‘We’ve still got Monique’s birthday party next week,’ said Bret. ‘Half the village will be along for that, anyway. We could do something then.’
‘I suppose so,’ replied Caitlin without any great enthusiasm.
She was underwhelmed by the idea of hand-to-hand battle at home with the vicar and Mrs Dingley about fucking Will and Kate’s wedding. The sleep-deprived mother of two was just contemplating a second glass of wine when Bret pointed out the vehicle, a white Peugeot by the look of it, coming over the rise and down the long unsealed road to the farmhouse.
‘Government car,’ he said, with confidence.
‘I think so,’ Caitlin agreed, suddenly aware of the pistol in the holster at the small of her back. She still carried it everywhere. The Kimber Warrior was so much a part of her that mostly she forgot it was there. It had now been, what, nearly four years since she’d last pulled the trigger on a man.
‘Maybe you should get the kids inside, and run the bath, honey,’ she suggested. ‘It might be for me.’
Her husband gave her a measured look before staring long and hard at the approaching car again. ‘Those days are over,’ he said before disappearing inside. ‘Monique! Harry! Bath time, let’s go!’
She heard the squeals and thunder of children running to attend to their father’s command. Outside the farmhouse, training, imprinted at the molecular level, caused her to scan her surroundings for any obvious threats, and then for any non-obvious ones.
Nothing.
The car bore HM Government licence plates. As it turned off the approach road and onto the driveway, which wound in through a stand of apple trees before looping around a small, broken fountain in front of the farmhouse, she recognised the occupants. And smiled.
‘Dalby and … Oh my God, Wales!’ she beamed. ‘This must be bad news.’
Her two favourite former overwatch controllers returned the friendly greeting, crunching over the gravel to say hello, to shake hands, and in Wales’s case to wrap her in a bear hug, a manoeuvre made difficult by the presents he was carrying for the children.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t call ahead, Caitlin,’ said the American. ‘But Dalby and I were on our way back early from something at Salisbury Plain, and I just couldn’t forgive myself if I hadn’t taken the opportunity to call in and say hello. It’s been too long.’
She aimed a sceptical frown at the gifts he was carrying.
‘I didn’t know that London Cage had opened up a Toys ‘R’ Us franchise,’ she said dryly. ‘Just picked those up on the way, did you?’
Wales had the good grace to look a little embarrassed. ‘Well, I was always going to be dropping by,’ he replied. ‘So it seemed a good idea to have them with me. An American Girl doll for Monique. They’re making them again, you know. And Lego Star Wars for young Harry.’
Her scepticism grew even more pronounced. ‘So you’ve been talking to Bret, then, I see.’
‘Perhaps just a little,’ Francis Dalby admitted. ‘That wine looks damned inviting. I notice your five years in this country have not softened your manners any, young lady. Perhaps you would like to invite your old friends and employers in.’
‘Or perhaps not,’ she mocked, turning around and walking back into the house, waving them along behind her. She could hear the bath running upstairs, and the children laughing as they splashed about in it.
‘Bret,’ she called up, ‘it’s Dalby and Wales. Are you going to come down for a drink when you’re finished up there?’
‘Sorry, I knew they were coming,’ he called back. ‘They said they’d torture me if I let on.’
‘Sounds about right,’ Caitlin muttered as she led her guests through to the kitchen. A pot of osso buco in the oven was about twenty minutes away from being ready, and the places were already set for dinner. Four plates at the big table and two at the smaller children’s table, where Monique and Harry ate most of their meals. Bret had used the royal wedding plates he’d insisted on buying last week. His idea of irony.
‘Your field craft is getting rusty down here,’ said Dalby.
‘It’s sharp enough for dealing with country vicars and village aldermen,’ she replied. ‘Sit down. I’ll open a new bottle. We had half of this last night and it’s oxidised. Life in the boonies, what can I say?’
‘Well, you could say how happy you are to see us,’ said Wales, teasing her.
‘I am, Wales. As long as you’re not here to try to talk me back into the office. I’m retired now. A lady of leisure.’
She uncorked a bottle of Cotes du Rhone and poured a generous measure into two clean glasses.
‘You’re not completely retired, Caitlin,’ Wales pointed out. ‘Dalby here tells me you’re kicking ass as a guest lecturer down at the college in London. And you’re not averse to doing a bit of consultancy here and there.’
She smiled. ‘Paperwork, Wales. I read papers and I write them. That’s all I do these days. When I’m not looking after the children. Or riding shotgun on the preparation for the crucial contribution of our little village to the wedding of the fucking century. Which is all the time.’
‘Wales and Dalby!’ boomed her husband, who had reappeared at the kitchen door with a glass in hand and a guilty look about him.
‘You could’ve at least given me enough warning to let me get changed out of my shit-kickers,’ she scolded him.
Bret looked sheepish but basically unapologetic. ‘Lego Star Wars buys a lot of silence.’
They finished the bottle of red wine before serving dinner, and another one with it. The children took themselves off to bed with dire warnings that their new toys would Disappear if they weren’t asleep within ten minutes, while the men finished off all the osso buco, which Caitlin had hoped would last for a couple of days. She returned from tucking in Harry and Monique to find the three of them gathered around a newly opened bottle of Highland Park, courtesy of Dalby, discussing the prospects for the US with Kipper’s second term drawing to an end, and Sandra Harvey and Sarah Palin looking like the front runners to punch it out in the big vote.
By the time they’d accounted for most of the whiskey, sitting by the fireplace in the lounge room after dinner, Caitlin had decreed that the visitors would have to stay the night.
‘Be just like you two to survive a lifetime of fucking villainy only to do yourselves in driving pissed at night. You’d probably get lost and end up back on one of the live firing ranges on the Plain.’
It was well after midnight before Bret and Dalby crashed out, leaving Caitlin curled up in a lounge chair in front of the hearth talking to Wales.
‘We would have you back in a New York minute, you know,’ he told her. ‘I wouldn’t want you to die wondering about that.’
‘Wales, I was in New York for a minute or two in April ‘07, you might recall,’ she said. ‘I don’t feel the need to go back. I’m out of it, Wales. I push a shopping trolley around the local supermarket now and my idea of adventure is when Harry wets himself in that trolley and he’s not wearing a nappy.’ She shook her head at that unpleasant memory.