He had long since stopped infusing the sentiment with emotion. However, that didn't make it any less genuine.
In his line of work it was a liability. His sanity could afford either empathy or sympathy, in moderation. Not both, and not oceans of salty remorse.
Rakitin didn't say anything.
"When you live next to the cemetery, you can't weep for everyone," Liadov said, grimly.
Sometimes he wished he could.
But he knew that if he started, he might never stop again.
He raised his head, carving impassivity onto his features with an icepick.
"What manner of sedatives? Was there alcohol?" He paused. "What I'm getting at comrade, is do you think he ingested them willingly but unwittingly? Or was he injected?"
The type of sedative and the presence of alcohol would do a lot to suggest whether he'd been slipped a mickey, or if Rakitin had found an injection site on any of the remaining corpus, that would tell them it had likely been a surprise attack.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-04-03 08:29 am (UTC)"That's awful," he said, flatly.
He had long since stopped infusing the sentiment with emotion. However, that didn't make it any less genuine.
In his line of work it was a liability. His sanity could afford either empathy or sympathy, in moderation. Not both, and not oceans of salty remorse.
Rakitin didn't say anything.
"When you live next to the cemetery, you can't weep for everyone," Liadov said, grimly.
Sometimes he wished he could.
But he knew that if he started, he might never stop again.
He raised his head, carving impassivity onto his features with an icepick.
"What manner of sedatives? Was there alcohol?" He paused. "What I'm getting at comrade, is do you think he ingested them willingly but unwittingly? Or was he injected?"
The type of sedative and the presence of alcohol would do a lot to suggest whether he'd been slipped a mickey, or if Rakitin had found an injection site on any of the remaining corpus, that would tell them it had likely been a surprise attack.