‘What I mean—not to put too fine a point on it—is all of us in the office are more academics than typical SpecOp agents. Your post was held by Jim Crometty. He was shot dead in the old town during a book buy that went wrong. He was Bowden’s partner. Jim was a very special friend to us all; he had a wife, three kids. I want… no, I want very badly the person who took Crometty from us.’

I stared at their earnest faces with some confusion until the penny dropped. They thought I was a full and pukka SO-5 operative on a rest-and-recuperation assignment. It wasn’t unusual. Back at SO-27 we used to get worn-out characters from SO-9 and SO-7 all the time. Without exception they had all been mad as pants.

‘You’ve read my file?’ I asked slowly.

‘They wouldn’t release it,’ replied Analogy. ‘It’s not often we get an operative moving to our little band from the dizzy heights of SpecOps 5. We needed a replacement with good field experience but also someone who can… well, how shall I put it—?’

Analogy paused, apparently at a loss for words. Bowden answered for him.

‘We need someone who isn’t frightened to use extreme force if deemed necessary.’

I looked at them both, wondering whether it would be better to come clean; after all, the only thing I had shot recently was my own car and a seemingly bullet-proof master criminal. I was officially SO-27, not SO-5. But with the strong possibility of Acheron still being around, and revenge still high on my agenda, perhaps it would be better to play along.

Analogy shuffled nervously.

‘Crometty’s murder is being looked after by Homicide, of course. Unofficially we can’t do a great deal, but SpecOps has always prided itself on a certain independence. If we uncovered any evidence in the pursuit of other enquiries, it would not be frowned upon. Do you understand?’

‘Sure. Do you have any idea who killed Crometty?’

‘Someone said that they had something for him to see, to buy. A rare Dickens manuscript. He went to see it and… well, he wasn’t armed, you know.’

‘Few LiteraTecs in Swindon even know how to use a firearm,’ added Bowden, ‘and training for many of them is out of the question. Literary detection and firearms don’t really go hand in hand; pen mightier than the sword and so forth.’

‘Words are all very well,’ I replied coolly, suddenly enjoying the SO-5 women-of-mystery stuff, ‘but a nine-millimetre really gets to the root of the problem.’

They stared at me in silence for a second or two. Victor drew out a photograph from a buff envelope and placed it on the table in front of me.

‘We’d like your opinion on this. It was taken yesterday.’

I looked at the photo. I knew the face well enough. ‘Jack Schitt.’

‘And what do you know about him?’

‘Not much. He’s head of Goliath’s Internal Security Service. He wanted to know what Hades had planned to do with the Chuzzlewit manuscript.’

‘I’ll let you into a secret. You’re right that Schitt’s Goliath but he’s not Internal Security.’

‘What, then?’

‘Advanced Weapons Division. Eight billion annual budget and it all goes through him.’

‘Eight billion?’

‘And loose change. Rumour has it they even went over that budget to develop the plasma rifle. He’s intelligent, ambitious and quite inflexible. He came here two weeks ago. He wouldn’t be in Swindon at all unless there was something here that Goliath found of great interest; we think Crometty went to see the original manuscript of Chuzzlewit and if that is so—‘

‘—Schitt is here because I am,’ I announced suddenly. ‘He thought it suspicious that I should want an SO-27 job in Swindon of all places—no offence meant.’

‘None taken,’ replied Analogy. ‘But Schitt being here makes me think that Hades is still about—or at the very least Goliath think so.’

‘I know,’ I replied. ‘Worrying, isn’t it?’

Analogy and Cable looked at one another. They had made the points they wanted to make: I was welcome here, they were keen to avenge Crometty’s death, and they didn’t like Jack Schitt. They wished me a pleasant evening, donned their hats and coats and were gone.

The jazz number came to an end. I joined in the applause as Holroyd got shakily to his feet and waved at the crowd before leaving. The bar thinned out rapidly once the music had finished, leaving me almost alone. I looked to my right, where two Miltons were busy making eyes at one another, and then at the bar, where several suited business reps were drinking as much as they could on their overnight allowance. I walked over to the piano and sat down. I struck a few chords, testing my arm at first, then becoming more adventurous as I played the lower half of a duet I remembered. I looked at the barman to order another drink but he was busy drying a glass. As the intro for the top part of the duet came round for the third time, a man’s hand reached in and played the first note of the upper part exactly on time. I closed my eyes; I knew who it was instantly, but I wasn’t going to look up. I could smell his aftershave and noticed the scar on his left hand. The hair on the back of my neck bristled slightly and I felt a flush rise within me. I instinctively moved to the left and let him sit down. His fingers drifted across the keys with mine, the two of us playing together almost flawlessly. The barman looked on approvingly, and even the suited salesmen stopped talking and looked around to see who was playing. Still I did not look up. As my hands grew more accustomed to that long-unplayed tune I grew confident and played faster. My unwatched partner kept up the tempo to match me.

We played like this for perhaps ten minutes, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. I knew that if I did I would smile and I didn’t want to do that. I wanted him to know I was still pissed off. Then he could charm me. When the piece finally came to an end I continued to stare ahead. The man next to me didn’t move.

‘Hello, Landen,’ I said finally.

‘Hello, Thursday.’

I played a couple of notes absently but still didn’t look up.

‘It’s been a long time,’ I said.

‘A lot of water under the bridge,’ he replied. ‘Ten years’ worth.’

His voice sounded the same. The warmth and sensitivity I had once known so well were still there. I looked up at him, caught his gaze and looked away quickly. I had felt my eyes moisten. I was embarrassed by my feelings and scratched my nose nervously. He had gone slightly grey but he wore his hair in much the same manner. There were slight wrinkles around his eyes, but they might just as easily have been from laughing as from age. He was thirty when I walked out; I had been twenty-six. I wondered whether I had aged as well as he had. Was I too old to still hold a grudge? After all, getting into a strop with Landen wasn’t going to bring Anton back. I felt an urge to ask him if it was too late to try again, but as I opened my mouth the world juddered to a halt. The D sharp I had just pressed kept on sounding and Landen stared at me, his eyes frozen in mid-blink. Dad’s timing could not have been worse.

‘Hello, Sweetpea!’ he said, walking up to me out of the shadows. ‘Am I disturbing anything?’

‘Most definitely—yes.’

‘I won’t be long, then. What do you make of this?’

He handed me a yellow curved thing about the size of a large carrot.

‘What is it?’ I asked, smelling it cautiously.

‘It’s the fruit of a new plant designed completely from scratch seventy years from now. Look—‘

He peeled the skin off and let me taste it.

‘Good, eh? You can pick it well before ripe, transport it thousands of miles if necessary and it will keep fresh in its own hermetically sealed biodegradable packaging. Nutritious and tasty, too. It was sequenced by a brilliant engineer named Anna Bannon. We’re a bit lost as to what to call it. Any ideas?’