‘I want to call him Horatio, but Maggie doesn’t like it,’ Jack said.
Maggie smiled, playing it down. ‘For goodness’ sake, Jack, don’t start this again.’ Then she addressed Josh directly. ‘I think we’re going to call him Adam.’
‘I haven’t said yes, Maggie. And Josh will understand why. Remember the case we worked on, that big drug bust?’
‘Yeah, yeah, I remember. Adam Border. We spent months trying to track him down. He was suspected of killing his mother... dangerous bastard disappeared off the face of the earth.’
Maggie stared daggers at Jack. Why drop this bombshell for the first time in front of Josh?
‘Well, in that case, of course we won’t call our child Adam. Penny will be pleased. She didn’t like it either. Perhaps we’re back to naming him after your dad then.’
‘My kids’ names all start with J. So any inherited silver will have the same initials,’ Josh said. ‘Maybe call him Jake. Jake Warr. Or Junior.’
Jack raised his eyebrows in approval as Maggie took the baby back from Josh. She was not prepared to discuss her child’s name with yet another person.
‘Right, I’ll leave you two in peace unless you need me to make you something to eat.’
‘I’ve got it organised,’ Jack said. As he stepped in to kiss his son, Maggie shook her head at him, still unable to believe he hadn’t bothered to tell her why he was against the name Adam.
With Jack and Josh now alone, Jack topped up their whisky. ‘I’ll take you upstairs later to show you the loft extension. Maggie has been like a sergeant major, ensuring the bulk was done before the baby arrived.’
Josh pretended to shudder. ‘Adam Warr. Imagine. That’s the problem with our job, everything reminds us of someone we’d rather forget... I suppose Border sticks in your mind as the one that got away, even more so nowadays as I’m here giving warning lectures about some new drugs which I reckon will be taking hold in this country soon if you don’t do something about it.’
‘What did you make of DCI Clarke?’
‘Not that helpful. And quite evasive when I asked about you.’
Jack opened the fridge and took out two large T-bone steaks on a covered dish.
‘Clarke said you’d had a lengthy trial to deal with, and the defence council grilled you good and proper in the witness box.’
‘That’s putting it mildly. Did you see Laura at the station?’
Josh nodded, sipping his drink and giving himself time to think. ‘Bit awkward. We both knew that what we had going wasn’t the real deal. I wrote to her a few times when I went back to New York. Maybe she wanted more from me, but at the time I was still married, and to be honest, it was really a sort of one-night stand that went on for many nights!’
Jack smiled, although he knew Laura had been seriously smitten.
Josh continued. ‘We were on the Adam Border investigation when I met her. But I left the UK before it came to a conclusion. Laura said he was still on the run.’
‘Yeah, yeah, that’s right. How do you like your steak?’ Jack asked, not wanting Josh to talk anymore about the wanted man he’d let escape.
‘Rare. Can I do anything to help?’
‘No, everything’s under control. You just sit and relax.’
As Jack popped the chips into the air fryer, Josh poured himself another whisky. He took out a cigar, held a lighter to the tip and asked if it was OK to smoke indoors. Jack hesitated, knowing Maggie would loathe it, and the pause was enough for Josh. He got up, opened the conservatory door and stepped outside into the garden.
Jack set the table, opened a bottle of red wine to let it breathe, and then threw together a side salad. The T-bone steaks, one rare and one medium, took only a few minutes to cook, and the chips were done at the same time. The whole process had taken the same time as smoking half a cigar. Josh came in from the garden to see his host opening one drawer after another, looking for steak knives and napkins.
‘My God, this is a feast. And the steaks are the size we get in the States. Very much appreciated. Thank you, Jack.’
With everything dished up, Jack poured the wine; they toasted each other and tucked in.
Even though they had worked together, Josh felt he didn’t really know Jack all that well, and it had been a while since they’d had contact. Josh was a very experienced officer with an excellent ability to assess people quickly due to his years undercover. But he found Jack hard to fathom. There was a boyish enthusiasm to him and a charming openness, but he always felt Jack was holding a lot back. He definitely disapproved of Josh’s affair with Laura, for instance. It was Laura who’d said that Jack was on sick leave, but no one knew why. She also said he had changed a lot recently, putting it down to the absence of DCI Ridley.
Josh noticed how reticent Jack was when asked innocuous questions about returning to work. He avoided eye contact while distracting himself with clearing the dishes. He opened another bottle of wine and asked Josh where he was going to be travelling. Josh gave a rundown of the various stations he had already visited, some work he was doing with the UK National Crime Agency and a few prisons where he felt his talks would be beneficial. Josh noted Jack’s lack of interest, staring ahead as if not even listening. He instinctively knew something was deeply wrong, but didn’t want to ask in case it was personal, having sensed the tension between Maggie and Jack earlier.
‘I miss undercover work,’ Josh continued. ‘But it was getting tough with my hearing getting worse and then my leg. Sciatica is a bitch! And all you can do is stuff yourself with painkillers. My boss put this programme in my orbit, connected to stuff going on in San Francisco, and then after a few months there I was sent over to LA because they were in a similar situation.’
‘Situation?’ Jack asked, pouring them both another glass of wine.
‘There’s a fucking epidemic over there! Zombie drugs, killing thousands of young kids. Fentanyl is being sold mixed with cocaine and heroin. It’s a plague.’
Josh got up and stepped out for a second, saying he wanted to show Jack something. He returned with a small medical box, opening it at the table. He held up one of the small glass tubes.
‘When there’s an opioid overdose, from heroin or prescription drugs like Vicodin, OxyContin or Percocet, this little vial literally brings them back from the dead. Naloxone. You don’t even need a prescription. You can buy it from any pharmacy in the US. I’m not sure about here.’
Jack nodded. ‘Pharmacies don’t stock it here. But I think all emergency services carry it now. Police have been trained to use it since mid-2023. Well, that’s what’s supposed to be happening.’
‘I’ve been visiting all the known drug hangouts, first in San Francisco and then in LA, to get naloxone out there and save as many lives as possible. Junkies started carrying a vial at all times. You can see them administering it to each other out on the streets... Anyway, just as we’re making headway protecting people against the fucking mixed street drugs we know about, a brand new one sweeps through the inner cities.’ Josh’s level of passion doubled as he continued. ‘This one is strong enough to knock out an elephant. It’s called xylazine and wreaks havoc on users. The body count keeps mounting. Naloxone doesn’t have any reversal effect on xylazine; what happens with this poison is their flesh rots, and the skin opens up with horrific lesions that don’t heal. Amputating the limb is the only way to stop the spread around the body.’
‘But it’s not here in the UK?’ Jack showed proper interest for the first time.
‘It’s coming. That’s why I’m here. You’ve already had some deaths for sure. Your prisons have seen it. It’s sometimes known as tranq or sleep-cut. It’s a common veterinary tranquilliser used on cattle, horses and elephants. They inject it, swallow it or even crush the tablets into a powder so they can snort it. The dealers are also mixing it with fentanyl to get a greater high. Sometimes the user has no memory because it can cause amnesia, and as it’s a respiratory depressant, it causes the heart rate and blood pressure to plummet. They become total zombies, dying on their feet, and...’