That rasping voice obviously belonged to a man, although it was low, barely more than a whisper.
There was no response, only those steps and the shadow that approached, then stopped less than two feet away.
The man wore a long coat, a hat with the brim pulled low, and a neck scarf. Not the usual sort found in the west end, although he might have been a worker finding his way home late.
“Do you remember me?” That voice reached through the cold night air.
Remember? What the devil, Constable Martin thought. The man must have had too much of the drink.
“It’s no night to be out and about,” he replied. “Best that you get on home.”
“There is no home,” came the response. “No one there. They’re all gone.”
All gone? No one there?
“If you’ve a need of a cab…?” he started to say, then saw the dull gleam of the knife.
He stepped back too late. The knife thrust through the thick wool of his coat, then deeper, followed by sharp pain as he struck out to push the man away. Warmth spread beneath his coat where there had been only the cold, and the air clogged in his throat.
His fist closed over the front of the man’s coat as he fought to bring up his truncheon. In the struggle the man’s scarf was lost.
“Do you remember now?” the man hissed at him as he bent over him.
Constable Martin saw the marled flesh at the man’s neck, the icy glare in that narrowed gaze. A memory returned and recognition came with it.
“You!”
There was a slow, cold smile as his killer stepped away from him, and Constable Martin slumped to the sidewalk and watched with dying eyes as the man bent, retrieved the scarf, then slowly walked away.
One
BRODIE AND FORSYTHE PRIVATE INQUIRIES, #204 THE STRAND, LONDON
Angus Brodie satacross from Inspector Dooley, an elbow propped on the arm of the desk chair as he frowned at the news his friend brought.
“I thought you should know straight away.”
The accent from the man’s birth in Ireland was there. It wrapped around the words, with the gravity of the matter. The same as the first day they had worked together when Brodie was just a new recruit fresh from training. And then later as inspector with the Metropolitan.
‘Blue Devils’ the recruits were called then and included a new identity from the one he’d carried from Edinburgh. Along with skills acquired on the streets that offered experience that couldna’ be found otherwise, and the cold determination burnin’ in his belly to make something of himself before the streets decided otherwise.
Then, he’d walked the streets with Joseph Martin, older by ten years and with a good amount of experience, who gradually chipped away at the anger and resentment that Brodie had wrapped around himself like a protective shield.
Much like an older brother, Martin taught and protected him, at times from himself, and then stood with pride and watched years later when Brodie became inspector of police.
“I belong on the streets,” Joe had told him then. “I wouldn’t know what to do with myself in a suit of regular clothes, investigating crimes, questioning witnesses. But you have the head for it.
“You see things in people. You know a lie when you hear it, and you have friends in places where most wouldn’t go.
“I’m proud of you, Brodie, although I wouldn’t have bet good money that you would survive those first months you walked with me, charging into places and situations as if the devil was on your tail.”
“When did it happen?” Brodie asked now, as he pushed that memory back.
“His shift last night,” Mr. Dooley replied.
Another good man, who’d understood when Brodie had to walk away from the person who threatened to take everything away that he’d achieved and start over again with private inquiries.
“Witnesses?”
