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detection.
    But he’d miscalculated.
    His joints, muscles and limbs began to creek and buckle under the strain. The effects of the injuries that he’d sustained chasing the phantom killer of his lover eighteen months earlier had led one doctor to suggest he could be ‘registered disabled’. Mac had laughed at the suggestion but as his grip on the rope began to fail, he knew the doctor had been right. And as he looked down at the window, he realised something else. He’d miscalculated the length of rope needed and he was going to be a couple of feet short. The strain on the rubber gloves he was wearing began to peel them from his hands and only by using his teeth was he able to keep them on.
    Then the rope began to give way.
    Above, he could hear the meeting room table violently scraping the floor as it was dragged towards the window by his weight. The rope sagged briefly, he was dropped a couple of feet before the rope jerked him violently as he became taut again. For a brief moment he dangled horizontally like a circus performer before gravity pulled him upright again and he swayed like the pendulum on a clock. He looked up and felt his hands reddening under the gloves as he slid down what was left of the length of rope, and then down at the innocent pedestrians below he was about to fall on.
    ‘Elena,’ he whispered softly.
    It was only when he looked back at the wall that he realised the movement of the table above had given him the couple of extra feet he needed. He whispered ‘Elena’ again and then, more angrily, ‘Elena!’ Holding onto the rope with one hand he snatched at the window with the other and pulled it open. With a final scream of ‘Elena!’ he kicked against the wall with his foot and swung backwards. The momentum of the return swing forwards carried him through the window where he tumbled onto the floor of Phil’s office.
    Stunned for a few moments, he struggled to his knees and crawled to the desk. Outside, he could see the back of Shazia’s head as she barred the door. He used his nearly dead hands to turn the screen so that it blocked the view from outside and crouching he sat low so he couldn’t be seen if she looked his way. He turned the computer on and went to Skype. He tore off some notepaper and sellotaped it over the camera.
    Phil had contact numbers both for Tom Bracken’s work and home. It was just gone midnight in California so Mac knew the work one was a dead loss but he rang the home one and found he’d got lucky twice over. Firstly, a woman in a dressing gown appeared on the other end, looking confused.
    ‘Can I speak with Tom?’ Mac said.
    She called out. ‘Tom honey, some guy’s calling you on Skype.’
    In the background was a shout of ‘Who is it?’
    ‘I dunno. Why don’t you come and see. Oh – and there’s no picture.’
    The woman got up and a few moments later, she was replaced by a man who was clearly ‘Tom honey’. That’s when Mac realised he’d had a second stroke of luck. The man was clearly drunk. He wore a dress shirt with an undone black bow tie hung around the collar. Fiddling with an unlit cigar his hair was dishevelled and his eyes glazed. It had obviously been a long evening for Tom Bracken.
    ‘Phil? Is that you? I haven’t got a picture here man.’
    Mac attempted to imitate Phil’s clipped and neutral tone. But he soon realised that he could have been speaking French for all the notice Tom was taking. ‘I can see you Tom. How’s it going?’
    ‘We had a big day out in court. Convictions all round for our guys! You gotta love our justice system; best in the world. Shame we couldn’t give our guilty boys the needle but you can’t have everything.’
    ‘Fantastic!’
    Tom dropped his cigar, mumbled ‘fuck’ and disappeared while he hunted for it. When he came back, he was attempting to light it with a flame that was way too big. ‘Been out celebrating with my team. I’ll tell you what Phil, when we nail Garcia, why don’t you