He put away his grooming equipment, thinking deeply. Not actually about Ben’s request, because it was fairly predictable what he was going to say to that given he’d engineered just this outcome, but about inspecting the cottage that afternoon. He was wondering whether he’d been rash mentioning a visit before he’d had time to check the place out himself. It had to be just right. He suspected, knowing some of the other properties he and Philipa had occasionally stayed in which were owned by her family, that it would be perfect, but it was a risk all the same.
“If that would help you out. Of course.”
Ben sagged with relief. “What time do you want to leave? To see this Duchy place?”
“Me? I’m not coming. It’s not fair to ask me, Ben. That was…before. Everything I did then was because we were in a relationship. I was trying to do what you wanted—be what you wanted me to be. Your boyfriend, I suppose, although I do feel that term slightly odd to apply to someone of my great age…”
He began to head back toward the house, but he had to stop and bend over, putting his hands on his thighs, his heart racing and his breathing suddenly very laboured. When Ben took his arm, though, he shook him off, and reflected bitterly that Ben had seen the first genuine response from him all day. “I’m okay.”
“You’ve overdone it.”
“Maybe.” Maybe it’s stress, Ben. Have you fucking thought about that?
He gave Ben a weak smile. “Philipa said to pick the key up from the estate office in Bovey Tracey after lunch.”
He began to walk again, his heart beating alarmingly fast. Maybe he was having a heart attack. Broken heart. It was ironic when you thought about it like that.
“Nik…”
“What?”
“Please come with me. I need…I want us to still be friends. Will you come as my friend?”
Friends. Was there anyone, ever, who unilaterally ended a relationship, blindsiding their partner, who didn’t ask that they still remain friends? Make this easier for me. Stop me from feeling like such a shit. It was so predictable it was almost endearing. But then Nikolas was having a hard time between finding everything Ben did endearing to thinking he wanted to beat him and make him hurt. Currently, he was erring on the side of endearment, which was good. The other route would be more—irrevocable. Truths that visceral, once told, couldn’t be recalled.
“…listening to me?”
Nikolas nodded. “What else would I be doing?”
“So, will you come, please—to see this place?”
This was worryingly easy.
As if he had any intention of Ben seeing it alone.
Either God was a complete fool or he was regrouping for a surprise attack.
§§§
The cottage was perfect. Isolated, dilapidated, cold, and squalid. At the end of a long, steep track between dry stone walls, it sat high on the edge of a tor in the middle of Dartmoor. The views were spectacular—if you could stay on your feet long enough to enjoy them in the wind. The Duchy ownership of the land went back at least four hundred years, but the original habitation of the place was much older, due to a natural spring that emerged from underground at the base of the rocks. At one point in time, the place had been a small working farm, and it still had a range of dilapidated outbuildings to one side of the yard. The courtyard walls were in a very bad state of repair, and it appeared as if the sheep, which roamed free on the moors, wandered in whenever they liked.
Nikolas stepped carefully around the carcass of an aborted spring lamb in the yard and murmured, “You can’t stay here. Even free, it’s awful. You’ll have to rent somewhere. Radulf, no!”
“How? I don’t have any money, Nikolas! A deposit alone would be more than I have!”
Nikolas, dragging the dog toward the door, suggested helpfully, “Maybe you could borrow some from Tim? Or the moron? I wish this bloody dog’s nose was as useless as his eyes and brain. Do you have the key? If he eats that thing he’ll be vomiting all night.”
Ben opened the door for them, and it was even more perfect inside. Basically a one-room-up, one-down, agricultural-estate-worker’s cottage, at some point it had undergone a renovation which had taken out all its character and left it in a decayed fifties time warp. In February with frost on the tors of Dartmoor, it seemed colder inside than out. The place was heated only by a range, which was hunkered down, squat and unhappy, against the far wall, with the original copper scuttle, tarnished and empty and sad, alongside it. There was a table, two upright wooden chairs, and an old sofa with the predictable broken springs and unidentifiable stains. The stairs went up from this room right into a tiny bedroom where once-bright wallpaper was peeling away in long strips from damp plaster. The toilet, Nikolas discovered, was outside the back door. That was gulag-good.
