Free Bad II the Bone by Anton Marks

someone in his own group set him up and only then by sheer accident you were able to corner him.”
    Dawson slipped his gloves back on.
    “Enoch’s right hand man – the one that turned on him – he acquired the team from the South London drug Don called Deacon. Two of that team, got twenty years a piece, Enoch himself the recipient of the sting received three concurrent life sentences and the other two who were instrumental in his capture turned Crown’s evidence and took on the witness protection scheme. Deacon himself escaped conviction completely.”
    “And everybody lived happily ever after,” said Shaft, injecting some sarcasm.
    “Come now,” Dawson snickered. “Endings like that would prove an anticlimax for historians. No, detective, your first witness protection candidate was found murdered a week ago in Poplar and what remains of this gentleman is, I believe, your fourth witness under our protection.”
    Shaft’s expression of unconcern vanished, much to Dawson’s amusement. Head cocked to one side as if he was listening to the grating cogwheels of Shaft’s mental processes change gear, he nodded to himself, pleased.
    The report that had materialized on Shaft’s desk last week didn’t exactly surprise him. Eric Magar Tin Bateson was found floating face down in a posh gym in Poplar, his lips torn or sliced off from his face. His first conclusion was men like him couldn’t stay out of trouble even after he was given the opportunity to start all over again with a new identity and a chance to right some of his wrongs.
    And then again if you really got to know him as well as Shaft had over the period of the investigation, you could understand, even condone, his murder.
    He was scum of the lowest order.
    Like a dose of tapeworms that made you constantly scratch your ass to relieve the itch but nothing would until you shat the little parasite out was just an idea of how he felt while he was tracking the skinny bastard down. This untimely death was not peculiar unless you threw in the fact that Dawson’s body was possibly another witness from case file 547/ar.
    T wo dead witnesses from a case that had been closed three and a half years ago, dying violently in the space of a week and he was still fighting the impulse of excitement telling him he had very interesting developments on his hands.
    He brushed non-existent lint from his suit and looked back up to Dawson suspiciously.
    “What makes you so certain this is one of my witnesses?”
    He patted his head with his gloved hands and stared.
    “I take it you still have doubts about my investigative skills. Allow me to show you how I’ve come to my conclusions.”
    Dawson paced away from him and then stopped suddenly, whipping out his handkerchief again.
    Shaft tensed, expecting him to burst into spontaneous tears any minute but he spared him the embarrassment and plopped the dust guard over his mouth
    Shaft shrugged and followed Dawson as he flung open the tent flaps. Even with the mouth protection the smell of sulphur and burnt flesh dilated his nostrils with such force he stepped back.
    “Christ!” He gasped. A veil of fetid rankness rose up like an intervening wall blocking his entrance and making his eyes water.
    “Are you all right, Inspector?” Dawson’s muffled voice sounded concerned. A lumpy orange pool with still recognizable bits of king prawns, pork balls and ale spread across what was now the entrance. He didn’t see it until it was too late.
    “Rass!”
    Shaft looked down at his feet, thankful his plastic booties protected his Gucci shoes and slowly extracted his foot from the reservoir of vomit.
    “The body was discovered by a gentleman wandering down here after a meal,” Dawson commented. “He decided to make his contribution to my crime scene.”
    An involuntary shiver ran up Shaft’s