was on the edge of one of the national parks Peak District, Snowdonia, Dartmoor.. . You must've trained people yourself- you know how you listen to what they say and you don't quite listen, and sometimes you deliberately forget.'
Alex nodded. He knew what the other man meant. Part of you kept friendship at arm's length when you were sending a man into a situation of acute danger.
'So why was he telling you all this?'
'It was a place we went in Wales an MOD property in Eppynt Forest we were using for an escape and evasion exercise. There was a line of clapped-out cottages there and he said it reminded him of this place he'd once discovered with his dad, and told me the story.' Connolly frowned and blinked, and downed his whiskey.
'There was one other thing. The last time I saw him before the Box people came to take him away, we were up at the camp at Tregaron. We shook hands and I wished him luck, and he smiled and held up a key. At the time I had no idea what he was on about, but...'
'You think it was the key to that property?'
Connolly shrugged.
'Who knows?'
'And you can't think of any detail that might point to where this place was?'
'Alex, it was a dozen years ago. Anything was possible in those days and everyone you met had a weird story to tell. These things wash over you.
'Happiest time he ever knew?' mused Alex.
'Best days ever,' confirmed Connolly and flicked his cigarette butt over the low parapet on to the beach. 1 'Leaving out Scotland for the moment,' said Alex, thoughtfully kicking off his deck shoes, 'you've got the Lake District, the Peak District, the Cheviots ..
They had been back from Pablito's for less than ten minutes. Marie had called them a taxi and they'd left the hire-car at El Angel. the North York Moors, the Dales, Kielder..
'Alex,' said Dawn quietly, turning to the open hotel window and the twinkling lights of the port, 'could you please shut the fuck up and kiss me?'
Alex blinked. A warm tide of ephedrine-tempered alcohol raced through his bloodstream but for some imponderable reason his mind was clear. He stared at her. The Dawn Harding that stood before him now was no relation whatever of the vengeful bitch that he had been so unwillingly paired with in London. This Dawn Harding's face was flushed, her eyes were bright, her posture was challenging and expectant. A warm breeze touched her hair. With great care this was definitely no time to fall flat on his face he crossed the room towards her. His hands found the small of her back. Her eyes closed at his touch, her lips parted and she pressed against him, breathing hard. Wanting all of her at once mouth, eyes, neck, breasts -he practically lifted her off her feet.
'Quick,' she murmured, her fingers in his hair.
'Get me out of these clothes.'
Alex kissed her again until she was gasping and her fingers had left his hair and were scrabbling at the buttons on his shirt.
She tore the last two, but by then he had pulled the tight white top over her head and unsnapped the fierce little Wonderbra. Her breasts were pale, their upper curves touched by a slight pinkness from the morning's sun and very faintly damp.
She tasted of sweat and smoke.
Falling to his knees, he forced himself to slow down, explored her stomach with his mouth, ran the tip of his tongue down the line of tiny translucent hairs that descended towards the gilt stud of her jeans. Popping the stud, he eased down the zipper and began to pull down the jeans.
They stuck. He pulled again and she staggered, giggled drunkenly, and fell on to the bed with her legs in the air and the white Versace jeans around her knees.
Taking one of the legends, he tried to pull it over her feet.
'They're too bloody tight,' he breathed, swaying.
'Come on, Captain,' she said, looking up at him archly.
'If you can take down a Scud launch site behind enemy lines, surely you can manage my jeans in a hotel bedroom!'
Bracing his foot against the edge of the bed, Alex gave an extra-hard tug. They jeans came off in a rush and he fell heavily backwards on to his stitched thigh. The pain was intense and for a moment he lay there on the floor in his own half-undone trousers, swearing and laughing.
After a moment Dawn peered over the edge of the bed and saw the blood rapidly beading through the cotton. Lowering herself to Alex's side, she eased the trousers off and then hurried to the bathroom for cotton wool and surgical spirit.
'That's rather blown the romantic mood, hasn't it?' she murmured, pressing a swab to the wound.
'Still, while I'm down here I might as well have a look at the rest of the damage.'
As she poured and dabbed, Alex said nothing. The surgical spirit was cold against his skin. The sway of her small, neat breasts over his body proved a very effective anaesthetic.
He lay there as she eased off the dressings on his face and arm. He had been right in his early guess that a sensuous body lay beneath all that formal puritan grey. Her palely curvaceous form was overlaid with the faint musculature of one who exercised when there was nothing better to do with her time, but not otherwise. Her stomach was flat but soft, tapering towards the dark-blonde scribble of her pubic hair.
To tend to his arm she hunkered down over his hand. As bees to honey as she must have known they would his fingers moved upwards to meet her. She closed her eyes, pressed herself briefly and slickly against his palm, then continued in a businesslike way with her ministrations.
'Wait,' she told him a moment later.
'I'm concentrating.'
'So am I!'
'Let me get these bandages off I'm not into sex with Egyptian mummies.'
To remove the dressings from his face, she sat astride him so that Alex could feel the damp heat of her crotch against his chest. But her expression was serious, and when he reached for her breasts she frowned absently and slapped his hands back down to his chest.
'I hope you don't behave like this with all those army nurses.
'We don't get nurses in the SAS,' breathed Alex.
'We get some sweaty corporal called Dave or Ginge.'
'I told you to leave them alone. I'm going to have to be very rough with you if you don't.'
'I've been roughed up by experts.' Alex grinned.
'I can take it.
A moment later she straddled him and lowered herself on to him. For a moment she was still, then he felt a series of hot, up drawing waves. Nothing mattered except the absolute intensity of the feeling that for all their antagonism he knew they shared at that moment. And then, with a desperate dying cry which might have come from either or both of them, it was over and Dawn gently subsided on top of him. She seemed very young almost childlike with her scrubbed face and sleepy eyes.
'That was fun,' she murmured.
'Wasn't it?'
'It beats arguing.'
She settled herself against his shoulder.
'Please, will you be nice to me from now on?' she asked.
'I mean really, really nice?'
'I promise,' murmured Alex.
'And will you kill for me?'
He looked at her.
She wrinkled her nose at him and grinned.
'Well?' she asked.
'Will you?'
He smiled.
