‘If sitting in your lock-up, stroking old furniture with a rag and drinking beer is your thing – have fun, guys.’

  His phone buzzed on the work bench.

  ‘One moment, my lovely,’ he said to the La Rochelle-styled antique armchair he was working on. He crossed the floor of his small workshop to see that it was Sam calling. He picked his phone up.

  ‘Hey, baby,’ he said, adopting his Barry White voice. ‘I was just thinking about –’

  ‘Not now, Jay,’ cut in Okeke. ‘I’m at work. Have you heard back from Louie yet?’

  ‘No, not yet,’ Jay replied. ‘I was expecting him over this morning. We’ve got Mrs Patton’s chair to finish… Why?’

  ‘No reason – I just wondered what was going on,’ Okeke said.

  ‘I’ll give him another nudge. See if he’s okay.’

  ‘All right. Let me know if he comes over to play.’

  ‘Righto. Call you back, babes.’ Jay hung up, then he checked his messages. The last few chat bubbles were all Jay’s. In fact, Louie hadn’t been in touch since Thursday night. Missing a shift was unlike Louie. Missing their Saturday morning workshop session was unheard of. Jay rubbed his fingers down his grubby work boiler suit and began to tap the screen.

  Oi! Numbnuts… you doing the shift tonight or what?

  He waited a few moments for the dancing ellipses to appear below. But nothing appeared.

  Need to know asap, mate, if I’m covering the door tonight. Also… no workshop this morning?

  Still nothing. With a sigh of irritation, he dialled Louie’s number. If the single buzz of a message wasn’t going to rouse him, then a phone call might. He hung on until the call finally went to voicemail.

  ‘It’s Jay, you big knob. Pick up the phone!’ He ended the call, then set the phone down on the work bench, waiting for it to come buzzing back to life.

  Louie was usually a hundred per cent reliable. Jay had known him since school. Louie and Jay had been the two gentle giants of Year Seven who’d lumbered around in each other’s company and earned the shared nickname of Dumb and Dumber until their lives took different directions. Louie got an apprenticeship as a plumber for a couple of years, then signed up, joined the paras and was off all over the world.

  While Jay – boring old Jay – remained in Hastings.

  He picked up his phone and tried Louie again. Once again, it flipped over to voicemail.

  ‘C’mon, Louie. Call me, you big bastard. I need to know if I’m going in tonight.’

  He put the phone down again and this time it buzzed once in response.

  That you, man? Can’t talk. Not feeling great. In bed. You’re going to have to cover for me tonight, that okay?

  Jay stared at the message on his screen and let out a deep, long and puzzled hmmm. Everything about that message was wrong. Louie never used the word ‘man’. Not like that anyway. It was too idiotically American for him. What’s more, Louie was rarely, if ever, sick – and, on the rare occasions that he felt a little under the weather, he wasn’t the type to just abandon his post and leave a mate in the lurch.

  Jay’s big thumbs pecked out another message.

  Not like you, mate. Everything okay there?

  He waited a couple of minutes for a response, but he got nothing. He tried one more time.

  Louie, mate. You okay?

  ‘Shit.’

  The first prickle of concern tickled the hairs on the back of his neck. Something was up with his friend. He knew that Louie – tough bastard though he was – occasionally suffered from ‘low spells’. That’s what Louie called them anyway. He wouldn’t ever call it ‘depression’, the term embarrassed him. Despite all the mental health awareness campaigns of recent years, Louie was one of a dwindling number of stubborn bastards who insisted that PTSD was a thing that could be dealt with by getting on with life. By ‘manning up’.

  Louie was prepared to admit that ‘yeah, I saw some heavy shit over there...’ but he’d always cap that off by assuring Jay it was shite that he’d left behind him long ago.

  ‘I’m good, mate. Don’t ever need to worry about me.’

  But Jay did. Louie was as close to being a brother as one could get without shared blood.

  He peeled off his grubby boiler suit and tossed it onto the back of the armchair he’d just been fondling. Louie’s flat was only a short walk from his lock-up, and some heavy pounding on his front door might stir the bugger out of this odd mood.

