JACK
Six months earlier, Fulham Road,
Chelsea, London, UK
He had to get out, no matter the late hour, no matter the heavy downpour, or that her beautifully prepared supper would be cold.
When he had bound down the stairs in his jogging gear and muttered apologies about a hard day at the office, she’d said nothing. She just quietly watched him exit the front door into the howling wind and rain.
He knew she knew, that she searched his things, had found images, found the letter. He also knew she would never say anything about it, because that would mean facing an imperfection, and she didn’t do imperfect. He had to grow some balls and put an end to the sham. If only he had the spirit left in him to do so.
He turned right at the end of his street, crossed the road, and headed for the gates of the Grade II listed Brompton Row Cemetery—his haven. The black, heavy, twelve-foot-high iron gate stood locked for the night, but he had a secret way of clambering over the back of a neighbouring wall to gain entrance. He had the place to himself, a magical oasis of stone, trees, and grass; his breathing space in the heart of London.
A beautiful tourist attraction by day, with its glorious trees, large black crows, pigeons, squirrels, and a cruising spot for gays (headphones on and eyes straight, he could happily leave them to it). At night, the cemetery became his private forty acres of magnificent solitude.
He plugged his earpieces in, pulled a few stretches, and started the hour slog of circuits around the graveyard’s circumference. Dressed in black, with the half-moon in cloudy darkness, his figure took on an invisible aura.
Heavy rock music blasted in his ears, providing a base rhythm for his legs to keep a steady pace. His heart pumped as each step emptied his lungs and mind. Wind and rain stung his face as he weaved through tombstones, colonnades, and catacombs, pounding the ground of loved ones, buried and long forgotten. Wild flowers grew over graves where fresh ones had once decorated deceased souls’ resting places, their memories having dwindled in friends’ and families’ hearts.
He never feared the dark of night. Occasionally, he’d come across a random homeless person huddled against lofty colonnade columns or hunched in catacomb doorways, but in the main they kept to themselves. If anyone ever did approach him, he’d rely on his ingrained training, the instinctive skills gleaned from his army days.
A complete circuit took 11 minutes. Each time he passed her home, he looked over the fence to check if her light pushed the darkness away. The willing and waiting egged him on to the next circuit, until he was dead on his feet, empty, drained of emotion, and time to go home.
About to pass her, he glimpsed up at her window, expectantly, longingly. But nothing. His face turned away in disappointment, the building bathed in darkness, indicating she wasn’t home. He decided to jog around again, dragging his pace, just in case. He defied the icy rain despite his running trainers growing heavier with water.
When he’d discover her padding about her home, all cosy and alone, he’d covertly hide behind trees for hours, just admiring her and soaking in her beautiful face and smile. He’d anointed himself her secret guardian. He’d once shadowed her home from the tube station. He’d caught a pickpocket lining her up in his sights, and before the thief could strike, he’d wrapped his hands around his pathetic neck and dragged him into an alleyway. He promptly dealt with him, supplying a kicking that put him out of business for months.
When circumstances allowed, he would snap pictures of her, something to hold near when she wasn’t around. He hadn’t meant to, but he’d fallen in love with this girl. She consumed his thoughts, leaving room for nothing else. His relationship with Mara had deteriorated into a sad sham. Loving Amy added to his guilt.
His work offered him an escape; a stifling security consultancy office job, after years of frontline service. But it kept him away from home, until he figured out what to do. He didn’t miss the killing of frontline work, but he did miss the comradery, the banter, the feeling of family, of belonging. He’d given his all to the army, but he’d been chucked out due to injury, a bullet lodged in his head, too dangerous to remove.
He hadn’t meant to fall in love. He’d only meant to find her and make sure she was all right. Now, knowing she existed and wasn’t his, made his life hollow. He didn’t care if he lived or died. He sometimes willed that bullet to move and put him out of his misery.
Chapter Thirteen
Cloud 9
“We’ve had a complaint.”
