Never Coming Home

by Evonne Wareham

  He brushed back her hair, stroked it, soothed and took his own comfort. Christ, he was shaking. He was getting way too old for this aftermath shit. That’s why he was supposed to be retired. Pity no one told the bad guy.

  Right now he had a woman half-way between sobbing and hiccups in his arms. A woman, God help him, who mattered. He ignored the ice in his gut, concentrated on the warmth in his arms. So sweet, the fit. And he had to make this good.

  He shifted her upright, looking into her tearstained face. She was snuffling, but the tears had stopped. ‘All that stuff was supposed to be behind me, Kaz, I swear. I … I have a new life, new name, everything.’ He looked up, over her shoulder. Some things were better without eye contact. ‘I’ve done a lot of bad things. They were meant to be for good reasons, but hell … I don’t know. That’s why I stopped. But things sometimes come crawling back out of the past. Luce was one of them.’

  She sat up, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. He’d have offered her the sleeve of his shirt, except that it was kind of messy.

  ‘But you didn’t know – that this might happen?’

  He remembered in time not to shrug – too many bruises. ‘Luce was supposed to be dead.’

  ‘Oh … And now he is.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  She rocked a little against his arm. ‘How?’

  ‘It was a fair fight, as far as these things go. I don’t know if that matters.’ Yes it did. He could see it in her eyes and feel it in his gut. ‘I was down, the wrist was already gone. He ran at me and went through the window. I set it up that way. He’d already killed Bobby.’

  ‘And he would have killed you.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Then that doesn’t make it right, but it does make it … something. I don’t know.’ She shoved a weary hand through her hair. ‘Come on, I think we’d better get that wrist seen to.’

  Kaz straightened the car and stuck the payment ticket on the windscreen, then they headed for the entrance to A&E. Thankfully the place wasn’t crowded. Devlin handed the receptionist a chit of paper. Her eyes widened and she made a call. After that the formalities were whistled though, without question, in record time.

  Kaz raised an eyebrow as they took their seats in the waiting area.

  ‘Sometimes it pays to know someone.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  The triage nurse gave the bloodstained shirt a narrow look, but didn’t ask questions. Kaz wasn’t sure the doctor even noticed. The nurse in the plaster room was sharper, but accepted the story of a fall.

  The car park was full when they came out. Kaz led the way to her vehicle and they got in. Devlin’s face looked grey. There was stubble on his chin and white lines beside his mouth. They’d given him painkillers, but Kaz knew they weren’t enough. He needed to rest. But first. ‘Look. If you need – ’ She held out her arms.

  ‘Yeah, well.’ He hesitated, then leaned over, and into her shoulder. She settled her chin on the top of his head and just held on. Despite everything, he felt strong and solid and so right in her arms. Oh hell.

  After a while, Devlin sat up. Kaz started the car and the radio spluttered to life.

  ‘– at the junction with the M25. And on public transport, there are currently no trains running in or out of Paddington station, following an earlier incident in the Hayes area. Passengers are advised –’ Devlin punched the channel changer. Rachmaninov floated into the car.

  Kaz knew her eyes had saucered. ‘That was you.’

  ‘I guess.’ Devlin shut his eyes. ‘First time I’ve ever brought part of London to a halt. I think.’

  ‘My place, or your hotel?’ They were about to come off the A4.

  ‘Hotel.’ He needed to get out of these stinking clothes – and preferably burn them – and into a shower.

  ‘Oh, bugger’ he groaned, lifting the cast. ‘How the hell am I going to shower and keep this dry?’

  Kaz grinned. ‘You come to my place. I have everything you need.’

  ‘Cling film?’ Devlin narrowed his eyes as Kaz herded him into the bathroom.

  ‘You wrap the cast, and put it into a plastic bag. You still need to take care, to keep it out of the water, but it helps.’

  ‘And you know this how?’

  ‘Mum fell in the snow last winter and broke her arm,’ Kaz explained. She was already working on the buttons of Devlin’s shirt. He twitched away from her, fumbling, one-handed. ‘Devlin, you’re practically out on your feet. Let me help.’ She fixed him with a killer stare. ‘I have seen you naked.’

  She watched reluctance struggle with exhaustion and pain on his face, before he dropped his hand and let her get on with peeling off the shirt and jeans. She drew in her breath sharply as she saw the bruises blooming on his lower back and thighs. There was blood matted in his hair, behind his ear, and the palm of his right hand was grazed and swollen, when she turned it over.

  ‘Wood splinters,’ he explained, when she held his hand up. He leaned against the wall.

