The Report Read Online Free PDF

help. Hastings and Edwards were already there. So was Steadman, holding a baby, tears streaming down his face. Low cried out instructions, but everyone flailed and pulled helplessly at the trapped people. A woman next to him was flying at the wall of arms and legs and shoes and heads. Low reached down and took hold of a fallen woman’s arm, sure that if he could just clear her, the nearest on the landing, then the people behind would follow. There would be injuries, of course, but not a disaster. He pulled and pulled; reached up farther so that one of his hands was around her shoulder, the other on her wrist; tried to leverage her out that way. He pushed at the man on top of her, trying to make room, then gave up and grabbed the arm again. Abandoning all caution, he pulled as hard as he could. Nothing! He fell back, the arm slipping from his grasp, and he saw that it was lifeless.

Six
    Dunne sat at the table and talked about tennis while Paul fumbled with the pot and water. Now and then Dunne offered a direction or a location, and Paul slowly assembled the tray: cups, saucers, sugar, cream. He’d read up on angling, had even brought a fly in his bag should the conversation go that way, but today fish seemed to be the furthest thing from Dunne’s mind. On and on he went, about the new rackets, the new training, the new physique. Nastase’s cunning; Stan Smith’s decorum. In the quarterfinals the American had impressed Dunne, it was clear, but Paul had to work hard to stay focused on what Dunne was saying about it. When they moved to the living room, Paul noticed the house was grand but overstuffed, decorated not quite as the country retreat he’d expected. Instead it felt like a room holding the furniture and memorabilia of a life lived a long time ago somewhere else. Paul glanced out the windows and hoped for rain; then the television might be turned off and Dunne would talk about something other than tennis.
    When he looked back, Dunne was staring at him and Paul suspected he’d missed something.
    “It’s an excellent tournament,” Dunne said. “But maybe you don’t like sport.”
    Remembering what he’d read, Paul made a quick calculation. In his prime, the man before him had been known for his intelligence, his wit, his empathy across classes. As a magistrate before the war, he’d presided with a total disregard for public opinion, which, in Dunne’s view, was usually wrong. He was a man people trusted—lawyers, police officers, officials of his court. Even, it was said, the criminals who appeared before him.
    “I’m sorry, sir. My concern today is so far from that world that I’m a bit distracted.”
    “Yes, the report. Well, I could remind you that wars are won and lost on the playing fields of Eton. Perhaps I won’t.”
    Paul tried to be jovial. “But you just did.”
    Dunne laughed. “Indeed!”
    Paul thought they were making progress, but then Dunne drained his tea, made a face, and looked at him. “What is it you think you want to know?”
    Paul braced himself around his teacup. He could be straightforward and say that at the moment he simply wanted to know if Dunne would agree to an on-camera interview for the documentary. Or he could begin a conversation about the significance of the Bethnal Green report in 1943. Undecided, he nearly revealed too much too soon.
    “I was … a child in Bethnal Green.”
    Dunne frowned. “You’ve told me.”
    “And so I’ve wondered how you managed such a thorough investigation in such a short time.”
    Dunne was still frowning when Paul said, “How did you write the report?”
    Dunne released the frown, and slumped in his chair. “It was very difficult. How do you think I did it?”
    Paul looked down, and when he looked up, his expression had changed. This was one of his better tactics. “You remind me of my father, Sir Laurence,” he said. “I don’t think he ever answered a question without asking one. ‘How do you catch a trout, Dad?’ ‘What