Pleased, Nikolas eased himself to sitting on the bottom stair. “What are you going to do? I have to get going. I’m driving to London early tomorrow.”
Ben turned from inspecting the range. “You’re not well enough.”
Nikolas shrugged. “I’m fine.”
“I’ll drive you.”
Nikolas narrowed his eyes as if considering this offer. He conceded with a nod, saw Ben’s quickly repressed delight, and added, timed to perfection, “Good idea, you can clear out all of your things from my house.” And then, because he could, and because he wanted Ben to feel as bad as he did at that moment, he added, “And Molly’s—from the new room I made for her.”
It was out there now.
Molly Rose.
Her status had never been defined.
Molly Rose Rider-Mikkelsen.
They’d defined nothing about their life together. Ben had remonstrated with him about this once—said nothing was clear about Emilia, Miles…Molly Rose. And he’d retorted it didn’t matter. That he’d made his own family. Words said in such surety of continuing, unfailing love that he’d not even said them ironically or defensively.
So how ironic was that?
“Why do I have to move…?”
Ben sank onto the sofa then jumped up as a spring apparently jabbed him. Nikolas almost pointed out that Ben might come to rely on such moments for pleasure soon, but he didn’t feel like making a joke about anything. He sighed. “Don’t be dense. I cannot have anything to do with Molly now, can I?”
“What do you mean? She’s your…”
Nikolas raised his brows in expectation, knowing full well Ben would be entirely unable to finish that sentence.
“Whatever she was to me, Ben, was because of you, because of what we were to each other…we were the foundations upon which I built—”
Nikolas stood abruptly and went back into the yard. It was getting dark already. He was glad. It hid his expression.
Who was it who had said that in war there were no unwounded soldiers?
He heard a noise behind him and turned, thinking it might be Ben. It was his more faithful companion. He’d mistaken the barn for the car, but that was okay. He was making an effort to be loyal, at least. Nikolas clicked his tongue and the dog trotted over.
Nikolas climbed slowly into the passenger seat of the car, his heart racing once more. Ben came out of the cottage, locking the door behind him.
As if anyone would stoop to breaking in or stealing anything from that sad pile of stones.
Ben got in behind the wheel, folding his hands on it, and resting his forehead on his laced fingers. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry, Nik. But I know that this is what God wants for us. This existence—this life—is so brief. I’m planning for the long term. So we…are you listening?”
Nikolas was too tired to respond. He’d tipped his head back and closed his eyes.
In the privacy of this darkness, feigning sleep, the planning went on while the flames rose higher and higher.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Nikolas felt well when he woke the next morning. Nothing ached, and he’d slept deeply. Physically, he was recovering. The jury was still out on the rest. He stretched out his
hand and stroked Radulf’s ears, twisting them around as the dog loved.
He had a large bed half empty now. Radulf had been more than happy to fill it for him. Radulf wasn’t a substitute for Ben, of course—in many ways Radulf was probably very thankful for—but Ben wasn’t Nikolas’s favourite person at that moment, so he was more than happy to wake up to odd doggy smells and annoying snoring.
“Bear!”
Radulf ignored him. He was on his back, legs akimbo. How much more dead could any dog look?
Nikolas suddenly felt so well that he thought he’d go for a swim.
It had always been his safe place.
He dove noiselessly into the cool blue water, and it welcomed him, invigorated him. Butterfly was his preferred stroke, and he forced himself into its seductive rhythm now, despite the pain in his shoulder still.
Usually he swam a couple of miles a day, one in the morning and one in the evening, eighty lengths of his pool each time, but he wasn’t strong enough to keep up the pace for more than a couple of lengths now, so he turned on his back and sculled along for a while, thinking.
