Winner Kills All

We were lying on daybeds in the relaxation room of a spa in central London. The air was filled with ylang-ylang and yuzu, and dolphins and other cetaceans made plaintive noises over the loudspeakers.

Through a plate-glass window I could see a circular Romanesque pool, complete with fluted columns and curvaceous stone gods. A series of tall, elegant women in expensively sculpted swimsuits carefully risked a few head-up strokes, swimming in a don’t-smudge-my-make-up way. I automatically sorted them into two categories: Work Done and No Work Done. WDs outnumbered NWDs by about two to one. There was more filler out there than in a branch of B&Q. This was the idle rich at . . . well, idle. In what seemed increasingly to be my previous life, they might have been my clients.

What I couldn’t quite figure out was why Nina had brought me here. An old university friend of Paul’s, she worked as a journalist on a national newspaper – the same one as Adam from Albania as it happened, although I thought it best not to bring that little escapade up – and would normally rain vitriol down on the slim-limbed, meticulously depilated women exiling themselves in this private club.

Nina sat up on one elbow, pulling the neck of her robe together. Perhaps she thought natural breasts were against club rules.

‘So, do you believe your friend and lover, or some gangster who traffics in human misery?’

I was stumped for an answer. I knew it should be an easy choice. Except, even traffickers in human misery have to switch off some time. It could be that Leka was telling the truth and that Tom – and Paul – had played a part in the cover-up of a rape. Possibly a gang rape. If Leka’s version of events was true.

Leka had claimed that it was the British soldiers who assaulted the girl, and when they, the locals, tried to stop them, the Brits opened fire. Leka had survived, not because of anybody’s mercy, but by playing dead. The thought of Tom and Paul being mixed up in that sent acid into my throat. I couldn’t look that scenario in the eye just yet.

Nina used to specialise in making me feel uncomfortable, pointing out my lack of knowledge about art, politics and literature whenever she could. Being able to field-strip a Sig was, in her book, a poor substitute for being able to say Edvard Munch properly. How was I to know his surname wasn’t pronounced like the eating sound?

This had improved somewhat since Matt and Laura had enticed Jess away while she was at Nina’s house. Guilt – even misplaced guilt – had a way of softening her hard edges. But I had that toxic guilt as well. In spades.

Matt was a fuck-up. I’d met him while I was in the army as a medic and I went to Afghanistan while, unbeknown to me, pregnant with his child.

I left the service and decided to settle down. Then Matt decided he hadn’t quite used up his lifetime club-bing/drug allowance and set about touring the party islands of Europe. Somewhere along the way, he realised he couldn’t face coming back to domesticity.

Matt returned to my life some time after my second husband Paul was murdered, looking for a way into the same family he had rejected years earlier. If I hadn’t batted him away, somewhat forcefully, he might not have taken Jess. I never quite understood why he wanted custody of her. Where did his late burst of paternalism come from? Wherever it was, he probably shouldn’t have had a vasectomy until he was certain he never wanted any more children. But he did and, given he would have no future chance at fatherhood, had been prepared to steal Jess. An eventuality I hadn’t even considered.

Nina might have fallen for Matt and Laura’s ploy to lure Jess away from her care, but the guilt I felt for not second-guessing it was far more acute.

I took some just to keep any lectures at bay. Her skin did look better than mine, that much was certain. Then again, the skin on the stone gods around the pool looked better than mine.

I had an excuse. It’s difficult to get your fifty litres a day, or whatever it is, when you’re being chased down a mountain by men who want to kill you, or when you are trying to bully an Albanian people-smuggler into getting the fuck out of your life. And gunfights play havoc with any moisturising regime.

Nina put on her serious face. It didn’t wrinkle much and I thought: Botox? No, not Nina, scourge of artifice.

‘Last year, ten thousand journalism jobs disappeared in the UK,’ said Nina. ‘Did you know that?’

‘Have you been fired? Is this your redundancy we’re spending on being stroked by Amazonians?’

‘No. Let me finish. Last year, there were forty thousand PR jobs created. Forty thousand. Most in social media.’

She looked like I had just punched her dog on the nose. ‘You can’t play favourites with the future.’

It sounded like something Elon Musk or James Dyson might say. ‘Where did you get that line from?’

The door opened and a WD put her head in, tried to sneer, failed and retreated. I recalled there was a ‘Please keep your conversation to a minimum’ sign outside. Fuck them, that’s easy when you have nothing worthwhile to say.

I dialled down on the scorn a little. It wasn’t the club or the women or even Nina putting me in a bad mood. It was the whole Tom and Leka situation.

‘I’m setting up an agency. Managing influencers, mainly. Making sure celebrities come down to the clients’ places and post about their visits. This place is going to be the first. If we sign.’

It took a while for me to process this. ‘But, you’re a journalist. You hate PR as much as you hate social media.’

‘What I hate is being in a dying industry. Oh, I’ll stay in writing for a while. But look, some of these celebs will need bodyguards, or ELOs, or whatever you call yourselves.’

She knew damn well we were PPOs. She also knew I was right. She hated that world. But I was making her defensive. Her spines would come out soon. I softened my tone.

‘Well, not good. But a way forward.’ I think her eyes were asking for approval. I didn’t know what to say. It didn’t sound like a career she would relish. ‘Talking of journalism, I read a great piece by Adam Bryant the other day. You know him?’

I kept quiet. I might have known they were acquaintances. Colleagues. Rivals, perhaps.

‘It was about two women he met who got him out of a confrontation with some Albanian brigands.’

Gangsters, not brigands, I wanted to say. ‘Brigands’ suggests some sort of romantic bandit. Those guys had been anything but romantic. ‘Really?’ I said it with a what’s-this-got-to-do-with-me flatness.

‘Really,’ she continued. ‘It’s a great read. He even swears it’s true.’

‘It’s not,’ said Nina with an irritated shake of the head. ‘Rory spiked it. The editor,’ she said, answering my next question. ‘Said it read too much like Boy’s Own fiction. It’s one of the reasons I want to leave. If all we write about is a celebrity’s fragrant farts, we may as well just get out there and take the celebrity’s shilling. Anyway, you were in Albania recently, weren’t you? With Little Minx?’ She meant Freddie. They didn’t see eye to eye on . . . well, anything really.

‘No.’ She leaned across the gap between the two daybeds and lowered her voice, even though we were alone. ‘You know, it strikes me that there is only one way to solve your dilemma about who is telling the truth. About the rape.’

I knew what she was about to suggest because I had already considered it. ‘Ask Elona what she remembers.’

‘I suggested it to Leka. He said he didn’t want the past stirred up. That Elona had suffered enough. He said if I ever went near her he would kill me.’ In fact, he also said if he ever saw me again he’d kill me. But he promised a truce, at least while I confronted Tom about that day in Kosovo.

‘You know what I mean. She is the one witness that could tell you the truth.’

‘Tom reckons not. He says she is either traumatised or has been brainwashed, or both.’

‘I told you, I’m going to Asia to get Jess from Matt.’ With Freddie. Although, how I was going to pay for both of us was a moot point. Oktane, as the Colonel had warned, had not been cheap. And I never even saw the guy. We had only communicated via the extra phone I had been given by Inspector Gazim at Tirana airport, which I had destroyed as instructed once our business was concluded.

I needed cash. There was a job being advertised that might have tempted me in the old days. The whole-page ad that had appeared in Security Gazette swam into my vision.

We are looking for a PPO to accompany our well-known international celebrity client on a visit to Hong Kong for personal reasons. The successful applicant will be discreet and well versed in defensive surveillance. The client has received kidnap threats that she – and we – take seriously. The successful applicant will be part of a team offering 24-hour protection for the duration of the trip. Client stipulation is for at least one female to cover all possibilities. Mandarin or Cantonese an advantage. Clean passport essential. Proof of self-defence skills expected. Must be willing to submit to random drug testing. Salary negotiable.

‘International celebrity’ was always worrying. If it were true, it meant they drew unwarranted attention wherever they went. The Beckhams were a prime example. Very hard to keep them under the radar completely. If it weren’t really true, then it was a client with ideas above their station. And I couldn’t promise Mandarin or Cantonese.

No, it was a bust. Especially as HK wasn’t where I wanted to be. Close, but no cicadas.

‘He’s hurt that I don’t believe him. I’m . . . ambivalent. Also, he thinks I’m mad running after Jess.’

‘He thinks she’ll find her way home eventually. Matt might be an arse, but he’ll keep her safe. He thinks I’ll just stir up trouble.’

I puffed out my cheeks, a move I doubted many women in that spa could manage. I remembered my first meeting with Tom on the canal near King’s Cross, when he had cut his arm trying to repair his narrow-boat. He had seemed so confident, yet so vulnerable. And how we very awkwardly fell into his bed. Or was that his bunk? But Leka had cast a shadow over all of that. My feelings at this point were probably what they call bittersweet. With the former probably ahead by a length. ‘I think it is.’

Most spas in London hotels are built in the basement. It’s one of the reasons I don’t feel comfortable in them. I prefer clear views of the outside world and obvious exit strategies. Whenever a client has a day in the spa, I feel jittery. Especially if I have to join in and wear those gowns and mule slippers they all seem to favour. Have you ever tried running in those things? I have. I’d rather do it in Blahniks.

So, even though I wasn’t working, I was glad to emerge into the fresh air – of sorts – near Trafalgar Square and get a phone signal. After I had said goodbye to Nina, wishing her all the best turning from gamekeeper into poacher – although I didn’t use that phrase – I walked around the corner to a wine bar called Terroirs, ordered a large glass of Viognier to counter the effects of all that subterranean rehydration, and checked my messages. Several were from Freddie, who was comparing fares out to Singapore and on to Bali.

There was a request to get in touch from my Personal Finance Planner at the bank. I really didn’t want my PFP to know what I was planning to do with the rest of my money. There were missed calls from Tom, which made my insides do somersaults I couldn’t actually interpret. The final one was a voicemail from a number I didn’t recognise. It also took me a moment to place the woman’s voice when I played it back.

‘Hiya, Miss Wylde. Long time no speak. Look, I might need your help. Just for a few days. It pays well. I’m putting my head above the – what’s it called? – parapet. Can you call me on this number? Be great to hear from you. Oh, it’s Noor, by the way.’

Noor. Short for Nourisha. AKA the Angel of Harlow. I hadn’t heard from her since . . . since the days when stretch limos seemed cool. I’d always liked her. Despite everything. I took a sip of wine and pressed the call-back button. I might as well tell her straight away that Sam Wylde was out of the bodyguarding game for the foreseeable future.