Free Blood and Stone by Chris Collett

lose patience. ‘It’s called being considerate to your neighbours. I’d do exactly the same in her position. Be grateful she’s letting you have a party at all; plenty of parents don’t.’
    â€˜Yeah, it’ll be crap now though, with all the neighbours watching out for us.’
    Knox slowed as they reached the drop-off point. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are,’ he said, mildly. ‘Have a good one.’
    Finally the lad mustered the effort to make eye contact. ‘Cheers for the lift,’ he said in an attempt to redeem himself.
    â€˜Sure.’
    Knox was sneezing so loudly and with such force that he didn’t hear DCI Sharp come up behind him on the stairs at Granville Lane.
    â€˜That sounds like a potent dose of something nasty,’ she said, making a show of holding back slightly from him as they fell into step. ‘Keep it to yourself.’ A little taller than Knox, she looked as elegant as ever, dressed in one of her trademark trouser suits that even Knox could appreciate made the most of her slender frame and complemented her dark olive skin. ‘How did it go yesterday?’ she asked.
    â€˜Pretty grim,’ Knox confessed. ‘And, as you can see, I’ve caught my death.’
    â€˜It was a funeral,’ she said. ‘Someone always does. How was Tom holding up?’
    â€˜Not too bad, but he couldn’t wait to get away. He kept that bit quiet. You both did.’ Knox shot her a look.
    â€˜I know,’ she said apologetically. ‘But he thought that if you got wind of it you’d insist on going with him, and the whole point is that he wants some time on his own; really on his own. Hopefully it’ll do him good. He might even stop beating himself up about what happened.’
    â€˜With all due respect, Boss, I don’t think there’s much chance of that any time soon.’
    â€˜Yeah, maybe that’s a bit much to expect,’ she conceded. ‘Meanwhile, if there’s anything you need additional support with, let me know.’
    â€˜Yes, Boss.’
    Knox had barely sat down and switched on his PC when he glanced up to see Millie come in. She came straight over to him. ‘Have you heard the latest on that news story?’ she said. ‘The gunman on the rampage in Liverpool?’
    â€˜I don’t think he’s on the rampage exactly,’ Knox answered, momentarily distracted by the daily bulletin that had appeared on the screen in front of him. ‘It looks like he might have killed a couple of people and then made himself scarce, for obvious reasons. What about it?’
    â€˜They’re saying this morning that he could have escaped into Wales.’
    Knox looked expectantly up at her, waiting for the punch line.
    â€˜It’s where the boss has gone,’ Millie said, as if that proved something.
    â€˜Wales is a whole country,’ Knox reminded her. ‘The boss is heading to the middle, and this McGinley is most likely in the north. There’s no reason to think they’ll be anywhere near each other. And anyway, the Merseyside plods will pick McGinley up soon enough, especially somewhere as remote as north Wales. If that’s where he’s gone.’
    She set her mouth. ‘Right.’
    She wasn’t convinced, Knox could tell. ‘Anything else?’ he asked, when she didn’t move.
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Okay,’ he said, uncertainly. As Millie finally returned to her desk, Charlie Glover caught his bemused expression and shrugged lightly. ‘Pregnant,’ he mouthed, as an explanation, drawing a hand around his imaginary swollen belly.
    Knox didn’t have time to dwell on Millie’s preoccupations. With Mariner away there was plenty to be going on with; a couple of cases to prepare for the CPS and the follow-up on some bad drugs reported to be circulating the city. First of all though, he put a call through to Terry Dukes, the