Prologue
"Guv, come on," Alex dragged him out of the coffee shop by the sleeve.
"Oi, watch my latte," Gene cried, protecting his cardboard cup.
Alex yanked open the passenger door and threw herself inside.
"I will never get used to hearing you say 'latte'," she sighed.
Gene opened the door on the driver's side, carefully placed his cup in his special holder and felt aware that Alex was glaring at him.
"I'm not putting the innards of my brand new car at the mercy of coffee stains," he explained, "the only substances I will allow to be spilled in here are…"
"Don't -" Alex began, holding up her hand, "- even try to finish that sentence."
"Well you'd never do it in the Merc," Gene began haughtily, "you said you'd do it in a Fiat."
"In the flat," sighed Alex, "I said I'd only do it in the flat, you just misread the note!"
"You need to work on your handwriting," Gene mumbled.
"We'll discuss a full list of appropriate and inappropriate places later on," Alex hissed through gritted teeth, "if we don't get moving now we'll miss our chance to nail Nailer!"
Gene shook his head slowly as he started the car and began to drive away at top speed.
"No sense of adventure," he sighed, "that's your problem."
Along road after road they screeched, tyres barely touching the ground, joining the three-car strong chase for the drug dealer that had been evading them for the past two years.
"We've got to get him, Guv," Alex still couldn't break the habit of calling Gene by that name, even though she'd been of an equal rank for pretty much a decade. She looked at him as he cruised through the streets at an astonishing speed. "Ten years from now he's going to supply thirty percent of the drugs that come into the capital."
"He's not doing badly with what he's doing now," Gene mumbled, "slippery sod."
He took a sharp corner, then slammed on his breaks at the sight before him. It looked as though one of the other cars that had been in pursuit of Nailer had overturned somehow, bouncing along the road as it flipped and knocking into other cars to send them scattering around the road like some strange kind of traffic-snooker.
"Shit! Alex gasped, relived that Gene's response had been so fast and terrified to think of the injury and damage that had occurred to the inhabitants of the other vehicles.
As Nailer sped off into the distance, eluding capture for the fifth time in two years, Alex and Gene opened their doors and stepped out of the cars, their hearts racing and eyes fixed on the vehicles in front of them as the first car stopped flipping and came to a halt. From somewhere inside it an arm emerged through the passenger side, followed by a head and finally the rest of a staggering, bruised and battered body.
"No," they could hear the injured man cry as they looked on, "No, it can't be… I can't…"
Alex gasped and slammed her hand over her mouth.
"Oh my God," she hissed, "Gene, I think…. I think it's…"
She trailed off, but Gene didn't need her to finish her sentence.
"Bloody hell," he declared, arms folded in horror, "as I live and breathe. Well, look who's back from the dead."
The two looked on as the man before them threw his hands to his head and passed out in shock.
Alex scratched her forehead.
"I think it's going to be one of those days," she sighed.
Gene nodded.
"I'll get the smelling salts" he said.