Free The Coldest War by Ian Tregillis

from the car. Marsh suppressed a sigh of relief.
    The copper looked at Marsh, then nodded toward the pub. “They throw you out?”
    â€œI threw myself out.”
    â€œThrow anything else while you were at it?”
    â€œYeah. A pint glass. A punch or two.”
    â€œCaught one, too, I see,” said Constable Lorimer. He brushed off a spot next to Marsh before sitting down. “Why do you keep doing this?”
    Marsh said nothing. His sense of loss, his rage at the world for what his life had become—these were private indignities. Only one person in the world could even begin to understand how he felt, but she had stopped caring about his ills a long time ago.
    The constable said, “Dad used to talk about you, back in the war. Said you were ‘right clever for a Sassenach tosser.’” He pronounced the last part in the style of his father’s Scottish brogue. Marsh had fought alongside James Lorimer and had been present when he died. His children had grown up in London raised by a Welsh mother, and so inherited different accents than their father’s.
    â€œBut you don’t seem all that clever to me.”
    Marsh glared at the young Lorimer. Cotton threads from the towel tugged at the spots of blood crusted on his face when he turned his head. The towel smelled of blood and booze. As did Marsh. “Sorry to disappoint.”
    The copper shook his head. “Look, Mr. Marsh. My point is that this can’t continue, and you’re smart enough to know that. Any more of this, and I’ll have to write you up good and proper, toss you in jail at Her Majesty’s pleasure. You knew my dad, and I’ve let you slide on account of it. I keep it up, they’ll have my arse in a sling,” he concluded, with a slight nod toward the car and his partner.
    He stood. Marsh followed, gritting his teeth against the ache in his knee as he climbed to his feet. It took Marsh an extra moment to steady himself.
    â€œI ought to haul you down to the station house.”
    â€œBut you won’t.”
    The young Lorimer waved an admonishing finger an inch from Marsh’s nose. “I will, if there’s a next time, Mr. Marsh. You’ve exhausted my surplus of charity.”
    Marsh inspected the towel. It was ruined.
    â€œAnd have somebody take a look at that cut, eh?”
    â€œI’ll take care of it once I’m home,” said Marsh.
    â€œNeed a ride?”
    Marsh shook his head. “Better not. Liv wouldn’t like seeing me escorted by the coppers.”
    â€œStraight home,” said the constable, climbing back in the car.
    Marsh acknowledged this with a little salute. He set off at a slow walk. After the coppers disappeared up the street, he balled up the towel and threw it at the boards covering the shattered window of a derelict storefront. It hit the door with a weak thump, unraveled, and fluttered to the ground.
    Home was fifteen or sixteen streets away. Marsh took his time. He remembered running this same route in the other direction, during the blackout, before dawn on the morning his daughter was born.
    Doing that today would get a man mugged. Or worse. Smart folks didn’t walk these streets after dark. Back then, the neighborhood hadn’t been marred with graffiti and broken windows. The smell of rubbish didn’t permeate the streets on hot days. It would have been a good place to raise a daughter. But the economic burden of rebuilding great swaths of London had meant that other parts of the city had been victims of benign neglect.
    Cheap rents had attracted an endless progression of immigrants and refugees. But few of their shops and restaurants had persisted for long. Marsh had never set foot in any of them. Couldn’t afford it.
    Marsh wished it were late at night, perhaps even raining, rather than a bright springtime afternoon. Hooligans drew their courage from the shadows and ill weather. He knew; he’d been one of them,