Give Yourself Away

by Barbara Elsborg

  Jasim shrugged.

  “Do you know what happened in his life after you let him out of the room?” March asked.

  “No.” There was no inflection in Jasim’s tone. Just a flat denial.

  “Do the words ‘red rose’ mean anything?”

  “No.”

  “I’m worried.” March watched Jasim carefully as he went through the instances when the roses had been left. “Caleb thinks he’s been followed. I don’t like the idea of anyone watching him, even if that someone is—theoretically—dealing with guys who’ve hurt him.”

  “You think it’s me.”

  “You helped him before.”

  Jasim gave a soft chuckle. “If I needed to, I could very likely prove I was nowhere near Caleb when any of these incidents happened. I spend a lot of my time abroad. Those messages with the flowers—they were things Liam said on camera, though his face was never shown.”

  “But Liam’s dead.”

  Now Jasim was watching him intently.

  “Caleb said he knew Liam was dead,” March added. “But he’s second-guessing himself because he can’t figure out who else could be stalking him.”

  “It could be anyone who’s seen him in one of the movies Liam made. Maybe they spotted him by chance, just like you. Why did you think it was me?”

  “Because you cared about what happened to him.” Sort of. “You helped him escape.” March stared straight at him, hoping Jasim couldn’t see what else he knew.

  “And told him I’d never see him again or contact him again, and I expected the same from him.”

  “He doesn’t know I’m here. He has no idea where you live. I paid a detective agency to find you.”

  Jasim gave a snort of laughter. “And you came here to tell me to keep my hands off? My hands haven’t been on. I’m not the one you’re looking for.”

  March was inclined to believe him. “I’ve been trying to persuade Caleb to go the police and tell them everything.”

  The reaction was slight, a tightening of Jasim’s grip on the mug, but it was there.

  “I don’t want him to run,” March said. “I think he will if he believes there’s any danger to me. Another rose and he’ll leave. He won’t tell the police who he is because he knows the consequences.”

  It was as close as March wanted to get to telling Jasim he knew he’d killed Liam.

  “He’s hardly touched the money,” Jasim said. “That is one thing I know.”

  “Do you blame him? He’s all too aware of how he earned it, albeit unwillingly.”

  “Remind him if he’d told the police everything, the criminal injuries compensation board would have paid him, TV companies and newspapers would have given him money, and publishers would have clamored for his story. He should spend it. Use it to make himself happy.”

  “Money isn’t the key to happiness.”

  “But it helps.” Jasim drank his coffee.

  “How the hell did you do that? Give him a new identity, open bank accounts?”

  “That has nothing to do with you.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might be doing this?” March asked.

  “Not that Caleb won’t have already thought of. I destroyed Liam’s computer records, but it would have taken an expert to identify any buyers.”

  “Destroyed, as in…?”

  “Taking a hammer to the hard drive.”

  “Right. Tell me about the auction. Is there a way I could trace others who bid? Someone who lost out to you?”

  “I doubt it. There’s no record on my computer. I suspect others would be as cautious. I have no idea who bid as well. No one used their real name. I only know the amounts. Four years is a long time.”

  “Twelve is even longer,” March snapped back. “Do you still do it? Bid online for sex with guys who have no choice in the matter? Why the fuck did you want someone like that?”

  Jasim stared at him without speaking.

  March fought back his irritation. Part of him wanted to hit Jasim, but that he’d done something evil yet wonderful for Caleb meant March ought to be thanking him.

  “I needed anonymity.”

  March was surprised when Jasim spoke.

  “I wanted sex with someone desirable, whom others found desirable. I was instantly— But I also needed to walk away with no risk of what I’d done being discovered.”

  “You knew Caleb was being coerced?”

  Jasim hesitated. “Not to the extent he was. I had no idea Liam had abducted him when he was eleven.”

  “Liam delivered him to you drugged. You raped him.”

  A muscle twitched in Jasim’s cheek. “Rape was never my intention. I never forced Caleb into anything. Change the direction of your questions or leave.”

  March reminded himself again that this guy was solely responsible for Caleb escaping, that he’d killed a man to keep Caleb safe.

  “Can you think of anyone who might be behind this?” March asked again.

  “I assume you’ve considered the cameraman.”

  March straightened. “Cameraman?”

  “I never saw any movie with Caleb as a young boy, but some of those of him as a young man, featuring him and his abductor, were shot by another person, someone able to move around the room. By the way, all that equipment, all the discs, were removed and destroyed.”

  “A cameraman.” March clenched his fists. They should have thought of that.

  “There were payments from Liam’s bank account to someone called Derry Fitzpatrick. His was the only name that cropped up. The rest were payments to utilities and businesses.”

  “Do you have anything else, other than his name?”

  “Only that he’s Liam’s brother.”

  Caleb was still working when Keith came to tell him they were finishing for the day.

  “It’s only half past two,” Caleb said.

  “We always clock off early on Friday. Jed doesn’t mind. Dwayne lives a couple of hours away so he goes home at the weekend to see his kids.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re well ahead of the game anyway. Much faster than Sam. Clear up and bugger off. Have a good weekend.”