  ‘They would have dealt with this in A&E.’ She inspected the swelling, frowning.

  Devlin shook his head. ‘Didn’t want to hang around. Don’t like hospitals.’ He squinted at his hand. ‘Antiseptic should do it.’

  Kaz treated him to a sceptical look, but his eyes were on the jeans he’d just kicked off.

  ‘Do me a favour? Do you have a bonfire, garden incinerator or something?’

  ‘Yes?’ She was rolling up the stained clothing.

  ‘Burn those in it.’

  Kaz looked down and registered the state of the bundle, shuddering slightly.

  ‘Yeah.’ Devlin eased himself off the wall. ‘You gonna wash me, too?’

  ‘Don’t push your luck – go on.’ She tapped his back, feeling the tingle of awareness, touching his skin. Come on, the man’s bloody and exhausted. Let him alone.

  She looked up and found him grinning lopsidedly. ‘What if I drop the soap?’

  ‘If you do, you pick it up yourself.’ She grabbed the clothes and turned away, as Devlin stepped into the shower stall.

  She left the door to the bathroom open though, just in case.

  She got him dry – he jibbed at having his hair blow-dried, until she pointed out the disadvantages of a wet pillow – and into her bed. Whatever the hospital had given him was making him drowsy. He docilely gave up his good hand for her to tease the splinters out of the palm, and was asleep before she’d finished. Kaz straightened the covers and brushed his hair off his face.

  He was naked under her duvet, which might raise some interesting possibilities for later. Keeping him nude in her bed for a while, now there was a thought.

  She had the name of his hotel, and the key card for his room, retrieved from the pocket of his jeans, so she could go and check him out and get his stuff. She didn’t have to tell him about it, though.

  The key card slid smoothly into the slot. Devlin had put out the Do Not Disturb sign before leaving. Kaz left it there. The curtains were closed and the room was gloomy. She pulled them back and went straight to the wardrobe, dragging out Devlin’s half-full case and scooping up the jackets and shirts which were all he’d hung up. She carried them over to the bed, to fold them. And realised the geometric shapes covering it weren’t part of the duvet design but piles of papers neatly spread out all over it.

  She dumped the clothes in a chair and stood uncertainly for a moment. Did she want to look at this? Should she? Was this why Devlin had left last night? Something he didn’t want her to see?

  She stepped forward, shifting the piles gingerly, with one finger. Most of them she didn’t understand. Copies of bills and lists of figures. Except the cuttings. She slid them apart, heart beating a little faster. They were all about Philip’s death. Headlines screamed. Daylight Cop Killer, Death in the Park. And t
he bold, single-word slash Assassination.

  Something cold clawed at her chest. What had Phil’s death to do with Devlin? Was this stuff – oh, God – was she looking at trophies?

  She sat down heavily on the bed. Devlin was a self-confessed killer. What did she really know about him? Sex. They had sex. Brilliant sex. Even this morning, after everything and the state they were both in, she’d wanted his body. But she still didn’t know him.

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a bloody fool. He was with you when Phil was killed.’ But today another man died. ‘He’s never lied to you about what he is.’

  He’d called her this morning. When he’d needed help he’d called her. And she’d been scared. Scared that something really bad had happened to him.

  Because if it had …

  She smoothed out the topmost cutting. Phil stared up at her. It was an official photograph. He’d been collecting an award for gallantry. Tears welled.

  She looked around the room, focusing on a truly awful abstract painting that hung over the bed, to hold down a wave of grief. After a while the blobs and squiggles worked. She sniffed and stood up

  Devlin would explain it all to her. She had complete confidence of that. Complete confidence in him.

  She collected the papers carefully and put them into an envelope that was lying beside them on the pillow. It only took a moment to repack his clothes and fasten his laptop to the carrier on the case. When she left, she tossed the Do Not Disturb sign into the room behind her. In the foyer she dropped the key card into the box marked express checkout. The hotel would take the credit card charge automatically.

  Now Devlin had nowhere to run. She had a hostage. She’d make him talk.

  After she fed him breakfast.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Devlin fell out of the nightmare into blind panic. His body was slick with sweat. Naked body. Jesus. Where the fuck was he? Who the fuck had him? Why the fuck couldn’t he lift his left arm?

  It took ten seconds before he remembered.

