Road Kill (24 page)

My mother appeared out of the kitchen at the end of the hallway and came forwards to welcome him. He put his hand on her arm, almost exactly the way Sean had done with me but, when he bent to kiss her, it was a sterile little peck on the cheek.

She stepped back and caught sight of me descending. Her face registered her disappointment but I didn’t have time to feel ashamed of my petty behaviour.

“I’d like a word with you before lunch, Charlotte,” my father said. He inclined his head politely. “If we have time?”

“Of course,” my mother said. But she would have said that even if she’d been keeping the food warm for an hour already.

My father smiled at her and led the way into his study. I followed. He closed the door behind us. I expected him to cross to the antique rosewood desk and take a position of authority behind it, but instead he moved to the silver tray of drink bottles on the sideboard.

I took one of the wingback leather armchairs standing at right angles to the desk.

“How’s Clare?” I asked, before he had chance to get a shot in.

“Doing as well as can be expected,” he said, professionally neutral. “The last procedure went well. I have one or two things to attend to here, then I’ll be going back up on Thursday.” He caught my expression. “It’s all going to take time, Charlotte,” he went on, gently. “The human body is a remarkable machine when it comes to repairing itself, but it isn’t quick.”

“I know,” I said, “and I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done for her. Without you . . . well, they were talking about amputation.”

He nodded, a regal acceptance of his own brilliance. “Sherry?” he offered.

I calculated the time until I was due to hit the road, and the fact that the mighty lunch my mother would undoubtedly serve would sop up the worst of the alcohol.

“I’d rather have a whisky,” I said, stretching my legs out in front of me, “if you still have any of that rather good single malt?”

He raised an eyebrow but poured a finger of rich golden liquid into a pair of crystal tumblers without comment. As he handed one across he clinked his with mine before perching on the edge of the desk beside me.

“So,” I said, inhaling the smoky earth tones in my glass, “what have I done now?”

“Why should you think you’ve done anything?” he asked, his voice deceptively mild.

“Oh, habit,” I said, not to be deflected. “Why else the cosy chat?”

He took a sip of his whisky, savoured the taste and sidestepped the question. “Your mother said you’ve come to collect your other motorbike – the new one,” he said then. “Can I ask why?”

I shrugged. “The Suzuki got trashed last night,” I said shortly. “I need transport.”

If I’d been hoping to shock him into a reaction, I was to be disappointed. Instead, his eyes tracked over my leathers and I realised, belatedly, that they still bore the scuffs and scars of my Transit encounter.

“I would ask if you are all right, but clearly you are,” he said. “This was in addition to you banging your knee yesterday, I assume?” he added dryly. “You were never so clumsy as a child, Charlotte.”

“Sometimes,” I said with a smile. “But back then it was usually ponies I was falling off.”

“Hmm. Strange that you should suddenly become so accident prone just as Sean Meyer makes a reappearance, don’t you think?”

Ah, so
that’s
what this was all about
. I sat up straighter in my chair, the smile fading.

“No,” I said baldly. “Sean came because I called him after Clare’s accident, because I asked him to. Don’t go blaming him for any of this.”

“Any of what?”

Damn
. I glared at him, as though he’d set out to deliberately trick me. Silence was the best card I’d got and I played it with a flourish, taking another mouthful of whisky.

He set his own glass down carefully on the leather blotter, folding his hands together in front of him. “I understand you’ve stopped seeing Dr Yates.”

“Oh, and what happened to patient confidentiality?” I threw back at him. “Or doesn’t that apply when it’s one of your golfing cronies?”

His moment of stillness signified his irritation. “That was unworthy of you, Charlotte,” he said. “Dr Yates agreed to see you as a personal favour to me and he would no more discuss one of his patients with a third party than would I. But, since I’ve been footing the bill for his services, he thought I ought to be aware that your last session was six weeks ago and you have failed to make any further appointments. Would you care to tell me why?”

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, flashed with genuine contrition for my lack of gratitude. “Maybe I’m just not the type who responds well to psychotherapy. I didn’t feel it was doing me much good.”

“Perhaps that is precisely why you should have continued.”

“Perhaps I will,” I said, noncommittal. “But if you were hoping he’d talk me out of working in close protection – or working with Sean – you’ll be sadly disappointed.”

He regarded me for a moment longer, then sighed and got to his feet. He went over to the tall sash window and seemed lost in contemplation of the garden. “This wasn’t quite the future we envisaged for you, you know,” he said, without turning round.

“It wasn’t quite the future I had mapped out myself,” I agreed. “But I’m here now and it would appear to be something I’m quite good at. It’s not everyone who finds their niche.”

My flippancy was a mistake. He turned and the expression on his face held surprising bitterness.
“Good at?
” he repeated, his voice slipping uncharacteristically into harshness. “At what? Killing people?”

My hands gave a quick convulsive clench. I set the glass down before I was tempted to throw it at him.

“No – at keeping them alive,” I said with quiet vehemence. “By whatever means necessary.”

He moved to the other side of the desk, leaning forwards and resting his fists on the polished surface, staring at my face. “Necessary in whose opinion? Yours? Meyer’s?”

“Leave Sean out of this.”

He made a gesture of impatience with one hand. “How can I, when you persist in connecting yourself to the man? He’s dangerous and he’s leading you down a very dark path. What happens when your judgement fails you and you take a life when it isn’t
necessary
, hmm? What happens then?”

Into the silence that followed his outburst, there came a quiet tapping at the door and my mother stuck her head into the room.

