Brick pulled his ol' war horse of a car into the courtyard of Yatexa Plaza. He'd had the car years. It had been through so many parts and paint jobs that any semblance of make or design was indistinguishable. It roared and choked like a ferocious brackzaw, the exhaust backfiring, the engine bubbling like a cauldron of vitriol, ready to explode.

He parked up and got out of the 'accident waiting to happen' to quote the Commodore and slammed the door shut. He never bothered locking it. His mantra 'who the hell would want it?' He had been driving it for nearly twenty years - itself a present from his sergeant - and no one had ever bothered.

The Inspector made for the entrance at a leisurely pace and lit a cigarillo, inhaling a few drags before he extinguished it into the hard tarmac of the courtyard. A couple watched him stand on the half smoked cigarillo and frowned at his platen disregard for the ashtray on the pavement. The Krazzi just shrugged his broad shoulders and raised his moss brows. The rust rain would wash it away in a couple of hours.

He entered through the revolving door and pressed for the lift. Moments later an elderly couple shuffled out, Brick waving them out.

'Come on, Watch business.'

The old man shook him an accusing look, shaking his head. The Krazzi detective entered the lift and waited for the door to close. The old couple just stood and watched.

'What?' Brick asked.

'Weight restriction, nimrod,' the old man decreed.

The stone man shook his head and pressed the button.

'Up yours grandad.'

The doors closed and Brick stood there in silence for at least five minutes until the doors opened again, the old couple still standing there, intrigued as to what he was doing. He shuffled out.

'Just testing the weight restrictions, move along.'

Brick made for the stairs.

'Nimrod.' the old man shouted.

'Up yours grandad,' the Krazzi uttered under his breath.

Brick reached the top floor, breathing out of his arse. The coarse poisons of the bramble weed enough to slow even a living stone down.

He breathed deeply once he reached the last step and looked for room 52. There, along the corridor, its entrance highlighted by Watch tape strapped across the door.

He forced the lock with the sheer force of his stone hand and pushed the door open, walking through the tape, pulling it apart.

The flat was minimalist. Clean, everything in its right place. The forensics had apparently been over this place with a fine tooth comb, looking for traces of blood, hair, semen and god knows what else.

Xindii was certain they had missed something. Perhaps they had. But those boys were pretty ruthless when it came to their jobs. If they had missed anything he would have been surprised. Maybe even hurt.

Brick sat in the deep white leather couch and looked around, sucked in the atmosphere and tasted it. He was hardly here, that was for certain. The more he discovered about Godrich Felstrom the more he came to realise the boy was a bit of a player. Godspunk was not every lad's cup of nauffle. This was a bolthole, a secondary home. It was clean, too clean. Antiseptic still heavy upon the worktops, the temperature low, as if no one had any cause to be here at all. Lived in places left marks, even if you cleaned every day, a splodge of sauce on the floor, onion skin down the crack of the cooker, unseen: missed.

Brick walked into the yellow painted bedroom with the neatly laid bed. Unruffled, groomed. He looked in the draws and the wardrobe. A few smart suits but not enough for a jobbing accountant like himself. A Brentish accountant earned more in a year than what he did in two, then why the odd suit and shirt. He would have had one for every day, possibly labeled as such.

Brick scratched the loose moss on the back of his neck.

Something wasn't right here.

That damn Mapper was right.

Kudos.

No paintings.

No pictures.

A showroom.

He walked down the hall to the bathroom - all shiny and spartan - and perched himself on the toilet, thinking.

'I'm missing something.'

He picked up a well-thumbed copy of a holiday brochure and sifted through it. A red pen mark showing an interest in two weeks in Cassledus, another in Westenheim.

'Expensive, even for you Godrich. Eight hundred raeqs for two weeks in Cassledus. But hey, sell a little Godspunk on the side and . . .'

Brick pulled himself up from the toilet.

'. . . this is where you stash it? Somewhere, in here.'

He loitered by the toilet door and turned to his left and opened the cupboard. A pot of yellow paint and a brush sat on a copy of The Daily Construct dated 11,234,097. Two days ago. The day of his death. Brick picked up the brush and noticed the paint was still wet. He smudged it between forefinger and thumb and made his way back to Godrich's bedroom.

He stood on the bed and peered around the perimeter of the room and then jumped off and moved the old wardrobe. Pulling a pen knife out of the vast depths of his trench coat, Brick then reached up with it to peel away a piece of the wall.

Ever so gently he peeled away a piece of plastic film covering the air ventilation. He used the knife as a screwdriver and removed the grating. Reaching in with his vast clod of a hand he pulled out a velvet case. Opening it he proved his hunch correct and that of Heironymous Xindii.

