Chapter 19: Blackwell's Prosecution — The Architecture of Certainty

The dining car had been rearranged.

Blackwell had done it himself, between half past seven and the moment the last passenger took a seat, moving tables until the car had a clear longitudinal axis — long central aisle, seating on both sides, every face angled toward the forward end where he now stood with his notebook closed in his left hand and nothing else. He had not asked permission. Conductor Marek had watched from the galley doorway and decided, correctly, that objecting would cost more than acquiescing.

It was nine forty-three in the morning. The snow outside the windows had the particular quality of packed alpine silence — not white so much as a colour for which there was no useful word, the colour of permanent. The emergency lighting had been supplemented by two portable lanterns from the engine car. They cast everything in a double shadow that made the room feel slightly theatrical, which Blackwell found appropriate and had not arranged intentionally.