Dead Men's s Boots

He leaned forward, kissed Palance on the forehead without waking him, and then straightened again, squaring his shoulders as though for some ordeal.

‘Castor,’ he said, turning for the first time to acknowledge me. He looked impossibly tired. ‘How did it go?’

‘Pretty well, Aaron, all things considered’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that if you went to Mount Grace right now, you’d find it looking like a morgue.’

‘Well – good. That’s good. At least, I presume it’s good. And you and your . . . team all came out of it okay?’

I made a palm-wobbling, so-so gesture.

He stood and looked calmly into my eyes. ‘And now you’ve come for me.’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Fancy a whisky?’

‘Pretty much.’

Covington led the way down the stairs to the same room we’d used the night before. It felt like another lifetime. He picked up the Springbank, but I put my hand on his arm and shook my head.

‘Something rougher,’ I said. ‘Please. Rotgut, if you’ve got any.’

He found some blended Scotch with a name I didn’t recognise and held it up for my approval.

‘“Bartender, give me two fingers of red-eye,”’ he quoted. He mimed the punchline, poking his fingers towards but not into my eyes. I didn’t laugh. I wasn’t in the mood, somehow.

He set out two glasses and poured a generous measure into one. Then he looked at the bottle, thought better of it and took that, leaving the other glass empty on the bar.

‘Shall we sit down?’ he asked, gesturing.

‘Whatever.’ I followed him across to the leather three-piece. He sprawled on the sofa and I took one of the chairs. He chinked the bottle to my glass and then took a deep swallow of the whisky: he didn’t even shudder although God knew it wasn’t smooth.

‘You called me Aaron,’ he observed, running his tongue across his lips.

‘You’d prefer I called you Peter?’

Covington thought about that. ‘No, not really,’ he admitted. ‘Actually – in a strange way – there’s a rightness to it.

I let my eyebrows rise and fall. ‘You weren’t particularly trying to hide.’

He acknowledged the point with a shrug. ‘Still. John Gittings never saw through me. Or did he? Was my name in his notes?’

‘No.’ I swirled the whisky in the glass, watching the filaments roll in the liquor like the ghosts of worms.