Three days later, I had received several calls from Walker Pelc; he was demanding the money I owed him for the work on the Edge case, and threatening a slow and bloody death if I did not cough-up.

It was a standard technique for Walker and, after he had vented his spleen on the phone many times, he would add the cost to the notional tab that we had running between us. In practice, I did favours for him; chasing down leads for his cases or giving him some juicy gossip to titillate his prodigious darker side, all of which carried a charge. We tended to threaten each other periodically, but settle for the understanding that in the long run we were probably quits.

I had a very impressive forehead; I looked as if some mad surgeon had sewn a large purple egg under the skin. A vicious raised welt ran across the swelling like a fattened earth worm. The lump had a life of its own; it throbbed and pulsed with all the menace of the eerie meteorite at the bottom of a B movie crater. Bizarrely, my injury had also got me an abnormally large amount of attention from Priya.

Seeing me laid low seemed to have awoken a maternal instinct buried so deeply within her that it had been previously so well hidden as to belie its very existence. She had cooed and fussed over me a little, even bringing me a bag of frozen peas which provided me an interesting dilemma. On one hand I had not wanted to shun her assistance, despite the fact that I suspected them to be the same vegetables that I had held to my face some days before. On the other hand, the excruciating agony I underwent when frozen vegetable met forehead bump felt like someone pushing rusty nails into my eyes. I manfully took the pain for about five minutes until I thought I might repeat the infamous scene from Scanners, and then surreptitiously moved the bag out of sight.

Meanwhile, life in the office had gone from bad to worse.

Joan steadfastly refused to believe that I had, in fact, found Tyrone Edge and would not release another file to me. Specifically, it seemed that the Yeoman twins had got to her with a diktat stating that pending the firm's Annual General Meeting, no new cases would be distributed.

I sat and stewed in my cubbyhole, drinking a lot of water and completing precisely four crossword clues. I found an old, framed picture of my sister Mary and busied myself with hanging it. She had been a beautiful woman, with my mother's soft eyes and wavy hair, but no matter how much I looked at the photo I couldn't shake the image of her lying in the mortuary. Her eyes in the picture gazed at me now, full of sadness at the cock-up I was rapidly making of my father's business, and the backwater my life had drifted into.

It was a little past noon when I first heard it. From out in the lobby came a noise that I had never encountered before; a horrifying rattling, whooping neigh. I peered around my door to see the unbelievable sight of Joan laughing. It wasn't a lilting tinkle of a laugh, more like the sound of offal gurgling down the slaughterhouse drain.

Strangely, despite the hideous noise she was emitting, Joan was entirely transformed. The act of smiling took thirty years off her and I saw in her a little of the woman that my father must have done. Standing loosely and completely at ease in front of her desk was a tall, clean-shaven and beaming Tyrone Edge.

"Ah, Satchmo!" she cried, tears running from the corners of her eyes. "Mr. Edge was just telling me about his heroic rescuing of you."

"Really? How charming," I grumbled.

I was pleased to be vindicated by the appearance of Edge, but a little ill- at-ease at the manner of his arrival. "Perhaps you'd like to come through to my office?" I muttered grumpily.

"Of course," he replied, flashing Joan a smile and striding through the door to my sanctuary.

To his credit he didn't so much as blink at the state of the shit hole. I obviously hadn't used my enforced free time to tidy anything. In fact, I had added to the mess with recent copies of the Guardian, Independent, Times, Economist and Private Eye, articles from all of which I had clipped and strewn around the few available flat surfaces.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Edge?" I swept a pile of papers off the chair opposite my desk, manfully ignored the clatter they made upon hitting the floor, and motioned for him to sit, which he did, stretching his legs out artfully between bottles and folders.

"I would like to know who the executors of my uncle's will are. Then I would like you to take me to them."

"Me?" I was staring at a spot below each of his armpits, looking for the bulge of a gun.

I had not forgotten the circumstances of our initial meeting, nor his erratic behaviour during that traumatic experience. I was not keen on spending any more time with this guy than I actually had to. As I saw it, I had satisfied the needs of the job Reeman and Reeman had retained me for, and that was that. I wanted to put the whole evening as far behind me as possible.

"Yes, you, Sherlock. You tracked me down, broke the news and solved your case. I think you can give me a lift to the solicitors. You might even get a bonus for delivering me alive," he grinned.

I couldn't detect any sarcasm, but I suppose that didn't mean it wasn't there.

"The executors are Reeman and Reeman," I replied.

"Excellent. Get your coat," Edge said, his smile broadening and the lines on his tanned face deepening as he made to rise and leave. At that moment Joan entered, without knocking, and placed a cup of tea in front of him.

My jaw dropped. Never, not ever, had Joan offered, let alone made me a drink. She smiled at Edge as he raised the brew to his lips. It was all very disconcerting.

