The Sugared Game

by KJ Charles

  Will agreed to this, rather than listing the multiple acts of violence that had taken place in or around his bookshop last year. Beaumont prodded unenthusiastically at his food. “So, that girl you were with, in the dress. Is that a serious sort of thing?”

  “She’s not my girl. We’re just friends.”

  “Oh. Why’s that?”

  In part it was because Will had been down to his last shillings at the time things could have gone down that path, and by the time he was solvent enough to ask her out without losing his self-respect, their relationship had grown into a quite different shape. He didn’t feel like explaining that. “She’s the modern sort. Not interested in settling down. She’s starting her own business.”

  “Good Lord. Do you ever have the feeling the whole world changed while we were away and nobody bothered to mention it to us?”

  “All the time.”

  “And it changed us,” Beaumont pressed on, staring at his plate. “One forgets how much. Do you know what I mean? I’ve gone about my business as best I can, day by day, and then I see someone from the old days and I suddenly think, what would I, the man I was back then, have made of me now? If you’d told me at demob this was where I’d be in five years—”

  “It’s not that bad,” Will said, hoping to cut him off. “At least you’re working. I’d have carried bricks or dustbins if anyone had let me, so champagne seems pretty good.” That got a weak sort of smile. “We’re doing the best we can. That’s something to be proud of, isn’t it?”

  “Is it? How old are you, Darling?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “And not married? Is there anyone special, if it isn’t the armful in the dress?”

  That was another question Will had absolutely no desire to answer. He took a mouthful of steak and kidney pie to give himself time.

  Kim Secretan had unquestionably been special. They’d met back in November, in the course of dramatic events that had involved Will antagonising a criminal gang and upsetting the War Office, and they’d fit together. They didn’t belong together—Will was a plain man with a knack for violence, while Kim was a twisty upper-class bundle of nerves—but they’d fit.

  Will had walked out with a few girls, and had a few encounters with men during the war, but the intense crackle of attraction with Kim had been something altogether new to him: an overwhelming physical pull combined with a deep, instinctive liking. It had been an intoxicating combination of meeting minds and bodies and desires almost overwhelming in its power, right up until he’d discovered just how much Kim was lying to him.

  And afterwards, if he was honest. Kim had lied and lied and lied again, and Will had fucked him in the full knowledge that he was a lying bastard. You might even have called it making love during one long, strange night for the pleasure they’d taken in pleasing one another, right before Kim had saved his neck and betrayed him all over again.

  They’d fought, with each other and with their joint enemies; they’d fucked; they’d killed. When it was all over they’d gone to the pub once or twice, had another night together. It had felt like something that might go somewhere. Like a beginning.

  Will hadn’t thought twice when Kim had said he was leaving London to stay with Phoebe’s family for a week around Christmas: that was what posh people did. And he’d returned promptly enough, dropping into the bookshop on the second of January, supposedly to offer belated compliments of the season though within about four sentences he was on his knees, pleasuring Will in the back room. It had been spectacular stuff, raw desire played out in desperate, panting silence, leaving Will with a dozen finger-mark bruises on his hips and a glowing warmth that was to do with more than just an excellent Frenching.

  And then Kim had said, as he was leaving, “I expect to be rather busy in the near future,” and that was it.

  Will hadn’t seen him since. Kim hadn’t answered his telephone when Will had called to say he’d had his own ’phone installed, and he hadn’t replied to either of the messages Will had left with his manservant. The only reason Will knew the bastard wasn’t dead was that Phoebe would probably have mentioned it, since she was engaged to marry him in summer. He’d vanished like a ghost, leaving Will to realise how little there was between them: a lot of lies, a few fucks, a thread of intimacy and liking far too fragile to weave into anything that might cover the gaps.

