She reared back a little. ‘Know about what?’ Then dropped her voice. ‘That? Us? No, of course he doesn’t know about that, Alex. Fucksake. Don’t be stupid.’
‘You didn’t tell him about it because it meant nothing,’ he whispered, and he hated the words. He hated his own needy tone of voice. For a crazy second he wanted to shout, ‘The answer, Phil, is that, yes, I have killed people. I’ve killed plenty. I’ve caused pain and been hurt in return, but let me tell you that nothing hurt me more than your wife.’
Pull yourself together.
‘I’m sorry,’ he told her.
‘Well, all right,’ she said, ‘but there’s a time and a place, Alex, and this isn’t it. For God’s sake, my kids are here.’
And as if on cue, giving them both a shock so that they traded a quick glance, the two kids came running in.
They were, of course, lovely. And Phil, as he handed Abbott a bottle of beer that was chilled to perfection, the kind of beer that Abbott had spent the last three or four days dreaming about, was also lovely. Not threatened by Abbott. Not trying to start a pissing contest. Not feeling like he had to stake his claim.
And better still?
‘God loves a thirsty man,’ said Phil. ‘Let me take your empty and get you another.’
Tess flashed him a quizzical look. There was one thing she didn’t know about him. She didn’t know how much he drank.
And so, when moments later, the doorbell rang and Tess excused herself to fetch the pizza, calling the kids back down at the same time, Abbott turned to Phil. ‘I tell you what, mate, this is going down a treat. I couldn’t bother you for another one, could I?’ He proffered his empty.
‘Man after my own heart,’ said Phil, even though he’d barely touched his first. When he returned it was with two bottles, both of which he passed to Abbott. ‘Save me the shoe leather, eh?’ he said.
By now, Abbott was feeling the booze coming on so that he found himself starting to relax, glugging his beer greedily.
‘Now there’s a man who needs a top-up,’ said Phil, music to his ears, and sure enough, another one came out. They trooped through to a dining room where sat a huge table, the kind of thing you’d expect to see in Bruce Wayne’s house. The kids joined them and there was chatter. Abbott began to enjoy himself, asking the kids about school, about their hobbies and which football team they supported.
‘Chelsea?’ he snorted at one point. ‘Fucking Chelsea.’ And the kids roared with laughter as Abbott clamped his hand over his mouth, looking theatrically at Tess and Phil. ‘Oh, I’m in trouble now,’ he said.
When the kids had finished arguing over the last slice of pizza and dashed off back to the PlayStation, Phil offered Abbott another beer.
‘Be rude not to,’ said Abbott.
With Phil out of the room, Tess’s eyes went to Abbott. ‘Alex, are you nervous or something? You’re drinking an awful lot.’
‘Come on now,’ said Abbott. ‘You only get to talk like that if you’re my missus, and as far as I know, I mean, I don’t think you’re my missus, are you?’
Her eyes hardened. ‘No, I’m not your missus, Alex.’
‘No, you’re just someone who cares about me,’ he said with a sneer in his voice.
She leaned back, crossed arms, pulled a face. ‘Well, you know, that can easily change. I mean, easily.’
‘Oh well, yes, it would be awful if we fell out, wouldn’t it? Or maybe it would be better for you? Then you wouldn’t have to go to all the effort of ordering pizza.’
She leaned forward. ‘I was trying to keep it informal, Alex. I thought you’d prefer it that way. I didn’t think you’d want me off in the kitchen, with you having to make small talk with Phil, and anyway . . .’ She threw up a hand, as if trying and failing to find the right words to say, ‘I really am worried about you.’
‘Is that why you lied to me?’ he said, louder and more sharply than he intended.
Phil had walked back into the room. His expression as he handed over a drink that Abbott too greedily snatched, putting it immediately to his lips, was quizzical. ‘Lied to you,’ said Phil. ‘Lied about what?’ His eyes going from one to the other. ‘Is everything all right in here?’
