Death Message

Nicklin shook his head. ‘As it happens, I’ve almost forgotten your girlfriend’s address already. The number, I mean. But I’m sure the street name will go as well, eventually.’ He jabbed at his temple. ‘Maybe my mind’s going, same as your old man’s did. I’m having some trouble remembering the last two digits of Auntie Eileen’s phone number as well, so I don’t think you need to worry.’

Thorne could feel the dark blood starting to rush, singing beneath the skin. ‘You need to forget it all,’ he said.

‘It’s such a shame…’

‘Really, you do. Because even if you spend the rest of your life inside, whether or not you think you’ve got fuck all left to lose, trying to use any of this stuff would not be clever.’

Nicklin chuckled, but he suddenly looked tired. ‘Well, you were as good as your word in that playground.’ He gri

Thorne leaned back, folded his arms. ‘Just take a good, long look, and remember me sitting in this chair.’

But Nicklin was already pushing his arms along the tabletop. He leaned down slowly and turned his head to lay his face on top of them. From where Thorne was sitting, he could see several small, irregular patches, dark against the baby-pink of Nicklin’s bald head. Purplish blots or lesions, like wine stains, on his scalp.

Paul Ski

He’d been telling himself that the sweat was a result of being frantically busy all day, but it was sounding less convincing by the minute. Not that he hadn’t been tearing around like a blue-arsed fly. He’d spent the best part of two hours persuading his wife what a nice idea it would be for her to take the kids across to her mum’s for the weekend. He’d helped them pack, loaded up the car and waved them off. Once they’d gone, he’d continued to charge around; aimlessly, he knew, but he couldn’t stop. He refused just to sit and wait for whatever was coming.

The sweat had begun to prickle the moment those two Murder Squad twats had stepped across his doorstep, and it had been pouring from him, thick and sticky, ever since. It wasn’t the same as sweat on a hot day, or after a kick-about in the garden with the kids. He’d smelled fear on plenty of people in his time, but his own sweat was richer and more rank, worse than anything he’d caught coming at him across a cell or over an interview-room table.

The stink of his own terror made him gag.

He dropped the two empty cans into the bin and told himself that things were sorting themselves out. He’d made the call as soon as A

There had been trouble over the years, of course. That was the risk when you went the way they’d chosen to go, he knew that. A couple of colleagues had got nosey once or twice. The rubber-heelers had sniffed around on occasion, too, but to no avail. And when it came to those on the other side of the fence, there were always one or two toerags who tried to have it both ways: happy to hand over cash to get you onside, then trying to be clever and putting the squeeze on once they thought they owned you; when they thought they’d got enough to put you away.

Arseholes like Simon Tipper. Top Black Dog and stupid, greedy, dead bastard. Which was where Marcus Brooks had come into all this in the first place…

Ski

That he hadn’t banged his head.

The room grew suddenly hot and bright, the whiteness screaming inside his skull, and his tongue was heavy in his mouth as he tried to speak. ‘Do we really need to do this?’

And, gasping for breath, the smell grew richer still: the bite of urine, the coppery smack of his own blood.

‘Yes, we really do.’

But the words never reached Ski

Down to the last four in a no-limit tournament, playing as the ‘old lady’, Thorne called a ten-dollar raise with a king-queen suited, and sat back to see what Number1Razr made of it. He looked at the chair that was occupied, as always, by the huge, bald man in the Hawaiian shirt; chewing on his cigar, ready for anything. Thorne couldn’t help but be reminded of Nicklin. The figure looked as full of himself and was equally difficult to read. The major difference was that the cartoon looked a damn sight healthier.

Number1Razr lived up to his name, and when Thorne missed out on the flop completely, he got out of the hand while the going was good.

By the time his train had reached Paddington there was no point going back to the office, so he’d filled Brigstocke in over the phone. Since the call, he’d tried to convince himself that he’d simply misread the DCI’s mood, but there was no doubting the strangeness of his boss’s reaction when Thorne had suggested that Ski

‘He’s got no reason to bullshit me.’

‘He doesn’t need a reason.’

‘It makes a lot of sense,’ Thorne had said.

Another pause. Then: ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow.’

He’d as good as told Thorne to sleep on it. That Ski

Thorne had let it go. He knew very well that Brigstocke had plenty on his mind; knew even better there would be no point asking if he wanted to share any of it.

He folded a low pair when Number1Razr went all-in and was called by The Big Slick, playing as the cool black guy in the snazzy waistcoat.

Thorne had lost count of the times he’d been swayed by Brigstocke’s opinion; when his judgement in doing so had proved to be spot on. But this time the DCI’s lack of enthusiasm had done nothing to lessen Thorne’s conviction that Nicklin, and by association Brooks himself, had been telling the truth…

At the table, Slick showed a pair of tens, and even though he’d hit a third, he was put out of the game by Razr’s low flush. Thorne watched as a message appeared on the site’s dialogue box: Bye Nigga!

Thorne didn’t know if he was outraged in spite of or because of the absurdity in racially abusing a cartoon. Either way, he made the decision that he was going to put Number1Razr out of the game if it took him all night.

They each folded their next three hands early. Then, with a decent-sized pot already built up and with two cards still to come, Thorne found himself sitting on 8-9, with 10-jack-queen on the board. He should probably have slow-played it, but couldn’t resist making a big bet and typing out a message to go with it: Come on then, you racist fuck…