“I’m sorry to disturb your discussion,” she said, with enough emphasis on the last word to make me wonder how long she’d been eavesdropping, “but lunch is ready.”

“Thank you, we’ll be through directly.” My father nodded briefly in dismissal. He waited until she’d gone out and closed the door behind her before he launched his final warning.

“If you stay involved with Sean Meyer you
will
end up killing again,” he said, calm now but certain as stone. “And next time, Charlotte, you might not get away with it.”

***

Lunch was a subdued affair. My mother chattered brightly into the vacuum, doing her best to play the perfect hostess even under the most difficult circumstances. By the time we reached the rhubarb pie, however, even she had lapsed into uncomfortable silence.

As soon as was decently possible afterwards, I gathered my kit together in the hallway and prepared to leave. Surprisingly, perhaps, both my parents came out onto the driveway as I unhooked the trickle-charger from the FireBlade’s battery. I wheeled the bike out of the garage and fired it up to let the engine warm through.

“Take care of yourself, Charlotte,” my father said gravely as I zipped up my jacket. “I would rather not meet you in a professional capacity, if it can be avoided.”

I nodded briefly and swung my leg over the ‘Blade, but hesitated before I slid my helmet into place.

Ah well
, I thought.
In for a penny
. . .

“By the way, who’s Mr Chandry?” I asked.

“He’s the consultant gynaecologist at Lancaster, I believe,” my father said and I saw his eyes flicker over my mother’s face, as though concerned about embarrassing her. “Why do you ask?”

“When we went to see Clare yesterday he was with her and she was in floods of tears,” I explained.

“Clare has been through a good deal of physical and emotional trauma,” he said sharply. “Under those circumstances it’s hardly surprising that she will be subject to emotional outbursts. It’s a normal reaction.”

I shrugged, diffident. “I just wondered what he might have told her that would upset her so much.”

My father sighed. “Your friend suffered severe damage to her pelvic area,” he said, spelling it out. “Besides anything else, there’s the possibility it may prevent her from having children in the future. She’s a young woman. Naturally she would find that information very distressing, don’t you think?”

***

Thrashing back up the motorway, dicing with the thickening traffic over the Thelwall Viaduct, I was concentrating too much on getting used to the bike again to ponder much over the discussion I’d had with my father in his study. Once I got onto the stretch north of Preston, however, things quietened down enough for it all to creep back into my mind, unwelcome as a thief.

I tried to tell myself that he was overstating Sean’s effect on me and the dangers he represented, but my father had never been much prone to exaggeration. Besides, after the last few days I couldn’t refute his allegations with a clear conscience.

That seemed almost as bad as agreeing with him completely.

It wasn’t Sean’s instinct to kill that troubled me, even though in the past I’d seen him give it free rein with results that had shocked me to the centre.

It was the fact that, given time, I knew I could be just like him. And, more than that, part of me wanted to be.

Maybe that was why I’d stopped going to see my father’s tame psychotherapist. Just in case he managed to dig deep enough to uncover that shameful little secret.

Ahead of me a car abruptly pulled across into my path in the right-hand lane, oblivious despite the fact that you need a welder’s mask to look at the FireBlade’s black and yellow paintwork, and my headlight was on. I cursed under my breath as I dived on the brakes and hit the main beam switch.

When the car had drifted out of my way I drew level, with just enough time to glance sideways at the driver as I did so. A woman, I’m sorry to say, still too busy talking to her passenger to have noticed me. There was a young kid in the back who was paying more attention, though. As I came past his nose was pressed against the glass, his mouth open as he stared out at the bike. I gave him a tiny wave and snapped the power on hard, just for badness.

The FireBlade catapulted viciously forwards like a jet fighter leaving a carrier deck. I held on tight, crouching behind the screen to cut down the buffeting from the wind, and grinned fiercely under my visor. The Suzuki was a toy compared to this, I thought, with gross but triumphant disloyalty. This was the real thing.

I flicked my eyes down at the speedo and found I’d romped up to a hundred and thirty. Vehicles in the centre lane disappeared behind me like they were going backwards. Sooner or later one of them was going to step out in front of me again. Either that or I was going to get nicked.

I rolled the throttle off until I was back down somewhere around the legal limit and sat up, still grinning.
Probably made that kid’s day.
One thought sparked another and my smile withered.

Clare had never expressed any particular desire to have children, but maybe she always thought there’d be plenty of time for that later. Maybe being told she might not be able to have them at all had proved something of an epiphany for her.

Then I thought of Jacob, who’d done the family thing and moved on. Did he really want to start again with sleepless nights and nappies and baby buggies and all the rest of that stuff? Besides, by the time the kid was old enough to want to go play football in the park with Daddy, Jacob would be collecting his pension. That wasn’t going to be fair on anybody.

Think of it as trading him in for a younger model
. . .

I shook my head to try and get Tess’s sly words out of there but they were stuck fast. And once I’d thought about them, I couldn’t seem to shut them out.

Because, there was always the possibility that it wasn’t Jacob Clare was contemplating having children with, but someone who was much closer to her own age and in a much better position to start a family. Someone who was so similar to Jacob it was like he’d stepped into a time machine and gone back thirty years.

His son.

By the time I got back to Lancaster I’d blown the cobwebs out of my head, if not the doubts, and more or less relearned the rules of the FireBlade.

By comparison, the Suzuki was smaller and more nimble on its feet on the twisties. It had once represented the outer boundaries of my abilities, but now it seemed a less challenging and ultimately a less rewarding ride.