Dead Men's s Boots

‘Among other things, we talked to the rent boys around the back of St Pancras, and they say Hunter’s been a regular down there for the past three months. They hate his kind – skin divers, they call them. Gay men who come down to head off a punter, but don’t charge for it. He got into a fight with one of the street boys, and he threw some kind of a wobbly – very nasty. Went for the guy’s face and marked him so he couldn’t work. They left him alone after that. Just swore at him and gave him the finger from a distance.

Coldwood had finished wiping his hands by now, and had gone on to wash them under the tap and dry them on a tea towel. Now he opened the fridge and took out two cans of Asda lager, one of which he offered to me. I took it for the sake of solidarity.

‘And besides,’ he added, sounding very slightly, almost imperceptibly defensive, ‘we got someone to read the scene for us.’

‘Someone?’ Taken slightly off guard, I snapped off the end of the ring-pull without actually opening the can.

‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘Exactly. Your sort of someone.’ ‘Son of a bitch!’ I tossed the can back to Coldwood, suddenly not so keen on enjoying his hospitality. ‘You said you’d get me back on the roster as soon as the heat died down.’

‘It’s not that easy, Castor. You resisted arrest.’

‘Wrongful arrest,’ I countered. ‘You dropped the charges.’

‘Yeah, we did.

‘When I was carried—’

‘Fix, what can I tell you? The heat didn’t die down yet. Your name is still John Q. Shit as far as the department is concerned. Frankly, they’d rather have Osama Bin Laden on the payroll than you. At least he helps towards the ethnic-recruitment quotas. Anyway, this is someone you know. An old friend of yours.

She? Someone I knew? Suspicion formed inside me, filling a small void left when my stomach dropped into my shoes. ‘Is this-?’

‘I met her last year when I was interviewing Sue Book, the verger at Saint Michael’s church – you know, after it got set alight by those American Satanists. Beautiful woman. I mean, you know – incredible.