Free Reconstruction by Mick Herron

before the Office released the dogs. The fact that he was Head Dog was an irony not bringing him great pleasure.
    Meanwhile, he was being kept waiting. This was in the police station, foot of St Aldate’s, Oxford, within whose walls Bad Sam Chapman was halfway between nasty smell and suspect device, as if his appearance could only trigger catastrophe. Policemen don’t like spooks. That was okay. Chapman didn’t like policemen.
    Edgy, tense Chapman was a short, dark, sharp-featured man, so in an ideal world would have resembled Al Pacino. But where Pacino’s terrier-intensity and brooding surliness added up to sexual magnetism, in Sam Chapman the same combination produced a dangerous sulk. Besides, his features weren’t arranged like Pacino’s – instead, he resembled an ageing football hooligan in a suit. Late forties; a number two cut not quite eradicating the grey; brown eyes deep enough that getting to the bottom of them was no simple matter – an ex-wife could have glossed on this. Currently, he was sitting in a plastic bucket seat that doubtless figured on an Amnesty International to-do list, facing a noticeboard whose posters reminded onlookers that they’d recently been mugged, burgled, assaulted or had their bike nicked, though anyone close enough to read probably remembered that’s why they were here. And, every time he closed his eyes he was back in the lay-by, watching a big car making a mess of Neil Ashton. He’d been folded like a piece of damp laundry when Chapman reached him. The gun was nowhere – you had to assume Segura had taken it.
    It was likely Ashton had a girlfriend somewhere – possibly even a mother – and either or both would be receiving grim phone calls about now. Which was sad, but when you scraped away the sentiment Neil Ashton had displayed a gun on what he’d described as a collect-and-comfort, then compounded the error by losing it. He’d better hope he died on the operating table, because if he ever walked upright again, Sam Chapman would break him in two and kick the halves in different directions.
    Blessed are the unforgiving, for they shall come out even. That was the lost frigging beatitude as far as Bad Sam Chapman was concerned. As for the meek: we’ll make them give it back.
    A police officer, not a day over seventeen, appeared in the doorway and beckoned him to follow. Beckoned – not invited. But house rules were in play, so Chapman rose and went with her: down a corridor, through a safety door, up a stairwell, through another door – a labyrinth to dis-orient suspects. He wasn’t a suspect, of course; a fact it would be wise to keep in mind, given God only knew how today would pan out. In Bad Sam’s experience, what started badly fucked up worse.
    The last door boasted a plastic strip reading Superintendent Malcolm Fredericks . The officer knocked, an ‘Enter’ was barked, the door was opened, the officer retreated, and Chapman was inside, looking at Superintendent Malcolm Fredericks, who didn’t rise, offer his hand, or invite Chapman to sit. Instead he said, ‘I presume you have ID?’
    Wordlessly, Chapman showed him a card he could have run up in a stationer’s half an hour previously. But there were rings you had to jump through when you’d fucked up. Like tumbling down a snake in the game: once you’d thrown a bad number, you were at the mercy of the board. ‘It would have been courteous to let us know you were running an operation in the area.’
    ‘It wasn’t exactly an operation.’
    ‘Wasn’t it? And what was it, then? Exactly?’
    ‘We were picking up a witness.’
    ‘Well, what a splendid job you made of it. In my line of work, we’d call that an arrest. And when it’s planned in advance, we’d describe it as an operation.’
    ‘It wasn’t an arrest,’ Sam Chapman said.
    ‘But you were armed.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Your companion was armed.’
    ‘I hadn’t been aware of that.’
    ‘You hadn’t been aware of that.’
    It was a