Free The Stone That Never Came Down by John Brunner

accident-levels over Christmas …
    –Christ, I think I’m going to resign one of these days. What’s on my score-card for this month? Mostly, the poor bastards I arrested at that orgy we raided. When I think of the stag-party we held for Inspector Hawker when he was getting married … But of course that was just after I joined, and things were different then. Better, maybe. Can the social climate really have turned over this quickly? Yes, I suppose it can. After all, it only took twenty years from Edwardian tea-gowns to flappers’ skirts, knee-high, and less than that from the “new look” to the minidress … We’re bouncing back and forth like table-tennis balls, free and easy one moment, scared of ourselves the next, and having to invoke Divine Law or some other outside principle to help us make our minds up. But I wish I could pick up some real villains! I wish they’d let me! I don’t want to be a monitor of private morals! I want to be a thief-taker, I want to see pushers and racketeers behind bars!
    –And murderers.
    “The Post murder,” Epton said. “You can relax over Christmas. It’s being looked after at top level, and they don’t want us involved any more.”
    “What?”
    Epton stared at him in surprise. “Chief, I thought you’d be pleased! I mean, it’s the first murder on our patch in nearly a year, isn’t it? A black mark on the map!” He pointed at the unsolved-crimes chart; it had sprouted even more coloured pins. “But now it’s no longer our pigeon.”
    –The bastards!
    Sawyer clenched his fists. It was one thing to call in the Yard murder squad; that was routine, and done even by provincial police forces, because Scotland Yard boasted the most experienced detectives in the country, whose advice was always welcome. It was something else again to write the local force out of a murder investigation completely, as though they were too incompetent to be involved.
    But, aloud, he forced out, “Yes–yes, that does mean we shall have a better chance to enjoy Christmas.”
    “It’s a load off my mind, anyway,” Epton grunted.
    Sawyer hesitated. Suddenly he said, “Brian, tell me something. Who do you think did more harm in the world–Hitler, or Don Juan?”
    “What?”
    “You heard me!”
    “Of course I did! But … Hitler or who? ”
    –Should have known better than to ask such a question of Brian, a pillar of his local Baptist church.
    “Never mind.” Turning wearily away. “Merry Christmas!”

    “Professor Kneller–Dr Randolph?” A smooth-voiced aide appearing at the door of the panelled anteroom where they had been required to wait. “The Home Secretary will see you now. If you would kindly come with me …?”
    Randolph was doing his best to preserve a polite demeanour. After twenty minutes’ waiting, Kneller had abandoned all pretence Temperamentally he was the more irascible of the two, and now he was into his fifties he felt entitled.
    However, he contrived a formal nod of acknowledgement as the Right Honourable Henry Charkall-Phelps, PC, MP, rose and accorded them a frosty greeting, followed by an invitation to sit down on lavishly padded leather chairs facing his broad desk. He was thin, with a pinched face and pursed lips, and his brown hair was receding towards his crown. He wore traditional City clothing, black jacket and pin-striped trousers. His tie too was black. The sole concession to ornament which he allowed himself was a Moral Pollution pin in gold on his left lapel, but even that was half the size of the regular kind.
    He was not alone. Apart from the aide who had escorted Kneller and Randolph into the room, two other men were present. One was stout, with a ginger moustache, and even before he was introduced the visitors had recognised him from his pictures on TV and in the papers: Detective Chief Superintendent Owsley, assigned to head the investigation into Maurice Post’s death. The other, a man of about thirty-five with his hair cut short and