As I stood by the phones, more and more anxious about being seen, I realized that I no longer had to be. I could call Kelly from the mobile. We walked back toward the apartment in silence, Sarah still with her arm around my waist.
As I closed the door behind us, she went to wash her face. I put the kettle on. I thought about what Sarah had said. I didn't normally remember the deaths I'd seen, but I could see the body of Kelly's little sister as clearly as if she'd been slaughtered yesterday. Whatever happened, Josh's kids weren't going to go the same way. But should I tell him, and risk him doing his job and telling the Secret Service? I would in his shoes, but did it even matter? Would the ceremony go on if he did? Yes, of course it would. But what about the source? Would it affect the timing of the hit?
As the kettle did its stuff I bent down to pull the deep-freeze plug from its socket, then stopped myself. Things had changed, but pulling it would show her that she'd been right about me. I decided to leave it where it was.
I walked around the breakfast bar toward the sofa. What the tuck was I going to do about this situation? My first reaction was to tell Josh and get him not to tell a soul, but that wasn't going to work. Even if, like me, he didn't give a shit about the brass in the White House, he would about the kids. Then he'd be smack in the middle of the same predicament as me.
Some of them must be his friends' kids, and then friends of his friends.
Soon every fucker would know the score.
Sarah came from the bedroom, her eyes still red, even after her wash up
She saw the steam rising from the kettle and walked past me to make the brews. I checked my watch.
A different female voice answered this time.
'Oh, yes, she's on her way, she should be here any moment.'
'Thank you.' I cradled the phone in my shoulder, expecting a wait, but almost at once got 'Hi! Why are you calling me again, what's up?'
At first I thought I should try not to sound as if I was talking to a child, then I decided not to bother.
'Nothing, just checking you've cleaned your teeth.' It got a laugh out of her.
'Have you got your address book with you?'
'Sure have.'
'All right then, I'm after Josh's number, because I'm going to the airport in a minute. Guess what? I'm going to Washington and maybe I'll get to see him.'
'Cool.'
'I know, but I need the phone number and I've left it at home.'
'Oh, OK.' I could hear the pages flicking in her Spice Girls address book. At the bottom of each page was a multiple-choice profile and a space to insert the 'cool factor' of the person the page was about. I'd felt quite proud to see that she'd circled 'funny and weird' as my description, and given me a OF of 8 out of 10. But that had all crashed before my eyes as I turned to the next page and saw her grandparents circled as 'kind and gentle' and given a OF of 10. Perhaps I'd have to start tucking her pullovers into her jeans all the time if I wanted to up my cred.
She reeled off the number and I scratched it on the piece of phone book, then tapped it into the phone as we talked.
'Nick, why are you going to America?'
'I'm going with a friend. Her name is Sarah.'
I looked over at her. She was staring quizzically, trying to work it out. I was sure she knew it was a child. Those things are hard to hide.
I said, 'My friend Sarah is going to do some work in Washington and I'm going with her. Hey, would you like to speak to her?'
'OK.' There was a slight reluctance in her voice. Maybe she sensed that things were about to get complicated. I didn't want to tell her they already were. Sarah came to the settee with two full coffee mugs.
I passed over the phone and said, 'Sarah, this is Kelly. Kelly wants to say hello.'
She fixed her eyes on me as she spoke.
'Hello?' There was a gap, then, 'Yes, that's right. Sarah.'
I kept looking at her and hoped this was the right thing to do. It might come in handy, later. Sarah was still talking.
'Yes, I'm going to Washington.
What do I do? I'm a lawyer. Yes, I'm just going over to work, just for a few days, and Nick is coming with me.' She was obviously getting the third degree.
'Oh, yes, a long time, but I hadn't seen him for years. Yes, OK, I'll pass him back. Nice to talk to you, Kelly, goodbye.'
'Will you still call me next week?'
'I promise. Don't worry, this isn't instead of next week's phone call. I'll see you soon, no worries.' I was just about to carry out our normal routine at the end of a call, but checked myself. This one was different. Shit, this could be the last time I spoke to her.
'Hey, Kelly.'
'What?'
'I love you.'
She sounded slightly quizzed at me saying it first, but very happy nonetheless.
'I love you, too!'
'Bye bye.' I slowly took the phone away from my ear and switched it off, not too sure how I felt about letting it all hang out.
'How old is she?'
'Nine last week' 'You kept that quiet, didn't you?'
'She's a friend's child.'
'Of course.'
'No, she is.' I thought about telling her about Kev and Marsha, but decided against it.
She sat next to me on the sofa and cupped both hands around her coffee, still puffy-eyed.
'You OK?'
She nodded, trying to regain some sort of composure.
'Yes. Look, thanks for ... I don't know what came over me.'
As we drank our coffee I explained my plan. We would go to D.C.' and I would look at what Metal Mickey thought was so worth looking at. Depending on what I found, I would then decide whether to tell Josh, or just go for it ourselves.
I was feeling uncomfortable about the Josh situation, but cut away by trying to justify it to myself by the fact that he wouldn't be back until early this afternoon, and by then I'd be with Mickey. So it wasn't as if I was abusing our friendship. I took another sip and decided that was bollocks.
Deep down, I knew I was.
Everything we did now would be paid for and ordered by Sarah, in the name of Sarah Darnley. It was part of her security blanket. There must not be any movement detected on my credit card or phone. We went back
down to the call box and called the ticket line. We were going to leave for Washington National on the 8:50 a.m. from Raleigh.
After showering and sorting our shit out we drove north, back toward Raleigh. There was a constant flow of early morning commuter traffic. It was cloudy, but no need for wipers yet. First light had passed us by as we headed out of the city, stopping only to buy some coffee and a plain blue baseball cap for Sarah from a gas station. I had one hand on the wheel and was sipping coffee through the gap in the top of the container when Sarah, who'd been keeping one eye on her wing mirror, turned off the radio.
'Nick, we have a problem.'
Behind us, and to our right, was a Fayetteville blue and white. I stopped at the lights as Sarah started to draw her pistol, placing it under her right thigh. On the basis of her performance so far, the mere sight of it got me flapping.
'Sarah, let me do this.'
