by Tom Bale
mentioning the errand at the jeweller’s, when the toilet flushed and
Jaden came bowling along the hall. Ignoring his mother, he ploughed
into Joe, grabbing his legs and roaring like a lion. It was a game they
often played, but this time it took Joe by surprise, causing him to stumble.
You got me!’ he said, setting the buggy down and sweeping Jaden
high into the air. The boy squealed with laughter and swiped at Joe’s
face, narrowly missing his nose. Jaden loved physical play, the rougher
the better, and Joe was the only member of the household willing to
indulge him.
For Cassie it was just another source of tension, emphasising as it
did all that was missing from the relationship between Jaden and his
stepfather. Mindful of her discomfort, Joe lowered the boy to the
ground and pointed out through the door.
'Time to go,’ he said.
Liam moved first, circling round the body to avoid the pool of blood.
'Leave it,’ Priya said.
'Can’t. It’s probably his girlfriend.’
'So?’
'We don’t know where she’s calling from.’
Crouching down, he slipped his hand into the agent’s pocket and
retrieved the phone. Priya was climbing the stairs towards the big
picture window that flooded the hall with light. She looked out.
'She’s parked on the road.’ Then, more urgently: 'Coming this way.’
Liam felt a rush of giddy confidence. He loved this, he realised.
Loved the danger. Loved winging it.
You answer,’ he said.
Priya gaped at him. She trotted down the stairs as Liam made to
throw the phone. Cupping her hands like a cricketer, she caught it
deftly and retreated to the back of the hall. 'What do I say?’
'Pretend he’s cheating on her.’
Still unsure, she slid the fascia up and answered, her voice suddenly
deeper and slightly breathless. Yes?’
Liam took in the confused silence at the other end. Delighted, he
hurried over to Priya. She started to pull away, obviously fearing the
caller might pick up on his presence. Then it clicked: that was part
of the deception.
She said: 'He, ah, he can’t speak to you right now.’ She moved the
phone a couple of inches from her cheek, far enough for Liam to
hear the other side of the conversation.
'Who are you, then?’ a shrill voice demanded. 'Do you work with
him?’
'Not work, no.’
Another troubled pause. Liam moved closer and Priya stood her
ground, allowing him into her personal space. They maintained eye
contact, Liam smiling, Priya’s expression giving nothing away. But
he could sense her enjoyment of the charade, just as he sensed her
physicality; was aware of her thudding heart only inches from his and
the subtle intoxicating scent that rose from her skin.
There was a groan, like static in the tiny speaker, as the penny
dropped.
'Oh, I don’t believe this… the two-timing bastard.’
Priya didn’t respond, but made sure the woman could hear her
breathing. She could probably hear Liam breathing as well.
'I came all this way . . .’ the woman muttered to herself. Then, after
a big decisive sigh: 'D’you know, you’re bloody welcome to him, love.
He’s a wanker, and you can tell him that from me.’
The call ended, accompanied by a half-hearted slap on the front
door. Priya closed the phone, crept past the estate agent’s body and
back up to the window.
'She’s getting in her car. Not a happy bunny.’
Liam, delighted, said: 'She doesn’t know how lucky she is.’
Ten
Oliver Felton saw the woman arrive. He watched her walk up to the
house, a mobile phone at her ear. He watched her grow increasingly
frustrated, then return to her car and drive away. He watched and he
was intrigued.
Because he knew who she was, and he knew the house wasn’t empty.
Oliver had a voyeur’s instinct. He’d known for several weeks that
someone was using Dreamscape for secret liaisons with a cheap-looking
blonde. He worked out that it was an estate agent from the firm his
father had engaged, yet again, to try to offload the monstrosity on
someone.
He’d seen the couple sneaking in and out, and more than once
he’d watched them having sex in one of the bedrooms. He knew their
routine, and Friday afternoon was a favourite time.
But what he’d witnessed today made very little sense. A car, which
he recognised as the philanderer’s, driving into the garage. A moment
later another man, a man he’d never seen before and didn’t like the look
of at all, trotted out and got into a builder’s van parked on the road. He
drove the van into the garage and shut the doors behind him.
And now the cheap blonde had called, found no one in, and
departed angrily. It was perplexing, but Oliver didn’t mind that. There
were far worse things to be than perplexed.
With any number of possible explanations, he naturally latched on
to the most salacious. Perhaps the estate agent was bisexual: two-timing
the woman with another man. Or perhaps he’d invited the woman as
well, intending on a threesome, and then decided the woman was
superfluous.
But moving the cars into the garage? That seemed like excessive
caution. Normally the estate agent was content to leave his car on the
driveway, doubtless aware that his client spent most weekends in the
south of France. On the one occasion that Robert Felton had noticed
the car, he’d accepted Oliver’s story that the agent was just checking
the place over.