"Joan, we were just leaving," I said, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

"Oh, there's always time for a nice cuppa," Edge said. She made a noise I can only assume denoted pleasure and left without saying a word to me. He peered at me over the rim of the cup, his eyes alight with mirth.

"How long have you worked here Satchmo? I'm guessing that you aren't the original and eponymous Turner in this firm."

It sounded like a slur, but there was no malice in his voice.

"My father was the Turner who established this place. He died three years ago," I replied warily. Edge nodded and I continued. "He set the business up with his friend from the force Alfred Yeoman. Alfred's twin sons own a share here too."

"You don't get on," he stated, fixing me with that stare of his that positively defied you to look away.

"How did you?" I blurted.

"What cars do they drive?" he interrupted me.

"An Audi and a BMW," I said, confused.

"OK then," he said, putting the empty cup on my desk. "We'll take your car."

"Why?" I replied.

"Because I'm blocking them both in," he smiled, rising to his feet and walking out of the door.

I fluttered with my jacket and trailed in his wake like a piece of toilet paper stuck to his shoe.

*

William Reeman sat behind his mahogany desk, his back ramrod straight and his steel grey moustache curled fractionally at the edges in what passed for the Reeman smile.

"Satchmo, my boy!" he bellowed in greeting as we entered. I always assumed his volume was related to some residual deafness, likely caused by the wiry tufts of hair that protruded from each ear hole.

Reeman was that rarest of beings; a reflexively and habitually honest solicitor. He was ex-military and the parade ground oozed from his every pore. Though he never discussed his service, it had clearly shaped him and made him the man he was today. I imagined him to be somewhere in his sixties, but his jovial features could have placed him anywhere between forty and eighty.

Reeman had drunk with, and been a friend to, my father and an occasional visitor to our home when I was a child. I remembered him as a solid but kindly man, as swift with a toffee from his jacket pocket as he was with a chastisement about the dirt behind my ears.

I had the impression that my father had helped him out with a tricky situation many years ago, though, like his service, it was never discussed. His body was still hard and his mind sharp.

Reeman's eyes drifted over my shoulder and onto Edge who closed the door behind me.

"This must be the man in question?" Reeman beamed.

"It is," I replied, sitting without invitation.

Reeman had not taken his eyes off the other man, watching him cross the room and sit silently to my right.

"Welcome Mr. Edge," Reeman said in greeting, his tone sounded like an unspoken question, though exactly what was lost on me.

"Tyrone," he replied in his flat monotone.

"Yes, yes. Of course," Reeman nodded thoughtfully and shuffled through the papers on his desk.

"This shouldn't take long, just a signature here and there."

He looked up at me. "Satchmo, you know Sarah was asking about you the other day?"

This was Reeman's office junior who was pretty and dappy in equal parts.

"Perhaps you'd like to make sure she doesn't jam the photocopier with her hair again," he gestured at me. It was a dismissal, that much was not lost on me.

I looked across at Edge, he nodded. I got up and left wondering if Sarah had in fact asked about me.

She hadn't, of course, but she welcomed the attention for the ten minutes I chatted to her before Tyrone strode out of Reeman's office. They shook hands firmly, exchanged a very few words, then Edge passed me and was out of the door in three loping steps. I trailed after him, let him into the Beetle, and we made our way back.

"You got on well with Reeman," I said, leading him gently into giving me some information.

"Yes, fascinating chap. Wounded at Inchon, you know?"

I didn't. As far as I knew, Reeman never discussed his military past. I hadn't even known what service he was with. Come to think of it, I still didn't.

Never mind. Job done; I could now try to force my claim on the next folder from Joan and wipe the look of disgust from her face for another day at least.

Edge followed me to the foyer, exchanged a brief word with Joan while I went in search of a full bottle in my room. I had found one and was sipping quietly, when Edge entered and shut the door behind him.

"Here it is, Satchmo." be began, steepling his fingers, his gaze focused over my shoulder at the grimy bottle-bottom of a window.

"I am suspicious about the circumstances of Morgan's death as described to me by Reeman," he continued.

"Reeman is straight," I said without thinking.

"Oh, of course, I don't doubt that, but I would like you to look into some details though."

"On an employment basis? You'd have to fill out the forms with Joan," I said, trying to suppress a groan. I wanted rid of this guy as quickly as possible.

"Bollocks, Satchmo. I'll pay double your retainer, expenses, and bonus. Cash. You don't want the Yeoman twins cut in do you?" he said softly.

I thought about it for all of two seconds. He certainly knew how to reel me in. As soon as he mentioned the possibility of getting one over those bastards, I was hooked.

"You're on," I agreed.

"Good." He stood and opened the door. "I'll pick you up at 5:30 tomorrow morning."