He sensed Ben watching him before he actually saw him. He was leaning in the doorway to the kitchen, not hunkered down on the edge of the swim lane, following each stroke as he usually did. When Ben saw he’d been observed, he intoned flatly, “Breakfast is ready.”
Nikolas flipped over once more and strode to the edge, propelling himself out of the water. He picked up his towel and padded into the warm kitchen, rubbing his face and hair.
“Aren’t you going to change?”
Bare chested, Nikolas sat down in his wet shorts. “It’ll get cold.”
Ben twitched his nose and sat too.
“Did you sleep well?”
Ben shrugged.
“What time will you be ready to leave? For London.”
“I—It’s Sunday.”
“All day, I believe, yes.”
“I have to…I’m going to church.”
Nikolas stopped playing with his food. In all his planning, such a factor had not occurred to him. He’d assumed that this…whatever this stunt Ben was pulling was…had been created in Ben Rider’s very strange brain. Out on the ice, when Ben had thought he was dead…which is why he was being so generous with Ben about things now—finding him mostly endearing. Ben did odd things when he thought he was dead. It was almost flattering.
But it had genuinely not occurred to Nikolas that Ben had allies. No, Ben had been subverted. Someone had got to him.
He cut a piece of bacon in half, considering his next move. “I didn’t know you’d been going to church. Do you mean our chapel?”
“No, of course not. It’s a group I met. Called New Hope. They have a church in Plymouth. New Hope Through Purity. It’s in Hartley.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t look like that. They’ve been really helpful. Showing me the way. Encouraging. Explaining things to me. Making me read…and think…”
“Uh-huh.”
“I knew you’d be like this. They said you would.”
The casual assumption that a group of newly hopeless puritans would know anything about how Aleksey Primakov would think or act made Nikolas feel calm all over, a sensation he’d experienced once or twice before in his life when faced with insurmountable odds—the utter certainty that there was now nothing to lose, and thus he was free to do whatever it took to ensure victory.
He took a sip of tea. “What time will you be back? I might take the opportunity to use the gym while I wait.” As if.
“What?” Last time they’d been in the gym together, they’d been extremely experimental with some of Ben’s training equipment. Nikolas knew with complete certainty Ben was remembering this now. Different angle of penetration was given a whole new definition when it was actually one hundred and eighty degrees new.
Unfortunately, he was now recalling it, too, so he dropped his towel casually over his lap and began moving his breakfast around the plate, slicing the bacon into tiny strips that he had no intention of eating.
§§§
They didn’t set off for London until after mid-afternoon.
Nikolas had packed his bag and was waiting diligently in the kitchen with Radulf, who was accompanying them.
“Bear!”
Radulf dropped and Nikolas was laughing as Ben emerged from the room he was using. Ben didn’t look as if he’d ever find anything amusing again and began to walk toward the car.
Nikolas followed. “Good…praying?”
“Don’t. You’re not being funny.” Had Ben Rider just slammed the door of his two-hundred-thousand-pound vehicle?
Superb. “I wasn’t trying to be. I’ve hardly ever been to church. I wouldn’t know what to do if it wasn’t a funeral.” Doors should be shut with a modicum of decorum, as he’d just helpfully demonstrated.
“We have a meeting. Talk. Some study…”
“Did you tell them about moving out of the house?”
“Yes.”
“Are we actually going to drive? What did they say?”
Ben swung the car around on the gravel, and they began to climb toward the ridge. “They said it was an important step. In the uncoupling.”
Uncoupling? Nikolas bit his lip and didn’t comment.
As they were passing Exeter, he murmured neutrally, “Philipa needs your answer on the cottage. What should I tell her?”
“I’ll take it. It will be fine. Tell her it’s very kind of her to let me have it for nothing.”
“When will you move in?”
“How soon do I have to be out of the glass house?”
“It’s not like that, Ben. It’s your house. Of course it is. If you want to—”
“Tomorrow. I’ll move out tomorrow.”
