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A ARON STARED AT THE walls of his flat. He couldn’t seem to make himself do anything else, because his life had fallen apart around him and all he could do was brace himself for the coming blows.

The meeting with DDI Colthorne had been dreadful. It was truly terrifying to have a man lie to your face when you both knew he was lying, but he didn’t care that you knew because you had no power to object. Colthorne had listed Aaron’s supposed acts of misconduct with a little, cruel smile, enjoying every second of his discomfort. I can crush you , was the message, and I will .

As indeed he could, if Joel had caved.

Aaron knew that was possible: sometimes there was simply no choice. He didn’t really expect Joel to stand up to Darby Sabini if the man made it a matter of physical threat, or to DDI Colthorne if the prospect of another prosecution for a longer sentence was on the table. He wouldn’t expect that of anyone.

He hoped Joel was all right, for the sake of what they’d had and what might have been. He very much hoped the man took his message of trust as he intended it: a statement in principle, not a rebuke if he’d faltered.

Or maybe Joel hadn’t caved, and Colthorne was lying, but even then, Aaron didn’t see there was any way out for himself. He hadn’t found any sort of proof against Colthorne to back up his suspicions—except the accusation that Joel had made to Sabini, but he didn’t want to find himself in a situation where he and Colthorne exchanged accusations. He knew who’d lose.

And, in truth, he wasn’t sure he could face the fight. He knew all too well how it would go. He had involved himself in private affairs in his official capacity; he had brought an obvious charlatan into a police investigation; he had spent a lot of his free time with Joel, with all that implied. It could be so easily twisted into a web of corruption and villainy, and the mud Colthorne threw would stick. Sergeant Hollis was noticeably avoiding Aaron, which indicated where he thought his bread was buttered.

The sensible thing to do would be to sign the resignation, take the private shame to avoid the public humiliation and then find something to do with the rest of his life.

He didn’t want that, or at least, not like this. A reckoning with his profession was probably long overdue, but he wanted it to be on his terms. He didn’t want to leave as a tainted man; his reputation mattered to him. And mostly, he did not want to see Colthorne carry on his merry way, unchecked and unpunished. That could not stand. He just had no idea how to prevent it.

So he stared at the walls, feeling them close in around him, feeling his neck muscles cramp, feeling his options narrowing and his life with it, until there was a knock at the door.

He answered for lack of better ideas, and was faced with a boy who shoved an envelope into his hand. It was a telegram, and it read SHAFIS NOW DONT BE FOLLOWED.

***

I T WAS ONLY MID AFTERNOON . Aaron knocked at the restaurant door, and was quickly admitted by Rahim Mohammed. It felt extremely cloak and dagger.

“Your friends are here, Mr. Fowler,” Rahim said. “Let me bring you a drink.”

Joel and Challice were seated at a table laden with nibbles and snacks for a small army. Aaron stared blankly at them. “Challice? What are you both doing here? I told you—”

“Shut up, sit down, look at this,” Joel said, his voice quivering with excitement. “ Look .”

Aaron took the paper he held out. He recognised the handwriting very well indeed.

I, John Colthorne, promise to pay Thaddeus Knight the sum of four thousand four hundred pounds...

“What the,” he managed. “What.”

“It’s his note of hand,” Challice said. She was vibrating almost as visibly as Joel. “The DDI owed Knight a fortune as of the third of March 1917. Knight was murdered on the fifth. And Mr. Colthorne claimed that they only knew each other casually and played for small sums. Four thousand four hundred pounds isn’t casual .”

It was something like ten years of a DI’s salary. Aaron passed his hand over his face and felt the tremor. “If Colthorne didn’t declare that as an interest—he can’t have, he’d have been treated as a suspect—”

“So he killed Knight, framed up Sammy Beech, and lied through his teeth so your lot let him lead the investigation,” Joel said. “Sees Beech hang and sits back feeling safe—”

“Until Marks comes up with this. Where did he find it? Wait: where did you find it?”

“Marks’s landlady, Mrs. Trotter,” Joel said smugly. “I did her a couple of readings and said rude things about the police, after which she ate out of my hand. Marks gave her the file and notebooks for safe keeping about a fortnight before his death, with strict instructions not to trust the police. She was supposed to post them to Beech’s family in Canada if anything happened to him, but he hadn’t passed on the address. She was just holding on to them, so we had a nice talk, and she agreed to give them to me.”

