Chapter 11: Fitch Applies Pressure

The summons arrived at seven forty-three on a Thursday morning, while Holmes was standing at my precinct desk reading the pathology supplement she had obtained through what she described as proper channels and I had learned to interpret as channels she had not asked permission to use.

She read it twice — the summons, not the supplement — then set it flat on the desk beside the supplement, smoothed both documents with the side of her hand as though ensuring they lay parallel, and looked at me.

"Metropolitan Police Authority," she said. "Fourteen hundred hours. Dress accordingly."