Not Dead Yet

book shut, feeling the anger inside him. Once the anger was out there was nothing he could do until it settled again. It was like snakes, hundreds of dormant venomous snakes inside him that had woken, were uncoiling, flicking their tongues, waiting to strike.
    The thing was, he liked that feeling.
    His anger liberated him. It gave him power.
    Too many people listened to the words of that idiot Matthew in the Bible. Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also .
    That wasn’t the way, that was just a bully’s charter. He didn’t have any truck with all that namby-pamby New Age New Testament liberalism. He believed in the Old Testament. That was The Word.
    And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
    No messing about.
    He’d promised to read the book and to fill in the questions. That was one of the suggestions his doctor had made. Try to refocus his anger into something positive. Ha! What was the point? He’d done bad things in the past, he knew that, but he couldn’t help it, that was the snakes. It wasn’t his fault if people woke the snakes.
    And they had been awake for several days now.

26
    The predictability of some villains was one of the few things that made his job a little easier, Roy Grace thought. The old-school ones tended to be territorial, creatures of habit, sticking to their manors for their criminal activities, and their drinking.
    But like everything in life, nothing stayed still, he mused, and the old style of rogue, with whom canny police officers could develop some form of a trusting relationship over drinks in a pub, and glean invaluable intelligence, was fast becoming a relic, a dinosaur. They were being replaced with a nastier, meaner and altogether less sociable breed of crook.
    Grace found the particular relic he was looking for in the fourth pub he entered, shortly before midday. Terry Biglow was hunched alone at a table, studying a racing form, in the gloomy, empty establishment. An empty half-pint glass stood in front of him, and a walking stick was propped against the wall beside him. The only other occupant was a tattooed, shaven-headed man behind the bar, wiping glasses.
    Like Amis Smallbone, Biglow had been a scion of one of the city’s biggest crime families. During the first three decades after the war, the Biglows carved up much of Brighton with the Smallbones. They ran one of the major protection rackets, controlled a large slice of Brighton and Hove’s drugs scene, as well as laundering money through a string of antique furniture and jewellery shops. Biglow wasn’t a man you messed with back in those days, if you wanted to avoid a razor scar on your cheek or having acid thrown in your face. He used to be a sharp dresser, with expensive tastes, but not any more – not for a long time.
    Roy Grace had last seen him some months ago, and Biglow had told him then he was terminally ill. He was shocked to see how much the old villain had deteriorated since. His face was almost skeletal, his hair, once so immaculate, was now wispy and unkempt,and his shabby brown suit and cream, tieless shirt buttoned to the top, looked like they belonged on someone three sizes bigger.
    He peered up with eyes like a frightened rodent as Grace loomed over him, then his moist, thin lips broke into an uneasy smile. ‘Mr Grace, Inspector Grace, nice to see yer again!’ His voice was weak and reedy, and he wheezed, as if the very effort of speaking had drained him. Grace noticed his tiny hands were so emaciated they looked more like birds’ feet, and the bracelet of his gold watch dangled loosely around his wrist.
    ‘It’s Detective Superintendent actually, Terry,’ Grace corrected him, and sat down in the chair opposite him. The man smelled musty, as if he had been sleeping rough.
    ‘Yes, you was promoted. Yeah, I remember now, you told me, yeah. Congratulations.’ He frowned. ‘I did congratulate yer, right?’
    Grace nodded. ‘Last time.’ Then he pointed at the beer mug. ‘Can I get you another?’
    ‘I shouldn’t be drinking. I’m sick, you see, Inspector – sorry – Detective Superintendent. Got the cancer. I’m on all this medication and stuff, not supposed to drink with it. But it ain’t going to make much difference, is it?’ He peered into Grace’s eyes as if hoping for some reassurance from his old adversary.
    Grace was not sure how to react. If he had to put money