  Louie’s place was a ten-minute walk through the centre of town, past the Priory Meadow shopping centre, up Queens Road, a cut-through to Milward Road and onto Milward Crescent. He had the ground-floor flat of Number 38.

  Jay took the half dozen steps up from the street to the front door and peered into the bay window of Louie’s front room. Louie spent most of his time in the front room – that was where his TV, Xbox, sofa and his weights lived. If he was in, he’d be visible. Jay leaned in close and scanned the room through the window. It looked as it usually did: a bit grubby but essentially tidy. He could see the console controller sitting on the low coffee table beside the remote control and an empty mug. There was no sign of Louie, though.

  Jay rang the bell. Louie was either in his bedroom or on the crapper at the back of his flat. He dutifully waited for his friend’s lumbering shape to appear in the frosted glass of the front door, but again nothing.

  He rang the bell once more and after another minute, now becoming increasingly anxious about his friend, he pulled his phone out and called him. Louie tended to leave his phone on and turned up to the max because he had a tendency to lose the bloody thing. Milward Crescent was a quiet road, quiet enough that Jay was pretty certain he’d be able to hear its annoying Family Guy ringtone through the single pane of Louie’s bay window.

  From his own phone he heard the gentle trill of Louie’s phone ringing, but there was nothing coming through the glass.

  But he said he was in bed. Sick. Jay’s concern ticked up another notch. He did what he normally did when he’d run out of ideas. He called Okeke. She answered after the first ring.

  ‘Have you spoken with him yet, Jay?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Well… we’ve texted, not spoken. I’m at his place right now. He said he was in bed, sick, but he’s not answering the door.’

  ‘He texted you?’

  ‘Yeah. But…’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘It didn’t sound like him.’ He heard her breath catch. ‘Sam? What is it?’

  ‘I’m… not gonna lie, love. We’re a little concerned for his welfare,’ she replied.

  ‘We?’

  ‘The police.’

  The prickling sensation at the back of his neck suddenly rolled upwards and across his cropped scalp. ‘What’s happened?’

  She hesitated. Then… ‘A body was found on Milward Road yesterday. Friday morning.’

  That was all he heard. He ended the call, tucked his phone away and kicked the front door open, stepping over a couple of takeaway menus. He marched up the short hall to Louie’s door and did the same thing again. The door rattled inwards and he strode into the compact flat, calling his name in the hope there’d be a pissed-off voice barking back a ‘What the fuck?’

  He jogged down the narrow hallway to the bathroom at the back and swung the door open, hoping to find his friend compromised and roosting on the toilet. But it was empty.

  ‘Louie?’ he called out loudly, his voice beginning to waver with concern as he hurried back up the hallway and pushed open the door to the bedroom.

  Louie’s bed was empty and made, flawless army style. His Oxfords were lined up in pairs at the end. The only concession to a slovenly civilian life in his bedroom was an empty plastic Huel porridge pot on his bedside table – he sometimes let his guard down and treated himself to breakfast in bed.

  Jay backed out and peered into the kitchenette, then finally made his way into the front room he’d surveyed through the bay window, clutching at one last hope that maybe his old buddy was sparked out on the floor behind the end of the sofa. But… no.

  ‘Oh, shit… shit… Louie, mate.’ His voice had collapsed from a bark to an unguarded whisper as he slumped down onto the sofa’s arm. ‘Just be okay, you bastard…?’

  10

  Police Sergeant Bambridge and PC Gyton pulled up outside Number 38 Milward Crescent.

  ‘There – that’s the one,’ said Bambridge. She tapped the radio mic on her tac vest. ‘Police unit Tango-Echo-Two-Five attending welfare check at 38 Milward Crescent for one Louie Collins.’ She looked up the steps to the front door. ‘The door to the property appears to have been forced open.’

  ‘We, uh… going in, are we, sarge?’ asked Gyton. He looked up hesitantly at the damaged door and the jagged splinters of the door frame.

  Bambridge scowled at him. ‘Sergeant. And yes – of course we bloody are. Come on.’ She climbed out of the patrol car and tapped her vest cam on. She strode up the steps, calling out loudly, ‘Police! Anyone inside… show yourself, please!’

  She shoved the door fully open, stepped into the hallway and saw that the ground floor flat’s front door had also been forced in.