The last thing Oliver wanted was his father putting a stop to these
assignations. He enjoyed them too much.
Joe picked up the overnight bags and followed Cassie outside. Jaden
was already at the Shogun, wrestling the back door open. While Joe
stashed the bags in the boot, Cassie manoeuvred the baby into the
child seat. Sofia immediately began to scream and thrash about. Joe
hovered at Cassie’s shoulder, pulling silly faces, but even this normally
reliable distraction technique had little effect.
'She’s shattered, that’s the problem,’ Cassie said. 'She knows the
journey will put her to sleep.’
Joe was returning for the buggy when Valentin Nasenko appeared
in the doorway. He seemed to recoil at the sight of Cassie’s tussle with
Sofia and hesitated, pretending to let his vision adjust to the bright
sunshine.
Valentin was fifty-four, an unfortunate mix of flabby and thin: bony
limbs and a football-sized paunch. His face was long and narrow, with
bags under his eyes and a loose turkey neck, but his nose was thick
and fleshy. His hair was grey, combed back in a high widow’s peak,
and his eyes were a filmy pale blue. Despite the heat, he was wearing
tailored trousers and a striped purple shirt. A nest of wiry silver hairs
protruded from the open neck.
He looked like a minor civil servant, or perhaps a head teacher at
a failing school. Joe still found it hard to reconcile such a mild appearance
with the knowledge that this grey, anonymous man had tumbled
through the Soviet Union’s chaotic transition to a market economy
and emerged with interests worth hundreds of millions.
Only when Sofia was subdued did Valentin approach the car. Cassie
looked up and saw him, and Joe caught a flash of panic on her face.
Then, with a nervous smile, she opened her arms and received a
quick, clumsy embrace from her husband.
Joe turned away. Gary McWhirter was walking towards him, holding
the baby’s buggy. Valentin’s adviser was in his late forties, a slender
South African with wispy reddish-blond hair and a handsome windburned
face, marred by slightly bulbous eyes.
'Forgot this?’
'I was coming back for it,’ Joe said, taking the buggy.
McWhirter yawned expansively and stretched, throwing his arms
out wide. There were sweat stains on his shirt.
'Days like this, I envy you. Where is it you’re staying tonight? The
Blue Anchor?’
Joe nodded. The Anchor was a boutique hotel on Brighton’s seafront
in which Valentin had a substantial financial interest.
'Perfect summer’s evening, you’ll be out on the terrace, knocking
back Cokes without a care in the world.’ He smirked. 'Eyeing up
Cassie’s friends, too, you lucky bastard.’
'Beats working,’ said Joe, electing to play along.
You bet it does. I tell you, man, you ought to be paying me commission.
Must be the cushiest job you’ve ever had.’
Joe didn’t respond. He carried the buggy over to the Shogun.
Valentin was speaking in a low voice, forcing Cassie to lean close, her
face earnest and dutiful. She looked like a child being addressed by
a parent. Joe rebuked himself every time he made the analogy, but
sometimes it couldn’t be avoided.
After saying his farewell, Valentin leaned into the back of the car
and kissed Sofia, who promptly started wailing again. As Cassie scurried
round to the front passenger seat, Valentin slammed the rear door
shut without so much as a word or a glance for Jaden.
He turned to Joe. 'Take care of them.’
'I will.’
Valentin gazed at the Shogun, nodding absently to himself. 'Make
sure Cassie enjoys tonight. She deserves it.’
Today Oliver Felton had been late coming to his post. His sister had
called again, for the third time that afternoon. This after a barrage of
emails and texts, until finally he’d relented and picked up the phone.
'What are you doing?’ she’d demanded.
'Preparing to be lectured by you.’
'Hilarious. I mean, why are you skulking down there on your own?
You’re supposed to be at Ginny’s.’
'I didn’t go.’
His sister groaned. 'Dad spent ages setting that up.’
'Best reason to stay away.’
'Christ, Ol. Don’t tell me you haven’t got the hots for that girl,
because I know you have. You can’t walk straight when you see her.’
'I’ve never denied that. But she thinks I’m a freak.’
'And this was the perfect opportunity to correct that impression.
You agreed, Oliver. I heard you promising Dad. Honestly, I despair
of you when you act like this.’
A peevish silence followed. Oliver could picture her expression in
every detail. With just a year’s difference in their ages their mannerisms
were virtually identical, except that Rachel had a habit of pushing
her bottom lip out to emphasise her displeasure. Allegedly this was
the look that made so many men want to sleep with her, but all it
inspired in Oliver was an urge to slap her until she bled.
