Slice Read Free

of the car and climbed behind the wheel. ‘You are such an arsehole.’
    Another laugh. ‘Thanks for the compliment, Ab.’ He slammed the door shut. ‘At least they’re useful.’

chapter 2
    THE INCIDENT ROOM team was setting up its equipment in the mothballed police club at Maddington’s Saddler Street police station when Jack Fulton lumbered into the room shortly after dawn. In the confusion of bodies moving desks, screens and electronic kit in all directions he almost collided with a computer monitor as the IT technician carrying it stepped in front of him – only to receive the rough side of Fulton’s tongue when the big man tripped over the trailing plug lead.
    Detective Chief Inspector Phil Gilham was waiting for him in what had once been the club’s TV lounge at the far end of the vast room, immaculate in his pinstripe grey suit and matching silk tie, but grim-faced, his arctic blue eyes as watchful as ever.
    ‘’Morning, Jack,’ Gilham said. ‘Seems we’ve got a bad one this time.’
    Fulton nodded, eyeing his dapper number two with undisguised envy. Why did Gilham always have to look as if he’d stepped out of a Savile Row shop window, while he could never make his cumbersome bulk (enhanced by years of best bitter and Chinese takeaways) look anything other than what his wife had once described as ‘shit off a shovel’?
    With his curly fair hair cut neatly to just below his ears, tanned athletic appearance and designer clothes, Gilham had the sort of celebrity image that guaranteed a speedy route to the top echelons of the service, especially as he had a first-class honours degree in criminal law and the sort of charismatic articulate persona (never one to resort to abuse, even under pressure) that could not but fail to impress even the most critical interview panel. Just thirty years old, already through his superintendent’s board and waiting for a vacancy, he had everything going for him and CID was simply a brief stepping-stone to more sophisticated environments.
    Fulton shook his head, thinking that it had taken him twenty-three years to get his crown after five years in uniform and eighteen as a career detective. There was no real bitterness there – after all, it was a sign of the times – just a sense of cynical amusement at the way the service was going.
    ‘Good holiday, Phil?’ he queried, dropping heavily into a swivel-chair someone had wheeled into the makeshift office for him and shaking a cigarette out of the battered packet he had pulled from his coat pocket.
    Gilham shrugged. ‘Good enough,’ he replied, studying his boss intently. ‘Sorry to hear about Janet.’
    Fulton’s slab-like face froze into a rock wall. ‘So is half the bloody force, it seems,’ he rasped, lighting up. ‘Well, forget her and concentrate instead on Mr Justice Lyall, will you? Someone seems to have cut his throat and chopped off his balls – and not necessarily in that order – which is a tad more important!’
    Gilham nodded. ‘So I gather,’ he murmured and thrust a plastic cup into Fulton’s meat hook of a hand. ‘Got some Irish in it,’ he said, pouring strong coffee into the cup from a flask he had lifted off the windowsill.
    The big man took a sip and grunted his approval. ‘I need you to get up to speed on this thing as quickly as possible,’ he snapped.
    Gilham pursed his lips. ‘I will do once I’ve visited the scene and got myself properly orientated. Don’t forget, I was still on my way back from the airport two hours ago.’
    Fulton nodded. ‘Nice to see Jamaica hasn’t dented your enthusiasm for the job,’ he said drily.
    Gilham chuckled. ‘How could I resist the compelling invitation you left on my mobile? What was it you said? Something about getting my tanned arse back in gear?’
    Fulton smiled faintly, remembering his frame of mind after being called out to the murder scene from a nice warm bed. ‘So let’s see you do just that,’ he said.
    He hauled himself to