Maggie stood at the window, looking out over a stunning sea of white clouds, her eyes followed the dips and troughs of mountainous slopes. The deep monotone voice resonated in her head.
“And?”
“Your flock is asking questions.”
Hands in her pockets, she closed her eyes and rolled her head back.
“What questions?”
“Questions.”
“Bollocks.”
“You are well aware of the consequences.”
“It’s a lie. Who reported it?” She snapped.
Looking over her shoulder, she saw a concerned Pyke peering around a screen, looking at her. He’d heard the anger in her voice. She waved him a quick reassuring smile, put her hand up, and mouthed ‘it’s OK.’ He went back to work.
Calm and seemingly in control, she strutted elegantly across the office towards the exit, giving a quick wink to Pyke as she passed.
“A reliable source.”
“They’re wrong.”
As she hit the hallway, she turned left into a door marked ‘Washroom.’
“My team members are bloody good workers. We have the best figures in the northern hemisphere,” she hissed.
“You are losing control. They’re going it alone,” the monotone voice continued.
She slammed the door behind her.
“For fuck’s sake, this is bollocks. Who’s telling you this shit? I demand to know,” she bellowed, punching the nearest thing to her—a wall-mounted hand drier.
“Shepherd them in or lose them.”
“Who’s your source? They’re lying to you, and you’re falling for it.” She stared at herself in the mirror, eyes ablaze, hands on hips, fuming. “It’s jealousy.”
“Consider this a warning.”
“Who told you this crap?” she demanded. “Tell me! Is it Gregori? Gregori Duval?”
Click!
The voice drifted into oblivion.
She slapped her ear, trying to reconnect.
“Tell me. Tell me.” She slapped the side of her head again, hard, dishevelling her perfectly groomed hair.
Silence.
She picked up a heavy metal rubbish bin; with a howling growl, she flung it across the room. It crashed into the wall-mounted mirror hanging above the sterile line of white sinks with a loud crack before falling to the ground and rolling slowly back across the room to her stilettoed feet.
Taking a deep breath, she stood in front of the sinks and checked herself in the fractured mirror. She brushed down her suit, neatened her hair, and smoothed imaginary smudged lipstick from the corners of her mouth. Calm, sophisticated, butter wouldn’t melt.
“I’m not going to let this happen again,” she whispered.
Grabbing the sides of a sink, she leaned in close to her reflection, eyeball to eyeball. Her warm breath hazed the glass.
“No fucking way.”
Chapter Fourteen
Alice
The Lanes,
Brighton, UK
She walked into the café, clutching her backpack. Dio said he would be there at 3.35 p.m., a pretty exact time. But from his text messages, she’d began to get the feeling he was a little anal about most things. His written word and punctuation were perfect: no short form or slang. Just beautiful perfect English. Although she had no idea what some of the words he used meant, she used a dictionary to look them up and learnt that ‘pulchritudinous’ meant beautiful, and ‘don’t absquatulate’ meant don’t do a runner. He was a little weird. She wo
uld have to be careful.
It was 3.28 p.m., and she had a few minutes to gather herself and work out what she would say to him. She wasn’t sure how she’d found herself in the situation of meeting a stranger; this wasn’t even her problem. She never could resist helping an underdog.
She scanned the cafe and settled on a corner table at the far side of the room. She placed her backpack on the chair beside her, her subtle way of forcing him to sit opposite her instead of directly next to her.
She ordered a coffee, took out a book, put on headphones, and positioned herself where she could clearly see the doorway and have the advantage of viewing the man before he joined her.
She would only have a few seconds to suss him out and decide whether she wanted to talk with him. If he looked dodgy, she would bury her head in the book, rock side to side to imaginary headset music, and pretend to be someone else. These days you had to be careful. Crazy people roamed everywhere out there.