“All right. Let me know if you need any help carrying things. I’ll recommend someone.”
“I don’t have much.”
“That’s true.”
“But I—I need my gym equipment.”
Nikolas raised his eyebrows. “I think your treadmill alone is bigger than the floor space in the cottage. That’s a little impractical.”
“But I need it.”
“You could always join a gym in Plymouth, I suppose.”
Ben gritted his teeth. Nikolas could see this out of the corner of his eye.
“I can’t afford gym fees.”
Nikolas sighed. “I wasn’t going to mention this but—”
Ben turned his head, a quick flash of anger in his gaze. “I’m not taking money from you any more, Nikolas. That’s not how we are now. How I want to be. How it has to be.”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t going to offer to give you any. I was going to suggest that maybe it was time you started thinking about getting…a job.”
Ben’s jaw swelled on the furious grinding he was apparently putting his molars through.
Nikolas left a little pause and added helpfully, “Perhaps I could ask around some people I know.”
“In London? A job in London?”
“Oh, you were thinking of working somewhere else?” Ben hadn’t been thinking about gainful employment at all, which is why Nikolas had mentioned it.
Ben shook his head. “No. That’s fine. If you could. Thank you.”
Nikolas was tempted to reply, “You’re welcome,” but he’d never heard anyone pull off that line with sincerity.
They remained silent for the rest of the journey.
§§§
Nikolas felt an immense surge of relief at seeing Peyton’s anxious face peering at him through the new doorway that separated their living spaces. He politely excused himself from Ben, stepped through to mission control and shut the door, leaning on it, his eyes closed.
“You look like shit.”
“Good shit?”
“Yep.”
“Okay.”
“He bored with fucking you around yet?”
“Nope. And he’s not. Not intentionally.”
“Huh.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying.”
“Guess what?”
“Surprise me.”
“Hotel you went to? Back of fucking icy beyond? Fully booked through to summer. Scene of the Mattie Mayberry Defence.”
“The what?”
“That’s what they’re calling it. Not his murder but her defence. All her albums gone platinum. Gonna probably make a movie about it. I said call it The Defence of Mattie Mayberry. Catchier.”
Nikolas sank into Peyton’s spare chair after inspecting it closely. “I’ve got work for you to do.”
Peyton cracked his knuckles theatrically. “All the money’s gone. I left one thousand and six. I thought it was a nice touch.”
“It was. This is about a group. Called New Hope. Works out of Plymouth.”
“Mafia? Russian mob?”
“Worse.”
“Okaaay. What you want me to do with ’em?”
Nikolas considered this, swinging the chair to and fro a little. “First, find out all there is to know on each member. I want medical and bank records, e-mails, all the usual social media shit, preferences in bed particularly. Find out about relatives—old ones, children…anyone vulnerable.”
Peyton Garic, who was taking all this down with his keyboard, paused. “And then?”
“Then? Then I’m thinking we might bring them a little closer to God. What do you say?”
“I say fuck me like an animal.”
Nikolas rolled his seat a little further away.
Peyton frowned. “It’s the lyrics.”
“The what?”
“Of that song. Closer to God.”
“There is a hymn with the words fuck me like an animal?” Nikolas nodded as this confirmed something he’d always thought about organised religion. “Then that’s exactly the kind of cosy-up with God we’ll give them.”
§§§
Tim dropped by the next day. He and Squeezy had visited Nikolas in the hospital almost every day, staying with Ben in the glass house, so they knew Ben had been seeing a lot of some new friends in Plymouth. The weirdoes according to Squeezy. After Tim’s initial comment about Ben’s descent, and his very strong suggestion that Ben not attend any wacky, cult church just for a harmless look see, things had been a little frosty between the three of them. With the added guilt of not telling Nikolas about these church visits, which they’d apparently decided upon when they’d seen how sick he genuinely was, relations were still strained.
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