Until he cracked his jaw!

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

‘It’s gone viral,’ Wren said. ‘You see how many hits you’ve got?’

My phone went.

It was the chief super.

I pictured her in one of those top-floor offices at New Scotland Yard where they either have a view of the river or a view of the park. And I knew from the ice-cold ferocity in her voice that she was looking at neither. Detective Chief Superintendent Swire was looking at my little film. I was no longer flavour of the month. I was a flavour that had been discontinued.

‘I think you’ve been promoted beyond your ability and experience,’ she said. ‘That day at the railway station – you were right and I was wrong. You got your medal and your pay rise and your transfer to Mallory’s outfit. But here’s the thing: I think nothing could have stopped you running that man down. I think that is who you are, Wolfe. I think you would have run him down if he’d had a bag full of onion bhajis. I think because of your personal history – don’t be surprised, it’s all in your file – you are completely out of control. Do you know why we don’t have guns, detective?’

I knew the answers off by heart.

‘Because we don’t need them, ma’am. Because we have trained firearms officers. Because the public do not want their police to be armed. And because if every officer had a firearm, then standards would slip from their current high level.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘The real reason we don’t have guns is because of reckless bastards like you. In a war of smart bombs, you’re an unexploded device. You’re not even a loose cannon, Wolfe.’

She hung up, and I saw that Mallory was standing in the doorway of MIR-1, holding his takeaway tea and staring at me.

I couldn’t look at him.

Not because the world was laughing at me.

Please. I have a daughter.

But because the world had seen me crawl.

I did not feel like going to the gym. But I knew I needed to. I knew I had to. I knew I must exhaust my body tonight, that muscle and blood and bone must be so weary by the time I got into bed that a few hours of sleep was at least a possibility. And I had to fill my head with something other than my humiliating new career as an internet sensation.

There was a sign in Fred’s, and as the gym emptied near closing time I stood looking up at it. It was placed between a posed black-and-white photograph of Sonny Liston and a picture of a dozen Cuban kids sparring in a ring with ropes like snapped elastic.

PAIN IS JUST WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY