Sins of the Father (24 page)

“Twenty quid,” the girl said.

“I’m not paying you a penny for a dose of the clap.” The man had an upper-class accent. He probably worked in one of the better businesses in the area. Southwark, like many of the older areas of London, was a collision of poverty and wealth. Prostitution was everywhere, and so were snotty little wankers like the one who now had Kael’s gaze riveted on his back.

“You should’ve used a fucking condom then!” the girl screamed. “Gimme my twenty quid.”

Drawing back his fist, the man landed his knuckles in the girl’s face with a sickening crunching sound. This was the one. Kael had stalked the alleys for over two hours for the perfect target. He had almost chosen the thick-as-pig shit young chav he had watched rob the assistant in the all-night launderette. Only the pallor of the man’s face and the anxious look in his eyes had told him that the bloke was desperate for drugs. But this man could pay for his fix; he just didn’t want to.

A thin scream tore through the alley as blood poured from the girl’s nose.

With a look of disgust on his face, the punter left her trying to stanch the flow of blood and walked off in the opposite direction. The young prostitute began to stumble back along the alley toward the streetlamps. Kael followed the man. About twenty feet ahead, a left turn would bring the man back to the well-lit street and the safety of the evening pedestrian traffic. Picking up his pace, Kael reached the target without alerting the man that he was being followed. Taller by half a foot, Kael grabbed the man’s neck with his right hand, jerking him back until he fell against Kael’s chest.

“Don’t move,” he whispered into the man’s ear, as he pressed the tip of the retractable scalpel against the pulsing jugular. Fear overtook the target, and all the signs of fight or flight manifested. A sweat broke out on the man’s face, and his breathless voice indicated a pounding heart and shortness of breath.

Maneuvering the target so he could look into his eyes, Kael slammed the man’s back against the clammy brick wall and stood in front of him, very close, his scalpel in position. Even at this proximity, he doubted the bloke could see his face clearly, partly because of the darkness and partly because he was in a state of shock. In a stammering confusion of words, he said, “My wallet in my inside pocket. There’s about five hundred pounds in it.”

“So why didn’t you pay that girl her twenty quid, you fucking wanker?” He spoke into the man’s face.

The man’s tone was apologetic. “I should have.”

“You hit her in the face.”

A sudden intense smell of warm urine filled Kael’s nostrils, and he knew the man had wet himself. “I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have hit her. But she was just a whore, for God’s sake. Are you her pimp?”

A bubbling chuckle that he couldn’t control rose from Kael’s belly.
A pimp
. Without moving the scalpel, he let his laughter overtake him for a minute. Then the words
just a whore
caught at him, and his laughter died abruptly. What had Romodanovsky said?
“She’s just a maid.”

Deliberately, while looking directly into the man’s eyes, Kael hit the button with his thumb to release the scalpel blade. The man’s eyes and mouth opened wide in shock. Stepping neatly to one side, Kael slid the blade from the jugular vein. The blood from the girl’s broken nose had poured freely, but jugular blood pumped fast and hot. A surge of adrenaline washed through Kael’s body, filling him with a much-needed endorphin rush.

Falling to his knees at Kael’s feet, the man clutched his neck, attempting to stop the blood, but nothing could stop his life from draining from him. Taking several more steps away, Kael watched until the target stopped moving.

On the street, he removed his latex gloves, and with an alcohol pad, he carefully wiped the blood from the scalpel, retracted the blade, and pocketed the weapon. The gloves and the wipe he tossed into a rubbish bin as he passed. Smiling, he walked home, feeling intensely relieved.

The flat was quiet and dark as he had left it, but as he approached the bedroom, he saw a crack of light under the door and heard voices. Angel was sitting up in bed watching something on his laptop. When he saw Kael, he bit his bottom lip, looking guilty. “I couldn’t sleep, Daddy.”

Stripping his clothes off, Kael dropped them into the basket for the dry cleaner and carried the shoes to the bathroom, where he cleaned the soles at the sink. Angel wandered in to watch him. “Did you step in something?”

Kael smiled at him in the mirror. “You know me, just being a clean freak as usual.” He handed the shoes to Angel. “Put them away while I take a quick shower.”

“That’s your third shower today,” Angel said, taking the shoes from him.

Within five minutes, Kael was in bed with his boy. Propped up on pillows beside Angel, he asked, “What are you watching?”

Angel swiveled his laptop so that Kael could see it too. “It’s an OVA. That means original video anime.”

“Does it?” Angel loved explaining his interests and pursuits to him, and to Kael it was like a different world. The fourteen years between them sometimes seemed like twenty. Angel was so young compared to Kael at his age. All Kael had been interested in from the age of twelve was sex, sports, and academics.

Angel loved art and
yaoi
comics and fashion. “Yes, Sir. It’s called
Okane ga Nai
. See this boy?” He pointed at the screen.

“The skinny blond? Reminds me of you a little.”

Angel’s eyes always opened wide when he smiled. “It’s a very cool plot, Daddy. The blond boy is Ayase, and he was betrayed by his cousin and sold to pay a debt. He ends up in a sex slave auction and is bought by Kanou. That’s him with the dark hair, tall and handsome, but not as handsome as you, Daddy.”

“No, of course not,” Kael said.

Chuckling, Angel continued. “Kanou tells Ayase he can buy his freedom by having sex with him. So he does, but he’s very nervous about his feelings for another man. They both are.”

“That’s the whole plot?” Kael asked. “They could make an opera out of that.”

“That’s pretty much it. But the sex scenes are hot.” Angel turned off his laptop and slid it under the bed. “Daddy, Freddie phoned when you were out. He asked if I could babysit. I said it was probably okay and I would ask you. Zoe and Amelia asked if Uncle Kael would come too and read them a story.”

Kael switched off the light to hide his smile while Angel rolled onto his side and into Kael’s arms. Freddie and Adam’s two little girls were growing on him. He was still nervous of them and found their behavior incomprehensible, but they seemed to love him. “Yes, all right. We’ll both go. But don’t ever get any ideas about adopting children. Got it?”

“No danger. I don’t want anyone taking your attention away from me, Daddy.”

Sniffing deeply, Kael inhaled the fresh, sweet scent of his boy, even as his senses recalled the smells of the alley, urine, and blood. Kael lived mostly in the moment, except when planning a hit, which required him to look forward, or writing his diary, when he had to look back. The prostitute and the man in the suit were in the past. He was home with his boy, awash in the softness of Angel’s skin, inhaling the sweet scent of Angel’s hair, listening to the boy’s even breathing as he drifted into sleep. “I love you, Angel.”

“Daddy.” Angel’s voice was so quiet and sleepy Kael just barely heard him. “There’s only you. In the whole world, the only man I ever want is you. You’re so good.”

At Angel’s words, the gasp of the man in the alley filled Kael’s head. The gasp that had followed the scalpel slicing into his jugular. The memory of the euphoria filled his body anew and the remnants of adrenaline seeped through his blood. “I’m not good.”

“You’re like me.”
Romodanovsky was a rapist and probably a killer.

Yes, I am like you.

Chapter Thirteen

“Thanks so much, chaps. We wouldn’t normally ask you, but my niece canceled at the last minute,” Freddie said. “Nice that you both came. The girls were hoping Uncle Kael would come too.” He looked back and forth between the happy faces of his two adopted little daughters. “And we could not leave these fair damsels in better hands than yours.”

“A damsel is a princess,” Amelia said.

“No! It’s girl,” Zoe shouted.

Both little girls had clutched at Kael’s legs the moment he walked through the front door into Freddie and Adam’s spacious Chelsea home. He ignored them, waiting until they turned their attention to Angel. It wasn’t that he didn’t like them. He had grown really fond of them over the last year. He just didn’t know what to say to them. When the long-haired white cat strolled past, he looked suspiciously at it, glad he had worn his jeans and not his usual black trousers. “Going anywhere special?”

“It’s meet-the-teacher night at their school,” Adam said. “Not terribly exciting, I know. But we thought we’d go out for a bite to eat afterward. Would it be okay if we got back about tenish?”

“That’s fine,” Kael said. “Knock yourselves out.”

Looking more rotund than ever, Freddie attempted to fasten his expensive wool coat over his stomach and then gave up, leaving it unbuttoned. “Kael, tell Adam to stop feeding me so well.” He chuckled.

“I think it’s got more to do with the amount you eat than what he serves,” Kael said.

“Daddy!” Holding Amelia in his arms, Angel gave him the raised-eyebrow look that always told him he had made a social gaffe.

“Don’t worry about it, Angel, my boy.” Freddie never took offense at anything. “I’m used to my old mate, and I love him to bits just as he is. He’s never had any social graces.”

“Sorry,” Kael muttered.

“They’ve had their bath, and now all they need is a bedtime snack and a story,” Adam said.

“No probs,” Angel told them.

Freddie preceded his husband outside, calling over his shoulder, “Help yourself to the whisky, Kael. You might need it.”

In the messy kitchen—where the children’s dinner dishes were still piled up on the counter beside the dishwasher—Angel opened the fridge while Kael looked around at the disaster. “They need to employ a housekeeper,” Kael said.

“Dadda cleans the house,” Zoe said. “Do you know how old I am, Uncle Kael?”

He’d forgotten. “No.”

“Six.” She gazed at him. Confused as always by their behavior, Kael remembered that Freddie said the girls liked to be acknowledged and praised. Just like Angel.

“That’s wonderful.” He glanced at Angel, who smiled and nodded. So he’d got that right.

Amelia grabbed the knee of his jeans, pulling on it. “I’m five!”

“No, you’re not five till May!” her sister said.

Flying at her sister with her hand raised to slap her, Amelia screamed, “I am five.”

Watching in horror, Kael stepped out of their way. Angel lunged forward and grabbed Amelia’s small hand. “No,” he said very firmly. “We never hit our sister.” He looked up at Kael. “Isn’t that right, Uncle Kael?”

Kael had seen adults do that with kids before, refer to each other as Mummy and Daddy or Granny or something. “Yes, that’s right.”

Meekly the girls sat down at the table while Kael cleared away a stack of drawings and a plastic box filled with wax crayons and colored pencils. Angel served the girls little tubs of fruit-flavored yogurt and Fig Newtons with a glass of milk each. Already exhausted, Kael sat with them.

Amelia crawled across the table with a biscuit and tried to feed it to Kael. “Have some, Uncle Kael.” He opened his mouth and let her put it in. “You’ve got a very big mouth, Uncle Kael. You took the whole biscuit in one bite.” Not to be outdone, Zoe brought him another one that she insisted on putting straight into his mouth as well, and he ate that too.

At last they were upstairs with Angel, brushing their teeth. Kael could hear the water running freely and Angel’s voice rising above it. “That’s enough toothpaste!”

In the untidy living room, Kael took a tumbler from the sideboard, removed a cat hair from it, and poured a whisky. With relief he tossed it back and refilled it. What was he doing there? He should have stayed home, but Angel insisted the girls wanted to see him, and they did seem to like him, even though he hardly spoke to them.

Checking first for cat dander, he threw himself down in a comfortable chair, listening to the screams of laughter from upstairs. What the hell was so funny all the time? Freddie and Adam were mad to want a life like this. The lovely house with its stained-glass transom windows and polished wood floor was a disaster of scattered toys, spilled food, and cat hair. At his belt, the secure line mobile buzzed. Even before he opened the phone and pressed it to his ear, Kael knew what Conran wanted.

“What the hell have you done?” The agitation in the whispered accusation was evident.

“Hello, Conran,” Kael said calmly.

“A man was found in a backstreet alley in Bermondsey, and you killed him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m at Freddie’s house with Angel. We’re babysitting.” The incongruity of an MI6 specialist operative spending an evening babysitting was amusing.

“This was a couple of days ago. For God’s sake, convince me you didn’t kill the man.” Conran waited, and when Kael didn’t reply, he said, “The coroner says the victim’s jugular was slit with a blade about the size of a scalpel. I knew right away it was you after you said the other day that you wanted a hit. Did you kill him?”

“Yes.” Kael swallowed a mouthful of whisky.

“What is wrong with you?” Conran’s agitation was so strong in his voice that Kael could picture his pale blue eyes bulging and the veins throbbing in his temples.

“Calm down, Stephen. You’ll give yourself a heart attack.”

“Have you done this before? Killed without sanction? Aside from Clement, I mean.”

“The city is littered with my kills,” Kael said impatiently. Who the hell did Conran think he was, the fucking Yorkshire Ripper? “Don’t be an idiot. Of course I haven’t.”

“I can hardly believe this. I thought you had crossed the line when you were having sex with your targets before you killed them. But this! Did you pick him randomly, or do you have a profile you like to go after.”