Whispers Under Ground

Midwestern but grown clipped through her FBI training and experience. She certainly rattled through James Gallagher’s early life, youngest of three children, born in Albany while his father was a state senator – which was emphatically not the same as being the state’s senator. He was privately educated, showed an aptitude for art, attended college in New York University. One speeding ticket when he was seventeen and his name came up during an inquiry into a fellow student’s overdose a year before he graduated. A canvass of his college friends indicated a young man who was personable and well liked, if rather reserved.
    I raised my hand – I didn’t know what else to do.
    ‘Yes, Peter,’ said Seawoll.
    I thought I heard someone snigger but it might have been my paranoia.
    ‘Is there any history of mental illness in the family?’ I asked.
    ‘Not that we know of,’ said Reynolds. ‘There are no psychiatric consults and no prescriptions for any medication beyond the usual cold and flu remedies. Do you have some reason to believe there was a psychiatric element to the case?’
    I didn’t need to look at Seawoll’s face to know how to answer that one.
    ‘It was just a thought,’ I said.
    For the first time she looked straight at me – she had green eyes.
    ‘Moving on,’ said Seawoll.
    I made a slow tactical fade towards the back of the room.
    A murder investigation, like other major police operations, is assigned a name by SCD Operational Support. It used to be done by an administrative assistant with a dictionary who put a line through each word as it was used but now it’s got a bit more sophisticated – if only to avoid PR disasters like SWAMP81 and GERON-IMO. The William Skirmish murder had been OPERATION TURQUOISE, the death of Jason Dunlop OPERATION CARTWHEEL and now James Gallagher’s sad demise would forever be enshrined in the annals of the Metropolitan Police as OPERATION MATCHBOX. It wasn’t much of an epitaph but, as Lesley liked to say, better than the American system where all the jobs would be called a variation on OPERATION CATCH BADGUYS.
    I went back to my desk and discovered that during the briefing elves had apparently crept in and placed a couple of purple Ryman’s folders on my bit of the desk. Each had a smaller printed memo stapled to the top corner. It was dated, marked OPERATION MATCHBOX, with my name and under that a line that read: Trace origin of earthenware fruit bowl. Priority: High . The second memo read: Canvass Art Gallery for sightings of James Gallagher, take statements as necessary. Priority: High .
    ‘Your first actions,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘You must be very proud.’
    She got me logged in, which was a suspicious amount of help and attention from a Detective Inspector, and explained the priority codes to me.
    ‘Officially, low means we want it within a week,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘Medium is five days and high priority is three.’
    ‘And really?’ I asked.
    ‘Today, now and “I want it bloody yesterday.”’
    I was logging out when Special Agent Reynolds approached me.
    ‘Excuse me, Constable Grant,’ she said. ‘May I ask you a question?’
    ‘Call me Peter,’ I said.
    She nodded. ‘I wonder, Constable, if you could tell me what makes you think there might be mental illness in the family?’ she asked.
    I told her about the shift in James’s art work at St Martin’s and how I thought it might have been an indication of incipient mental illness or drug abuse – or both. Reynolds looked sceptical but it was hard to tell, given that she didn’t seem to like making eye contact.
    ‘Is there any hard evidence?’ she asked.
    ‘There’s the art work, statement by his tutor, the self-help book on mental illness and his flatmate smoked a lot of dope,’ I said. ‘Apart from that – no.’
    ‘So you have nothing,’ she said. ‘Do you even have a background in mental health?’
    I thought of my parents but I didn’t think they counted so I said no.
    ‘Then it would be better if you didn’t speculate without evidence,’ she said sharply. Then she shook her head as if to clear it and walked away.
    ‘Somebody doesn’t know they’re not in Kansas anymore,’ said Stephanopoulos.
    ‘That was off,’ I said. ‘Don’t you think?’
    ‘I did think she was going to ask for your birth certificate at one point,’ she said. ‘Come down to the office before you go. Seawoll wants a word.’
    I promised not to run off.
    After