Four phials of Xelofremanine; Godspunk.

He walked back into the kitchen where he examined the phials in a better light. He held it against the light and saw it sparkle within.

'Just enough for two weeks in Cassledus, eh Godrich?'

'-Ello, Rich?'

Brick pocketed the Godspunk and casually made his way to the door where he saw the dark haired girl hover over the threshold.

'Um, where . . . where is Rich?'

'You mean Godrich, lady?'

'Well, yeah.'

The Krazzi reached for his ID and showed it to her.

'Ah, shit. What's he got into now the wanker?'

Brick felt slightly flummoxed. 'You, you don't know?'

'Know what?'

He didn't hold back. 'He's dead.' She leaned against the door, the colour of her cheeks turning a shade of mottled olive.

The Inspector placed a hand on her shoulder, awkwardly.

'I'm sorry . . . did you know him?'

Her cheeks turned red.

Brick winced.

'Know him? Know him? Ah, you're all heart.'

Brick hated this, the caring bit. It wasn't his forte, whatever that meant. Whenever he had been called to a crime scene of a grieving family he always left it to someone else. Possibly Grimes, she was good for that. All motherly and shit. He just wanted to find the perpetrator and hammer em' against a wall.

'Why, ah, why don't you take a seat? Sort of thing.'

She carted herself through and disappeared into the confines of the white leather, sobbing. Brick itched the moss on the back of his neck.

'Eh, eh. So what's your name Miss?'

She told him. Her face head down in the leather.

He couldn't hear shit. 'What?'

'Bruuh.'

'WHAT?'

Her head turned about, face red and tearful. 'Bliss. It's Bliss. Bliss Kia.'

The Inspector pulled out his notebook. 'Your relationship with the deceased?'

She sat up and sighed, 'Lovers.'

He raised his moss brows.

'Lovers? He's been dead two days, love. Were you not a tiny bit curious about where he has been for the last two days?'

'We, we had an argument. A bad one.'

'What about?'

She bit her lip. 'Godspunk.'

Brick leaned forward. 'You take some that night?'

'No, god, no. That's what the argument was about. He wanted me to. I said no.

'Well, Godrich did and ten minutes later he died, horribly.'

'What happened?'

'You don't wanna know lady. Let's just say it's a mess.'

She held her hand to her mouth, fighting back the tears.

'Look, no more of the crying. He weren't worth it.'

'Why are you so heartless? We were . . .'

'Stupid.'

'What?'

'Anyone who messes with that stuff is lucky to still be alive, do you understand? And as you've turned a blind eye for the last fifty-two hours three more people have been murdered.'

'Murdered?'

'That's right, the big M.'

'Who else was murdered?'

'Kiko and Mensch . . .'

Bliss immediately ran into the kitchen moving the solid stone man aside to hurl her guts up in the sink, once finished she slid down the side of the kitchen unit, head in her hands.

Brick sighed and opened up his tin, lighting a cigarillo.

What the fuck.

He walked into the kitchen and poured her a glass of water which she took willingly. The large stone Krazzi man joined her on the floor in a flume of smoke. He offered her one and they sat in silence for five minutes, enjoying the headiness of the bramble weed.

'I should be in Frica right now.'

'Then why aren't you?' the Inspector asked.

She laughed, 'Godrich.'

Brick looked at her as if to say 'and?'

'I was walking along the embankment one day, head in the clouds, prospects, a new job in the bag, a new life. A new country. I walked over the road - not even looking - and this man pulls me back onto the pavement away from this car which is bombing along. It was Godrich, all suited and booted and full of it, ya know. There I was, about to start a new life and he came along and made me stay. It was fine for a while, weekends away. Weddings in the country. Holidays. Then, I don't know . . .'

'What?'

'. . . it all seemed to fall apart. Late night meetings, the lies. Perfume on his collar, the Godspunk . . .'

'What do you expect, that stuff is the slippery slope to shitville.'

'I know. Think you know a guy.'

'No one knows anybody.'

'What does that mean?'

'People hide things all along, their true face. You think you knew Godrich? Nah.'

Bliss looked at him as if to say 'and?'

He took a drag on his cigarillo and began. 'My first case as detective, and what a case to start with. They called it the Eshreet Ripper Murders. Whores all gutted and drained of blood within a five week period. Anyway, the Watch were up my arse to bring the murderer to justice and the government were pushing the Watch. They enlisted me with a Mapper called Henri Jakarta. That man was fantastic, picked up clues I would have never seen in a thousand years. We came close to solving the case and then nothing . . . The murders stopped. For over five weeks not a thing and then on the sixth week the body of a splayed whore was dragged from the Lillius, same MO.