  He lay on his back, waiting for his heart to slow down. He was in Kaz’s bed. Her scent was on the sheets. He inhaled gratefully. The weight on his wrist was a couple of pounds of plaster and bandage. Courtesy of Luce. He winced. In his dream Luce hadn’t gone through the window alone. At the last minute he’d hauled on Devlin’s leg and then they’d both been falling. And Bobby. He’d been there, too. Flayed, bloody flesh, shredding and splattering blood, as he fell through the air.

  Devlin put his hand over his eyes. He needed coffee. He needed to pee.

  He swung his legs over the side of the bed, reaching for his trousers, and stopped. No trousers. If Kaz had done as he asked, his clothes were probably at the bottom of the garden right now, smouldering.

  He padded, stark naked, to the top of the stairs. The house was very quiet, like Kaz had gone out somewhere. He called her name. No answer. There was probably a note somewhere downstairs. He thought about going down. Nah! He still needed to pee.

  The reflection in the bathroom mirror wasn’t encouraging. Basically, he looked like shit. The bruises down the side of his face weren’t too bad, but the rest of him more than made up for it. There was a tender spot behind his ear. When he investigated, he found a swelling the size of an egg. He craned over his shoulder to see the bruises on his back. He guessed, from the stiffness, that his butt wasn’t in much better condition. In the absence of coffee he skimmed his teeth with Kaz’s brush and took a glass of water back to bed. He drank it and lay down again, to stare at the ceiling and contemplate being totally and utterly at the mercy of Katarina Elmore.

  Kaz looked down at Devlin, stretched out in her bed. The arm with the cast was splayed awkwardly beside him. A wicked smile twisted at the corner of her mouth. All the stuff for breakfast was laid out on the counter down in the kitchen, but first …

  The second time Devlin woke, something was tickling his face. He brushed Kaz’s hair out of his mouth, without opening his eyes. She was laughing, close to his ear. The familiar Kaz scent of green fields and vanilla swirled in his head. He could feel her warmth.

  He did a mental status check. The broken wrist was supported on a pillow and there was another propped under his back, easing the pressure on the bruises.

  ‘I know you’re in there, Devlin,’ she purred in his ear. ‘Your breathing changes when you’re awake. You’ve been awake now for a minute-and-a-half.’

  Cautiously he opened his eyes. She was leaning over him, smiling.

  His heart jolted hard against his ribs. He stretched his good hand to the back of her neck, pulling her gently towards him. The soft, lingering kiss was as necessary as oxygen.

  Making love while in a plaster cast was awkward, but nothing was impossible if you took it slowly. Long, slow and languorous, and infinitely sweet. With laughter, and passion and a deep, poignant, unspoken undertow of regret and relief. The joy of being alive, spiked with the deep-dredged pulse of sorrow.

  In the aftermath she lay with her head on his chest. He stroked her hair away from her face.

  He’d almost said it, at the end, when she came apart in his arms. I love you.

  The words still whispered in his head. He couldn’t, shouldn’t say them. But there was something else he could give her. Something just as dangerous, in a different way.

  ‘Stuart Adams.’

  ‘What?’ She raised her head sleepily. He waited a beat. Her eyes widened, blank for a second, then she understood. ‘Your name.’

  ‘The one I grew up with. The real man.’

  She was shaking her head, half-propped on her elbow to look down into his eyes. Hers were so clear and so dark. Transparent, pure, untouched. And what was he? What did he have to offer that wasn’t stained with blood? The ache in his chest was threatening to choke him.

  ‘This is the real man.’ She spread her fingers against his chest. ‘It doesn’t matter what name you go by. It’s you, Devlin. Body and soul.’

  He pulled her down then, fiercely, to lie against his heart, because he needed so badly to hold her, and so that she wouldn’t see the sheen of tears in his eyes.

  The afternoon sun filtered softly into the room as they both slept.

  ‘Food.’ Kaz kissed Devlin’s nose and wriggled away from him, to sit on the edge of the bed. ‘Breakfast?’ She patted his good arm.

  ‘Breakfast in the nude.’ He opened one eye. ‘At 4:30 p.m.’

  ‘You can eat it how you like, but you do have clothes.’ She rose and grabbed her dressing gown from the hook on the back of the door, and slithered into it. ‘I collected your stuff. Your bag is on the landing.’

  Devlin sat up, carefully, frowning. ‘You went to the hotel?’

  ‘I’ve seen the paperwork. That’s in the bag, too.’ She sat down again, on the edge of the bed, to be level with his face. The blue of his eyes was chilled with pain. ‘I’m hoping you will explain it to me,’ she said softly. She heard his breath hiss out, in relief.

