and although I might often regret it, there seemed no way of going back. “They warned me you know,” she said doubtfully. “I kept hearing how good the great Quintus Noone was, and I should tread carefully. They said you’re exceptionally good…exceptionally good…at this sort of thing. But I didn’t believe them. But now I’m standing here in your North London flat banged to rights.” “Afraid so,” I said succinctly. Her eyes were red with tears, but I never fell for crocodile tears. Having three sisters had nullified that emotion. “When did you
IF THE TRUTH BE TOLD 1
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IF THE TRUTH BE TOLD 2
"I hope you don't mind," DCI Burton began as we walked to her car. "But I took the liberty in arranging the meeting at your place." "Why?" "Because it's safer." "Who are we meeting?" "You'll see." I didn't have to wait long as within fifteen minutes of us arriving back at my home in Woodside Park, the front doorbell rang. Sandra answered the door for me and led our guest into the lounge where I was waiting. "DCI Burton, Mr Noone? Thank you so much for seeing me at such short notice," he said, looking across the room at my friend. "Not at all, Mr Flynn. Would you please sit down and make yourself comfortable? May I introduce you to my friend and colleague, Quintus Noone? Who I believe was the man you wanted to see?" We shook hands "Mr Noone, thank you so much for seeing me. I don't know where to start; the police have made such a hash of everything, no disrespect to you, DCI Burton, and the press made it
IF THE TRUTH BE TOLD 3
It wasn't difficult to find a sports shop that sold Northern Aspect equipment, and once I was in there, it wasn't difficult to find the bag I was after. It was the most oversized, hard-wearing kitbag they had; the Northern Aspect Headquarters model had plenty of colours to choose from; I purchased a red one.I smiled with self-satisfaction as I made my way back to Woodside Park.When I returned home, instead of DCI Burton being there to heap praise on my ability to find the right bag, I found a note, which read:Quintus,I have gone to Cheltenham and will not be back until tonight.Sandra xxxThree kisses? Didn't that mean something?Somewhat disappointed she wasn't there but pleased and proud that she had taken such a bold step so soon, I sat down and began to examine the bag.The walls were of a textile I had never seen before: strong but somewhat supple and certainly watertight. It felt like a very hard-wearing fabric -- lat
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