‘Maybe he was a millionaire,’ Steve says. ‘Did he look flush?’ ‘Not that I noticed. Like I said: nothing special.’ ‘What would a millionaire be doing in a kip like this?’ the old lad demands. ‘Looking for a proper pint,’ the barman says with dignity. ‘If he’d’ve found one, he’d’ve come back.’ ‘Has he been?’ Steve asks. ‘No. Only saw either of them

The vic’s home is your shot at getting a handle on this person you’re never going to meet. Even for their friends, people filter and spin, and then the friends filter all over again: they don’t want to speak ill of the dead, or they’re feeling maudlin about their poor lost pal, or they don’t want you to misunderstand that little quirk of his. But b

Steve shrugs. ‘Fair enough. Maybe not.’ This isn’t him diving into a sulk, the way a lot of Ds would if their partner contradicted them, specially in front of someone who looks like Sophie; he means it. It’s not that Steve has no ego – all Ds do – just that his isn’t tied to being Mr Big Balls all the time. It’s tied to getting stuff done, which is

So they went shoulder to shoulder and started pushing me out of the pack. Subtle stuff, at first. Somehow everyone knew about my cousin who’s in for dealing smack. Fingerprint results never made it to me, so I never found out about the link between my case and a whole string of burglaries.

I don’t get rescued. I’ll take help, no problem, just like I took it off Gary and off Fleas. Rescue – where you’re sinking for the third time, you’ve tried everything you’ve got and none of it’s enough – rescue is different. If someone rescues you, they own you. Not because you owe them – you can sort that, with enough good favours or bottles of bo

Burnout happens. It happens more in the squads like Vice and Drugs, where the same vile shite keeps coming at you every day and nothing you do makes any difference: you burst your bollix making your case and the same girls keep on getting pimped out, just by a new scumbag; the same junkies keep on buying the same gear, just from a new drug lord. Yo

What was that like when you got here?’ He nods at the cottage door, which is a harmless shade of blue, splintered where the uniforms bashed it in. ‘Closed,’ the uniform says promptly. ‘Well, yeah, I got that,’ Steve says, but with a grin that makes it a shared joke, not the smackdown I would have pulled out. ‘Closed how? Bolted, double-locked, on t

After a long minute, the line of Lucy’s spine resets. She’s not gonna cry or puke, not now anyway; she’s got other things to do. I’m pretty sure she’s just decided to lie to us.

Lucy wants us to know Aislinn, or at least her version of Aislinn; wants it badly. Sometimes we get that: the friends and family want to shove a holy innocent in our faces, so we won’t think this was all the vic’s fault. Usually they do it when they think it was at least partly the vic’s fault. Aislinn shagging a married man might be enough to do t