LITMIR.BIZ

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have died, so they walked away without even a flicker of recognition passing between them. If it had been anyone else, Drake would have been worried, but with Brodie, somehow he knew he was safe.

      Drake had spent six months posing as a small-time drug dealer eager to move up in the world. He had used the name Nash and was at that moment looking to unload a shipment of high-grade cocaine. It bought him a way in to the organisation.

      Fitting into Goran’s world wasn’t all that hard. Drake had come back from Iraq feeling rage and anger at the people who had sent him out there. Not knowing what he wanted to do except that he didn’t want to go back to his old life. He passed straight through police training without a hitch and soon gained himself something of a reputation. Running in when caution suggested otherwise. When the offer came that they were looking for someone to go undercover he was the first to volunteer. He was way more qualified than any of the other candidates. That much was plain. He had the right profile and the warnings about Goran only made him want it more. He was no longer afraid. It felt as though he’d been through fire. What could he possibly fear?

      ‘You hear about the head they found on the Tube?’

      ‘Yeah, it was on the news.’ Brodie’s eyes never left the stage, where a slim blonde was turning cartwheels in the spotlight. ‘Makes you wonder what this country is coming to.’

      ‘Remember Zelda?’

      Brodie looked round sharply. ‘Come on, man, that’s water under the bridge.’

      ‘I thought so too, until I saw it.’

      Brodie swore under his breath. ‘That’s police business. I thought you were out of it.’

      ‘You know how it is. Unfinished business. I thought I’d take a poke around.’

      ‘Well, mind it doesn’t turn around and poke you back.’ Brodie took a long swig from his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Are they sure it’s her?’

      ‘The pathologist is trying to match it to the corpse that washed up on the beach.’

      ‘That was four years ago.’

      ‘The case was unresolved, so they kept her in storage.’

      Brodie swore again. ‘Look, Cal, just take my advice and leave it alone.’

      ‘She didn’t deserve it, not like this.’

      ‘Listen to me, she knew what she was doing. She had been in the game long enough. She knew what Goran was like.’

      Drake slipped a sheet of paper onto the counter. It was his copy of the same newspaper clipping that had been found wrapped around the head.

      ‘Someone is making this personal,’ he said.

      Brodie glanced at the clipping. ‘Who?’

      ‘Whoever is responsible for leaving her head on the train. It was wrapped in that.’

      Brodie ran his eyes over the article. ‘Might be a coincidence.’

      ‘Doesn’t feel like a coincidence.’

      ‘Makes no sense. I mean, why hold on to her for all this time?’

      ‘Maybe this is the first chance they’ve had.’

      ‘Doesn’t sound right. I mean, at the time, you went over all of this, right?’

      ‘Right.’

      ‘This isn’t how Donny or any of the others would play it. You’d be hanging upside down in a warehouse somewhere with a welding torch to your head.’

      ‘So how do you explain this?’ Drake tapped the paper.

      ‘How? It’s a fucking psycho, is how.’ Brodie threw up a hand and called for another round of drinks. ‘Take my word for it.’

      ‘I still keep coming back to the question of who killed her.’

      ‘Well, obviously the wacko has been running around with her head for four years. What did he do with it, keep it in the freezer alongside the fish fingers?’

      ‘It might not have been the same person.’

      ‘So what?’ Brodie frowned. ‘Somebody came along and just cut her head off?’

      ‘I don’t know how it went down. I’m just asking questions.’

      ‘Right. You keep doing that and it’ll get you into trouble.’

      ‘That’s the point.’ Drake indicated the clipping. ‘I’m already in this. Someone clearly holds me responsible for her death.’

      ‘You mean, they’re coming after you? But why?’ Brodie scratched the tip of his nose. ‘Unless they think you killed her.’

      Loud whooping brought their attention back to the party across the room. In the middle of the fray Zephyr, Donny’s nephew, was surrounded by women. The kind that seemed to have been constructed out of male sexual fantasies. They all had straight, shiny hair and skimpy dresses. Over-inflated breasts, long legs and short attention spans. They had practised laughs that displayed a lot of even teeth and their English was barely good enough to order a drink. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Zephyr was like a pig in muck. He was sitting back, arms around a pair of them, ordering more champagne. He didn’t even seem to mind the disturbance. ‘What happened to the rest of Goran’s men after he died?’

      ‘It’s water under the bridge, Cal, let it go.’

      ‘He left a lot of action behind and Donny scooped up a fair portion of it.’

      ‘You know Donny, he hates to see opportunity go to waste.’ Brodie licked his lips. He wasn’t the kind of man you wanted to play poker with. He gave little away. But he did have a conscience. A rarity in his line of work.

      ‘You were one of the few people who was there back then.

      You were on the inside.’

      ‘It wasn’t a good time. I was in a bad way. My head was messed up.’

      ‘Brodie, help me out here. You’re the only one from that time I can go to.’

      ‘Look, we’re mates, right? We’ve been through shit. We got through it because we had each other’s backs. That counts for something, right?’

      ‘Sure. I’m not trying to put this on you.’

      ‘Goran’s men were like a tribe. They stuck to themselves and didn’t let us mere mortals close to the inside track.’

      ‘If it wasn’t Goran or Donny, then who?’

      ‘It’s over, Cal. Move on.’

      There was a crash as one of the girls toppled off the table into the lap of the big man, Khan. She spilled something onto his jeans. Angrily he tossed her onto the floor. Then all of a sudden it was turning nasty.

      ‘Shit!’ muttered Brodie. ‘I’d better sort this out.’ He rested a hand on Drake’s shoulder. ‘If I think of anything I’ll give you a call.’

      Drake watched him go, slipping back through the crowd. He wondered in passing how many men Brodie had killed. Under the quiet stillness of him there was the smell of death. He’d seen and done things that would give most people a breakdown. There was no doubt he’d been through some hard places. In Iraq, but also after he left the service. As a contractor, Brodie had seen action all over. Afghanistan, Syria, Mali. Drake only knew a few of the stories.

      As he got up to leave, something made him turn around. Across the room, in the shadows, behind the melee, he caught a glimpse of the young man with the Hitler Youth haircut who had bumped into him earlier. He was staring right at Drake.

      13

      The shoe box full of old photographs was tucked into the back of a drawer at the

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