  ‘Police!’ she barked again, then, more cautiously, she pushed the door wide open. Gyton crept up behind her, fumbling distractedly with something on his tac vest.

  She sighed. ‘What the fuck is the problem now?’

  ‘Can’t get my cam to come on, sarge.’

  She rolled her eyes. That would be a form to fill in later. Marvellous. ‘Just leave it for now,’ she hissed. She took a step into the apartment. ‘Police! If there’s anyone in here show yourself, please!’

  Bambridge entered the front room and found a large, muscular man with a shaved head slumped on a couch.

  ‘Are you Louie Collins?’ she asked, then an immediate follow-up: ‘Is this your flat?’

  The man slowly lifted his head to look up at her. ‘No.’

  PC Gyton squeezed into the front room and did a double take at the size of the man. There was no way the pair of them were going to be wrestling him into cuffs if he decided to kick off. He took a step back behind his sergeant.

  ‘If this isn’t your place, what’re you doing here?’ demanded PS Bambridge.

  ‘I broke in,’ he mumbled.

  ‘I can see that. That was you, was it?’

  He nodded. ‘I… I was looking for Louie…’

  The man’s voice sounded faintly slurred. She leant in a little closer and could smell beer. ‘All right then, sunshine… what’s your name?’

  ‘Jason Turner.’

  He looked distressed. A little agitated. He smelled of beer, but he might also have taken something. Which could mean trouble given the size of him. She toyed with the idea of calling for backup in case he decided to get pissy but decided to try the softly-softly approach first.

  She squatted down in front of him. ‘You okay, Jason?’ she asked.

  ‘Not really,’ he muttered. ‘I think something’s happened to Louie.’

  ‘Mr Collins?’

  Jay nodded.

  PS Bambridge glanced over at PC Gyton, who shrugged. ‘Okay, look, Mr Turner,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to bring you in to the station to take a statement…’

  Boyd led the way into the interview room. ‘All right, Jay,’ he said. ‘How’re you doing?’

  The big man offered him a beaten smile. ‘Hey there, guv.’

  Okeke entered the small room. ‘Hey, love – you okay?’ she asked.

  Jay looked pitifully relieved to see her and got up. ‘Babe.’

  Okeke made her way to him and wrapped her arms around him. Boyd looked away to give them a moment or two of privacy, then pulled out a chair and sat down.

  Okeke had briefed him as soon as they heard that Jay was coming in. The dead man, Louie Collins, wasn’t only Jay’s work colleague at CuffLinks – he was Jay’s oldest and best friend. ‘I mean… they’re really, really, close. Like brothers. Closer even than his actual brother.’

  So far they had been light on what they had shared with Jay. Boyd was not looking forward to filling in the details.

  ‘So, Jay,’ he began, ‘as you know, on Friday morning a body was found on Milward Road and we now believe the body is that of your friend Louie Collins.’

  Jay looked up from the floor. ‘Believe? Is it not definite?’

  ‘I’m afraid, we’re pretty certain,’ replied Boyd. ‘More so now that we know that he’s not been home.’ He opened a folder with some notes and a printed image taken from the security camera opposite Number 22.

  ‘This was taken on Milward Road… He’d have walked down there to get home, wouldn’t he?’

  Jay nodded.

  ‘And this image was taken at four minutes past three in the morning.’ Boyd placed the image on the table in front of Jay. ‘Does that look like Louie?’

  Jay leant forward and studied the grainy image for a moment. ‘Uh-huh.’ He nodded. ‘It could be.’

  Boyd had a couple of other screen grabs printed in his folder, both showing the blurred attack. The second figure was just a grainy smear. Nothing that was going to help ID him. ‘Louie was attacked from behind on Milward Road at about three a.m. on Friday morning,’ Boyd continued. ‘It appears to be unprovoked.’

  Jay shook his head in disbelief. ‘Attacked?’

  ‘He was stabbed several times in the back,’ said Okeke, as she reached across the table and grabbed one of his hands. ‘I’m so sorry, love.’

  ‘He worked at CuffLinks?’ asked Boyd. ‘With you?’