  He hated that this was still such a sore point. Kim had ended things, by deed if not word, close to two months ago. He ought to be no more than a pleasant memory by now, or an unpleasant one, depending on which part of their acquaintance Will was thinking about. He bitterly resented his continual awareness of Kim’s absence, that he still thought about their three nights together when he was taking matters into his own hands, that he wanted to know why he’d been treated with such indifference.

  That last was particularly stupid. Of course Kim had buggered off as unpredictably as he’d appeared, because he was an untrustworthy shit and a lord. There had never been any other possible outcome. Only, while he was around, he’d given Will a taste for starlight.

  He’d finished his mouthful some time ago, and Beaumont was looking at him with a raised eyebrow. Will made himself smile. “Sorry. There was someone a bit ago. Didn’t work out.”

  “That’s a shame. Wrong girl, or right girl, wrong time?”

  “Oh, everything wrong. Absolutely everything, right from the start. I should have known.”

  “No, you shouldn’t,” Beaumont said with startling vehemence. “We don’t think about what’s wrong when we meet someone special, do we? When you find someone who’s absolutely, utterly right except for that thing that makes it wrong, you’d have to be some sort of plaster saint to resist, and why the devil should we? We’ve only the one life and we damn near lost that in Flanders, you and I. Why shouldn’t we live now?”

  Will gaped at him for a second, bewildered at what he could possibly know, before he realised. “You mean you’ve met the wrong girl? Or is it the right one?”

  “The utterly right girl, at the worst possible time. Oh Lord. What am I going to do?”

  Will gave a small internal sigh, but there was only one thing he could say. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  HE WALKED HOME TO STRETCH his legs. It was cold and wet in the drizzly way of London Februaries, but the exercise was a relief.

  He hadn’t spent time with an old comrade in while, and he rather thought he might not seek that out again. Beaumont was a reasonable sort of chap, if a bit inclined to moan, but they had nothing in common except their service and they’d both known it. He’d taken the opportunity to pour out his heart precisely because he expected not to see Will again, much as a man might confess all to a stranger on a train.

  Will could see the appeal of that. He’d have loved to have someone nod along to his own complaints and agree that Kim was a disgraceful unreliable swine who was entirely at fault for the whole thing. He couldn’t do that, so he’d played the sympathetic ear for Beaumont and got the expected story: an affair with a married woman who couldn’t divorce her husband for reasons Will hadn’t listened to. His mind had been elsewhere. It was both enraging and predictable where his mind had been.

  Kim had disappeared from his life by choice. He’d decided Will was no longer interesting or useful or whatever it was, and he’d gone without troubling to say farewell. And if Will had been able to spill that out to Beaumont, he’d doubtless have sounded every bit as pathetic as his old lieutenant, whining about what might feel like a grand passion to the participants, but looked to anyone else just like every other sordid affair. It was a good thing for his self-respect that caution and the law had kept his mouth shut.

  He was nearly home, and he didn’t feel like going home. He surely deserved some sort of redress for what had been a rather disheartening evening, so he nipped into the Black Horse on the corner of May’s Buildings. A pint, a game of darts, and a chat about the football scores would be just what the doctor ordered.

 
It did indeed make him feel better, so much that he stayed for another pint and didn’t head down May’s Buildings till past ten. The alley where his bookshop lurked was an obscure little passage off St. Martin’s Lane, still not blessed by street lighting. Will let himself in the front door by feel and didn’t put on the electric, not being made of money. He made his way through the maze of shelves and books to the back room, let himself into the yard to use the outhouse, locked the door again behind him, and headed up the stairs.

  And stopped on the first turn, because there was a light on in his bedroom.

  Zodiac, was his first and instant thought. He retreated three silent steps backwards, giving that urgent consideration.

  Zodiac was behind the trouble he’d had in November, an organised criminal gang operating at a disturbingly high level. He’d killed one of their members and been instrumental in putting a stop to a very nasty scheme. They hadn’t sought vengeance yet, but the thought they might was never far below the surface of his mind.

