The trouble with turning a blind eye is that people often take the opportunity to punch you in the face. — Ben Aaronovitch

“Desperate people do desperate things,” said Spencer-Talbot. “Perhaps if we all did more to make things less desperate, then perhaps there would be less violence.”

“This is a terrible work,” I said. “Why did you do it?”

“The usual reasons,” said the Magister. “I told myself it was piety and duty to the Church, but a thousand years of contemplation will batter down the doors of one’s own delusions.”

“You’re probably wondering why I decided to grace you with my presence,” he said.

Which was true, since DCIs spend most of their life in their offices or, worse, in other people’s offices and conference rooms. “Playing,” Seawoll once said, “pin the fucking buzzword on the sodding flow chart.”