'My self and Henri were back in the game. As we investigated one of my corporal's came upon some important information concerning the whores' autopsies. It was a lucky mistake. We found within them a substance dubbed Reaper - at the time- used in the practice of Mappers . . .'

'Henri?'

Brick nodded.

'The very man I had been working with was committing these murders. It was only the slip up in the lab that gave his game away. We arrested him. He pleaded innocence but you could see something had cracked inside. This man, this dignitary. A family, two girls, a boy on the way. Who'd have known? Another Mapper, Josiah Kahn locked him in Reverie. The fucker died from a brain tumour four weeks later. Cunt got off lightly.

'I've seen some people do some crazy things. I once saw a mother threaten to throw her baby of a five-storey building just so her rapist lover could be released from Reverie. I shot her in the leg just to make a point.

'You think you know people. People are crazy. If I were you, Bliss, I'd take that ticket to Frica . . .'

She took another drag on the cigarillo.

'It's too late now.'

'Never say never.'

Bliss smiled at the thought. 'If only that were true.'

'It can be. You think you're the first person to ever get mixed up in something bad?'

'Bad? Rich was murdered. He didn't deserve that.'

'Guy had it comin' lady.'

She chucked the half smoked cigarillo at his head, 'And how do you deduce that, detective?'

The burly Krazzi reached into the inside of his trench coat and pulled out the velvet case. He flipped the lid with his fat stone thumb and the Xelofremanine glistened in the fake kitchen light. For one fleeting moment Brick saw the whites of the girl's eyes almost swirl into a whirlpool of pitch.

'Supply and demand lady. How do you think he paid for your weekends? It wasn't crunching numbers at Moffat & Mallory, but in doing so he literally crunched his own, if you know what I mean.'

'Rich . . . Rich wasn't a supplier. He was a wanker but never that.'

Brick looked at her and for a brief moment was quite smitten by her naivety.

'You keep telling yourself that, Bliss.'

'I. WILL.'

Brick shoved the velvet case back into his trench coat and Bliss's eyes followed suit. He got up and so did she.

'Well, what now?'

'What do you mean?' asked Brick.

'What do I do now?'

Brick smiled and then with almost lightning reflexes cuffed her wrist to his.

'And what the hell is this?'

'Insurance.'

'What the hell for?'

'Oh, I don't know, perhaps for the fact you come creeping in here two days after lover boy is killed.'

'I didn't know he was dead.'

The detective held up his hand. 'Hey, you could be anyone? You could have killed the guy for all I know.'

'I didn't.'

'Or you could be another loose end?'

'What? Loose end?'

'Yeah, like Kiko and Mensch loose end.'

'But, they had known Rich years. In respect I hardly knew him.'

'You got that straight.'

Brick pulled her to the door. He had to get her back to the Watch. She wasn't telling the full story. If she was implicated he could find out by deep probing. If she was innocent then she may well be on the killer's radar . . . shit. He couldn't risk taking her back to the Watch. If indeed the place had been breached by Xelofremanine then he couldn't trust anyone. He was on his own.

The Krazzi stopped in the doorway.

'Need to find you a safe house. It's not safe.'

Bliss looked genuinely disturbed.

'What? What do you mean?'

He looked at her with big sorry blue eyes.

'I'm sorry, lady, but I gotta keep you safe.'

'Well, what about your place?'

'The killer knows I'm on the case. It would be obvious.'

Bliss licked her lips.

'I know a place . . .'

'Well do you now, how sweet.'

Bliss tugged on the cuffs frantically. 'No, no. It's perfect.'

Brick pulled at her. 'Stop that.'

He turned round to level with her but she stepped in first.

'Godrich gave me the key!'

'The key to where?'

'His parents' house. He gave me the key so I could pop in and talk to them now and again. He never really got on with them but I did. I pop in to say hello, here and there.'

Brick lowered himself so he could look into her eyes, 'They're DEAD.'

Her cheeks inflated and she blew the air straight into the Krazzi's face and smiled. 'Well, yeah. Sort of . . .'

Brick's moss-brows raised along the cold rugged surface of his forehead. 'Oh?'

Thank you all for your continued support in The Boy Who Walked Too Far. It means so much to me that you are all reading and voting. It means a great deal. Myself and this story have been through a great deal, which, if you read in the subject matter later on you may glimpse. So please, read, vote, and most importantly, read . . . Words are his power!