‘I think Amber’s asleep, but I’ll put Jade on.’ She holds the phone and shouts across the open-plan room. ‘It’s your mom; she wants to talk to you.’
Mitzi hears the sound of the dishwasher being emptied and her daughter’s voice in the background: ‘I don’t want to talk to her. If she can’t be bothered to be here, then I can’t be bothered either.’
‘Jade!’
There’s a pause before Ruth comes back on the phone. ‘Sorry, she’s doing stuff.’
‘Yeah, it sounded like it. I heard her, Ruthy. She’s clearly still mad at me.’
‘She’s a teenager; she’s mad at most things. I’ll try to get her to call you later.’
‘Thanks.’ Mitzi doesn’t want to hang up without acknowledging her sister’s wish to put things right between them. ‘And thanks for not being mad with me any more. I hate it when we row.’
‘Me too.’
‘Then we won’t. Not any longer. Tell the girls I love them and I can’t wait to see them.’
‘Will do.’
She hangs up and feels horribly sad and lonely. Maybe taking this job was the wrong thing. It’s provided the new start she needed but now it’s torturing her with guilt about not being with the kids.
Her cell phone rings. She looks at the number and sees it’s a Washington area code. ‘Fallon.’
‘Lieutenant, it’s Kirstin Collins. I hope I haven’t woken you?’
‘No. But me and my beaten-up face are about to turn in for the night.’
‘Then I’ll try not to keep you. Sophie Hudson, the assistant at Goldman’s, has been found dead in her apartment. Her neck’s broken and her home has been trashed.’
80
It’s gone two in the morning when Angelo Marchetti staggers out of Experientia, a basement club regarded as the West End’s coolest.
He’s more wasted than he’s been for years and is uncertain he can find a cab, let alone his hotel.
Today’s been a shitter. A Grade One crap-a-doodle-dandy of badness.
And even now, out of his brain on poorly cut coke, he can’t bury the thought that he had a young girl killed and still hasn’t recovered the digital data that would have been his passport to an unworried life of plenty.
He staggers down a narrow, dark side street and heads towards the haze of lights at the far end.
He hears the click, a second before a voice demands, ‘Give me your fucking money.’
Marchetti doesn’t answer.
‘Your money, phone ’n’ watch, or I’ll fuckin’ shoot you.’
He doesn’t speak because he’s wondering if it would be a good thing to get shot. To put an end to all the crap he’s in. If the stick-up guy is any good, it’ll be over real quick. ‘Go fuck yourself.’
‘I mean it, man.’ The voice gets closer. ‘Empty your fuckin’ pockets, or I’ll waste you.’
Marchetti’s SSOA training kicks in. He sobers up fast. The loudmouth is a punk but he’s not alone. There are two, maybe three others shuffling in the shadows. In a second, someone will grab him. They’ll throw punches and kicks and pile in on him and have their fun.
‘Okay. Okay!’ He holds up his hands. ‘I’m doing the watch. I’m taking it off.’ He steps forward placidly and then snaps a full-blooded punch into one of the hazy outlines.
‘Fuuuck!’ A shadow reels back holding a broken jaw.
Marchetti drops to the floor and grabs an ankle. He tugs hard and the body goes down. He keeps hold of the foot and twists until the ankle breaks.
There’s a roar of gunfire.
Stick-up boy has finally found the balls to pull the trigger. But it’s only a warning shot. And that’s his big mistake. He’s given away his position.
Before the goon recovers from the recoil, Marchetti is at him. He smacks the weapon away with his right hand and smashes his skull into the shooter’s face.
Someone punches Marchetti in the side. A dull pain registers. He drives an elbow into the attacker’s head and sends him crashing into a wall.
It’s getting messy now and he knows that, even sober, three against one is eventually going to turn bad unless he wants to start killing people.
The blow in his side is achingly painful. He puts a hand down and realizes he’s been knifed not punched.
Marchetti goes after the stick-up guy while he still has the strength. He throws a disciplined right-hander that cracks the gunman’s ribs. The punk gasps for air. Marchetti plucks the gun from his helpless fingers and shoots him in the leg.
The muzzle flash shows the whereabouts of the other two men. He swings and fires low. Leg shots, aimed to cripple, not kill.
The air fills with the smell of cordite and screams of wounded men.
Marchetti jams the gun in his belt and hobbles out of the alley. None of them is going to be rushing after him. Not now. Not ever.
PART THREE
81
It is the middle of the night when Myrddin hears Sir Owain’s helicopter land in a distant part of the grounds.
He eases his tired bones from the straw-packed mattress, stands by the window slit and watches blinking lights illuminate the dark sky. He doesn’t have to look at a clock to know it’s an hour before dawn. He’s spent countless decades telling the time by the stars, the moon and the sun.
Myrddin wraps himself up and shuffles down the spiral staircase to his rooms.
Owain always comes here first.
Even though it’s summer, the stone chambers are chilly so he stoops before the great hearth and sets light to paper, straw and kindling. He sits and watches red and orange tongues hungrily lick the dry vanilla-coloured wood logs.
There’s a polite thump on the door.
‘Come in.’
Metal locks clunk. Oak creaks. A dishevelled Sir Owain enters, a bag in each hand, his hair blown wild by the helicopter’s rotors. ‘I hoped you would be up.’ He smiles appreciatively.
‘As if it would be otherwise. Put those down and come sit by the fire with me.’
‘Do you have any water?’ He takes off his jacket and heads to one of two hard chairs set either side of the blaze.
‘I drew some from the well, last night.’ Myrddin reaches to a rough wood side table and tips a terracotta jug until crystal clear liquid fills a matching beaker.
Owain takes it and remembers he’s been drinking sweet fresh water from this ancient spring since he was a child.
Myrddin waits for him to finish. ‘Has Jennifer spoken to you of matters of the Cycle?’
‘No. She cannot bring herself to do so. But she carries the secret in her eyes. I saw it in Glastonbury and felt her pain in trying to hide it.’
‘These are tough times.’ He looks to the roaring flames. ‘The most vicious of fires forges the strongest steel.’
‘Vicious is a good description of my dilemma. My wife is pregnant with our first child, and instead of preparing for the birth of my son I must prepare for my death. And, to add insult to such fatal injury, in the white heat of this pain I must hammer out a new love for her.’
‘Such is the way of the Cycle.’
‘Then forgive me, but I wish it were not this way.’ He laughs sadly. ‘Have we picked well, Myrddin? Is Lance truly the man I hope he is, one who can protect her and my son?’
‘He will become that man. Fate decrees it and I will ensure it.’
‘Thank you.’ Owain looks at the grey light pressing the windows. ‘Enough of this now. I am stuffed to bursting with pains of the heart.’ He picks up a gnarled log and throws it on the fire then settles back in the chair. ‘Talk to me about other things. Of life and memories. Anything but our never-ending duties and what is expected of us. I shall spend the rest of the night here with you and will return to the house when a new day has broken and prepare for the meeting with the Blood Line.’