  Jay nodded, wiping his nose on the back of his free hand. ‘Doorman. We were both on Thursday night.’

  ‘So at 3 a.m.…?’

  ‘We’d finished. He’d have been walking home from work,’ Jay said, nodding. ‘Weekdays we close a little earlier. Friday and Saturday, the shift ends at five.’

  ‘Would he always take the same route home?’ asked Boyd.

  Jay nodded again. ‘It was the quickest way back. So yeah.’

  Boyd noted that down. He looked back at Jay. ‘So, as you can see, we have the attack caught on someone’s security camera.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Jay whispered.

  This really is shit, thought Boyd, looking at the distraught figure opposite him. Both an interview and breaking the news in one sitting. What should have been two very different conversations. He glanced at Okeke – at least they’d been allowed to do it.

  ‘Jay… It’s not easy viewing, mate. It was sudden and brutal. Over in seconds. Normally we wouldn’t ask you to look at it…’

  Jay nodded gratefully.

  ‘But…’ Boyd continued, ‘the thing is that the attack looks premeditated, as though someone had planned it.’ He pulled out a printed image that showed the attack in progress. The frame he’d selected was the clearest one they had, which wasn’t saying much. He placed the blurred image in front of Jay.

  ‘God,’ he whispered.

  ‘Okeke tells me you two were close friends.’

  Jay nodded. ‘Since school. I used to go round his house for tea most nights when we were kids.’

  ‘Jay was fostered. Bounced around a bit,’ explained Okeke. ‘Not a great childhood and Louie’s family were there.’

  Boyd nodded. ‘Okay.’ He returned the picture to his folder. ‘Can you think of a reason why anyone would want to kill him?’

  Jay sat back in his seat; it creaked softly beneath his weight. ‘No. Not really.’

  ‘Not really?’

  He shrugged. ‘You get arseholes we have to escort off the premises every now and then. But…’ Jay shook his head. ‘No, Louie’s a decent bloke, guv. He was ex-military, you know? So, totally, like, straight… if you know what I mean.’

  Boyd nodded and jotted that down.

  ‘Jay, hu…’ said Okeke. She squeezed his hand again. ‘Just Boyd is fine. He’s not your guv.’

  ‘Right.’ Jay replied, trying to smile.

  ‘Were there any incidents you can think of that happened during the run-up to that particular night?’ asked Boyd. ‘Any difficult customers? Fights? Anyone you had to turn away at the door maybe?’

  ‘Not fights,’ replied Jay. ‘Rarely fights. It’s not that kind of place. It’s more exclusive. It’s members only. And if you’re not a member, there’s, like, a really steep guest fee.’

  Boyd smiled. ‘To keep the riff-raff out?’

  Jay nodded. ‘Right. Yeah. It’s classy. Basically for rich bastards, not regular lads on, say, a stag do.’

  Classy. Boyd wondered where Emma’s dancing girls and sleazy old men fitted into the conventional definition of ‘classy’.

  ‘So nothing out of the ordinary happened that night at the club that you can remember?’ Boyd prompted.

  ‘Let me have a think.’ Jay took in a long breath and closed his eyes.

  Boyd sat back slowly in his seat so as not to disturb him. The gentle giant sitting opposite him looked broken and lost. There were friends and then there were lifelong friends. Collins and Jay had clearly been very close.

  ‘Yeah, actually.’ Jay opened his eyes and sat forward. ‘There was kind of an incident outside.’

  ‘What happened?’ Boyd asked.

  ‘Me and Louie were having a fag down the side of the club,’ Jay began. ‘It was a quiet part of the shift, you see…’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And we overheard some bloke on the phone. Sounded like a dodgy call.’

  ‘What do you mean by “dodgy”?’

  Jay shrugged. ‘Something, you know… dodgy. Illegal. I wasn’t really paying attention.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Louie walked out and said something to the guy, like, “Watch what you say out loud, mate – you never know who might be listening.” Then the guy went into the club.’

  ‘What did this man look like?’ asked Okeke.

  ‘Did you get a good look at his face? Could you describe him?’ pressed Boyd.

  ‘I only got a quick look. Wavy light, sandy hair, maybe blond. Kind of wimpy-looking. Skinny.’