Chapter 34
McDuff sat motionless, ignoring the stiff wooden chair digging into his ribs and back. The room was dingy and too small for the eleven men who crowded into it. The smells of wet wool and sweaty bodies only intensified his sensation of being penned up like livestock.
Chief Inspector Wells and his ever-present pipe, even in such an enclosed space, made the dark ceiling seem nearly as cloudy as the skies outside.
Towering stacks of paperwork threatened to drown all of them, piled up on wooden cabinets and sagging tables. On a gloomy day like this, he suspected he wasn’t the only one who’d be relieved at the excitement of digging themselves out of the suffocating space.
A change in numbing routine at last from all these endless meetings.
These discussions with the other plaincl