“Joel,” Aaron said helplessly.

Joel grinned at him, ochre eyes crinkling with glee. “Thank Helen. It was her idea to go back to the landlady.”

“Joint effort,” Challice said. She and Joel both had tin cups of lassi: they clinked them together. “Although we mostly owe this to Gerald Marks. Knight had left a briefcase in the lost property at Paddington, would you believe? Apparently Marks found out earlier this year that he sometimes did that as an alternative to a safety deposit box, and spent God knows how long going through every lost property in London. And, if you need any more, his latest notebook says he tapped Colthorne for two hundred pounds. That was eight days before he died.”

“We’ve got him.” Aaron couldn’t quite believe it. “We’ve got him.”

“Damn right,” Joel said. “You have to have some of these things before I eat them all, by the way, they’re incredible.”

Aaron took a pakora from the plate Joel offered him and dipped it in fragrant sauce, thinking hard. “This is astonishing from you both. What I’m wondering is how we work it. It can’t disappear into a Home Office confidential enquiry.”

“They wouldn’t, surely, sir,” Challice said. “It’s murder .”

“Strictly speaking, this only proves that Colthorne owed Knight money and lied about it. It’s obviously bad and the inference is clear but the higher-ups might well conclude that a prosecution would struggle to prove murder at this distance. And there’s still no concrete evidence that Marks was murdered, and the defence could make hay with that. Colthorne lied about his gambling debt from the best of motives, the conviction of Sammy Beech was made on strong evidence and has not been quashed, he paid Marks’s blackmail and intended to continue doing so as penance, and this entire prosecution stems from a drunkard slipping and falling on a rainy night.”

“Oh,” Challice said, deflating. “Do you think so?”

“It’s what the defence will argue. Whereas the prosecution will need to cast Colthorne as an out and out villain, a murderer given high authority in the Met for years under the noses of his colleagues and superiors. The Commissioner won’t like that at all.” He grimaced. “I’m also aware that if this comes from me, Colthorne might argue a disaffected officer trying to get revenge for his own disgrace. That could muddy the waters to the point where a prosecution might seem very hard to achieve.”

“Helen said he threatened you,” Joel said.

“Unpleasantly. He said I could look to have my various wrongdoings all over the papers.”

“Not via me. I told Sabini what we’d agreed and nothing else. If Colthorne said more, he’s a damned liar.”

Joel sounded ferocious. And he hadn’t caved. He’d stood up to Darby Sabini and lied to his face, for Aaron, and quite suddenly Aaron felt something crack inside.

“Aaron? You all right?”

“Yes. Yes. I just— I don’t know what I did to deserve you. Either of you. I have never felt so alone in my life as I did this morning, and all the time you two were doing this when you should have been watching your own backs.”

“I am watching my back; that’s why we’re meeting here,” Challice pointed out. “You’re not wrong, Mr. Fowler. We don’t want this to be bogged down by the DDI accusing you; the Commissioner would never tolerate all that dirty linen in public.”

“Could you do it?” Joel asked her.

Challice picked up a bit of battered onion and turned it in her fingers. “Would anyone listen to me? A detective constable, a woman, with a story like this? And...to be quite frank, bringing down a fellow officer is the kind of thing that ends careers, sooner or later. Everyone might agree he’s a bad apple, but nobody likes a nark.”

“That’s true,” Aaron said. “Not to mention, if you do it, I expect all women officers will be treated as potential snouts for a while. No. My career is over, whatever happens; I’ll do it, and take whatever shrapnel comes my way.”

“No,” Joel said. “That’s not fair.”

“It’s all right.” It wasn’t all right as such: it would be hellish and humiliating and he’d be all over the newspapers. But it had to be done, and Aaron felt a certain lightness at the decision, as though he’d let something slide off his shoulders. “I told you at the beginning of all this I’d do something about number seven, and I intend to. The question is how we make this work. Who I can go to who won’t be swayed by the Commissioner’s obduracy or Colthorne’s claims about me, and who’s prepared to face the trouble this will cause.”

“One of the Big Five?” Challice asked.

“The Detective Superintendents of the Met, based at Scotland Yard,” Aaron explained to Joel. “As far as I know they’re all decent men, but the DDI is on good terms with them. He’s been widely tipped to make a sixth. And any investigation would still have to be cleared by the Commissioner.”

Joel frowned. “Maybe if the information was already out there, it would be harder to brush it under the carpet?”

