Escort

by Harper Fox

  Lenny eased the blade against my carotid. “I think I know.”

  I should have been terrified. On one level I was, with a beast’s pure fear of death. But I was watching Silver. He hadn’t moved a muscle—was there, motionless, in a lithe half-crouch beside his holdall. Belatedly I noticed that it wasn’t his usual one, not the beautiful leather creation with brass trims.

  And something about Silver had altered completely, too. A watchful stillness had veiled him. I wasn’t sure I’d have recognised him if I’d passed him on the street. “Lenny,” he said softly: and then, harshly, raising his head, “Sergeant Leonard Price, Third Battalion, Cumbrian and Borders. Soldier, you’d better stand down.”

  Lenny’s shock rattled through me. His grip tightened. “Who the fuck are you? Who are you, to talk to me like that?”

  “You don’t need to know. I know you, or your unit, anyway. Can’t believe it took me this damn long.” He jerked his head in the direction of the policewoman. “Officer, this man’s a war vet with serious PTSD. Advise your team when they arrive. He’s dangerous, but...” He looked Lenny right in the eye, and I felt like a cobweb, like glass, invisible. Weirdly liberating. Desolating, too. “He got that way fighting for his country. Didn’t you, Sergeant?”

  “The fuck you know about it.”

  “I know Third Cumbrian went into the Zandikesh Mosque quarter in Aleppo. I know what happened there, and I can’t talk about it any more than you can. Not one soldier came out of that op who isn’t a combat case now.”

  “Lenny?”

  He gave a violent flinch. Jamie had pushed up into a sitting position against the wall and was staring at him, wide-eyed. “Lenny,” he repeated, and I heard the voice he must have used when he and this brick wall of a man had been lovers, a married couple, maybe even briefly friends. “What does he mean, you’re a vet?”

  Lenny grunted. “Discharged on medical. Not that it’s any business of yours.”

  “You never said a word about Aleppo.”

  “Why should I? You were in Kabul on a mop-up job. Then you decided to fuck up my life with this...” He paused long enough to cast Jamie a ferocious onceover. “This thing you had to become.”

  “I swear to God, Lenny, of all the reasons I did it, not one of them was to hurt you.”

  Silver was sliding one hand into his bag. Lenny was still transfixed by Jamie, and I willed Andrew not to notice the movement and give it away. “The thing is,” Silver calmly resumed, once he’d finished his reach and was still as a cat again, “Lenny feels like you took someone away from him, Jamie. It feels like you killed his wife.”

  This time the flinch was hard enough to break Lenny’s hold. And I understood that I hadn’t been invisible to Silver, not for one second. He’d been aiming words at him around me, words like blows. I took the sacred chance he’d bought for me: punched back with one elbow and leapt away.

  Not far, not fast enough. He caught me by my belt. We went down in a tumble onto the floor. He knocked the wind out of me, and I had a flashing instant of communion with Sil, with a part of what he’d experienced all alone with Lenny before I’d arrived. I knew at least that much. Lenny hauled my head up, fist closing in the collar of my shirt. The blade found my throat again: not a threat this time but the end.

  I wanted to close my eyes, but Silver was smiling. His gaze was a lifeline held out to me. “Ah, Lenny,” he said, kindly as he’d spoken before pulling out the chess set for me in the hotel room what felt like a hundred years ago. “Lenny, look at me, man. I’ve got just the thing you need.”

  The blade burst my skin. And Silver reared onto his knees, took rock-steady two-fisted grip on the pistol, knocked off the safety and fired.

  Chapter Twelve

  The room was warm, even with a window open to the Brompton streets below. I’d spent the morning with Andrew’s urban-renewal team, and a sleepless night before that. I fought a wash of drowsiness. Something to do with the beep of machinery: the presence, just as watchful, of hospital staff in the wards and corridors. I yawned, shook myself, reached for my coffee.

  Part of the problem was the flowers. Silver wasn’t allowed them in his room, but they were banked up for him on a table outside the ward, enough to trigger my hayfever as I’d paused to look at the tags. A popular man, Aaron Silver. I didn’t know what signal had gone out, what subtle network activated, but as well as Andrew’s petrol-station bunch and an unexpected offering from Melchior and Sabrina, something a bit like the Albert Hall done in tied-up primula bunches, a dozen other offerings had arrived. My eyes were gritty and tired.