  “You too.”

  Caleb was getting on better with the guys now. He didn’t think they’d stand up for him in a fight, but there was a grudging respect for the work he’d done, and giving as good as he got in the teasing helped.

  By the time Caleb tidied up and locked the unit he’d been working in, the others had gone. Instead of driving home, he decided to call in at the college on the off chance March wasn’t busy. Maybe they could experiment on his desk. Caleb grinned.

  He wasn’t grinning as he walked back to his car in the college parking lot. Why hadn’t March called him and told him he was sick? What if it was something serious?

  When March failed to answer his phone, panic gripped Caleb’s guts. What if he couldn’t answer the phone? What if he was dead in bed? What if he’d tried to get help, crashed his car, and no one had found him? Caleb drove back faster than he should have and when he didn’t see March’s car on the drive, he took his foot off the accelerator without changing gear and stalled.

  There was no sign of March in the house. No indication he’d spent the day or part of it in bed. And he still wasn’t answering his phone. Caleb wanted not to be worried, but he couldn’t help it.

  He kept telling himself there would be a simple explanation. Maybe March had wanted to spend the day on the water and had bunked off work—but he wasn’t the type to let people down. And he’d have told me, wouldn’t he? Maybe he’d gone to see a doctor and been sent to the hospital. That would explain the lack of telephone contact, but wouldn’t he have just texted to let Caleb know what was happening?

  Caleb didn’t want to go down one route, that March had been hurt…or worse…by stal
ker-guy. I have to go to the police and tell them everything. Almost everything. He’d keep quiet about how Liam died. Tell them Liam had let him out and that was the last he’d seen of him. But he’d wait a little longer. Wait for a call, wait for a text. Where the fuck are you?

  Caleb really wasn’t the jealous type, or at least he hadn’t been, but he found himself making up wilder and wilder scenarios so that when he finally heard March at the door, he was ready to explode. But he didn’t. He pinched his thigh to distract himself and waited for March to come into the kitchen.

  “Hi.” March dropped his workbag, walked straight over and pulled Caleb into his arms.

  Caleb hugged him briefly but his heart was pounding so hard he felt sick. “How come you didn’t answer my calls or my texts?”

  “Dead phone. I forgot to charge it. Which reminds me.” He took it from his pocket and plugged it in next to the kettle.

  Caleb didn’t think he’d deliberately put the phone facedown, but what if he had? “Long day then?” Caleb heard himself ask.

  “Very long. What about you?”

  Caleb didn’t want to catch him out, but if March was going to lie to him, he had to know. “I used up five packets of sandpaper and two pairs of gloves.”

  March laughed. “I’m going to open a bottle of wine. You fancy white or red?”

  “I don’t mind.”

  March took a bottle of red from the pantry and searched for the opener in the drawer. “Fancy pizza? Or Chinese?”

  “Do you have any Chinese students?”

  “No. The history courses are more likely to be filled by Brits.”

  “But you don’t just cover British history.”

  “No, but even so.”

  March handed Caleb a glass, but Caleb put it straight down. He didn’t want March to see his fingers shaking. He stuck his hands into his pockets.

  “What period did you cover today?” Oh fuck. Please, please. Tell me the truth about what you did.

  “The Vikings.”

  Two words to destroy Caleb’s world. “That must have been tricky when you were off sick.”

  March froze.

  “I finished early,” Caleb said. “I had this crazy idea you might like to bend me over your desk. Only you’d called in sick. I came back here worried to death, saw there was no car and thought you might have had to go to the hospital. I went through every scenario I could think of.”

  “Shit, Caleb. I took a group of students on a field trip to Weymouth to look at a Viking burial site. Fifty skeletons were found in an old quarry pit at Ridgeway Hill when they were digging the relief road in 2009. They’re part of an exhibition at the London museum and I wanted to show the students the site. Who told you I was sick? I don’t know why they thought that.”

  Oh fuck. Why didn’t I just wait for him to tell me? “Some woman. I don’t know her name. Sorry. I was just worried.” Relief poured through him.

  March pulled him into his arms. “And I’m sorry my phone was out of juice.”

  “I’ll buy you a spare.”

  March squeezed him. “I’d forget to charge that one too. The grave was a brilliant find. Mass burial sites of Vikings are rare. Young guys mostly, all hacked at around the neck and jaw, and the skulls tossed in a pile. You wouldn’t believe how close the site is to the new road. When they’ve finished with them at the British Museum, they’re going on display down here. We’ll go and see them.”

  “Sounds like a fun trip.”

  March laughed. “No skeletons this weekend. We’ll set off first thing tomorrow. Now, what do you fancy? Pizza or Chinese?”

  “Pizza.”

  Caleb wanted to kick himself. The exact way to make someone go off you, getting too fucking clingy. If he’d kept quiet, March would have told him.

  Oh fuck. March felt terrible. He’d stood there and lied and babbled on about the Vikings and made it worse. He could have just told Caleb where he’d been. So why hadn’t he? Yeah well, he knew why. Caleb would have been pissed off.

