Men of London 02 - Sight and Sinners (18 page)

Clay was looking at his mobile intently and he didn’t even look up as he waved a hand. “Yep. See you guys.”

Summarily dismissed, Draven led the way out of the office, Taylor behind him. Taylor was quiet as they took the lift down and walked to the car. It was a very different journey from the one up to the office. When they were in the vehicle with seat belts on and Draven had started the car, he sighed and looked at Taylor.

“Out with it,” he said quietly. “What’s bugging you?”

Taylor’s lips pressed together mutinously. “Never mind,” he said shortly. “It doesn’t really matter. Just take me home.”

“Something’s upset you, Tay.” Draven felt the need to push.

“I’m fine, really.” Draven could see Taylor was anything but fine as he leaned his head against the seat rest and closed his eyes, as if shutting out all possibility of conversation.

“I think that went well, considering,” he murmured, hoping that he’d draw Taylor out.

“Uh-huh.”

“Clay’s good at manipulating people, getting them to paint themselves into a corner. If anyone can get to the truth, that man can.”

“Okay.”

Draven felt the prickle of irritation down his spine at the monosyllabic replies. He tried valiantly one last time.

“I mean, there must have been a reason for her to lie, and while it won’t bring Drew back, maybe it has some bearing on his suicide. Maybe she knows something about the blackmailer.”

“Yep.”

Draven exploded as he weaved in and out of traffic, taking care not to drive too fast. “Christ, Taylor, I’m trying to make conversation here. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Taylor’s eyes opened and flashed dark lasers of anger at him.

“Excuse me if I don’t feel too chatty. I’m not sure we’re on the same page here. Do you know the reason I don’t push you on the subject of your brother?” His jaw clenched. “Because I don’t seem to really have a say in anything about it. One, I only found out about it today even though I’ve been asking you what’s up for weeks. Two, I asked you to take me to see him and you ignored me. Three, based on one and two, you’ve given me the bare bones of that tragedy but I doubt you’ll let me in to share it with you so we can talk about the
decision
you have to make, whatever the fuck that means. It’s ‘not my worry,’ after all.”

He folded his arms across his chest, hugging himself. Emotion vibrated from his lean body like a taut violin string being plucked.

Draven’s eyes widened at Taylor’s growing anger as his fingers clenched on the steering wheel. He barked back. “Maybe I don’t solicit your advice because we might not be ‘exclusive’ as you reminded me. Maybe the story is more for someone who means to stick around, not someone who thinks this thing we have is just ‘fun.’ Maybe I’m just another ‘regular.’”

No sooner had the words left his mouth, he regretted them. A sick feeling welled in his stomach.

Way to go, you prick. God, that must be just about the worst thing you could have said to him.

Taylor’s eyes widened and his face paled. “I was joking back there about the whole exclusive thing, Draven. I didn’t think we had to talk about it to realise…” His voice cut off and he closed his eyes, his face suddenly weary. The defeat in his face worried Draven more than if Taylor had hit him again. Something he’d probably not blame him for. “You know what, just take me home. That dinner you promised me tonight will have to wait.”

Draven felt another twinge of guilt at the thought he’d forgotten his promise to take Taylor out.

“Taylor, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Taylor’s lips thinned and he stared out the front window of the car, ignoring Draven. His fingers were curled into tight fists.

“I don’t want to talk. Just fucking take me home.” His tone was tight and controlled.

Draven heard the warning in Taylor’s voice and decided to let it go. For now.

They drove in awkward silence the rest of the way home. Draven stopped outside Taylor’s house and switched off the engine, and Taylor clipped off his seatbelt and was out the car before the engine had even stopped purring.

“Thanks for the day trip,” he said flatly from outside the open car door. “Are you going to go see your brother tonight?”

Draven hesitated then nodded. “Yes. I’ll probably grab something to eat and shower first though. Visiting hours are later.” His mouth went dry. “Tay, I…”

“I hope it all goes all right with him. G’night, Draven. I’ll see you around.” Taylor closed the door with an air of finality and strode toward his front door. Draven could only watch helplessly as he disappeared inside.

