Chapter Three: Crosscurrents

It was like pins and needles, like waking up with your arm folded under you. The numbness was bad, but things were briefly worse when it wore off.

By the time he got back home, Thomas was mortified by his own lack of grace. His courtesy was deeper ingrained in him even than the scars of his combat experience, and returning Flynn’s gift like that was far from what he had intended. He flinched to think of the way in which Flynn might get his parcel back. Some bloke dropped this off for you. Said he didn’t want it. Followed up, probably, by Don’t have your bloody packages delivered through the gate, Lieutenant. We’re not the Royal Mail.

He struggled to put the whole mess out of his mind. It was over, and a good lesson to him in not allowing random elements into his life. Probably he would never see Flynn again, and if he had offended him, what was the harm? But what if you’ve hurt him, the undamaged parts of Thomas whispered, making him shiver and become abstracted when conducting routine medical checks, taking temperatures, listening to nicotine-clogged chests. That was ridiculous, though. It had been a half-hour encounter, and Summers had probably since then faced death several times on the open seas, winching stranded fishermen to safety. He wasn’t going to care about some imagined slight from a man whose name he had likely forgotten by now. In all probability he was simply relieved that he’d got away with it, not had his mad impulse taken to heart.

Still, it nagged at Thomas. He seemed to notice the passage of the Sea King helicopters overhead, with their distinctive grey and red livery, far more intensely than he had ever done before. By the following Saturday, he liked himself even less than usual, and instead of spending his day in the stern isolation that went some way towards repairing the social exhaustion of his week, he packed up the Land Rover, wolfhound and all, and drove down to the Perran Beach air show.

He’d never attended such an event before. Like any other kid he had watched the choppers plying the Cornish skies on their missions and imagined himself up there, but had felt no interest beyond that. He wasn’t really interested now. Any fascination with helicopter travel he might have been harbouring had been thoroughly knocked out of him by his first few Chinook flights over hostile terrain in Helmand Province.

He stood, beached and a little disoriented, beside the Land Rover, parked in a field among the hundreds of other cars, mobile homes and Volksie buses glittering in the sun. Occasionally he would spot acquaintances in the crowd and exchange a smile with them, wryly noting their surprise at seeing him there.

Glancing round at Belle, he saw that she was wearing her most haughty mask. Anyone who didn’t know her would think her unfriendly. For the first time, it occurred to Thomas to think about his own image—the effect he produced on others. He wasn’t unfriendly, either, but not one of the people who caught his eye and smiled at him came up to say hello. For the first time, he found himself minding.

A thunderous reverberation on the edge of the world distracted him, and he leaned on the Rover and watched the display. Six Sea King helicopters and four military Lynxes, the full Hawke Lake and Plymouth complement, breached the horizon in tight formation. The sight was oddly moving, Thomas had to admit, as long as he kept in mind their lifesaving remit and forgot that they also bore down mercilessly, with fully armed crews, on the gun- and drug-runners who often made a dash along the Cornish coast. Perhaps what touched him was the brotherhood implicit in their close-quarters flight. What faith you must have, in yourself and your comrades, to spin those double sets of thin, flashing blades so close to those of the surrounding craft, to fly almost flank to flank.

He listened to the announcer trying to give the crowd a commentary through the wind and rotor roar. Their pilots were trained, he said, to maintain steady height relative to a forty-foot pitching ocean swell, to compensate for hurricane-force winds. Each of the Sea Kings was fifty-five feet long, weighed in at six tons, could reach speeds of one hundred forty miles per hour…

It should have been hard to imagine Flynn, who stayed in Thomas’s memory as a bright-haired sea spirit, strapped into the cockpit of one of these vast machines, putting it through its manoeuvres. Although there was considerable grace in the flight of the Sea Kings, it was massive, ponderous, a great industrial pod of metal-clad whales on the move. Last year the Red Arrow fighter jets had flown over Perran for the air show, to the pride of the local council—their aerobatic displays had a formidable waiting list. Thomas hadn’t seen them, but had caught them from a distance as they swooped, converged and exploded apart with a surfer’s nonchalant flair. Yes, he could see Flynn as a jet pilot. Giving it thought, though, he had surprisingly little trouble putting him at the Sea King’s controls too. He would be capable and fast, his body braced against the vibe of the machine…

When Thomas’s mind delivered the image of Flynn’s tanned and elegant hand closing firmly on the Sea King’s joystick, he astounded himself with a shout of laughter. Oh my God. Time to go home, definitely. He was not quite sure what he had come here to accomplish, but the chopper team was landing now in neat formation on the tarmac a couple of hundred yards away. The display was over. Belle was looking at him in bewilderment, and he had turned a few heads among the spectators around him too.

