Dead Men's s Boots

‘Oh Jesus!’ I muttered.

‘Guy was a friend of yours, wasn’t he, Castor? And it seemed like only yesterday he was promising you “something juicy”. I’m assuming that was work-related rather than some freaky outcrop of your love life. Then he jumps the barrier on the M1 northbound at one in the morning and hits a car coming the other way. Hundred-and-fortymile-an-hour collision. Boom. Smoking spark plugs come down half a mile away. Two people in the other car, mother and ten-year-old daughter, both dead. Coldwood hauled out of the wreckage with both legs broken, stinking of booze.

Funny how things work out.’

I couldn’t answer. I was still staring at the photo. Coldwood was wearing an expression I’d seen on his face at least a hundred times: a tough-guy cockiness that he copied from John Woo movies and never managed to get more than half right. He really wanted to be the scourge of evildoers. If he could have got away with wearing a cape and mask to work, he would have done it.

Nicky was still talking.

‘I checked this stuff out afterwards, you understand. After I got broken into in the middle of the fucking night. Two guys, both carrying guns with no serial numbers on them. No ID, no pack drill. Deadfall trap got one of them, and the other died when I routed the mains power through the lock he was trying to pick to get in to me. Coincidence? I asked myself. Old friends getting nostalgic? My fucking batshit family, coming in for another pass? But no. After five minutes on the internet I turn up this Coldwood thing, and then I know it’s you. ’

‘Nicky-’ I didn’t even know what I was going to say. There was a tight, wound-up feeli³ wo821ng in my chest that felt like it was climbing upwards. This was my fault. John Gittings and Vince Chesney counted as negligent homicide, but this was worse, somehow. I’d pushed Gary into the line of fire and then I’d ducked.

‘So now I’m interested,’ Nicky was saying. ‘Hey, pal, you want to turn that radio up? It’s not reaching us in the back here.

So now I’m looking for patterns. The first one I find is that Coldwood wasn’t the only stubborn stain that got wiped out on this pass.’

‘There was someone else in the car with him?’

‘Nope. But there were some other cops dying that night and they were friends of his. A detective constable and a forensics guy named Marchioness. What kind of a name is that for a guy to wear? One of them jumped out of a window, the other was pushed in front of a train.