Page 101 of The Man Made of Smoke

You are calm.

“Sarah’s my friend,” I said. “Like I told you the other night. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you?”

“Liam—”

“I ought to beat the living shit out of you.”

And at that, he bunched his right hand into a fist down by his side. But if it was meant to scare me, it did the opposite. It was such a clumsy tell that I relaxed the moment I saw him doing it. He wasn’t going to be able to put a hand on me.

I imagined my father standing behind me, watching all this unfold.

What would you do right now, Dad? I thought.

Nothing too silly, my son.

Just give a good account of yourself.

“We’re not teenagers anymore, Liam,” I said. “Why don’t you try?”

Fleming looked to one side and snorted quietly. And then, not even deigning to look back, he reached out to grab the front of my shirt. I stepped to the side, turning at the waist so that he grasped at air, and while he was off-balance and still reaching I tapped him with the knuckles of my free hand—once, twice—first in the solar plexus and then up on the chin. I pulled the shots, but made sure there was enough speed and force there for him to understand that it had been my choice not to land them harder.

Before he could react, I stepped past him and slapped the file of paperwork down loudly on the desk.

He turned slightly, staring at me in shock.

“What the fuck? You just assaulted a—”

“No,” I said. “I just defended myself very gently against an attempted assault. But I can imagine what you’re thinking. Your word against mine, right?”

I gestured around the office.

“But the thing is, Liam, I look at my professional record, and then I look at yours, and I’m happy to take my chances. So if you want to try doing that again, then by all means go for it. But if I were you, I’d makea call to your guy out front first. Because trust me, you’re not going to manage it by yourself.”

Fleming rubbed his chin. I’d barely made contact, but the real damage had been done to his ego, and it was touch and go right now as to what he was going to do.

I tapped the file on the desk to focus his attention.

“Or we could talk about this,” I said. “Which is much more important.”

He looked at the file. Then back up at me.

After a couple of seconds, his curiosity got the better of him.

“What’s that?” he said.

“Let’s start with Darren Field.”

“Who the fuck is Darren Field?”

“I think he’s the man you fished out of the sea yesterday,” I said. “He didn’t drown, did he? He’d been badly hurt. He was murdered before his body was dumped in the water.”

“How do you—?”

“Idon’t,” I said. “I don’t know for sure. But here. Look.”

I opened the file and picked out the top sheet—a photograph I’d printed from one of Field’s social media accounts—and held it out to Fleming.

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