“Not entirely,” I said coolly, “but I’d be happy to hear your side of the story.”
“I told you,” he said, speaking clearly and slowly, as though repeating something for the tenth time, “he cleared the blockage and took a shot at me, so I let him go. Why would I want him dead?”
“You tell me.”
He shrugged, not an easy motion when your elbows are bent up level with your ears. “Look, you don’t really need to keep me on my knees like this do you, Charlie?” he pleaded, giving me a disarmingly boyish grin. “I’m hardly likely to try anything sitting quietly on your sofa, am I? Not if you’re still half as good with one of those things as I remember.”
After a moment’s hesitation, I nodded warily to his request, tensing as he came to his feet with a lithe ease that belied the awkwardness of the position I’d put him into.
I had a nasty feeling that I’d just somehow tipped the balance into Sean’s favour, played into his hands, but he merely strolled over to my sofa and sat down, keeping his hands in plain view. “That’s better,” he said, looking more relaxed than he had any right to. “You were saying?”
“Nasir Gadatra,” I repeated. “You didn’t like him, did you, Sean? Why was that?”
He shrugged again. “I didn’t really know him,” he said, side-stepping the point. “Providing he didn’t try to mess Ursula around, or slide out of his obligations, then I’d no real objections to—”
“He what?” I demanded, cutting him short. “Now wait a minute. Nasir was the father of your sister’s kid?”
Sean looked at me almost blankly. “Of course, didn’t you know? You don’t think I’d kill my own would-be brother-in-law, do you?”
“Not even if he was a damned Paki?” I taunted, aiming for provocation.
It worked. Sean’s head came up, and there was a flush along his cheekbones that could have been brought there by anger, or it could have been shame. “Now whatever gives you the idea that something like that would matter to me?” he queried, his voice dangerously soft.
I disregarded the warning bells and pushed on recklessly. “There can’t be many former National Front members who would exactly welcome an Asian into the family to dilute their pure Anglo-Saxon blood.”
“National Front? Me? You’re joking,” he bit out. “Anyway, on my mother’s side I’m Irish, and on my father’s I’m German. You’ve got your facts well screwed there, sweetheart.” The endearment sounded like a threat.
“Yeah? So you deny that you’ve ever had any connections to any right-wing organisations? That you were arrested as a member of a neo-nazi group for a racially motivated attack?” Go on, Sean, I thought bitterly, deny it. Tell me how wrong I am. Tell me I can trust you. Just don’t expect me to believe it.
He paused and took a breath, then leaned forwards, resting his forearms on his knees. “No,” he said, sounding suddenly tired, “I don’t deny it. When I was a kid, not that much older than Roger is now, I mixed with a bad crowd. They just happened to be involved with the National Front, but that wasn’t their main attraction, and I was never actually a paid-up member. Yeah, they pulled me in for the attack on that Asian kid. My God you should have seen the pictures. They burned off half his face. It sickened me, convinced me I had to get out. I cut loose, started afresh, joined up.” He glanced up, met my gaze and held it constant.
I don’t know what it was that made me realise that I believed him utterly. Maybe it was the fact that he’d never lied to my face, not directly. Maybe there was some part of me that was still clinging to the hope that, whatever else he was capable of, he couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to believe him, but I just couldn’t help it.
Without speaking, I moved to sit opposite, facing him across my coffee table. Slowly, carefully, I thumbed the magazine out of the Glock and placed them down together on the table top, then sat back, leaving them between us.
Sean’s shoulders dropped a fraction. He’d played it so cool I hadn’t recognised the tension in him. He linked his fingers together and sat with his chin propped on them, just looking at me. I kept my face expressionless.
“Colonel Parris was a fool to let you go,” he said at last. “You were perfect for Special Forces.”
I said nothing, managing to convey polite enquiry in the lift of an eyebrow.
“If anyone else had been pointing that at me,” he went on, gesturing to the Glock, “I might not have taken it so seriously, but you were one of the best shots with a pistol I’ve ever come across, Charlie. Cool-headed. Deadly.”
“There were plenty who were just as good.” I shrugged off the compliment, feeling gauche.
He shook his head. “A lot of people had a reasonable ability to aim,” he said. “That doesn’t mean they’d got the stomach to pull the trigger for real. Not like you, Charlie, you had what it took. Still do, at a guess.”
“Thanks,” I said, tartly. “I’m not sure it’s very flattering to be told you’ve got all the makings of a cold-blooded killer.”
“Not quite. A sniper, more like. A soldier. With the nerve to kill when necessary, that’s true, but under the right circumstances. For the right cause.”
If only you knew, I thought, and the pain of it seared like fire. “Like a terrorist?” I shot back. “Or an assassin?”
He sighed and made no reply, reaching for the Glock and snapping it back together with practised ease.
“I suppose you do know that carrying one of those things is illegal these days?” I pointed out mildly, watching the unconscious skill in his deft movements.
“In my line of work, they’re often a useful, if not essential bit of kit,” he said, cheerfully unrepentant. “Besides, I have contacts with the security services, and they allow me some leeway.”
“And what is your line of work, Sean?” I said, feeling a sudden chill seep through my bones.
He smiled unexpectedly, transforming his severe facial structure. “I don’t kill people, if that’s what you’re afraid of. Not even a damned Paki who gets my sister pregnant,” he said, mocking me gently as he tucked the gun away out of sight. “In fact, if I’d known Nas was in danger I probably could have helped him. I’m in close protection now, Charlie. After I left the army, I became a bodyguard.”
That one threw me and I didn’t trouble to hide the fact. “Do your family know what you do?” I asked.
He paused, frowning as he considered the question. “No, they don’t,” he said eventually. “They know I work in security, but I’ve always tried to make it sound boring – like it involves sending night-watchmen round building sites. They don’t know I do personal stuff. No-one round here does. Only you.”
I filed away the possible significance of that for reflection at a later date. Standing, I said, “If we’re not going out for that drink, would you like some coffee?”
Sean smiled again. “OK.”
He followed me as I moved through to the kitchen and dug out the ingredients. I hadn’t stocked up for a while, but fortunately I had a pack of long-life milk in the bottom of a cupboard. Sean leaned in the doorway and watched me spoon instant coffee granules into two mugs.
“It’s come to something when you feel you can’t get the truth out of me without a gun to my head,” he said quietly.
I glanced up at him as I flicked on the kettle, kept my voice dispassionate. “Old wounds take a long time to heal.”
“Yeah, well.” He raked a hand through his hair, looking tired again. “Maybe you should have thought of that before you went shooting from the lip and told everyone about us—”
“Hang on, before I told anyone?” I spun round, slamming the milk down hard enough to slop some of the contents over the side of the carton. “I didn’t say a word. I thought it was you.”