  There was no reason they’d come for him now. It might just as well be burglars, except that his front and back doors had both been locked. Most likely he’d simply left the light on.

  All the same, he backtracked soundlessly to his desk and picked up the Messer, his old trench knife, which he’d taken from a German sentry once he’d ensured the man would have no further use for it. Like him, it was a practical relic of the war: it had an eight-inch blade that took a razor edge, and if he’d been the sort who notched the handle for every kill, it would have looked like fretwork.

  Knife in hand, he slid back up the stairs, avoiding the points that creaked, with a flutter of the old excitement in his gut. He paused outside the bedroom door and listened.

  Not a sound. He was probably making a fool of himself over a forgotten light, though at least there would be nobody here to see him do it. Still, no point taking a risk. He adjusted his grip on the Messer, narrowed his eyes against the light, and slammed the door wide open.

  It bounced off the wall, rather than hitting anyone on its way there. Will took two quick steps forward, keeping his back to the wall and the knife out, and scanned the room.

  There was a man sitting in his armchair, reading one of his books. As Will stared he looked up, gave a quick flick of a smile, and unhurriedly marked his place with the dustjacket flap.

  “What the bloody hell,” said Will.

  “Good evening,” said Kim.

  Chapter Three

  Will gaped at him, lost for words. Kim raised a brow. “Do you always enter bedrooms so dramatically?”

  “I thought you were Zodiac. What’s wrong with the front door?”

  “I didn’t want to announce my presence to anyone else.”

  “Why not? What are you doing here? And come to that, how did you get in?”

  “Your back window.”

  “Again? For crying out loud. I only took the nails out last week!”

  “For which I’m glad,” Kim said. “It would have been unsubtle to smash it, and defeated my purpose.”

  Will glowered at him. “Which was what?”

  “Getting in here without anyone noticing me.”

  “It’s a shop. You can walk in without anyone paying attention all the time. I wouldn’t pay attention if you walked in.”

  “You’re a born bookseller,” Kim agreed. “Sadly, I need to be a bit more careful than that.”

  That wasn’t greatly surprising. As Will understood it, and subject to the very real possibility that Kim had misled him, he solved problems in secretive ways for British Intelligence in one form or another. “Who is it now? Zodiac? Did you annoy the Reds? Or is the War Office fed up of you? I wouldn’t blame them.”

  “None of the above,” Kim said. “I’m being blackmailed.”

  Will considered that statement, then put the Messer on his mantelpiece and sat down, on his bed since there was only the one chair and Kim was in it. “By whom?”

  “That’s the question, but let’s not plunge straight in when I haven’t even asked how you are. How are you?”

  Will glowered at him. “We both know you’re here for something. You might as well tell me what.”

  “We can still observe the niceties. And I am aware you might not care to hear my woes, in which case you should have a chance to say so, thus saving us both a tedious recitation.”

  “Is that your idea of an apology? It is, isn’t it? You behave as though I never existed for months, turn up when you want something, and that’s the best y­­ou can do?”

  Kim gave a tiny shrug. “Do you want an apology?”

  Will bit back a fervent ‘yes’. He was deeply pissed off, but Kim didn’t owe him anything and never had. It didn’t work that way. Will wasn’t a country girl, courted and cast aside by a London seducer, and it would not do to give the impression that he felt jilted. Kim’s demeanour gave no indication of regret, still less a desire to resume relations, and Will was damned if he’d embarrass himself by behaving differently.

  “What I want is a drink if I’m going to have to listen to whatever damn fool thing this is,” he said. “I suppose you want me to hit somebody for you.”

  “I was hoping to approach the subject with a little more finesse.”

  “Wrong shop. Whisky?”

  Kim was an amateur mixologist with a well-stocked cocktail cabinet in his mansion flat. Will kept a bottle of cheap Scotch on the mantelpiece. He sloshed it out and handed Kim a tumbler.