  Silver opened his, and I forgot about it all. The hospital bed had eaten up his height and power. Out cold and helpless in the hands of paramedics, he’d looked small. I heaved myself out of the armchair and went to sit carefully on the edge of the bed. “Silver.”

  We looked at each another for long moments in silence. The lights were back in the deep rich brown, the charm, the ghost of a smile. If I’d been taking bets on his first words, I wouldn’t have been out of pocket. He coughed, cleared his throat, let me help him take a sip of water. “How’s Lenny?”

  Typical. The guy who’d trapped and hurt him, first on his list of enquiries. Sil had said I was a nice guy, but I wasn’t really: I’d sincerely wished Lenny Price at the bottom of the sea. “Doing well,” I said, easing him back onto the pillows. “Just down the corridor, in fact, receiving the best of care. I suppose... I suppose none of it was his fault, if he has PTSD.”

  “I know lots of guys with PTSD. None of the others turned into monsters. Lenny needs help, and he’ll get it now, but I didn’t care about him, George. I just had to shake his nerve enough to make him let you go.”

  “Right. So you could, er...” I examined the beautiful face turned up to me, its gentle lines, the curve of the expressive mouth. “So you could shoot him. You shot him, Sil. How did you even... Do you always carry a gun?”

  “Christ, no. Will you believe I picked up the wrong bag on my way out to Lenny’s? I’d’ve been fending him off with a twelve-inch dildo otherwise.”

  “But why was there a gun in...” I stopped myself, shaking my head. I hadn’t come here to interrogate him. “I’m sorry.”

  “What for? You must have a thousand questions.”

  “Um, add a zero or two. But I know I don’t have the right... Look, I’d better go and tell the nurses you’re awake.”

  He laid a hand over mine on the blanket. “Hang on a minute. I’m fine. Who has the right to ask, if not you? That should’ve been the end of me, down in that hellhole with Lenny. I was so fucking lonely and scared, and there shouldn’t have been anyone in the world who cared enough to rescue me. There wasn’t, until I met you.”

  I had to press my free hand to my lips. I didn’t want to cry out with the anguished pleasure of hearing him speak to me like this, of having him warm and breathing and speaking at all. When I was sure of my voice, I uncovered my mouth. “Okay. Okay, then. There were some very heavy-looking characters in here overnight, Sil. Some of them were in army uniform. The others were in suits, and one was wearing sunglasses, I swear. Indoors, at midnight. In England.”

  “Oh, boy. Spooks.”

  “That’s what I thought. Some of them went into Lenny’s room, some into yours. I just sat on a bench outside to make sure they didn’t disappear you, but they soon came out, and one of them was saying you’d shot Lenny like a real pro. Good bullet placement, I think he said. Minimum damage, maximum effect.”

  “Oh, they liked it, did they? I just popped him in the right shoulder.”

  “So... that’s it, then? You’re a...” I shook my head. In broad light of day it sounded ridiculous. “You’re some kind of, like, secret-agent guy? And that’s why you do the escort work—as a cover, to investigate people?”

  Silver let go a long breath. He frowned at the cannula in the back of his hand. “I’ve never in my life been so tempted to say yes.”

  “But you can’t.”

  �
��And if you and I were to—I don’t know, go out together, go and look at a house in Oak Vale... you’d want me to stop.”

  The cannula looked painful, wedged between the fine bones. I’d been told it had to stay in place until he was discharged. On some level I was totally taken aback. How could I have any say? “I suppose,” I began awkwardly, “if I was... five years old instead of fifty, I might say something like I don’t want to share you. I might feel that.” I’ve never been so tempted in my life to say yes.

  “Why have I got my own room?”

  Okay, I’d put my foot in it. He’d asked, and I’d said the wrong thing. I tried to roll with the punch of the subject change. “You gave us a bit of a fright. I don’t know if you remember. The paramedics got you into the ambulance all right, but then you kind of passed out, and you were unresponsive all the way into the hospital. They were scared there was pressure on your brain, so they whipped you in here for observation, in case you needed surgery. But I think your scans came back okay. They wouldn’t tell me much. I’m not next of kin.”

