A huge slick of fresh blood was already spreading across the pavement.

All around there were the screams of terror and fury. The dog was so close now that I could smell it, so close now that I could feel its breath.

I could see the strange flat-nosed Glocks in the corner of my vision, aimed at the dead man on the ground and also at my face. The safety catches were released.

But this was our boy, wasn’t it?

I looked at my hands with wonder.

They were covered in the dead man’s blood.

But they were not shaking as I tore open the red backpack and looked inside.

Chapter 2

2

‘SORRY,’ I SAID, my body clenched tight inside the suit I had not worn since my wedding day.

The office was crowded with the full cast of a murder investigation. A SOCO was standing directly in front of me, trying to get past, all in white apart from the blue facemask that covered everything but the irritation in her eyes. I was in a big corner room near the top of a shining glass tower, but I flashed briefly on the many school playgrounds of my childhood, and how you can feel both invisible and in the way just because you are new.

And then there was a spark of recognition in the SOCO’s eyes.

‘I know you,’ she said.

‘I’m the new man,’ I said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re the hero. At the railway station. When did you start working Homicide?’

‘Today.’

Now she was smiling behind her blue facemask.

‘Cool. What did they call you in court?’

‘Officer A.’

‘You kill anybody this week, Officer A?’

‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘But it’s only Monday morning.’

She laughed and left me standing by the dead man’s desk. There wasn’t much on it. Just fresh blood and an old photograph.

In the photograph, seven young men in military uniform smiled for the camera as if they were looking at their unbreakable future. Blood had splattered across one corner of the glass. But it did nothing to hide their cocky faces.

It was a strange photograph to have on an office desk. No wife, no kids, no dog. Just seven young soldiers, defaced now with a bright spurt of blood.

Travel blood. Fresh from an artery.

I looked closer and saw the photograph was taken in the eighties, judging by the washed-out colours and the mullet haircuts of the cocky lads. Their hair was from another decade and their uniforms were from another century. They looked like Duran Duran at Waterloo.