  Kim sipped the neat spirit with a wince as Will kicked off his shoes and stretched out his legs on the bed. “Thank you. So how have you been?”

  “Much as I was since you last popped in. Get on with it.”

  “No finesse at all,” Kim said plaintively. “Very well, if you insist. I made what one might consider a small error of judgement last week. A young man got talking to me in the street and I invited him back to my flat. I’m sure I needn’t go into details.”

  “Not really,” Will said, as drily as he could. Fucking hell, Kim. If you wanted to suck someone off, you could have come round here.

  “He stayed for two hours. I know the time exactly because that was what he said while informing me that he had someone outside who’d testify how long he’d been in my flat, while he would swear to the number and variety of acts committed.”

  “For God’s sake.” This stung like hell, no matter how he told himself it shouldn’t. Kim could pick up trade in the street if he wanted; it was none of Will’s business. “Still, it’s your word against his and we both know you’re a good liar. I hope you told him to clear off.”

  “I did not.”

  “You paid up? You bloody fool. How much did he tap you for?”

  “I told him only had ten quid in the house, and he settled for that without much argument.”

  “It’s not bad for two hours’ work,” Will said. “Especially since I expect you did most of the work anyway.”

  He regretted it as soon as he’d said it. He was entitled to be rude about this, extremely so, but Kim liked to oblige in bed and had taken abuse for his tastes in the past. For all he deserved, he didn’t deserve that.

  Kim’s brow was arched, with a little sardonic smile on his lips, the sort of expression that said, You can’t hurt me. Will clenched a fist, annoyed at himself. “Sorry. That was a shitty thing to say.”

  “You needn’t worry about my feelings.”

  “I don’t. I just didn’t mean to hurt them that particular way.”

  Kim’s brows twitched. “No offence taken.”

  “Yes, well, take this: you’re an idiot for paying him a penny, because that’s an admission. Now I’ll have to beat the daylights out of him when he comes back.”

  A sideways sort of smile slithered its way onto Kim’s face. “Is that an offer?”

  Will sighed. “Just call me when he turns up.”

  “That is remarkably kind of you, Will.” Kim sounded entirely sincere. “I really do appreciate it. But it’s not necessary.”
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  “It will be. You’re a rich man, and he’ll know that if he’s been in your flat. I doubt he’ll settle for less than a hundred.”

  “In his place I’d have demanded two hundred up front, no dancing around,” Kim agreed. “The fact that he didn’t suggests he cared far less about cash in hand than about proving I’m vulnerable to blackmail.”

  Will sat up. “And why would he want that?”

  “Because I’ve been nosing around some things people would prefer me not to.”

  “Of course you have. For the War Office?”

  “I told you, I don’t work for the War Office.”

  “You’ve told me lots of things, and at least two-thirds were barefaced lies,” Will pointed out. “And I think you’ve just told me another, come to that.”

  “Me?” Kim said innocently.

  “You’re doing hush-hush work, someone tries an obvious bit of entrapment, and you expect me to believe you didn’t realise what was going on, and paid up in a flap?” Will saw the twitch at the corner of Kim’s mouth, which emboldened him to say, with certainty, “You prick. What are you lying about now?”

  Kim’s expression broke into the wolfish grin that brought up the hairs on Will’s arms. “I do enjoy you, even if you ruin my fun. It is possible that I saw him coming a mile off, yes.”

  “So why would you fuck him? No, wait.” Will took a quick mental skim back over the conversation. “You didn’t say you did. So what happened, he just hung around chatting and making passes, and then said he’d accuse you anyway?”

  “It’s an incredibly common tactic,” Kim said. “A youth wangles his way into a bachelor’s flat and threatens to make claims on how the time was spent. The bachelors frequently pay up if they don’t have a witness to the contrary, or at least that’s their story and they’re sticking to it. I expect a fair few of them are actually paying for services rendered, but who am I to criticise?”

  “You’re right there. And who was the witness to the contrary that five quid says you had lurking?”