Free Shoot to Kill by James Craig

voice rising as she became more angry. ‘Are you all right?’
    Just when he thought he was going to reach
la petite mort
, the fake lesbians disappeared and the screen went blank. ‘Shit!’
    ‘Christian!’
    For some reason, she sounded like his mother. It was not a mental image he wanted right at this moment and he tried to shake it from his mind. Happily, the screen burst back into life with an image of the naked Amazon haranguing a cowering police officer.
    ‘Hello?’
    The more annoyed Abigail sounded, the more aroused he became. ‘I was just wondering,’ he groaned, ‘what kind of underwear you’ve got on.’
    ‘For God’s sake,’ she breathed, lowering her voice to less than a whisper, ‘you’re not playing with yourself again, are you?’
    The Amazon was astride the policeman now, hitting him repeatedly over the head with what looked like an outsized albino truncheon.
    ‘Good God!’
    As he teetered on the point of no return, Holyrod watched in horror as the camera jerked up and away from the action. For a couple of seconds he was treated to a series of shots of Everton’s ceiling. Then a face filled the screen. As it came into focus, Holyrod let his erection slip from his hand. ‘Holy shit!’ he hissed, trying not to fall from his chair. ‘What the fuck are
you
doing there?’
    ‘Thanks.’ Carlyle took the mug from his wife and gave her a quick peck on the forehead. Alice had already left for school and they had the flat to themselves. Taking a couple of hasty gulps of peppermint tea, he poured the rest down the sink.
    ‘In a hurry?’ Helen asked.
    ‘I’ve got to get going,’ he replied. ‘See how the great strip-club round-up is going.’
    She gave him a stern look. ‘I hope you’re not going back there.’ Helen had been deeply unimpressed by his tale of the raid onEverton’s. Although she trusted her husband, she saw no need to have him put needlessly in the way of temptation. For that reason, the Vice Squad had never appeared on Carlyle’s cv.
    ‘No, no,’ he said hurriedly, trying not to sound too defensive. ‘I’m off to the station.’
    ‘Good,’ she said, reaching up on to her toes and giving him a kiss on the lips. ‘I’ll see you later.’
    Standing on the pavement, the inspector watched a group of four white guys unload the back of an open-topped lorry on the opposite side of the street. They were fitting out what had been Il Buffone, the café that Carlyle would visit most days for his breakfast. The owner, Marcello Aversa, would have a double macchiato and outsized raisin Danish on the table in front of him almost before Carlyle had slipped into the back booth where he liked to sit, contemplating the day ahead under a crumbling poster of the 1984 Juventus scudetto winning squad, the team of Trapattoni and Platini, higher beings from a different time. With Marcello retired, Carlyle knew that the place would never be the same. But a man still had to eat and he was prepared to give the new establishment a go.
    Slowly, a couple of the men began lifting the new sign into place above the front door. Carlyle’s jaw dropped. ‘You’re fucking kidding!’ he wailed. ‘A kebab shop?’ One of the men gave him a dirty look. Carlyle glared back at him before turning on his heel and heading quickly in the direction of Holborn tube, his stomach grumbling noisily. Ten minutes later, he was sitting in the basement of Cornwell & Black Opticians, trying to guess the blurred letters that were being flashed up on the screen in front of him.
    ‘Your eyes are fine, Inspector.’ Denzil Taleb swivelled on his stool and scribbled some notes in Carlyle’s file. ‘You are just a bit short-sighted.’
    Carlyle grunted the most reluctant of acknowledgements.
    Denzil, a small, wiry man in his sixties, sporting a pair of thick black Prada frames which kept slipping down his nose, smiled happily, safe in the knowledge that there would never be a lack ofdemand for his services. ‘We all