Dead Men's s Boots

He reached into his pocket and handed me one of the small evidence bags. I remembered the object inside the bag pretty well, because it stood out from the mostly innocuous stuff in Chesney’s little treasure chest like a dildo in a nun’s boot-locker.

‘The bullet,’ I said, resigning myself to the role of straight man.

‘Bullet casing, actually. It’s from a 10mm auto round, and according to your now deceased doggy pathologist it was fired from a Smith & Wesson 1076. Got a lovely clear print on it, too – Les Lathwell’s.

‘To be honest,’ I said, ‘I’m a little hazy on social history. I know the name, but—’

‘Kind of an entrepreneur in the violence and intimidation line. He went to America to learn from the greats: came home and built his own little mafia on the Mile End Road. You should read about this stuff: it’s inspirational. Anyway, I went online and did some rooting around – that’s why I hacked the Police National Computer – and the print checks out A1 at Lloyds.

‘Oh? Why’s that?’

‘Lathwell died in 1979. The 10mm round didn’t even get introduced until 1983 – in a Swedish hand-pistol that kicked like an unlimbered cannon and broke people’s arms if they weren’t expecting it. It didn’t get popular – and I use that word in heavy quotes – until the FBI picked it up in 1988.

Nicky indulged in another deep snort of the wine breath, drawing it out for maximum dramatic impact. He got the timing just about right, because I was struggling to fit that spiky fact into what I already knew – which was only possible at all because I knew jack shit. Looked at from one angle, though, it made a queasy kind of sense.

‘You think Lathwell rose in the flesh, then?’ Juliet asked, voicing my thoughts. ‘As a zombie?’

Nicky put his glass down, basking in our undivided attention. ‘Could be. Or maybe someone just flayed his fingertips and wore them for a joke. There are a couple of other titbits like that in the notes on the disc. Anachronisms, I mean. My favourite is a letter from Tony Lambrianou to his brother Chris.