“Out where?”

“In the papers.”

“That’s a good idea,” Challice said, sitting up. “Do we know any journalists? What about those ones who called you Valentino, Mr. Fowler?”

“Oh, bugger journalists,” Joel said. “What about the editor of the Tribune?”

“You know him?”

“No, but I broke up his daughter’s engagement to an absolute arse a few weeks ago, so I’d say he owes me a hearing.”

“You mean Paul?” Aaron demanded.

“His fiancée was Barbara Wilson, daughter of Tony Wilson, who edits the Tribune. Did you not know that?”

“I try to avoid learning anything about Paul. Can you get me an introduction?”

Joel tapped his fingers on the table. “I could do that. But... All right, hear me out. Suppose I tell him I found the information myself?”

“You?”

“Let’s say Marks consulted me. Wanted to check if Colthorne’s handwriting on the IOU was real, something like that.”

“But he didn’t.”

“I’d like to see anyone prove that,” Joel pointed out. “Then he died, and I asked your advice, as the only copper I know. You persuaded me to let you look into it, but Colthorne found out about your investigation, and that’s why he’s been going at you and me. And now Sabini is involved and it’s got too much for me, so I’m giving up on the police and handing it to the Tribune.”

“That’s genius,” Challice said through a mouthful.

“No, it’s putting yourself in the firing line,” Aaron said. “You can’t do that. If you get in the papers—the things Colthorne might throw at you—”

“Are the same things he’ll chuck at me if he goes after you. I’m already in this, Aaron, like it or not. It’s just sensible.”

Aaron’s stomach was a hard knot. “Don’t. I don’t want you to do this.”

“Why not? This could work very nicely for me. I’m going to give the editor of the Tribune a whopping great scoop, and get any amount of publicity that money can’t buy.”

“Along with the full and probably hostile attention of the Metropolitan Police! Do you have any idea—”

Joel thumped his left arm on the table, which made it obvious he wasn’t wearing the prosthetic. Challice gave a slight exclamation that she suppressed almost at once.

“Yes,” Joel said, a little loudly. “Yes, I do in fact know that attracting attention isn’t always a good idea. Do you know why I was waving for attention when they shot my hand off?” He looked between Aaron and Challice. “Because we went out after a bombardment, and I had found a man who might have a chance, and I needed someone to help me get him back. Well, we needed two men as it turned out, because my stretcher-carrying days ended quite dramatically at that point, but I did get two men, and they did take him back, and he lived. I wish it hadn’t happened like it did—Christ, I do—but he’s alive, his kids grew up with a father, and we still send each other Christmas cards, so I can’t wish it hadn’t happened at all. Sometimes you just have to do the thing.”

“We all have to make sacrifices,” Aaron said. His mouth was dry. “But you’ve done enough.”

Joel opened his mouth, then shot a look at Challice. “Helen, could you possibly give us a moment?”

“I need to powder my nose,” she said promptly. “And also to find out what this yellow sauce is, and see if they’ll let me have the recipe. Do excuse me.”

“ Joel ,” Aaron said through his teeth as she departed.

“No,” Joel said flatly.

“No what?”

“No to all of it. No, I am not making a great sacrifice because I’m playing martyr. I couldn’t be any less of a martyr; I’m just not a shirker. No, I am not going to hold this over your head forever, and fuck you for suggesting I would.”

“I didn’t—”

“You thought it somewhere deep down, so shut up. No, I am not going to ask for anything in return, and also no, I am not going to refuse anything in terms of appreciation, such as you buying me another very large meal here, because this isn’t a transaction. This is—this is us, Aaron. You and I working together as seems best. I take this to the Tribune, you endeavour to shield me from the consequences, we do our best to bring Colthorne down. Grammar.”

“But you’re trying to protect me,” Aaron said. “I know you are.”

“So what if I am?” Joel demanded indignantly. “We’d literally just met when you chased down that bastard Sefton and saw off your cousin for me. Why can you do it and me not? Or, to put it another way: Are you the only one who gets to do things for other people, and nobody can do anything for you? Because I’ll give you one guess who that sounds like.”

“You are the most aggravating man who has ever walked the earth,” Aaron said with feeling.

“Thank you; I try.”

“And you are probably right,” he made himself go on. “If this becomes public knowledge Colthorne is finished as a copper, no matter what the courts may say, and you probably can make that work better than I could. It’s still taking on a great deal. May I say I’m grateful?”