At 3.35 p.m., the café door opened, issuing a blast of cold air against her ankles. She looked up to see who’d entered, but a waitress, shuffling towards her with a cup of steaming coffee, blocked her view. She rocked from side to side, trying to get a visual on the patron, but the waitress, a tad on the large side, took her time, balancing the full cup of brew, trying not to spill it as she travelled to Alice’s table.
Alice cussed under her breath and forced a smile of thanks as the lady placed it in front of her.
“There you go, dearie, one cappuccino. Do you need sugar with that?”
“No thank you…thank you,” she muttered, willing the waitress to get out of the way.
The waitress wandered on to the next table, collecting empty plates as she went. From behind her shadow, the man suddenly appeared directly in front of her. She had no time to calculate her next move.
She gauged him to be in his thirties, immaculately dressed in a navy pinstriped suite, white shirt, and coral silk tie. He pushed expensive sunglasses over his forehead onto a well-manicured mane of hair and beamed down at her with all the confidence of a wealthy, well-educated, spoilt rich kid.
“Hello. You must be Alice.” His voice rang with perfect upper crust English, what she would describe as posh. His handsome eyes sparkled at her, as if pleased to see her.
“Err, yes,” she replied, flummoxed, not expecting him to be so good-looking and feeling totalling unattractive in her cut-off jeans, baggy T-shirt, and travel-worn backpack “How do you do?”
What! Where did that come from? She never said, ‘How do you do.’ Urrgh! She was trying too hard.What an idiot.
“Do you mind if I join you?” he asked pulling out a chair opposite her, not giving her a chance to say no.
“No… err… go ahead.”
He raised his hand at the departing waitress, catching her attention. Giving her a winning smile, he asked for a black coffee. The waitress blushed and scurried off. He came across as a man used to getting his way.
Alice pulled her headphones out of her ears and placed them with her book in her backpack, biding her time whilst gathering her thoughts. She took a deep breath in through her nose, enjoying his smell. It reminded her of soapy sage and lemons, of a freshly cut summer garden. He was pulchritudinous. She smiled.
She couldn’t believe her luck.
Chapter Fifteen
Cloud 9
Jack and Amy landed in the office.
“Where’s the Boss Lady?” asked Jack.
“In the loo, having one of her heated calls.” Pyke poked his head out from behind a screen. “Not sure what’s been said, but she’s got that pink flush thing going on with her neck. You know…when she’s trying to be a level-headed lady but oozes her inner pissed-off bitch. Stay outta her way for a while. That’s my advice. How was Soho Sid? Did you upset his day?”
Pyke skipped over to the leather sofas and plonked himself down where Jack and Amy joined him. Amy sat beside him; Jack perched on the arm chair. All three stretched out their legs and propped their weary feet on the coffee table, enjoying a rare restful moment.
“Yep, he’s not going to be popular. His stock was stacked up, ready for collection. We rearranged the trigger mechanisms. Whoever uses them will have their faces blown off. We passed his buyers on the way out. They will not be happy.”
Pyke gave him a sideways look. “I just needed them to be out of action, not made lethal.” He shook his head with a sigh. “You keep stretching the rules, Jack. Boss Lady won’t like it.”
“I figured if you’re gonna buy a gun, you’re up to no good and you deserve to have your face rearranged a little. That’s 120 bad guys sorted for us in one hit…result.” Jack grinned.
“How many?” gasped Pyke.
“At least 120 guns. I lost count after a while. I think we can assume in a week or so, he’ll be out of business and on someone’s hit list.”
“I wanted him out of business, yes, but not with a pile of dead bodies.”
“Dead criminal bodies…what’s your problem? It’s their choice to pull the trigger.”
Pyke jumped up and walked over to a screen.
“What are you doing?”
“Sourcing the vehicle used to collect them and setting a Police stop. Let the cops discover the guns and seize them. They’re safer in a property store than out on the streets.” Pyke tapped at a keyboard with more of a flare than usual.
Angry, Jack jumped up off the sofa and stood menacingly behind him.