"Where do we start?" I asked as he brought a bunch of keys out of his pocket and jangled them.

"Morgan's... Ah, my farm," he corrected himself.

He had been gone for about five minutes before I realized; how did he know where I lived?

*

My doorbell rang.

I jerked awake, cursing and rubbing the crust from my eyes.

5:30 AM. Fuck.

I was late for my first day on a private case. I stumbled to my door and opened it with one hand, the other trying in vain to restrain the morning glory threatening to breach the containment of my boxer shorts. Edge stood there, clean-shaven in pressed khaki trousers and a brown woollen jumper.

He looked like 5:30 was his element. I did not.

"Morning, Satchmo," he looked me up and down and laughed. Brushing past me, he found the kitchen,from wherein I soon heard jangling. I shut the door and rubbed my tousled hair.

"I'll sort you some breakfast. Get yourself washed and dressed. Oh, and have a shave," he called, his voice muffled from having his head in the back of the fridge.

I nodded, then realized the absurdity of nodding to a man in another room. I didn't feel capable of speech at such an ungodly hour, so I shuffled into my bathroom for a rude awakening under the frigid spray of a shower with water that had been hot last night.

My expletives, and the crash of shampoo bottles caused by my hasty exit from the cubicle, seemed to cause more amusement in the kitchen. I gritted my teeth and performed the fastest ablutions of my life.

Awake, and a little numb in parts, I towelled myself down then lathered up and shaved. By the time I emerged from the bathroom, Edge sat on my bed with two plates of fried breakfast. He was feeding a wilted lettuce leaf to Rommel who was nibbling it serenely. That bloody fey tortoise would only have the fresh stuff from me.

I felt decidedly more human after having eaten well, and it was only a few minutes after six when we left for the farm.

Edge drove an old Land Rover Defender with a khaki canvas roof covering a benched flatbed in the back. He hurtled it out of town and Northwest into the serene and winding roads of rural Shropshire. I was always amazed that you could leave the rusting heart of the Black Country and be in traditional English green fields in about twenty minutes.

The morning air was crisp and fresh; it seeped through the seal of the passenger window and brushed me in the face. Now that the cogs in my mind were turning a little more freely, I was reconsidering the haste with which I had accepted Edge's offer. After all, this was a man about whom I knew absolutely nothing. Furthermore, he had held me captive in a shed at gunpoint. Granted, that was after saving me from a probable shit-beating at the hands of some scum, but it still merited consideration.

"Was it legal?" I asked the question that was plaguing me.

"What, Satchmo?" Edge replied, his gaze placidly watching the road we careened along.

"The gun."

"No. It is what those bad US police programmes call a throw-down. I borrowed it from a drug dealer," he explained nonchalantly.

Throw-down was an expression I was familiar with; a clean weapon with no registry, no fingerprints and all the serial numbers filed off. Criminals and bent coppers used them alike, usually planting them to incriminate. I didn't like his use of the term, nor the reference to the drug dealer.

"He ignored my warnings about selling outside the school that my tenant's kids go to," Edge said flatly.

"I see." I wasn't sure that I did, or that I wanted to.

"So, after borrowing his weapon I showed him how bad guns can be for your health," Edge continued.

We swerved round a tight blind bend, I clutched the door handle partly to steady myself and partly to make a sharp exit in the event of disaster.

"You shot him?" I said, a little falsetto.

He turned his head and thoughts of weapons were forgotten; I was more concerned that he was no longer watching the road. Instead, he fixed me with a wide smile.

"God no, Satchmo, I knocked his gold teeth down his throat with the butt. He'll be going through his turds with tweezers for a fortnight," he laughed and turned back to the front, just in time to save us from a broad hedge.

"I can't help wondering why you tied me up that night and waved the bloody pistol at me though."

"I feel that you might be fixating a little on the gun. Besides, I didn't wave it Satchmo, it might have gone off."

I had the impression that he was adept enough not to worry about accidental discharge.

"You know what I mean," I persisted; fixating.

"What can I say; I'm a private kind of chap. You were watching me. You might have been in the employ of the dealer I told you about. You could have meant me harm," he explained.

I didn't believe any of those reasons but didn't want to push the matter. The more time I spent with Edge the less intimidating I found him. He was a quiet but genial man, with a potent presence that seemed to sweep before him like a bow wave.

I sat back in my seat, rubbed the sleep from my eyes and hoped I'd make it to lunchtime without having to be scraped out of a ditch. A few minutes passed in silence before Edge spoke softly.

"I'm sorry," he said under his breath.

I only just heard him above the roar of the engine.

"Pardon?" I asked.

"I'm sorry I pulled the gun on you Satchmo. It was a mistake. You don't have to worry; I'm one of the good guys."

I had no idea what he meant by this, but I found myself somehow inclined to believed him.