“No. I don’t want your gratitude, your thanks, or your obligation,” Joel said. “I simply want wholehearted admiration of my courage, integrity, and intelligence, which can be demonstrated by a good shagging at any time.”

Aaron started to laugh. There was so much to worry about, and so much to be done, but the bubble of bewildered joy had to come out and he couldn’t help it. He put his elbow on the table and his hand over his face, and he shook with laughter even as Challice returned and demanded what the joke was.

***

A LOT HAPPENED AFTER that in quite a short time. Mostly, Joel went to see Mr. Tony Wilson, editor of the Tribune. The conversation touched on a number of potentially sensitive issues, including how little either Aaron or Joel wanted to be part of the story. DDI Colthorne’s response was agreed to be unpredictable.

The Tribune took two days to consult its lawyers, and then, late on a Tuesday evening, Aaron went to the unofficial chief of the Big Five, Superintendent FP Wensley, at Scotland Yard and let him know the front page the Tribune would be running the next day.

***

J OEL WOKE UP VERY EARLY on Wednesday with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. The Tribune’s editor had assured him that the presses could not be stopped, but he had still lain awake worrying that the Home Secretary might have been nobbled, an injunction issued. He wished Aaron was there to roll his eyes and explain that wasn’t how it worked, but Aaron would not be coming anywhere near him for some time.

The only thing more frightening than the idea that the story might have been spiked was the prospect that it was running. Joel lay in his single bed and listened out for the cries of newspaper sellers. When he heard what sounded like ‘Sammy Beech’, he let out a long breath, got up, and went to fish out his smartest clothes and his medals. He had a feeling he’d need them, and indeed, the barrage of journalists started very soon afterwards.

Joel gave every interview he could, having commandeered his thrilled landlady’s downstairs parlour. He did not mention Darby Sabini, or Aaron. He repeated again and again that Mr. Marks had come to consult him, that he had felt unhappy about the man’s death. They all asked him why he’d passed on the information to the press rather than the police. He asked them all, “What would you do in my place?”

It was long and exhausting. Towards the end of the day, some of the questions became more hostile, with a journalist from the Daily Express touching on whether he had a grudge against the Met, and asking pointedly if he’d ever been convicted of a crime.

They’d known that would come, and agreed that blaming his aberration on distress and illness after a traumatic war injury would be the path of least resistance. Joel hated that with every fibre of his being. He wanted to name Constable Sefton as an exploitative bully, to point out he had harmed nobody, to ask why it was a good use of police time to poke into his private life rather than rooting out the murderers in their own ranks.

He needed to focus on protecting Aaron, and on making sure Colthorne couldn’t muddy the waters. He needed to say, I was ill, unwell, I didn’t know what I was doing. It was an inexplicable lapse, a momentary madness. Common sense dictated he should.

Common sense collided with Joel, and lost.

“I’ve a conviction, yes,” he said. “Served my time, paid my debt to society. Who fed you that line?”

“Sorry?”

“I was just wondering, did you go looking into me of your own accord, or has a little bird in the Metropolitan Police been singing in someone’s ears?”

The journalist reddened slightly. “I’m establishing the facts, Mr. Wildsmith.”

“The facts are that DDI Colthorne owed Thaddeus Knight a fortune and lied about it when he investigated the man’s murder. That when Gerald Marks found evidence to that effect and told DDI Colthorne about it, he mysteriously died, and that DDI Colthorne didn’t mention any of that to the investigating officer,” Joel said. “Those are the facts. Not my facts, just facts, because I’m only the messenger here. Frankly, you can leave me out of all this and I’ll be happy.”

“You don’t want press?”

“Well, if the story says Handsome, Talented Graphologist Offers Reasonable Rates...” Joel said, and got a reluctant grin. “No, I don’t want press, because this isn’t about me, it’s about three dead men. And DDI Colthorne, of course. I hope some of your mates are asking him questions too?”

“We’re pursuing the story,” the journalist said, a little defensively.

“Someone else gets to talk to Colthorne while you’re stuck trying to make two paragraphs out of me? Did you piss off your editor?”

The journalist glowered. “About your conviction—”

“You’re swimming against the tide, mate.” Joel could feel sweat springing round his neck, but he was digging his heels in now. “You don’t want to be the one repeating Colthorne’s lines of defence when everyone else is exposing his wrongdoing. Some people are going to look pretty stupid for believing him.” He paused, inspiration striking. “Actually, I could name you one.”

