Road Kill

“So he could have learned to hide it better. Or he’s been keeping his nose clean and something’s come up that’s got him involved again.”

“Like what?”

Sean shrugged again. “You tell me?” he said. “His girlfriend’s just been knocked off another man’s bike and damned near killed; his ex- – sorry – estranged wife has turned up out of the blue, running around with a psycho who likes to burgle his house when he’s not there and beat up his friends; and his son’s part of an illegal road racing gang who may be about to be prosecuted for their part in Slick’s death. Oh and, to cap it all, his boy might just be knocking off his girlfriend. Face it, Charlie, Jacob Nash is in the shit – we’re just trying to work out how deep.”

I sighed and rubbed a hand across my eyes, defeated. “OK,” I said. “I give in. You’re right. The thing is, what the hell is he mixed up in, and how do we get him out of it?”

“He may not want to be got out of it, have you thought of that?”

I didn’t answer that one right away, just met his gaze and held it. What are you saying, Sean – that not everybody wants to be saved?

“I know,” I said, “but I have to try.”

***

It wasn’t long before I dragged myself up to bed, hoping to catch up on some of the sleep I’d missed the night before, but it wasn’t to be. Instead, I lay awake for a long time after I’d turned out the light. Maybe I should start drinking decaf, but that wasn’t the only thing that kept me from sleeping.

Even after I’d talked it through with Sean, I still had no idea what Jacob and Clare might be caught up in. Again I berated myself for not seeing more of them lately. If there’d been something troubling either of them I should have been there to see it. Been there to offer my help.

Somewhere below me I could just hear Sean making phone calls in the study and I was washed with guilt that I’d dragged him away from his work.

And for what? He’d come because he’d heard the pain in my voice. He’d dropped everything and driven three hundred miles for no other reason than because I needed him. If there was one thing I didn’t doubt, it was the strength of his feelings for me.

Then I remembered again the way he’d calmly prepared to dispatch Eamonn, like he was a rogue animal who simply needed putting down. It wasn’t just the deadly skill he possessed, it was his apparent willingness to use it.

Not in a foreign country, hunted and on the run, in a desperate situation of kill or be killed. But in the middle of the English countryside, on a man who’d already been disarmed and who posed no immediate threat. The memory sent a cold fear clutching at my stomach, made me roll away and bury my face in the pillow.

Sean had been trained as a killer by the army, no two ways about it. That he’d found a legal use for that training and that instinct in civilian life was to his credit. But he’d been pushed to his very limit and beyond. What had he lost along the way?

I’d been frightened for Sean before. Of the danger he found himself in, of what it might do to him. But I’d never been personally frightened of him. My reaction tonight had shaken me more than I liked to admit. As if, by giving in to it, I was admitting he was out of control and dangerous. Even to me.

Perhaps especially to me.

I tossed and turned for over an hour. Eventually, I caught his soft footfall on the stairs. He didn’t know the house well, but he still intuitively managed to avoid the creaky boards. He moved along the corridor and paused, seemingly right outside my unlocked bedroom door.

I held my breath, not that it would make any difference. He’d be able to hear my heart hammering against my ribs anyway.

There was the slightest rattle of the old brass door handle being turned, the movement of hinges. I raised my head and peered into the gloom, but my own door had remained firmly shut. I heard the slight click of another door closing. The one across the corridor. The spare room Jamie had used last night.

I dropped my head back onto the pillow not sure if it was relief or disappointment that flooded through me.

Twelve

I woke the next morning to the smell of fresh coffee. When I opened my eyes I found that someone – it could only be Sean – had been into my room and left a mug of it on the bedside table while I slept.

I sat up in bed fast, twisting round to stare at the door, but it was shut tight. I reached out to the mug and picked it up carefully. Still warm.

I’m a light sleeper. The slightest noise usually wakes me but Sean had always had the unnerving ability to creep up on you unawares. When I’d been training there were times when I would have sworn there was something paranormal about it. Now I knew for sure.

Feeling twitchy and vulnerable, I grabbed a quick shower, dressed and headed downstairs, only to find the house was empty. I ducked my head into all the rooms but there was nobody there, not even the dogs.

From outside came a distant yipping noise and when I looked out of the kitchen window I saw Sean heading up from the direction of the river. He was walking through the tall grass towards the back of the house with a long easy stride.

Behind him came Bonneville, holding her head up high out of the seeds like a nervous swimmer trying to keep water out of her eyes. The only sign of the terrier was an erratic swirling disturbance through the grass around Sean’s feet and the occasional excited bark as she encountered something interesting and furry lurking there.

Sean was watching the swallows swooping and diving over his head and he was smiling. Every now and again he paused long enough to let the old Labrador catch him up, turning to scan the tree-line behind him while he