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Chapters (49)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Book
  3. About the Author
  4. Also by Tony Parsons
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. PROLOGUE
  8. PART ONE
  9. 1
  10. 2
  11. 3
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. 7
  16. 8
  17. 9
  18. 10
  19. 11
  20. 12
  21. 13
  22. 14
  23. PART TWO
  24. 15
  25. 16
  26. 17
  27. 18
  28. 19
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. 22
  32. 23
  33. 24
  34. 25
  35. 26
  36. PART THREE
  37. 27
  38. 28
  39. 29
  40. 30
  41. 31
  42. 32
  43. 33
  44. 34
  45. 35
  46. 36
  47. 37
  48. 38
  49. MAX WOLFE RETURNS IN 2018 …

But I knew already, I didn’t need anyone’s meaningful words, I knew even before I got to the workstation where Edie Wren covered her face in her hands and I touched her red hair at the back of her neck and she looked at me and shook her head, and I knew long before the woman standing next to her, DCI Pat Whitestone, looked at me dry-eyed and impassive, her voice far calmer than I believed it had any right to be.

I knew everything already but she said the words anyway.

‘We lost Billy,’ DCI Whitestone said.

26

You could smell the sea.

I stood in the fast lane of the empty motorway and inhaled deeply, tasting the salty tang of it, sensing the wind on the open waves, feeling the sea but not seeing it or hearing it. The only sounds were the DO NOT CROSS tape flapping in the wind where Kent police had shut the road and the quiet voices of the CSIs as they worked around the lorry on the hard shoulder.

But the air was different here. I closed my eyes, breathing in, and I wondered if Billy Greene had smelled the closeness of the sea before they killed him.

A burly, white-haired sergeant from the Port of Dover Police had been given the job of briefing me. I was aware how hard it was for him.

‘According to port records, TDC William Greene arrived in Dover on the ferry from Dunkirk, cleared customs just after 10 a.m. and must have been forced to stop before he got far on the motorway.’ He hesitated. ‘Were you close?’

I didn’t know what to say. ‘I feel like I watched him grow up.’

‘So he was a friend?’

I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said, my throat closing on the words, my eyes suddenly blurring with tears. ‘Billy Greene was my friend.’

‘Your friend put up quite a fight. He fought them all the way. But there must have been multiple assailants. And they knew he was coming.’

‘How did you know to call West End Central? He wasn’t carrying any ID on him.’

‘Didn’t you know? He has four numbers tattooed on his chest. Just above his heart.’ The sergeant tapped his chest. ‘Four plain, simple numbers. Nothing else.’

I almost smiled. ‘His warrant number,’ I said.

The sergeant nodded.

‘Those four numbers wouldn’t make any sense to most people,’ he said. ‘Unless you knew what a Metropolitan Police warrant number looks like. That was the only way we knew he was one of us.’

‘Somebody else knew without ever seeing his warrant number,’ I said.