*****

Taylor got home and slumped straight into the easy chair in the lounge. He bit his fingernails as he sat in the semi darkness, with only the faint glow of a new fish tank lighting up the room. He shook his head in bemusement.

When the hell did that get there? Shows you just how much I’ve been home lately. Not.

He knew it had to be Leslie’s and he grinned faintly at the thought despite the turmoil in his gut and the ache in his chest.

Every pet that Leslie had brought into the house to date had either died or “disappeared.” The pet goldfish, Rollo—a gift from an old flame who’d won it at a fun fair coconut shy competition—had been found floating belly up in his bowl one morning. Leslie had shrieked the place down, seemingly overcome with grief. Then there had been the pet spider that he’d “adopted” when it was found in the bathtub. Taylor and Eddie were in favour of flushing it down the toilet. Leslie however had decided it deserved mercy and had kept in a shoebox in his room for the princely time of a whole two days before it had mysteriously “disappeared.”

Given the fact that Eddie hadn’t seemed too concerned at the possibility of a spider lurking around the house (and him being very afraid of said arachnids) and wearing a satisfied smirk during the frantic search of couches, cushions and cupboards, Taylor had a feeling it had been relegated to the great unknown somewhere, probably a sewer. And then there had been the bird Leslie found in his room, with a broken wing. Gloria Gaynor had been nursed back to health, staying the longest out of all Leslie’s guests, until one day, in a fit of sheer indulgence, Leslie had perched her on the windowsill to watch her brothers and sisters enjoy the great outdoors, and she’d promptly flown away. He’d been devastated and it had taken half a dozen cups of chamomile tea for Taylor to calm him down. Not to mention Taylor’s promise of a new pair of Ted Baker heels that Leslie had his eye on, something he could ill afford at the time.

Taylor huffed and regarded the colourful fish in the tank with jaundiced eyes. The minute Draven had uttered the words “It’s not his worry. It’s my problem to deal with,” Taylor’s temper had flared. Already under some stress from the morning’s emotional meeting at the Threadcourts’ house, coupled with meeting Draven’s boss for the first time, his already fragile psyche had been on high alert. Hearing Draven so brazenly declare he didn’t think Taylor needed to be involved in his affairs had really given him the hump. Then taking that throwaway comment about being exclusive out of context, and the barb about being a “regular”—well, that had really been the final straw.

He’d never thought a chest could hurt so much, as his had tightened and his heart had thumped out of control. So now he sat grumpily ensconced in the worn chair, eating his fingers and wondering what to do next. There was no way he was going to call Draven any time soon. The bastard had gone too far.

If he wants me, he can come and find me. I’m not making the first move again. And when he does, he’s going to pay for those words. My mission is going to be to drive him crazy. The man won’t know what’s hit him. Let him see what he’s missing when he’s being a prick.

The thought of getting his own back on Draven soothed the turmoil in his soul and he closed his eyes and leaned back. He was bone tired.

Taylor dreamt. Not the blood-soaked nightmares of the past but something that felt even a little more disturbing in that it soaked into his bones and sent tiny tendrils of insidious emotions into his psyche. What disturbed him more was that those tendrils were infused with hope. His normal visions of dismembered children, desperate people with violence in their souls and those who simply latched onto him like leeches intent on sucking him dry were long gone. Instead, there was softness, eagerness, a whisper in his mind that it was time to go, time to move on and a gentle urging to make him listen. Focus. Warmth enveloped him instead of the cold dread he was used to, and wrapped comforting arms around his still body, beguiling him with the promise of an ending of something that had dragged on far too long. In his sleep, Taylor smiled softly then nodded as the voice told him that he had to help.

When he woke up, he was crying. Silent tears rolled down his cheeks; his breath was heavy, his chest aching from something that felt like both loss and relief. He sat up in bed, reaching wondering fingers to his cheeks to feel the slick wetness on his face. Taylor drew a shuddering breath as he reached for his shirt and wiped his eyes. He could still hear the echo of the words in his head, resonating in the cold, dark room.

