The Severed Streets Read Online Free PDF Page A

showed up not at all on internet searches.Quill’s team had already seen what a huge amount of energy it took to make one person be forgotten by a handful of people.The idea that a group of prominent people could be made to vanish so completely from public memory was staggering.They had found an empty personnel file that these people had kept, and on the cover of it had been the name ‘Detective Superintendent Lofthouse’, and then she had stepped from the shadows, holding an ancient key that Quill had recognized as having been on her charm bracelet.‘ This, ’ she had said, ‘explains a lot. ’
    Quill and the others had been bursting with questions.She’d shaken her head in answer to all of them.
    ‘I know you lot are doing something … impossible,’ she’d said finally.‘I realized that a while back.’
    Quill had pointed at the key.‘What does that have to do with this?Did you know the people who worked here?’
    She had raised her hands to shut him down.‘It’s only because you say so that I know there is something here.I can’t tell you anything more, James.I know less than you do.’She’d asked for a detailed description of the ruins, walking through them with a look on her face that said she was willing herself to sense something there, but couldn’t.There was pain in that expression, Quill had realized.She’d handled the key as she’d looked around at what to her was just an empty area of Docklands pavement, reflexively toying with the object.Then, when she’d been satisfied that she’d been told everything, she’d looked once more to Quill.Her expression drew on their old friendship, hoping he’d understand.‘I’m sorry,’ she’d said.‘I know you want more from me.For now, please, just accept.Be certain you can always rely on me.From now on, tell me about your operations.I’ll believe you.But I can’t tell you why.’
    Before they could say anything more, she’d marched off into the night.
    Quill had understood at that moment that Ross had had that expression on her face that he’d come to associate with some immediate deduction or revelation.‘Oh,’ she’d said.‘Oh.’
    ‘That, from her,’ Costain said, ‘always ends with us getting told something true but deeply shitty.’
    ‘Even with the Sight,’ said Ross, ‘Jimmy still forgot his daughter.He couldn’t process any of the clues to her presence in the physical world.He just ignored them.So how come we can see that document listing the people who worked here, who otherwise have been completely forgotten?’She hadn’t given them a moment to think about an answer.‘For the same reason that these ruins have been left.Deliberately.For people like us, who can see things like this, to notice.’
    ‘As a sign, a warning,’ said Sefton, nodding urgently.‘That’s why all we’ve found is a list of those people and nothing else.Having found that document, we now know it’s possible for people like these, people like us, to be not just killed, not just wiped out, but actually erased from everyone’s memories.’
    ‘It’s a display of power,’ said Costain.
    ‘She –’ Ross indicated where Lofthouse had gone – ‘knows more about that situation than we do.But if we want to keep this unit going, we can’t ask her about it.’
    ‘“Just accept”,’ repeated Quill, sighing.‘Does she know any coppers, do you think?’
    In the three months since, they hadn’t found out anything further.DeSouza and Raymonde, the firm of architects that owned the land upon which the temple stood, when interviewed, had no more knowledge of the Continuing Projects Team than anyone else.Ross’ examination of the documents found at the scene revealed them to be mostly about architecture.She had shown the others what looked to be learned debates about how ‘the side of a building does turn the water’ written in a brown and curly hand that looked like something from the seventeenth century, and printed pamphlets from before that