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could read the shirt; it said Hellfire Brigade .
    The cop came from nowhere.
    Bull‐necked. Thick‐chested. Navy jacket dusted with rain. Teenagers parted for him like the Red Sea for Moses. He got right in the face of Hellfire Brigade—a kid who didn’t look old enough to shave—the cop’s spit spun in the lights. Maybe he busted him for jaywalking.
    Maybe the cop thought the kid was high on drugs. Tate didn’t care.
    The cop could have been Ian Callinan.
    Mid‐thirties, slab shouldered. That copper look that said he’d soon as drop you on the concrete if you so much as brushed his leathers on the way past.
    Could have been Callinan, but wasn’t.
    A horn blared behind him. Tate stamped his foot and sent the Jeep snarling forward.
    He had to force himself to relax his grip on the wheel so he could make the turn.

Chapter 3
    “That’s got to be six minutes, Lace. I’ll have a heart attack.” Christina’s lungs burned.
    It was Tuesday afternoon. One of the three afternoons a week Lacy had delegated as a running date. The salt of her own sweat dried in her mouth and she would have killed for a drink but her water bottle was in the Golf and the Golf was where she left it when she went running with Lacy after work: outside Lacy’s Kensington flat. So she concentrated on the snug fit of her shining white Nikes and the dull thud of her footfalls cushioned by damp leaves on concrete and told herself to just keep putting one foot after the other.
    Lacy checked her watch. “One more minute, CC. You can do it. It’s downhill when we get to the corner.”
    Christina glanced up long enough to ascertain just how close that corner was.
    Sunlight made tree branch shadows splinter the path ahead, the only time of year rays made it to the ground.
    Music played. Greensleeves .
    Perhaps that was because after the second set of five minutes’ solid running she really was having a heart attack and any second now she’d see angels and the shining white light. Or the fires of hell. The stitch in her side knifed, sweat dripped between her breasts.
    Lacy reached the corner two strides in front and almost knocked an elderly lady in a walking frame into next week.
    “I need me one of those old lady frames, Lace. I thought you said it was downhill.”
    “It is downhill. Eyes on the prize, CC; think of the fat you’re burning.”
    “I like my fat.”
    “Then think of every dollar you’ll raise for cancer research by the time we run in the City to Bay.”
    A woman passed them on the opposite side of the street tugging a dog more interested in pissing on every tree than going for its walk. She had a plastic bag in one hand and held it an arm’s length from her body like it was a ticking bomb.
    “Okay. Two minutes’ walk starts… now.” Lacy slowed.
    “Thank you, God.” Christina adjusted her baseball cap and sucked in huge lungfuls of air.
    “You’re welcome,” Lacy said.
    Two girls on scooters overtook them, wheels scything a mucky track through layers of composting leaves, hair flying beneath helmets. They coasted to the verge, where a soft-serve ice‐cream van was torturing Kensington Gardens with Greensleeves on an endless loop.
    “If Tate hasn’t called, why don’t you call him?” Lacy must have decided Christina had enough time to catch her breath because she picked up the conversation right where she’d left it after their last two‐minute walk.
    “Because if I call first, he wins. I’ll be the one giving in,” Christina said.
    “That makes zero sense. It’s not a competition.”
    “He doesn’t want to consult for me, Lace. I know that, but I don’t know why. If I call him about the brand and he says no again , I’ve got nowhere to go. It makes it final. He almost told me the other night to my face he didn’t want the work. He would have if I hadn’t stopped him.” She kicked at a bottle‐top and sent it clattering into the gutter. “If he calls me first, it won’t be because he wants to talk