Woman Chased by Crows by Marc Strange Page A

cash, American dollars, and some gold coins, and, wrapped in a cloth, was a chain with links like gold coins and hanging from the chain, a crucifix, heavy, like the hilt of a Roman sword, covered with gems. Do you know what this is? he asked her. This is not real, she said. Please tell me this is a fake. But she had known right away that was not true. Look again. Look at the marks on the back, he said, look at the little diamonds around the clasp.
Little
diamonds. There was not one under two carats. Look at the sapphires. Oh my God. Look at what is in the centre. It is real? Of course it is real, he says. It is the Ember, for God’s sake. Where did you steal it? I didn’t steal it, he says, I just bought some shirts.
    â€œViktor, this is bad,” she said. “This is very bad.”
    â€œLook at it, Nanya, hold it in your hands, never in your life will you hold anything as perfect as this is in your hands.”
    â€œI do not want to hold it in my hands,” she said. “This is death. Take it away and do not bring it near me again.”
    â€œIt’s too late.”
    He had been right about that. It was too late. For all of them.

    By the time he reached the station it was raining heavily. There was still a puddle where he parked his car (although he didn’t
have
to park
exactly
in that spot) and some late night dog-walker had failed to pick up after their beast befouled the struggling grass near the flagpole. Although, Orwell noted, Alastair Argyle’s bronze relief was polished to a fare-thee-well, thus encapsulating, to Orwell’s thinking, the priorities of the Department.
    There was an unmistakable hush as he clomped through the outer office. Heads turned away. He put it down to people recognizing that he wasn’t to be trifled with this morning. “We may be exceeding the shamrock quotient, Staff Sergeant,” he said loudly.
    â€œI’ll start cutting back forthwith,” said Roy Rawluck. There were three shamrocks dangling on the bulletin board. Roy chided himself. One of them was supposed to be a harp. He’d missed it. Leprechauns were, of course, verboten.
    Dorrie (who wasn’t the least afraid of her boss no matter what his mood) handed him the morning’s
Register
with more solicitude than was customary.
    â€œNo bank robberies overnight? No riots?”
    â€œNot yet anyway,” she said. “I’ll wait until you’ve read the paper.”
    â€œAnything in particular I should be reading?
    â€œYou’ll find it, Chief. It’s on the front page.”
    Orwell located his reading glasses in the third pocket he checked. He spread the paper on his desk blotter and hung up his wet coat and hat before catching the headline: “Lyman Calls for a ‘New Order,’” under a photograph of candidate Gregg Lyman, caught in dramatic mid-gesture. “Where was this?” Orwell shouted through the open door.
    Dorrie appeared with her boss’s morning coffee and a sheaf of the usual paperwork and messages. “A ‘Lyman for Mayor’ rally,” she said. “The Granite Club.”
    â€œOf course. He’d be preaching to the choir up there.” He accepted the coffee with a curt nod of thanks and dribbled a few spots onto Lyman’s image.
    â€œMr. Abrams wonders if you’d care to issue a statement.”
    â€œStatement about what?”
    â€œSecond paragraph.”
    Orwell concentrated on the paper. His fist hit the desk. “What the
hell
?!” he bellowed.
    â€œI’ll leave you to it,” she said.
    â€œWait a minute, wait a minute, when was this?”
    â€œLast night.”
    Dorrie backed out of the room. The Chief bent over the paper, deliberately setting his cup down on Lyman’s mug. He read aloud, his voice level increasing with each sentence: “. . . growing atmosphere of
lawlessness
??
 
. . . general
laxity
in police performance?? . . . a new