  ‘I wasn’t keeping it from you. I just needed to sort it out in my own mind first.’ He still looked troubled. She bent and kissed him, quick and hard. ‘Eat first. Then we’ll talk.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Devlin grimaced then grinned, as Kaz put his plate in front of him, with the bacon and sausage neatly cut into small pieces. Having only one hand didn’t hamper him in putting away the food in record time. Kaz re-filled his mug of coffee and pushed it towards him.

  ‘Before we get to that –’ she jerked her head towards the envelope sitting on the counter – ‘I’d like to know what happened last night. And why.’ She touched the handle of her own mug, decided against picking it up. ‘All those security types. You’re still one of them?’

  ‘Hell, no!’ The speed and the shock of Devlin’s response unclenched a small part of the tension that had racked up at the back of her ne
ck. ‘At least –’ Her chin came up as Devlin hesitated. ‘Officially I retired three years ago. They set me up with a new life, and a new identity. A fresh start, but I guess you really never leave. I was in a hole and I called them. They came.’ He reached over the table to touch Kaz’s hand. ‘I never intended to use that number again, but when it came down to it …’ He shifted one shoulder, wincing. ‘They still own a piece of me. Always will. That cuts two ways – what went down last night.’ His grin was crooked. ‘Something like that is capable of being a major embarrassment if it’s not handled right.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Kaz nodded. ‘Which might explain this.’ She pulled a copy of the Evening Standard out of her bag. ‘Cop Killer Suicide?’ She read the headline blasted across the front page, before passing the paper over the table.

  Devlin was scanning the article. His mouth had gone hard. ‘Suicide? Ties the ends up nice and neat. For which I guess I should be grateful.’

  ‘It doesn’t actually say that this man Luce murdered Phil –’ Kaz began hesitantly.

  ‘He did.’

  Devlin dropped the Standard and looked up, straight into her eyes. They weren’t hard. They looked … naked. The same way they’d looked upstairs for those few seconds, when she’d told him she’d seen the papers he’d collected. Desolate, and alone. Kaz shivered. This was real. She sat still and let him speak first.

  He sighed. ‘Luce was the professional fixer who was hired for all this. The car crash … everything. I need to tell you it all.’

  ‘Please.’ She wetted her lip. She had to ask. ‘Was … was it something that we did that got Phil killed?’

  ‘No.’ Devlin squeezed Kaz’s hand and let go. ‘At least, in a way maybe I did, starting all this. I honestly don’t know.’ She saw the doubt in his face. Something rocked a little, deep down. Devlin vulnerable? He was letting her see it all. She fiddled with a strand of her hair. He was still speaking. ‘I’ll tell you what I know, and what I suspect, but first I need to tell you about Luce. The guy I finally watched die at 4.30 this morning.’ He rubbed his fingers over the knuckles of his left hand, just visible over the cast. The skin was split and scuffed. ‘Luce and I were in the same line of business.’ Kaz watched Devlin as he took in a deep breath, then let it out. ‘I worked for … well, you saw them, this morning. Luce was mostly freelance. Liked to move around.’ Devlin’s eyes were dark, turned inwards. ‘There were rumours, even then, about how he got his results. Bottom line was, he got them. It doesn’t pay to ask too much. Well –’ He paused. ‘We were never going to be buddies but we did okay together, when we had to. Then Luce started bringing this kid along with him to the party. The boy was about seventeen or eighteen – nephew, brother, cousin. I never got to the bottom of who he was. Might even have been Luce’s son – his protégée, anyhow. Some people said they were lovers, but I don’t think so.’ Devlin shifted restlessly. ‘There was a job – it should have been routine – we needed someone to work on the inside. Luce suggested the boy. There was no reason not. It was meant to be routine, but somehow the job went bad. I don’t know whether they made the boy, found out who he was, or whether the kid panicked and blew it. Perhaps he tried to sell us out. Who knows?’ Devlin looked away, staring through the window to the garden. ‘They dumped him in a disused office block, out beyond Canary Wharf. He was still alive when Luce and I found him, but he was in bad shape. And they were expecting us. Maybe that was the object of it all along, us, not him. Maybe the job never was routine.’ He swallowed. ‘The place was rigged. Not a bomb, incendiaries. They planned on taking us all out, in a nice, tidy fire. I got Luce away, but the boy … he was dead before the fire took hold. Luce … he went crazy, swore that the kid was still alive and accused me of leaving him because he’d fucked up – that he was an embarrassment. I’d saved him because he was more useful to my paymasters, and abandoned the boy.’ Devlin stopped, eyes blank. Kaz pushed his mug towards him.