Abbott banged his half-full bottle down, sat back and slung his hand across the back of the chair beside him. Opposite, Tess wore a face that he hadn’t seen in a long time, a reminder that you were best advised not to fuck with her. But Abbott was too far up the escalator to care. All he knew was that he wanted her to feel anything for him other than the dreaded pity. Even if that feeling were to despise him.
‘Alex,’ she began to say, because of course she had no idea where he was going with this.
But he stopped her. ‘No, I’ve got something I want to say.’
‘I don’t think you should,’ she pressed, and she stood, as though her standing might draw a line under the matter. Perhaps that worked in her high-level lawyerly meetings. Perhaps that was how she silenced her opponents in court. But not here, not now. Because now, he would be heard.
‘Tess told me something about my brother,’ he said to Phil and then could not resist letting his eyes slide to Tess, seeing the relief in her face, knowing that even while letting her down and trampling on her hospitality, he had in one respect let her off the hook. ‘She told me that my brother didn’t die the way my parents told me. She told me that he was taken by a paedophile.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,’ Phil was saying. He regained his seat carefully. His eyes went to Tess, wanting to check that everything was OK, and it was painfully obvious from that glance that Abbott was no longer the amiable guest drinking a little too much and prone to saying inappropriate things in front of the kids. All of a sudden, Phil was a guy who feared that he might have a monster in his house.
‘Only she told me that the guy died in prison,’ continued Abbott, ‘but he didn’t die in prison, did he, Tess? You lied to me.’
‘Alex . . .’ she started.
‘Christ, why did you even tell me about Scutter in the first place?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Because you deserved to know the truth. You’d been lied to.’
‘Look, I’m not sure if this is the best time or place to discuss this,’ tried Phil.
‘And you thought the best thing to do was lie some more? You thought that would help matters?’
‘For your own protection. So you wouldn’t get any ideas in your head about going after the guy.’
‘So you lied?’
‘Yes, I lied.’
‘And I’m just supposed to forget that?’
Their voices were rising. Both of them. ‘Guys,’ said Phil, trying to calm the situation. Trying and failing. ‘Guys . . .’
‘You’re supposed to forgive it,’ she insisted.
‘Well, I can’t,’ Abbott roared, and at the same time he stood. The noise of his chair as it scraped back was almost deafening in a room struck dumb by the sudden shock of his outburst. Tess’s chin tilted. Her eyes blazed. Phil rose up. Brave Phil, prepared to stand his ground against a guy he knew could beat him senseless with one hand tied behind his back.
And thank God for small mercies, because Abbott, even drunk as he was, was aware that while things were bad they’d get even worse if he stayed, and so instead he blundered his way out of the dining room, heard Tess saying to Phil, ‘No, let him go,’ behind him as he stopped and retrieved his jacket and rucksack from pegs in the hallway, saw the children on the stairs wearing pyjamas, regarding him silently with a mixture of shock and curiosity, and then turned and piled out of the house down the steps, almost losing his footing and tripping over himself. He slung the rucksack onto his back as he made his way to the Tube and then back to Finchley and to The Sportsman, where the place was like he’d never left it, drinking up, past last orders, Nigel throwing him out, into the all-night off-licence, where he bought more. What happened after that would be for him to try to work out later, because by now he was in blackou
t, which was not, as some people think, a state of unconsciousness but operating without thought or memory, a state of being that can terrify a non-drinker enough to make them give up for good but to the hardened boozer is just another occupational hazard, something to discuss in AA, which perhaps Abbott would at some point in the future, when he’d talk about the time that he disgraced himself at the home of the love of his life and then later, without knowing how he got there, woke up in Derby.
Because that’s exactly what he did.
Alex Abbott got drunk, and when he woke up, he was in Derby.
PART TWO
CHAPTER 14
Lance’s real name was Edward, but given that he’d made his home in Malibu and carefully contrived an image as a good-looking, shaggy-haired surfer, inspired in equal measures by the cast of Point Break and the actor Owen Wilson, he had changed it to Lance.