“Who’s that?”

“Someone a lot more interesting than me,” Joel said, making very direct eye contact. “It depends if you’d rather write scandal about a graphologist nobody’s heard of, or a Bright Young Person who’s made a complete tit of himself.”

The journalist weighed that up, and grinned. “Go on.”

***

T HE NEXT DAY ALL THE papers ran the story on the front pages. The Daily Mail had managed to reach Sammy Beech’s family by telegraph; The Times had dug up some old friends of Thaddeus Knight; the Mirror had an immensely frank interview with Marks’s landlady.

The Express had the Paul Napier-Fox story as an exclusive. The journalist had gone straight to him and extracted a full admission that Colthorne had dictated the threatening letter. Paul tried to claim he’d gone along with it because Joel had unfairly maligned his integrity, but the journalist had also contacted Barbara Wilson, who did a gleeful job of eviscerating his character and morals. That would teach the swine to bully Aaron as a child.

The news had also had the effect of putting Joel’s profession in the public eye, and the letters begging for appointments started coming by the second post. Joel refrained from replying quite yet. The last thing he wanted was to be accused of profiteering from murder. He did, however, open them all just in case Aaron had written.

He desperately wanted to know what was going on at the Met. Commissioner Sir William Horwood had come up with a lot of pap about investigations taking time and the proper channels, but he’d be lucky. The brewing scandal had already been dubbed the IOU Affair by the press, and two of the papers were running observations about the rumours of a Sabini connection to King’s Cross CID. Joel just hoped Darby Sabini didn’t blame him for that.

Aaron had managed not to be interviewed by anyone, but there were a couple of blurry photographs of him entering Scotland Yard, grim-faced. He was of course featured in the story as the investigating officer on the Marks murder; he’d be answering a lot more questions behind the scenes, Joel knew. But they had wrenched the story from Colthorne’s hands, and prevented it from being quietly covered up, and on the whole, he was proud.

Thursday came and went with more interview requests, a twentyfold increase in the number of letters, and still nothing from Aaron. Joel, who hadn’t left the building since Tuesday, was increasingly bored and frustrated. He wanted to see Aaron and to hear what was going on. He wished his landlady had a telephone.

He’d paid her son to get him all the papers. The lad duly delivered the Evening Standard, which had a sidebar about the story on the front page pointing to a spread on pages 2 and 3. Joel turned to it and almost dropped the paper.

Sergeant In IOU Affair, Marks Murder Case Leaves Force

Detective Sergeant Aaron Fowler, who led the investigation into Gerald Marks’ death, abruptly left the Metropolitan Police this morning, according to reports. It is unclear if he resigned or was dismissed. The Standard’s requests for more information were not answered...

“Shit,” Joel muttered. Had Aaron been pushed too far? Or was this Colthorne getting the upper hand? He hadn’t made a statement beyond the obligatory one about not commenting on active investigations and expecting all allegations to be cleared up shortly.

Aaron would surely get in touch now. Joel would just have to sit tight and wait for the next post; there was usually one around five-thirty.

It came and went without a letter. Joel paced up and down his room feeling like a kennelled dog. Had he fucked this up? He might have fucked this up. He’d insisted on taking the lead, but maybe that had made Aaron seem incompetent or incapable. Perhaps Colthorne had been able to use Joel’s record and his words to Sabini against Aaron. Maybe he oughtn’t have thrown Aaron’s cousin to the wolves?

Maybe Aaron was just being highly cautious and not contacting him like they’d agreed, and Joel should stop working himself into a tizzy for no reason.

He made himself a resentful bacon sandwich for supper. The last post arrived at eight; if he didn’t hear from Aaron by then, he’d stop worrying. Or he’d throw caution to the winds, run out to a telephone box, and call him. One of the two.

He heard the rattle of the letterbox and the soft thump of a cascade of paper falling to the mat, and went downstairs to collect what would be overwhelmingly his letters. He put them on the stand to sort through them, and almost knocked over the whole pile as Aaron’s hand leapt out at him. He ripped open the letter, fingers fumbling in haste, and shook it out of the envelope.

Joel—

Please come to my flat as soon as you get this. Things have gone badly wrong. Don’t speak to anyone. Come at once.

Aaron

He stared at the familiar hand, a cold feeling of dread coalescing in his stomach. Then he sprinted upstairs for his coat.