Justice for the Damned by Ben Cheetham Page B

returned after a period of remission, it was the way the weight was dropping off. The speed of it was terrifying. He could almost see him wasting away in front of his eyes. ‘No one’s tougher than cancer.’
    ‘I don’t know about that, but I’ll tell you this, I’d sooner put a bullet in my head than go through chemo,’ said Doug.
    A crooked smile flickered on Reece’s face as he reflected that Doug was probably more frightened by the thought of what chemo would do to his looks than the disease it treated.
    Doug emptied his glass and indicated Reece’s bottle. ‘Want another?’
    Reece shook his head. ‘I’m driving.’
    ‘Since when did that matter?’
    He approached the bar and returned with their drinks. ‘I’ll tell you something else, there’s no way I’m going to be doing this job forever. Five years from now I’m going to be lying on a beach all year round in Thailand with some big-titted bird feeding me margaritas. No fucking way am I going to end up like Jim Monahan.’
    ‘What do you mean? What’s up with Jim?’
    ‘Haven’t you heard? He’s had a heart attack.’
    ‘Christ almighty. Is he dead?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    Reece puffed his cheeks. ‘I saw him just the other day. He seemed fine.’
    Doug snorted. ‘That bloke’s been a heart attack waiting to happen for years. Do you know why? He let the job get on top of him.’
    ‘Jim’s a hell of a copper.’ Reece swallowed a mouthful of beer in salute. ‘Real old school.’
    Doug gave another, louder snort. ‘He’s not old school. Your dad was old school. And he was a far better copper than Jim Monahan too, not because he was the greatest detective in the world, but because he knew it was us against,’ he pointed at the street, ‘them. You can trust a copper like your dad no matter what happens. You can’t trust coppers like Jim, idealists who’ve always got to do what they think’s right.’ He leant forward, eyes sharp with intensity. ‘It’s not doing the right thing, or even upholding the law, that matters most in this job. It’s the people you work with. It’s having their backs and knowing they’ve got yours at all times. That’s what matters most. Guys like Jim don’t understand that. They come into the job thinking they can make a difference. When they realise they can’t, they start to hate it. But by that time they’ve given up so much for it they can’t bring themselves to just walk away. They want to go out with a bang. And that’s when the coppers around them get hurt, maybe even end up dead.’
    ‘You mean Amy Sheridan. That wasn’t Jim’s fault.’
    ‘Bollocks it wasn’t. She wouldn’t have been outside the hospital with the Baxley lad if it wasn’t for Jim. He got himself barred from ICU by stepping on that psychiatrist’s toes.’
    ‘That psychiatrist was a child molester.’
    ‘Yeah, but Jim didn’t know that at the time. And anyway, that’s beside the point. The point is crusaders like him seem to think they answer to a higher power than the rest of us normal cops.’
    ‘Are we normal cops?’
    Doug scowled as if the question was an insult. ‘Course we fucking are. We’re no different to anyone else, we’re just smarter.’ He sipped his whisky, studying Reece over the rim of his glass, a glimmer of a frown in his shrewd eyes. He swallowed his frown with the whisky. ‘Listen, I understand why you look up to Jim. I used to look up to him myself. But think on this: if you’d been his partner it’d be you, not Amy, lying in the mortuary.’ His voice was friendly, almost fatherly. ‘Luckily for you, you’re not his partner, you’re mine, and I look after my own. Always remember, Reece, the only person in the world a cop can trust is another cop.’
    The muscles of Reece’s jaw tightened. Was that a sideways dig at Staci? ‘What about when we’re not cops any more? Who do we trust then?’
    Doug grinned. ‘Once a cop always a cop. I thought you’d have learned that from