Very few people knew that Lance’s real name was Edward, least of all his girlfriend. Not that she would have cared, because in the world of Montana Norton, not only was artifice everywhere, but it was also encouraged. Her philosophy in life was to ‘be yourself’ and ‘follow your truth’ – just as long as ‘yourself’ was a controlled and carefully cultivated white-teeth, tanned, surgery-enhanced version of yourself.
Just as long as the truth was in fact a lie.
Lance was there now, of course, lounging around Montana’s beachfront home. He had been present for the will reading, though not visible to the rest of the Norton clan. And if prior to the lawyer’s revelations he had always thought of Montana’s father as ‘some old British dude’ who was good for little more than keeping Montana and, by extension, him, living in the manner to which she, and by extension he, had become accustomed, then his opinion had performed a 180-degree turn. Having heard of the old man’s post-mortem plans for the dispersal of his fortune, Lance now thought that Sir Charles Norton was an absolute total fucking legend.
As if on cue, Montana appeared. She flopped into the sofa beside Lance, but when he attempted to move closer, she waved him away. One of the things Lance had quickly discovered about his girlfriend was that although she dressed, spoke and behaved as though she were a dyed-in-the-wool, 100-percent through-and-through sex kitten, she was in fact nothing of the sort. Any activity that might slightly rumple her clothes or interfere with her make-up was strictly verboten, and that included anything south of chaste kissing. But Lance wasn’t in the mood to press for affection. He didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. Instead, he hopped up. ‘Drink?’
She looked at him. ‘My father used to ask if the sun was over the yardarm,’ she said disapprovingly, since the sun was nowhere near the yardarm.
‘I’ve had our yardarm lowered especially,’ Lance told her, with the kind of cheeky grin that used to drive her crazy but now just annoyed her.
Still. Twirling her hair between her fingertips, she nodded. ‘Why not? Before he gets here.’
‘Coming right up.’ Lance left for the kitchen, thinking that if it weren’t for this latest development – this exciting latest development – then he’d be out of here no matter how much she was fucking worth. Would he be waving goodbye to a life of luxury if he did leave? In many ways yes, but the fact was that he would always be Montana Norton’s ex, and that alone was enough to ensure that he would land on his feet elsewhere.
Even so, he had no plans to leave. This new business? This game? Well, that was worth sticking around for. Especially since Montana had charged him with the responsibility of sorting things out his end. ‘You’re a bloke, aren’t you?’ she’d said to him. ‘This is a job for a bloke.’
Bloke. It was one of her English words that once upon a time he found attractive but now just thought were low rent. Lance could hardly be expected to know the distinctions of the English class system, but even he was aware that the Norton family were not ‘posh’ in the accepted English sense of the word. Charles Norton might have died a knight of the realm, but he was a man who had come from nothing, and in England it barely mattered how much you had in your account or even what letters you could put before and after your given moniker. What mattered was your heritage. Your lineage. Your family name,
She was right, though. It was indeed a job for a bloke. It was a job for Lance, and he had taken to it like a duck to water.
Montana sat on the sofa, staring at the black mirror of the flat screen TV in front of her as she engaged in one of her favourite activities, which was admiring her own reflection. On this occasion, however, she took little pleasure in it. All she could think about was the challenge ahead.
The thing was that it had always seemed to her something of a foregone conclusion that she would inherit Daddy’s business, and had he outlived Mummy, then that is surely what would have happened.
Charles and Juliet had tried for more children after Montana; indeed, Juliet had lost two, one of them almost at term, at which point she had told Charles that one would have to be enough. So Charles, who had always dreamed of a large family, had poured all his affection into Montana, while she in turn had revelled in her status as the ultimate daddy’s girl. Meanwhile, Montana’s relationship with her mother had been altogether more complex. Which is to say, a bit shit. No wonder her father had found himself unable to choose between them.
And now, because of his indecision and torn loyalties, or maybe just because he was delighting in being a pain in the ass from beyond the grave, they were stuck with this stupid game.
Lance returned with drinks. He passed one to Montana and then flopped down into a beanbag that he used for gaming, only instead of facing the TV as usual, he turned to her. ‘Your visitor is here,’ he said, but only after a good long gulp of his Cosmopolitan.
