Chapter 8

'See that sign?' On the walls of Smithfield ABC gym there were framed photographs of boxers. They were a certain kind of boxer - natural-born fighters, all grit and glory, the kind of boxers Fred loved. Jack Dempsey. Jake la Motta. Joe Frazier. Marvin Hagler. The hard men of sport. And there were other framed photographs - pictures of kids boxing in Cuba, a dozen of them in the ring at a time, shirtless and skinny and sparring with gloves that looked as though they had just been dug up. And above them all there was a sign.

Chapter 6

There was a locked door inside Room 101. Sergeant Caine unlocked it and we went inside. It was a living room from the distant past. There was a fireplace, a bay window, gaslights. It took me a moment to register that although these were false, there were weapons everywhere, and these were very real. A glass case full of firearms. A desk covered with what looked like the results of a sword armistice. A hangman's noose dangled from the ceiling, which I thought was overdoing it a bit.

Chapter 5

The temperature was just kept above zero in here. Beyond an impatience to get started, I felt nothing when I looked at the bodies. Their spirits had flown. Now there were just the living in this freezing room, and two brutalised empty husks.

Chapter 3

I woke before dawn. I always woke before dawn. In the dreaming period of sleep, the lightest phase of sleep, REM sleep, I surfaced, waking on my side of the double bed, the left side, chased from my rest by yesterday's coffee and my dreams of the dead.

Max

DC Max Wolfe was formerly a Surveillance Officer in Counter Terrorism Command. He was awarded a Queen’s Police Medal for distinguished police service after being the only person to correctly identify a sought terrorist and prevent him from detonating a bomb at King’s Cross St. Pancras.