  “I don’t have next of kin.”

  The lonely sound of that hurt my heart. “What about your nephews?”

  “I never listed them. Not my sister, either. If anything happened to me, I couldn’t risk exposing them.”

  “Oh. You’ve got lots of flowers,” I said awkwardly, as if that could console him. “Loads of them. They’re all on the desk outside.”

  “Everyone’s favourite concubine, eh?”

  His voice broke on the words. And I couldn’t bear that any better than Andrew could. I reached for him and pulled him up into my arms, not caring where my foot was, or what he did or why. “Ah, Sil. You’re safe now. You’ve got a bit of a dent in the back of your head...”

  “The shape of Lenny’s boot?”

  “That’s right. But it’s all stitched up. You’ll be fine.”

  “I am a secret-agent guy, George. Just barely these days, but I am.”

  I pressed a kiss to his brow. Carefully I released him and sat back. “Wow.”

  “I got recruited out of Cambridge. Sounds glamorous, but it wasn’t. Low-level undercover work in Eastern Europe, and my handlers—the guys who trained me and sent me out there—told me to bed our assets at will, since I was good at it.”

  “Assets? Oh—informants, right?”

  “In a way. People we’d turned, taught to stay in their places or their jobs and gather intel for us. They’d get a retainer fee, but I soon found out I could fix their loyalty, get more out of them, by... Well. It was twenty five years ago, which is why I can tell you a little about it. I might’ve been a bit of a hot property then.”

  “You’re a fucking scorcher now. Your poor assets must’ve gone down like dominoes.”

  “Why, thank you. And thank you for fishing my poor assets out of the fire yesterday. I know I said some things, George. I just want you to know... it wasn’t shock or concussion. I meant them.”

  My throat tried to close. But I could see uniformed staff going back and forth beyond the glass panels in the door, and I didn’t want to be found by them collapsed like a golden retriever over his master’s bed. “I meant mine too. Tell me the rest, though, Sil. Whatever you can.”

  “I joined the army after about ten years. Partly it was because I was sick of snooping around, but my service engineered my recruitment, so I just ended up snooping round in warzones instead. Spying on men who should’ve been my brothers-in-arms. Which is how I started tracking Lenny Price’s unit, and although I’d gone home long before they ran into that shitstorm in Aleppo—which I can’t tell you about, and I’m glad of that, because no-one should have that stuff in their head unless they have to—I remembered him when I saw him. Eventually.”

  “Bloody hell.”

  “I was glad, because it gave me a handle on him. Guys like Lenny are sometimes damaged enough to take an order, even from someone like me.” He chuckled, and sounded like himself again for the first time. “Must’ve put the shits up him when his whore pulled rank. How’s poor Jamie?”

  “More than a bit messed up. He still loves Lenny in a way, even after all that. Andrew’s taken him home for a few days to keep an eye on him.”

  “You were pretty funny, George. A knife to your throat, and you’re like, stop misgendering him, like that was your chief concern.”

  “Well, it fucks me off. You go through all that trouble—pain, surgery, dealing with your family and the paperwork, whatever, and some thug comes along and insists on calling you she.”

  “You’re something else. I’m glad you’re on my side.” He sobered. “Look, are you all right? Being held hostage can screw with people’s heads.”

  “It was only for a minute. You saved me. I’ve got his handprint on my shoulder, and a few bruises where he landed on me, and... Look.” I loosened my collar so he could see my throat. “This tiny little scratch, right here.”

  “Oh, my goodness. So you do.” Delicately he pushed the fabric aside, then pressed a warm-mouthed kiss to the spot.

  I tried to tell him I was fine. Instead what came out was, low and rough, “I want you so much.”

  He shivered with laughter. “Yeah? Well, you could have me right here and now if a team of medics weren’t about to walk in.”

  Quickly I sat up. I retreated to a corner of the room while the door swung open and uniformed bodies swept between me and the bed. Half of them were in love with Silver already, I could see: I knew so well that dazzled look of having met someone so kindly and good-looking you hardly knew where to put yourself. Everybody’s favourite concubine... As for me, I was everyone’s favourite invisible man. Well used to it, after a life with Melchior. I didn’t mind.

