Read Rules of Honour for Free Online Page B

the source of trouble involving Chaney, perhaps he’d stayed away out of a feeling of responsibility over Andrew’s death. Maybe he couldn’t yet bring himself to face Yukiko out of misguided guilt. Or – and this was what troubled me most – fear of further retribution from Chaney had made him go into hiding.
    ‘Are you friends with Jed as well?’
    Both men shared that look again. Then Parnell said, ‘Yeah. We all go way back.’
    ‘You keep in touch with him?’
    They nodded.
    ‘When did you last speak to him?’
    ‘Couple of nights ago,’ Faulks offered. ‘We had a few drinks together, to remember Andrew.’
    ‘How was he?’
    ‘Broken-hearted like the rest of us,’ Parnell said.
    ‘Not feeling guilty?’
    ‘What’s he got to feel guilty about?’ Parnell looked at me sharply. Then he lowered his gaze, started scuffing the turf with a toe. I waited for him to add more but he didn’t. I turned to Faulks, who wouldn’t meet my eye either. All I got was a view of his suntanned pate, criss-crossed with fine white lines.
    ‘Where does he live?’ I asked.
    Faulks told me an address in Cole Valley, giving me general directions about how to get there. Suddenly my reason for asking hit his friends simultaneously, and now they were looking at me earnestly.
    ‘You don’t think something has happened to him?’
    ‘I hope not, Mr Parnell,’ I said. ‘But we won’t know without checking.’
    ‘You want us to come with you?’ Faulks offered. Once upon a time the guy was possibly handy in a scrap, but now his heavy body was sunken, his knees bowed. A hindrance rather than a help. Parnell still appeared reasonably fit for his age, but he was lucky if he weighed eight stones wet through. Force of will didn’t mean a thing when someone could pick him up with one hand and throw him across a room.
    ‘No,’ I said, thinking of a good enough reason to turn them down. ‘I don’t doubt that you can handle yourselves, but if Chaney and his lot are hanging around, I’ll have my hands full. I won’t be able to look after you guys as well. I was talking about me and Rink going there.’
    Both men turned to see Rink walking towards us. They appraised him, maybe comparing him with the memory of his father. Both Parnell and Faulks seemed happy with the comparison. Parnell said, ‘If they have hurt Jed, what will you do?’
    ‘Stuff like that’s best left unsaid,’ I told him with a wink. ‘I wouldn’t like to drop a conspiracy to murder charge in your lap.’
    They didn’t reply, but shared that furtive glance of before.

Chapter 7
    Homicide Detective P. Wayne Tyler of the SFPD was more formal than his partner who introduced himself simply as Gar Jones.
    The four of us were grouped on the landing outside Jed Newmark’s third floor apartment in a converted Victorian in Cole Valley. It was a tight squeeze; Rink’s huge, and Gar Jones wasn’t a little man either. He wasn’t as muscular as Rink, but he was as tall, with square shoulders topping a solid, raw-boned frame. Standing side by side they practically blocked the hall. Tyler was a slighter man, dark and handsome and dressed in a sharp suit and tie. He was alongside me, waiting while the CSI team finished up and we could go back into the apartment. He kept flicking an inquisitive glance my way, but when I looked he’d turn away quickly.
    There was a scuff of movement on the stairs below us and from the stairwell appeared men from the Medical Examiner’s office. They were lugging a gurney and body bag. We spread out, allowing them to squeeze by us and approach the apartment door. A CSI tech waved them inside and we all followed suit. If the body was being released from the crime scene it meant that it was safe for us to enter. Rink and I had already agreed to allow the CSI team to run tests on us: fingerprints, shoe prints, fibre samples, but only for the purpose of eliminating us from their enquiries. It was a necessary evil, having entered the