At the end of Mick Herron's book Bad Actors is a Christmas short story. In Standing by the Wall on Christmas Eve, Roddy Ho is summonsed (loudly of course) by boss Jackson Lamb. Who is wearing reindeer socks. Now that is a little far fetched. He passes Roddy a photograph. "I want you to get rid of this guy." Not physically. "if I wanted someone dead, you'd not be the person I'd ask to make it happen. You'd be the person I'd want it to happen to." It's 4pm and he wants it now. A doctored photo, right up Roddy's street.
Upstairs the rest of the gang are congregated and River Cartwright is back. Not exactly a warm welcome from Lech, Shirley, Louisa and Ashley Khan. Even Catherine Standish puts in an appearance before they are all off to the pub. The doctored photo is returned to whence it came. Here "an archive was not intended simply to capture the past, it was there to seed future reckonings". "In the cabinets .....consorted ghosts from the past, ghosts from the present and ghosts from futures yet to come". Now that is a Christmas story.
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