Dead Men's s Boots

His face as he raised his head to look at us was as rucked up as a bulldog’s. ‘What can I do for you people?’ he snapped, as if he didn’t much want to know but was working from a script he had to follow. He had much l£. H#82ess of an accent than the guy in the museum. I wondered whether that was because he’d come here from somewhere else and hadn’t quite blended into the local dialect, or if it was a relic of a college education in another state.

‘My name’s Castor,’ I said, ‘and this is Juliet Salazar. I think Nicky Heath contacted you and asked if it would be okay for us to pay you a call.

He frowned, trying to place the name. ‘Nicky Heath?’ Then it came to him and his face sort of unfolded, some of the seams disappearing as his eyebrows went up and back. ‘Oh, wait. Dead man with a dot co dot uk suffix?’

‘Yeah, that’d be him.’

He got to his feet and thrust out a hand. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Gale Mallisham. Pleased to meet you. A lot of people walk in here in the mistaken belief that their lives qualify as news.

I took the hand and shook it, and I got the usual instant telegraphic flash of information about his mood – which was calm and only mildly curious. I got my fingers crushed, too, because he had a fierce grip.

He gestured us to sit down, realised there was only one chair on our side of the desk and went off to steal one from the other, empty desk. ‘The dead man said you were in a position to offer me a quid pro quo.

‘Well,’ I said, cautiously, ‘he probably told you that we’re chasing information about Myriam Kale. And yeah, we’ve got some to trade. Recent information, if you take my drift. Something that might make a story.’

Gale Mallisham wheeled the other chair back across to us, and Juliet took it with a smile and a nod. He caught the smile full in the face and didn’t stagger, so it was clear that Juliet wasn’t back to anything like full proof yet – but his stare stayed on her as he walked back around to his own side of the desk.

‘Something that might make a story,’ he repeated, swivelling his gaze back to me. ‘And would that be a Paul Sumner story, by any chance?’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meet me halfway, Mister Castor.