‘What? You didn’t say.’
‘Well, now I have.’
‘Where is he? Bring him in.’
‘Come,’ called Lance over his shoulder, and then to Montana, ‘his name is Sergei.’
Their eyes went to the lounge entranceway, where in walked a man mountain. A man who was as wide as the door and almost as tall. His hair was cut short in the military style. His face was square and so was his jaw, the none-more-Russian image only offset by the fact that he wore a light-coloured linen suit with an open-necked shirt underneath.
Lance made the introductions. ‘Sergei, this is Montana Norton. Montana, meet Sergei. Sergei is Spetsnaz, isn’t that correct?’
Sergei nodded.
‘And what is Spetsnaz?’ asked Montana.
‘Russian special forces. Wherever Russia have fought in the world, you can bet Sergei’s been there as well.’
Montana rolled her eyes. ‘Like I know where the fuck Russia fight their battles. The information I need is . . .’ She turned her attention to Sergei. ‘How many kills?’
‘Confirmed kills forty,’ said Sergei as though programmed.
To Lance, Montana side-mouthed, ‘Is that a lot?’
‘Is forty a lot?’ he said.
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Then yes. Forty is a lot.’
Montana had stood up. She walked around Sergei, looking him up and down. ‘Can I?’ she said, reaching to him, asking the question not of Sergei but of Lance.
‘Sergei, is it OK if m’lady has a feel of your biceps?’ asked Lance.
Sergei nodded.
Montana tried his muscles. Next, she patted his stomach, after which, she stood in front of him nodding.
‘You happy?’ grinned Lance, who knew she was happy.
‘I’m happy,’ said Montana.
CHAPTER 15
Abbott took a seat at the bar and cast his eyes around at what was an average, down-at-heel, just-out-of-town boozer in Derby, the kind that served the housing estate around it but not much else. Outside it was the colour of wet, grey cardboard. Inside was a tribute to the colour brown.
It was not the first such pub he’d visited during the two days he’d so far spent in Derby. He was getting used to them by now. Pubs like this had no such
thing as passing trade or, God forbid, tourists, but those inside knew the area. They knew their clientele. And that suited Abbott fine.
He had his rucksack with him, of course. One of the disadvantages of making a complete fool of yourself at your ex-girlfriend’s house and then clambering into the world’s most expensive taxi bound for Derby on a drunken whim is that you tended to come unprepared, but even though mentally his gameplan was not at its best, he at least had the bare bones of his kit with him. Stuff he always kept in his rucksack. His Gerber knife, his Leatherman all-purpose tool, tourniquet with a plastic turning handle, a vacuum-sealed medipack, and of course the Glock. He’d bought his own threaded barrel to replace the factory one. The threaded barrel didn’t look quite as nice – it stuck out more and ruined the gun’s line – but he needed it for the suppressor. No factory firearm came threaded. Even the military had to swap out the barrels. One of the advantages as far as Abbott was concerned was that the replacement Glock barrels could be bought quite cheaply.
So that was what he had. The sum total of his war bag.
‘You all right there?’ said the barman, which was what barmen said these days. Used to be, ‘What can I get you?’ Now it was, ‘You all right there?’ He liked the old question better.
‘Pint of that,’ said Abbott, pointing to a pump that was directly in front of him.
The guy began pulling the pint. He called goodbye to a departing punter over Abbott’s shoulder. Abbott let the customer go before he next spoke. ‘I’m wondering if you might be able to help me.’
‘Landlord’s not here now,’ said the barman without looking up.
‘It’s information, actually.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Quick glance. Finishing up the pint. ‘And what’s in it for me?’
‘I’ve got a fifty-quid note with your name on it if I think the info’s good.’
‘Try me.’
‘Jason Scutter. Do you know the name?’
The barman looked up sharply, as if taking note of Abbott for the first time. Abbott knew that look. He’d seen a few versions of it over the last two days. For that reason he knew the next words out of the barman’s mouth before he even said them. ‘Sorry, mate, you didn’t say who you were?’
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