her cigarettes on the bedside cabinet. She lit two simultaneously and handed one across. He took it gratefully from her fingers.
Danny inhaled the strong smoke deeply, held it in, then blew it slowly out. Her heart slackened its pace as the magical sensation of just having had great sex ebbed away.
‘ That was fantastic.’
Danny sighed. She turned to look at him, brushing her hair away from her eyes. ‘I know, Jack… but it’s going to have to stop. This can’t go on. This is definitely the last time.’
Words she had said many times before.
The difference was — this time she meant them.
Felicity’s mouth turned into a wicked smile of triumph. She sat back, took a long draw on her straw, and watched her ex-husband’s face turn deep red.
She did not have to spell it out for him. He knew exactly what she meant. A shiver of fear rippled down his spine. He licked his dry lips.
‘ Things you would hate the Feds to know.’
The words echoed around in his head.
In truth, what she’d said was an understatement. Not only would Kruger not like the Feds to know, he’d be darned upset if the CIA got to know, absolutely desolate should the State Department ever find out, or for that matter any godamned person walking the streets.
What Felicity was referring to was the time when he left the cops and started out in business, and the first six months of trading were hell on earth. He struggled to make any sort of living, was on the verge of giving up and becoming a security guard in a shopping mall.
Then, out of the blue, he was approached by two different people on the same day.
One had goods to sell.
The other wanted to buy.
Knowing that no such circumstances could be purely coincidental, Kruger sussed he had been targeted because the parties obviously didn’t want to be seen doing business directly with each other. They needed the buffer or an agent and Kruger, down on his luck, seemed the perfect man.
He had wrestled with his conscience, his mind in a turmoil.
It was possible he was being set up by the authorities for some reason. But if he wasn’t, it was just the piece of luck he needed. One which would kick-start his business to the tune of two hundred grand in fees.
With both eyes wide open, conscious that if the deal went belly-up he would become an inmate of Dade County Correctional Institute, not just a visitor, he took the chance.
He arranged to sell over two million dollars’ worth of I8-inch electric shock batons to a Middle Eastern buyer, knowing full well the end user was Iraq. Which, twelve months after the Gulf War, was a very naughty thing to do.
Although he lived on a wire for several months after, there were no repercussions. No midnight raids by SWAT squads. No visits by men in black suits. Nothing. The surge of money was accounted for creatively and Kruger’s business went through the roof. He had never since, to his knowledge, made any illegal deals.
All was well.
Until now.
Felicity, his ruthless, unfaithful ex-wife, had plucked it right out of the mist and slapped it across his face like a wet fish.
Kruger rubbed his eyes. His knee began to ache. He recalled telling Felicity the story of his dubious deal one night early in their relationship, in the days when he confused lust with love. He had vowed her to secrecy. She had, of course, promised silence. Damn pillowtalk, he thought bitterly. It always ends up biting your ass.
‘ What d’you want me to do?’ he asked with an expression of resignation on his countenance.
Danny looked directly into the eyes of Detective Inspector Jack Sands, the man who was her boss. The man who had become her lover.
‘ No, Jack, I really mean it this time. There’s no future for either of us in this… unless you leave your wife, that is. You know how many times you’ve promised to do that and never kept your word.’ Her voice was shaking with emotion as she spoke, delivering a speech she had practised over and over again in the last few days, but which at that moment she struggled to remember. ‘You’ll never leave her, will you? I accept that now and that’s why this has to stop. Now. Whilst no one else knows, whilst we’re still in a position not to hurt people.’
Sands stared blankly at her. Then he blinked rapidly as the meaning of the words sank in. As she finished, he sighed and closed his eyes. ‘But Danny, I love you,’ he pleaded pitifully. ‘It’s just the kids… you know? I can’t walk out on them.’
‘ In that case, you obviously don’t love me,’ Danny retorted rather cruelly. In truth she did not want to wreck a marriage, though on the other hand she thought she loved Sands deeply. It was a love that was tearing her apart. She knew it had to end now, once and for all. That was the best way for both of them. To be able to leave the relationship with some dignity, try to be adult about it, part as friends if that was possible in the circumstances. ‘So get dressed and go, please, Jack. It’s got to end now. It’s as good a time as any, with me getting promoted next week. We won’t be under each other’s feet all the time, won’t be in adjoining offices, won’t be able to look at each other all day, every day.’
She clenched her teeth and hardened her jawline, feeling absolutely gutted by what she was doing.
‘ But…’
‘ No! Just get up and go,’ she said sternly. ‘It’s over. Accept it and then we can both get on with our lives.’
Sands dressed silently and very, very slowly whilst Danny stood in one corner of the room in her dressing gown, cigarette in hand. It was all she could do to prevent herself grabbing him and dragging him back into bed.
Dressed, he paused at the bedroom door, gazed back at her.
She looked down at her fingernails, refusing to meet his eyes. That would have snapped her resolve in a second.
Jack closed the door softly.
Danny heard his footsteps descending the stairs. The front door opened and closed.
She broke down and wept.
And not many miles away, in a tiny bedroom in a sea-front hotel in South Shore, another female cried quietly to herself, but for a completely different reason.
Claire Lilton was folded up into a tight ball, her arms hugging her knees, nightdress pulled securely around her. She rocked herself with the steady motion of a disturbed person. She had once seen Polar Bears in a zoo, not long ago on a school trip. She had watched one of the huge great beasts rock backwards and forwards whilst it stood there, trapped in its tiny enclosure. She had looked on in empathy because all she could think was, That’s me. That’s just me. Rocking, and can’t get away.
God, how she hated the man. The stepfather who abused her right under her mother’s nose since coming into their lives two years before. The man her mother loved so much, who could do no wrong in her eyes. The bastard, the fucking two-faced bastard. Claire’s mother would never have believed it, even if she’d been told right to her face that her stepdad was doing things to her, making her do things to him, forcing himself into her until he jizzed, sometimes up her bum. Claire didn’t even know the words for some of the things he did to her, but she knew she was being ‘shagged’ because she had heard other, older girls talking about it, describing it. Saying how some of the lads did it to them.
But not their fathers.
Claire stopped rocking. Her eyes stared into the darkness. The rain beat down against her window.
She also knew enough to understand she might have a baby — because that was how people got babies, by shagging — especially now she had started her periods.
The thought terrified her.
But what frightened her even more was the threat that, should she ever tell anybody — anybody — her