  But Silver shot a glance at me through a gap in the busy human fence around him, and then it was nothing like being with Melchior at all. Tough secret-agent guy as I am, the look said, all this shit has rattled me. Are you still there?

  I waggled my fingers at him. Yes. Still here.

  ***

  The room was quiet. Silver had fallen asleep almost as soon as the medics had finished checking his dressings and shining lights into his eyes. He’d gone under with the same thoroughness that had scared the crap out of me in the ambulance, but he hitched a half-smile when I stroked his face, pushed against my hand, and I wondered if deep, sudden sleep was a way he had to heal himself, to give his mind and flesh a break from a life I could hardly begin to imagine. All that, George, while you had your arse on a chair in the Civil Service. I remembered how he’d passed out on my shoulder after our first fuck.

  Life went on. Somebody was having a birthday. I could hear the tune picked out on the piano in the day room down the corridor, surprisingly lyrical for a poorly tuned and shabby upright. I had a string of appointments with Andrew and his eager team of builders, designers, tree surgeons and urban-renewal hotshots. I hated to leave Silver, but he was safe for now, lost in whatever dreams secret-agent concubines dreamt when the shouting, shooting and screwing was done. His long sable lashes flickered on his cheek.

  The birthday tune broke up into ripples and riffs. Through the panels in the doors, I saw the nurses and staff glance at one another, smile and point down the corridor. The volume notched up, and a melodic tornado began to storm through the walls, happy birthday to you meets The Ride of the Valkyries. I got up, frowning. Whoever this was would wake Silver up in a minute.

  And, of course, I recognised the style. The music stopped. Carefully I let myself out of Silver’s room. By the time I got into the corridor, there was the musician himself coming to meet me—accompanied by his missus, and, far from the least of my surprises, Andrew, holding Crispin while Sabrina wrangled the pram. “Hi, Melchior,” I said apprehensively. He did a lot of charity work, but I’d never known him venture into a hospital. “Whose birthday was that for?”

  He gave me a bright look. “Yours, as it happens. Divorcing you was one thing. Not having the decency to call you up on your fiftieth was rotten. It’s not
like we were estranged.”

  He came to me and kissed me on the cheek. I kissed him back, straightened his tie as I’d been in such long habit of doing. “Well, we’re not estranged now. That was lovely, Melchior. But why here?”

  “Well, we were worried, after you ran off yesterday, so I phoned Andrew last night. And because he’s stopped wanting to throw me into a lake, we had a chat. And he told me you and your new friend had been involved in some kind of gunfight, George. So I sent some flowers, and Sabrina and I were just taking Crispin to the V&A, and we thought we’d pop in...”

  I tuned him out, in favour of glaring at Andrew. Oh, man, you do have a big mouth. He shrugged at me by way of return: What can I say? And you can’t make too much of a fuss, George—look, I’m holding a baby.

  Sabrina appeared at my elbow, breaking into Melchior’s recital of horrors. Police! Knives and guns! Kensal Green! “Hello, George,” she said. “I know we’re both tremendous pains in the arse, and Crispin’s not much better now he’s getting to be like us. But Andrew said Silver had got hurt in the midst of all this, and we wanted to make sure he was okay. That you both were.”

  I believed her. If, on one level, the glittering Vogue girl just wanted a peek at the glamorous escort she’d heard about, her curiosity was benign, underpinned by her genuine wish to see Melchior’s ex doing okay. “I’m fine,” I said. “But Silver’s asleep, and—”

  “No, he’s not,” said Andrew. He was waving at the glass panel in Silver’s door. Turning round, I saw Sil propped up on one elbow, smiling and waving back.

  He had colour in his face. And, in a flash, I saw it all from his point of view—the loneliest man in the world, rootless, blown on strange winds across the world, from bed to bed, warzones and hotels. Maybe a room full of family—broken, dysfunctional, chattering, Crispin bleating in delight at the racket of it all—could be a good thing. Could be his, if he wanted. Could even be mine. Silver beckoned.