Save me. Tell him to let me go.

Chapter 9

The hospital was silent as Draven sat beside his brother’s bedside in the critical care ward. An overhead light above him flickered, and Draven, in his morbid frame of mind, wondered whether someone, somewhere was dying and the flickering light was a reflection of the ebb and flow of life.

He sighed and passed a hand over tired, strained eyes. He heard the soft murmuring from people at the nurse’s station just outside the ward, and saw quiet purposefulness in the movements of the personnel on call as they moved around. It was late at night and only a few visitors still lingered in the corridors. He’d come straight from his time with Taylor, needing to see his brother.

He shifted in his uncomfortable chair and lifted his arms above his head, stretching. Jude slept on, his body still, his face never changing. Draven has helped the nurses move him, rub his skeletal limbs and he’d been horrified to see the worsening state of his brother’s body. Doctor Frederick had quietly assured him that everything was being done, but before Draven’s eyes, his little brother was wasting away before him.

He reached out and touched a stringy, greasy piece of hair that fell across Jude’s pale brow. “Hey, there, little bro,” he whispered. “Can you hear me?” He asked that question a half a dozen times in the hours he visited Jude. He’d never had a response, no inkling that Jude heard him at all. “I met someone. His name is Taylor. I think you’d like him. He reminds me of you, a little. He’s also damn cheeky, causes me grey hairs and doesn’t listen to a word I say. I also think I cocked up any hope of a relationship tonight.” He laughed softly but there was tinge of despair in it. “We have this thing going, though, and guess what? He’s a damn psychic. Yep, you never thought you’d hear your big brother confess to that one, huh?”

He gently stroked Jude’s thin arm. The skin was warm, soft, and Draven’s eyes prickled. The only thing he had left of him was the feel of his brother’s flesh beneath his fingertips. It was the only indication he had that his brother was still there. It was scant comfort when he remembered how active Jude had been as a kid. He’d always been trouble, always enterprising, sometimes to the point of disobedience and devilry. At the time Draven had seen it as rebelling, as flouting Draven’s authority when he’d been left to babysit Jude. Now, Draven wanted that back more than anything in the world. He continued stroking Jude’s arm.

“I miss you, sweetheart. Every fucking day I miss you, your smile, and your voice. I miss those crazy impersonations you used to do of Pepé Le Pew and Bart Simpson. I miss you singing Bruce Springsteen tunes and playing air guitar.” His voice cracked and tears were now rolling freely down his face. “I miss our stupid ice cream challenges to see which one of us got a brain freeze first. God, I miss everything, Jude. I just…”

His voice could no longer express everything he missed, everything that had been taken away from them both, but mostly, from a young boy who would never become a young man. “Christ, I don’t know what to do…I don’t know.”

His nose was streaming now, as he sobbed, bowing his head to sniffle against Jude’s side, where the respirator puffed and breathed for him, making his thin chest rise and fall. Draven had never felt such agony, such finality. He knew he was nearing the end of the road with Jude. That fact, coupled with the thought of knowing that he had to make the decision that would break his heart and leave him shattered and torn, made him want to close his eyes, hug his knees to his chest and hibernate in a dark place.

The enormity of the task ahead of him swept through him like cold Siberian air, chilling his bones to the marrow and making him wonder if his heart would ever beat again.

There was a swell of air beside him, like a bubble of warmth and he looked up, eyes red, and blurred, thinking someone was beside him. His scalp prickled and his hair stirred, as if someone had passed by and touched him. There was no one there and he knew it was his own longing and desperation that was creating these illusions.

“Are you there, Jude?” he whispered. “Can you hear me? I wish you could tell me what you want, tell me whether you’re in pain. That damn doctor of yours says you aren’t but what the hell do they know? They aren’t you. They aren’t stuck in this fucking bed, wasting away, so how can they say that?” He used the sleeve of his long-sleeved shirt to wipe his eyes and grabbed a box of tissues from the bedside table to blow his nose. “I want to do the right thing, little brother. I want to make sure I do what’s best for you and I don’t know what that is.”