“If you can’t stand the pace, you shouldn’t be doing this job. We’re dealing with bastards here…class A bastards. You can’t be politically correct when dealing with bastards. We’re doing the job because no one else will or can. Look, I’ll take the blame.” Jack slammed his fist on Pyke’s screen, wiping out the command line he’d just inserted.
“When an innocent gets killed because you saved one of these arseholes, you’re gonna feel like shit, Pyke.”
“Yeah, but what happens if an innocent picks up one of these guns to defend himself and gets blasted to smithereens?”
“What if the criminals you’re letting get away buy more guns and kill more innocents?”
“For fuck’s sake, boys, shut up,” Amy shouted over their voices. “You sound like a couple of school kids.”
Pyke and Jack stared each other out, teeth clenched tightly. Amy stood between them, and put an arm around each shoulder, pushing their heads together.
“Look, we can work this out. Aren’t we on the same side?” She cuddled into them.
Jack pulled away. Amy noticed his awkwardness at her touch.
“For fuck’s sake.” Jack ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “OK, OK. Compromise… track each gun and I’ll move in if needed, if one gets into the wrong hands.”
“Deal.” Pyke capitulated, punching Jack in the shoulder.
“We’ve just made a load more work for ourselves,” moaned Jack. “Morals! Who fucking needs them?”
“It’s why you’re here,” bellowed Maggie as she walked into the room, composed and regal, her episode in the washroom forgotten. “You were chosen because you wanted to do good, stop bad, help the underdog…commendable principles.” She ambled to her desk and sat on its edge.
“I need to talk to you, all of you. Come here.” She crossed her arms in front of her and waited for them to gather around her.
Jack, Amy, and Pyke silently obeyed and trudged over to her desk. They stood in a semi-circle in front of her, waiting nervously. She seemed tenser than normal, unnerving them. If she was worried about something, they seriously needed to worry about it. Not much fazed Maggie.
“I need you to trust me. I need you to stop asking questions about what we’re doing here. Know that you’re an important cog in a large wheel, that you’re only here for a short period of time, that your work saves lives and corrects wrongs. I need you to trust and just get on with the work we’re given. Stay within the rules. No going solo. No taking on jobs without authorisation.” She looked each one in the eye.<
br />
Amy, Jack, and Pyke shuffled on their feet. Jack looked to the ground and Pyke shrugged his shoulders. Maggie pushed.
“Can you do that for me?”
Amy and Jack looked at each other. Amy took a deep breath. Jack could detect she was about to talk and piped up with a question to stop her putting her foot in it.
“OK, so sometimes there are moments when we walk into things on our way to a scene, situations requiring assistance, and I want to understand this. Are you saying that we have to turn away and not help?”
“Granted, there are the odd few moments when, if you call it in, we can catch up with the authority straight away, but that is not to become the norm. You cannot be seen taking matters into your own hands.”
“That is not what I signed up for. If I waited for some unknown board of directors to give instruction, it may be too late.”
“We can’t all go around correcting life as we see fit. There has to be some order.”
“Why not? We are all only here for the good.”
“Not all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ying and yang. Where there is good, there is bad. Obviously, we try not to let it happen. We adhere to a pretty strict door policy, but we’re not perfect. The rules are there to protect against the odd bad apple that sneaks in.”
“So, if someone is in trouble, we have to walk on by and wait for paperwork…brilliant.”
“Unless the person asks us directly for our help, then their request overrides the ruling, and we can attend immediately without waiting for permission.”
“How the hell are they going to ask us? Being invisible, they don’t exactly know we’re standing right there to help. They don’t believe. They don’t know how to connect with us, and therefore, don’t know they have to ask.”
“Some do.”
“A few do. We communicate with them, but not many. If we push them to do something that they haven’t asked for, it is coercive behaviour.”
“So we let them walk into dangerous situations.”
“We have to be asked.”
The Deal (The Fallen Angel Series Book 1) Page 9