  No, he’d done the right thing. He’d called the same detective agency on the way back and asked them to find out what they could about Liam and Derry Fitzpatrick. Until he knew everything, he’d keep Caleb in the dark.

  “What do you want on your pizza?” March asked.

  “Anything but olives.”

  March called the pizza restaurant with his phone still plugged in, thinking how he needed to stop Caleb seeing that it hadn’t completely run down. He managed to toss a dishcloth partially over it before he went back to the table.

  Caleb had drunk all his wine.

  “I thought you didn’t drink much,” March said.

  “Oh God, did I drink all that?” Caleb looked horrified.

  March smiled and poured him another glass. He felt guilty that he had an ulterior motive—keeping Caleb away from his phone.

  Getting Caleb drunk turned out not to be such a good idea when the guy ended the evening throwing up in the downstairs bathroom. March sat at his side, stroking Caleb’s face as he clutched the toilet.

  “Oh fuck. Why didn’t you warn me?” Caleb groaned.

  March chuckled. “You’re such a lightweight.”

  “I’m never drinking again. Ever.”

  March handed him a glass of water to rinse out his mouth.

  “You go to bed. I’m going to sleep here.”

  “You can’t.”

  Caleb retched and shuddered. “Yes I can. Please. I’ll come when the room stops spinning.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” He rested his head against Caleb’s back. I’m never leaving you again.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Are we there yet?” Caleb asked.

  March groaned. “Ask me that one more time and I’ll turn round.”

  He’d thought at first that Caleb was pretending to be excited, until March registered this was a guy who’d never had surprises, treats, presents. March hoped he’d not miscalculated Caleb’s probable reaction to the tattoo-removal appointment, which was that afternoon. Until then he wanted to do something ordinary. Wander around the shops. Eat fish and chips on the seafront. Just be with him.

  Most weekends March found something exciting to do. Kitesurfing, climbing, mountain biking. After a week spent cooped up in college, he looked forward to being outdoors, getting his heart pumping and his blood racing. He glanced at Caleb, knowing he’d found something else that made his heart pound hard.

  “Are we—?”

  “Nearly,” March said.

  “How nearly?”

  March’s phone rang and he groaned. “My mother.”

  “I’ll keep quiet,” Caleb said.

  March accepted the call. “Hi, Mum.”

  “Hi, sweetheart. Am I interrupting anything?”

  “Nope.”

  Caleb slid his hand over March’s crotch and squeezed. March bit back his laugh and knocked his fingers away.

  “Alain and I were thinking of coming to stay with you the week after next. Is that okay? Mary and Ken Turner’s wedding anniversary.”

  “That’s fine,” March said, thinking the opposite. But maybe this was the push he needed to talk to her about his life.

  “We’ll get the ferry over a week on Wednesday. We’ve still got your key so we’ll see you when you get home from work. We’ll cook supper. Alain says he’ll bring a few bottles of that wine you like.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  “You’re not off doing anything stupid today, are you?”

  “No.”

  A cue for Caleb to stroke March’s cock.

  She gave a heavy sigh. “Which means you are. Please be careful.”

  “I’m only going shopping.”

  Caleb ran his thumb down the length of his dick and it hardened.

  “Good grief, Baxter.
Are you feeling all right?”

  “Yep. I’ve never felt better.” He glanced at Caleb and smiled.

  “New clothes? Does that mean—?”

  “Bye, Mum.” He ended the call. “Hands off or I’ll crash.”

  Caleb took his hand away. “I can go and stay somewhere else.”

  “You’re not going anywhere. Well, yes, you are. Into my room. Our room.”

  Caleb tugged at the knee of his jeans, pulling at an imaginary thread. “I don’t want to cause problems.”

  “I’m going to tell her about us. There is no problem.” He slid his hand over Caleb’s fluttering fingers and pressed him still.

  “Not all of it.”

  “Not if you don’t want to.”

  “She still calls you Baxter?”

  “Yes. My stepfather calls me March. It confuses everyone.”

  “So how much farther?”

  March chuckled.

  “What would you have been doing normally?”

  “Whatever took my fancy. Probably nothing on the water on a gray day like this.”

  “Do you ever just stay in and read or listen to music or knit socks?”

  March shot him a glance and caught his smile. “Not often. But then I didn’t have anyone I wanted to stay in with before.”

  “Do you have big dreams?” Caleb whispered. “Things you want to do, see, feel?”

  “Like a bucket list?”

  “I guess, but not because you have a limited amount of time, although I suppose we all have. Just parts of life you want to make yours.”

  March thought about it. “I’ve done so much, been to so many places. There are always going to be more places to visit, more things to do.” But Caleb’s question had brought him crashing to earth.

  He’d been searching for something all this time, looking for something that was missing, without him even realizing it was missing. Not death, though he’d been walking in its shadow, but a connection to life. Something that anchored him. March knew now that it wasn’t something that had been missing—it was someone. “I want to see things with you,” March said.

  “But if you’ve already been there…why go twice?”

  “Because it would be different with you.”

  “We could do the churches and museums,” Caleb said. “The ancient ruins.”