Dirtmouth - Excerpt

PROLOGUE

I am here to listen to you listen to each other. The questions will be my own, the better to prise the difference between your stories.

I see you are fat. You are thin. You are old. You are young. You are bald. You are hirsute. But these are only my eyes talking, and using such simple words. The crime before us is something more complex. It wants another vision, because what we hunt for here is what the watering eye cannot make out unless it makes itself invisible.

And what if I didn't ask the questions? What if I were patient? What if we sat together and my lips were sealed? Only the ticking of the time-piece, knocking against the steady breath of our bodies at rest. Then would you hear the ghostly voices of my questions in spontaneous utterances you yourselves might mount against the uncomfortable silence? Fidgeting in your uncomfortable chairs, would you become me, by presuming upon my silence? Would you impersonate my questions? It could be that you would even forget yourselves in telling me what it is you think I want to hear. One of you might even confess. Shall we perform the experiment? Shall we?

Very well. Then I'll ask the questions.