it.
“Hey!”
The bag landed short and spilled its contents, scattering several CD cases. Then Tayte was running again and he had no idea if he’d make it. He had all the man’s attention now and being closer he could see that the mask he was wearing was a comedy caricature of Prince Charles. It was surreal. He took in the big ears for a split second and then all he could think about was the gun that had now turned on him. He didn’t stop. He didn’t know why but he just kept running, thinking that although they had only just met, at least he’d bought Jean some time to get away.
The shot came instantly.
Tayte knew it had missed him when he heard a car windscreen shatter. The sound of the glass breaking startled him more than the shot itself. Ahead, Jean was on her feet, recoiling from the shove she must have given the gunman as he squeezed the trigger. Now the man was running back to the taxi and Tayte silently thanked Jean for choosing fight over flight, if she’d really had a choice.
As Tayte arrived beside her and the taxi sped off in a screech of tyre rubber they exchanged brief glances and turned their attention to Marcus. Tayte removed his jacket and dropped to his knees. He sat and held his friend in his arms with his jacket pressed to his chest. There was so much blood washing out over the pavement with the rain that Tayte was surprised his friend was still alive. His eyes were wide open, his glasses spattered with blood on the pavement beside him.
“Marcus? Can you hear me?”
Tayte got something back. It could have been, “JT,” but he wasn’t sure.
“Marcus! Stay with me, you hear?”
A crowd began to gather around them. People were pouring out of the restaurant.
“An ambulance is on its way,” Tayte told him, speaking slowly as he looked around for one of the restaurant staff, hoping it was true. Someone nodded back at him. “Just stay with me, Marcus. Stay with me.”
Marcus drew a sharp breath and coughed. “My briefcase,” he said, struggling to get the words out through the inky blood that was bubbling from his lips.
Tayte shook his head. “It’s gone.”
“You must find it.”
“Don’t worry about it now.”
Marcus closed his eyes and somewhere in the real world Tayte heard a siren. It seemed to stir his friend again. He felt his fingers bite into his arm.
“Treason!” Marcus said, his eyes locked in a faraway stare. “Hurry!”
“Treason?” Tayte repeated. “What do you mean?” He needed more to go on. He needed his friend. “Marcus?”
Tayte shook him but he knew he hadn’t felt it. The pressure on Tayte’s arm had left him as suddenly as it arrived, and in that moment he knew his friend was gone.
Chapter Two
D etective Inspector Jack Fable worked for the Metropolitan Police Service at New Scotland Yard. His real name was William Russell Fable, but he’d been called Jack for so long now because of his middle name that it eventually stuck. “A terrier with a bone,” someone had once said, and he still was. He had no idea who William Fable was any more. He thought his parents would have liked that other guy better, but it was too late for that now.
Fable was fifty-six years old, had passed up early retirement a year ago and would do so again if he made sixty. He figured either the job or the cigarettes would eventually kill him, but he’d be damned if he was going to depart this world through the slow decay of boredom. He’d been a DI for as long as he could remember. Maybe twenty years - he wasn’t counting. He had no ambition beyond his current grade because he liked to get things done and it was plain to him that the higher up the ladder you climbed, the more bureaucratic bullshit you had to deal with.
He was an iron-faced man with neat, mid-brown hair that was thin on top and combed to