When his apology failed to materialise, Rachel pressed on. You
know what Dad’ll say? Turning your back on something you want,
just because he wants it for you as well — '
'“Cutting off your nose to spite your face”,’ Oliver intoned in a
passable imitation of his father’s reedy drawl. 'Well, so what? I’ll chop
my whole fucking head off before I let him control my destiny. He
seems to think marriages are just another form of strategic alliance.
That’s partly why Mum was eliminated, remember? Once she’d served
her purpose.’
'Oliver, don’t start. I won’t speak to you about Mummy.’
You can tell him that I have no intention of moving out, and the
more it irritates him, the longer I’ll stay. And if I don’t outlive the old
Satanist then I want to be buried in the garden, with a fucking great
headstone.’ He laughed. 'Better still, build me a monument of jagged
shrapnel, dripping with blood. Dad’s great gift to the world. Here lies
Oliver Felton, laid to rest on a bed of bullets.’
From upstate New York, Rachel let out a sigh that might have crossed
the Atlantic under its own power. She started to say something, thought
better of it mid-way through the word 'regret’, and ended the call.
Replacing the phone in its cradle, Oliver was surprised to see the
handset flecked with spittle. Perhaps he had argued his case rather
too vehemently.
Afterwards, in need of a pleasant distraction, he’d made his way
to a landing between two of the guest suites. A hidden switch
opened a hatch in the ceiling, concealed by a decorative coving,
and a lightweight aluminium ladder slid down, powered by an
almost silent electric motor.
This led up to a tiny room, about six feet square, slotted into a
peculiar corner of the arched faux-Gothic roof. His father, who had
designed both this house and its neighbour, Dreamscape, had wanted
lots of unusual nooks and crannies. As a result the library had a
bookcase that opened to a secret music room, and the gymnasium
could be reached via a fireman’s pole from the floor above.
The eyrie, quickly forgotten, became Oliver’s hideaway. All it
contained were a couple of beanbags and a fine Swarovski telescope,
mounted on a tripod and stationed at the small window. The room
was on the north-east corner of the house, on the landward side, and
the shape of the roof obscured all but a sliver of sea. But the elevation
gave him an interesting vantage point from which to observe
Dreamscape, and a little of the house beyond it.
To his father and his sister, the room was his observatory, and it
was true that for a time he had developed an interest in astronomy.
The box of Kleenex he kept up here told a slightly different story, but
Oliver didn’t much care what they thought. He never had.
Now he mulled over the developments at Dreamscape. As far as
he was aware, his father hadn’t commissioned any building or maintenance
work. So why would the van need to go into the garage?
'Unloading something?’ he murmured to himself.
Plausible. But why close the doors?
'Unloading something . . . fragile? Private?’ The philanderer must
have some sort of scam going, and Oliver wanted to know what it was.
Of course, there was one easy way to find out. Dreamscape still
belonged to his father, after all. There was a set of keys downstairs.
He could simply go next door and let himself in.
Potentially thrilling,
and not a little dangerous. But would it be as
much fun as watching, he wondered. So often in life the real pleasure
was to be found in anticipation, in allowing the marvellous fertility
of his imagination to be unleashed, free from the constraints of grim reality.
For now, Oliver decided, it was better to wait.
And watch.
Joe climbed into the driver’s seat, searching for the phrase that summed
up his predicament. Between a rock and a hard place probably said it
best.
He started the engine. Glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw
Valentin and McWhirter retreat inside the house.
'What did he say?’ Cassie asked.
'Nothing much.’
'He must have said something.’
'Just told me to look after you.’
Cassie didn’t push it, but there was a strained quality to the silence
that followed. Joe eased the Shogun through the open gates and turned
onto the road. There was no one in sight in either direction. With
just a single row of houses along the shore, the opposite side of the
road was bordered by Smugglers’ Copse: several acres of boggy woodland,
intersected by a network of overgrown paths. Protected from
development by a covenant, these woods formed a barrier between
the residential area and the training camp.
It was half a mile or so to the bridge, and Joe kept his speed low.
Checking his mirror again, he saw Sofia’s head beginning to droop,
her eyes heavy. Cassie was staring out of her window, perhaps to avoid
conversation.
Just before the bridgehead they passed the entrance to the Ministry
of Defence land: a set of high double gates, plastered with stern warning
signs. Joe checked to his right out of habit, but he hadn’t seen any
activity at the camp for months.
Next up, on the left, was the big dilapidated shed that had once
housed the chain ferry. The bridge was built alongside the route that
the ferry had taken. Barely wide enough for two cars, the bridge was
about a hundred and fifty feet long and elevated above the causeway
by fifteen feet.
Today, unusually, Joe had to pull in and wait for an oncoming car.
It was a black Cadillac limousine, straddling the road as it crossed the
bridge. The driver wore a dark suit and sunglasses. He seemed to be
staring straight ahead, as though no one else on the road mattered a
damn.
It was only when the car drew alongside that Joe caught a glimpse