Life on Mars: A Fistful of Knuckles. Tom Graham

focused hammer blow.’

      ‘One bloke, you reckon?’ asked Gene. ‘Just one bloke to overpower Obi and beat him to death?’

      ‘It’s perfectly feasible,’ said the coroner. ‘I could find no evidence that the victim was restrained in any way during the attack, and all the injuries he sustained are consistent with an attack from a single assailant. One man attacked him. One man killed him.’

      Gene pulled a sceptical, pouting expression, but the coroner smiled and went on. ‘A single blow, powerful enough and delivered in the right place, could leave even a professional boxer reeling. If the victim was dazed and semi-conscious, his assailant could rain blows on him unresisted. In this case, though, Obi didn’t go quietly. He fought back – at least for a while. His hands were freshly cut and bruised. The struggle may have lasted some minutes.’ He grunted up a noisy bubble of stinking air. ‘Like the struggle between me and these whelks. Excuse me, gentlemen – if I don’t get some liver salts down me I’m going to be the next one on the slab.’

      ‘But what about the bullet?’ asked Sam as the coroner pushed past him.

      ‘Shoved down his throat after he died,’ the coroner called back as he strode away down the corridor. ‘A tantalizing mystery for you sleuths to puzzle over.’

      And then, with one last resounding belch, he was gone, leaving Sam and Gene alone.

      ‘Denzil was a boxer,’ said Sam. ‘Whoever killed him was a boxer too – somebody who knows what they’re doing with their fists.’

      ‘Most likely,’ said Gene. ‘A boxer with a grudge – and very small hands.’

      Without warning, Gene reached out and roughly grabbed Sam’s hand.

      ‘Guv, what the hell are you doing?!’

      ‘The length of your index finger, he said,’ growled Gene, peering at Sam’s finger. ‘It’s gonna be like Cinderella and the glass slipper; whoever owns the fist that matches your pink little manicured digit, he’s our man.’

      ‘I’m not playing Prince Charming for you, Guv! You’re not using my finger as a measuring stick for murderers!’

      ‘I thought you’d always wanted to give me the finger, Sammy-boy.’

      ‘Give over!’

      Sam wrenched himself free from Gene’s powerful grasp.

      ‘Let’s at least try and behave like professional coppers, Guv,’ he said. ‘Denzil knew his killer. That would explain why he let him into the flat. They quarrelled – fought – after a few minutes, Denzil was overpowered, and the killer pummelled him to death. But why stick a bullet down his throat afterwards?’

      Gene shrugged: ‘Symbolic. I dunno. We’ll ask the killer when we nick him.’

      ‘And how are we going to do that, guv? Where are we going to start?’

      ‘Somewhere conducive to contemplation, where the mighty Gene Hunt noggin can work its magic.’

      ‘And where’s that, guv?’ asked Sam.

      Gene looked at him flatly and said: ‘Where’d you think, dumb-dumb? And you’ll be the one getting them in.’

      The Railway Arms was quiet at this time of day. The atmosphere seemed poised, ready for the crush of drinkers, the clamour of manly voices, the braying of blokey laughter that would fill the place come evening time. The familiar pumps gleamed along the bar, promising Watney’s, Flowers and Courage on draught. The ashtrays sat clean and expectant, like baby birds awaiting feeding. The floor was not yet sticky underfoot with spilt beer. And Nelson, resplendent in his flowing dreadlocks and a gaudy shirt depicting the sun setting over a Caribbean island, seemed nicely mellowed, perhaps conserving his energies for the bustle and bullshit of the evening crowd.

      ‘Very thirtsy coppers today,’ he observed, glancing at his watch as Gene strode in through the door, Sam in his wake. ‘What’s the reason for dis early visit? Are we celebrating victories or drownin’ our woes?’

      ‘One of your lot just got whacked,’ announced Gene, leaning against the bar and sparking up a fag. ‘We need a moment to cogitate on the clues. Two pints of best, and make it snappy.’

      ‘What you mean, one o’ my lot?’ asked Nelson as he pulled the pints.

      ‘A black,’ said Gene, speaking around the cigarette clamped between his lips. Sam literally cringed. Gene glanced at him, ‘All right then, a ‘mixed race black’. ‘Appy now, Tyler? Whatever you call him, he was mashed to smithereens like a blood pudding under a steamroller.’

      ‘Is dat so?’ said Nelson, raising his eyebrows but playing it very cool. ‘Terrible. It’s a terrible world we’re livin’ in.’

      ‘It is,’ put in Sam. ‘There’s terrible things that get done. And said. Nelson, I apologise on behalf of my DCI. He isn’t really a pig-ignorant National Front scumbag racist, he just sounds like one.’

      ‘Who you calling an NF scumbag?’ retorted Gene. ‘I’m colour blind, me. I know all the words to the Melting Pot Song. Gonna get a white bloke, stick him in a black bloke …’

      ‘That really is enough, Gene!’ Sam silenced him, and he meant it.

      But Nelson was laughing: ‘Blue Mink! Now I tink I got that stashed away some place.’

      ‘You see?’ growled Gene, gulping down a mouthful of beer and giving himself a froth moustache. ‘Nelson knows what’s racialist and what ain’t. The trouble with you, Tyler – well, apart from all the other troubles with you – is that you think screaming like a nancy with a stinging dick at what normal blokes say makes you some sort of saint. Well it don’t. It just makes you a mouthy get with no sense of what’s what.’

      ‘It’s a little thing called political correctness, Guv. It’s all to do with treating diversity with respect.’

      ‘“Diversity with respect”!’ sneered Gene, downing another frothy draught. ‘Kid gloves is for butlers and snooker refs, Tyler. You can’t wear ‘em in the street. Or on the beat. Now knock it off and let the mighty Genie noggin’ get to work. I got a killer to catch.’

      Gene carried his pint and smouldering fag over to corner table and ensconced himself.

      Sam shook his head and turned to Nelson: ‘I’m sorry you have to hear talk like that.’

      ‘Oh, forget it, friend!’ Nelson beamed at him, his showy Jamaican accent vanishing and being replaced with the broad tones of Burnley. ‘Water off a duck’s back. Your boss, he don’t mean no harm. He’s just repeating what he’s learnt.’

      ‘It’s not right, the way he talks. Where I come from, Nelson, it’s all very different.’

      ‘Yup,’ said Nelson. ‘And where I come from too.’

       CHAPTER TWO: STELLA’S GYM

      ‘Have you been drinking with the guv again?’ asked Annie, looking up at Sam from her desk at CID. ‘Sam, it’s barely lunchtime!’

      ‘I only had the one, to keep him company,’ said Sam. ‘Why, can you smell beer on me?’

      ‘That, and about a million fags.’

      They glanced across at Gene who was back in his office, chewing on a biro while casting his eyes over the racing pages. He’d found no inspiration in the pub; perhaps he hoped he’d find it among the runners and riders.

      ‘You’re looking tired, Annie,’ said Sam, drawing up a chair beside her. ‘Is everything alright?’

      ‘Working