Life on Mars: A Fistful of Knuckles. Tom Graham

no need for all this. All we want from you is information about-’

      ‘Not you, girly-bollocks,’ Stella interrupted, still staring at Gene. ‘Him. The real man. The guv’nor.’

      Gene lounged against the wall, the fag smouldering in his gob, and silently narrowed his eyes at her.

      ‘You want to pump me?’ Stella glared. ‘Then pump me. Like only you know how.’

      For several highly charged seconds, Gene fixed her with his stare. The air was thick with the mingled aromas of Gene’s Brut and Stella’s Charlie. Once again, Sam felt he was intruding on a private moment between these two – a ghastly, stomach-churning private moment he would rather not witness. It was like being in a seedy backstreet club. It was worse than the coroner with the whelks.

      Gene exhausted his cigarette and heeled it into the floor. Then, very much taking his time, he began to pace slowly up and down behind Stella’s back.

      ‘Denzil Obi,’ he said, his voice low, his manner controlled. ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me what you know about him.’

      ‘He were a nice enough lad,’ said Stella. ‘In his way.’

      ‘Meaning?’

      ‘He didn’t have a good start in life. Had to make his way as best he could.’

      ‘Bit of a Jack-the-lad, was he?’

      Stella shrugged. Gene paced.

      ‘He had ambitions to become a boxer,’ Gene said. ‘What can you tell me about that?’

      ‘He weren’t a bad welterweight. Nifty. Bit of a rough diamond, but with work he could have gone places.’

      ‘It’s not the places he could have gone that interest me but the places he came from. The Black Widow had a seedy past, didn’t he. Illegal fights. Bare-knuckle bouts. He must have rubbed shoulders with some right horrible bastards.’

      ‘Most like,’ said Stella.

      ‘And pissed a few of ‘em off in the process.’

      ‘Perhaps.’

      ‘Any ideas who?’

      ‘Nope.’

      ‘’Course you do.’

      ‘I’m legit, Mr DCI. I know nothing about the underworld.’

      ‘Pull the other one, luv, it lights up and plays Leo Sayer.’

      ‘I don’t associate with villains,’ protested Stella. ‘Not willingly, anyway. I’m straight.’

      ‘Straight? Straight?!’ Gene grasped her by the hair and twister he head round. ‘You’re as kinky as a bloody corkscrew, and in more ways than one. Names! I want bloody names! Denzil Obi got on the wrong side of someone – who was it? Give me a name!’

      ‘Make me.’

      ‘I said give me a name!

      ‘And I said make me!’

      ‘Give me a name! Give me a name!’ And now Gene began to punctuate his words with a series of slaps. ‘Give!’ – Slap! – ‘Me!’ – Slap! – ‘A’ – Slap! – ‘Blood!’ – Slap! – ‘Ee name!’ – Slap, slap!

      Sam’s instinct was to intervene, but he restrained himself. Nobody would thank him for stepping in, least of all Stella. What was going on between these two was something too murky, too unsavoury for Sam to get involved with. He was better off out of it. He didn’t want to be soiled.

      Gene yanked Stella’s face closer to his own and hissed into it: ‘Big fellas getting handy – that’s what gets your juices bubbling, isn’t it. That’s why you run that seedy gym. Watching blokes beating eight buckets of shite out of each other turns you right on, don’t it!’

      ‘Oh yes!’ The words came out of her as a gasp.

      ‘And getting on the receiving end of it tweaks your dial even more!’

      ‘Oh yes …!’

      ‘You dirty randy kinky scrubber,’ Gene snarled, and he hauled her up from the chair. One of her white stilettos went skittering across the floor. He gripped her by the shoulders and shook her; Stella’s head lolled about wildly, her hair falling all over her face, her manacled hands clenching and flexing behind her back.

      ‘You want the rough stuff? Eh?’ he barked.

      ‘As rough as you can make it, Guv’nor.’

      ‘Careful what you wish for … you might just get it.’

      Stella was panting hard, pushing her heaving breasts into Gene’s barrel chest: ‘You’re … You’re …’

      ‘Speak up, petal!’

      ‘You’re getting close to making me … making me …’ She was breathing so hard she could barely get the words out. ‘… Making me talk.’

      Gene span her round and yanked her arms up awkwardly behind her. She let out a cry – a cry of ecstatic pain.

      ‘Talk!’ Gene ordered. ‘Talk, you pervy slag. Or would you rather I turn you over to my colleague DI Tyler? He won’t treat you tough like this. Oh no. He’ll be soft and gentle. Very gentle.’

      ‘No!’ Stella cried.

      ‘He won’t lay so much as a finger on you. He’ll be patient, keeping his temper, treating you like a lady, with respect.’

      ‘No, please!’

      ‘Hour after hour of it! Cups of tea. Polite questioning. Playing it by the book. Never losing his rag – not once. Being nice!’

      ‘Please! Don’t leave me alone with him!’

      ‘You don’t want the Tyler treatment? Then get talking!’

      ‘Denzil and Spider!’ Stella panted, struggling to speak through the delicious pain. ‘They grew up together. Spider used to stick up for Denzil when the other kids picked on him and called him a coon and all that. They got them tattoos done together, to show they were like … you know, blood brothers. They didn’t have no family, not really – just each other.’

      ‘Very touching,’ said Gene. ‘But this a murder enquiry, not This Is Your Life. I want to know who’d have a grudge against Denzil!’

      ‘Denzil and Spider got into the word of illegal bare knuckle fights when they were still just kids,’ Stella went on. ‘It was all they could do to survive. Between them, they went up against some right hard bastards … big-money fighters, real legends …’

      ‘Names! Names!’

      ‘Too many to mention!’

      ‘Give me names!’

      ‘Lenny Gorman, Bartley Shaw, Patsy O’Riordan out of Kilburn. I could name a dozen others. Big men … real men … hard men …’ Her eyes glittered at the thought. ‘Any one of them could have had a grudge against Denzil.’

      ‘Why? Why would they have a grudge against Denzil?’

      ‘It’s what the underworld’s like,’ said Stella. ‘Fights that get fixed, fellas making off with winnings what aren’t theirs, blokes paid to bust other bloke’s hands. It’s the way it is. Betrayal and revenge. Denzil and Spider got involved in some pretty scummy business to earn themselves a crust. They were no different from anyone else in that world. Or in your world, Mr DCI Gene beautiful beautiful Hunt!’

      ‘Knock off the flattery and stick to the facts!’ snorted Gene, rewarding her compliment with a cuff round the ear that sent one of her dangly earrings flying off to join her missing stiletto.

      ‘They