He turned to open the Land Rover’s door and saw that, while he had been staring at helicopters like a ten-year-old boy, he had been neatly and shamelessly parked in. A Volkswagen camper, typically, painted end to end with flowers and peace signs. Thomas looked for the driver, but he was nowhere to be seen. Probably hadn’t even noticed the Land Rover and two other vehicles he had paralysed. Bloody hippies.

Thomas felt a cold twist of anger, which was more to do with being trapped than inconvenienced. Now he would have to find his way across the field to the tannoy tent and get a bloody announcement made, like a lost child.

Then he stopped. What the hell was his problem? The day was warm, the wind soft. It was May, he suddenly realised. Over at Padstow, the ’Obby ’Oss dancers would have made their ancient rites to welcome the summer, scattering blossoms across half of Cornwall and scaring maiden tourists to death with the terrible old hobbyhorse, whose operative made it ceremonially bite as many unsuspecting backsides as he possibly could. Thomas used to love the Padstow rites. Why hadn’t he gone?

Running a hand across his hair, he felt himself calming, the old gift of perspective returning to him. Was his time so precious, his day so packed with duties, that he had to go running off to demand his release? And as far as bloody hippies were concerned, there were worse things to be parked in by. Thomas knew he should be grateful, and found that he actually was. A kid’s Volksie bus, not a Snatch Land Rover or armoured truck. The roar of slowing rotors just the coda to a good day out, not a signal that within ten minutes he would be up to his elbows in the blood of incoming wounded. He had his usual flask of decent coffee on the back seat. There was no hurry.

He set the flask on the roof, and then on impulse scrambled up to join it, a trick he hadn’t practised in a while. He was relieved that he was still agile enough for the jump, as well as that the Rover’s creaking metalwork would still bear his weight. He could see across the whole paddock from here. Pouring himself a coffee, he idly took in the stalls and marquees, the bright flap of bunting, the blessed multicoloured clash of civilian garments in a peaceful crowd. Yes, there were worse places he could be.

Belle, who had been watching him in approval, suddenly stood up and issued one of her rare barks. Thomas looked down at her, smiling and frowning. She was becoming quite demonstrative in her old age. She began a slow, dignified circling, which Thomas after a long time had learned to interpret as anticipation of some desired person or event.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked her, and, shielding his eyes against the sun, looked out over the field again.

The helicopter crews had disembarked. It might have been a display flight only, but they were fully kitted up in their rescue gear, the orange jumpsuits, designed to be visible at sea, almost incandescent in the sunlight. Not hard to spot, as they dispersed in small groups among the crowd, attracting hordes of excited kids.

Thomas repressed a grin. There were certainly two kinds of old-blood Cornishmen—his own type, stocky and dark, who had probably been here as long as the rocks, and the Bronze Age Celts who had succeeded them, strapping creatures, often blonds or redheads, with piercing blue-grey eyes. The six-foot-odd example of the latter breed standing regally in the crowd almost made Thomas laugh again, he was such a perfect picture. Thomas could imagine his own ancestors apprehensively watching from their green mounds while these invaders made landfall from many-oared boats. Red-gold hair, bright as metal in the breeze, plainly lapping up the attention from the hero-worshipping children around him too, bending down like a film star to give autographs.

Thomas blinked. To the left of this Bronze Age giant, hanging back a bit and somehow eclipsed by him, was Flynn Summers. Thomas, who was now aware that he had been thinking of little else all week, was astonished that he hadn’t noticed him. It was as if his companion somehow put his lights out, somehow made him look ordinary. He seemed to be chatting distractedly to one little boy, but every so often he lifted his head and scanned the crowd, as if looking for something or anxious to be somewhere else. On the next of these wistful surveys, his eye caught Thomas’s.

He blazed up again. Thomas saw once more his brilliant smile, the sea-green brightening of his gaze. Involuntarily Thomas glanced over his shoulder—surely this lovely reillumination couldn’t be for him—but there was nobody else sitting on top of a truck around here, consciously or otherwise making himself noticeable. Diffidently he raised a hand in greeting, and saw Flynn touch the other man’s arm and gesture towards him.

He dismounted from his perch, resisting the urge to tug his shirt straight or check in the wing mirror that his hair had not performed its occasional trick of standing up in spikes across his crown. This was, for God’s sake, the most casual acquaintance imaginable—thirty minutes, ten of which they had both spent trying not to drown. Belle increased the pace of her circling, then suddenly peeled off and, to Thomas’s surprise, went confidently trotting down between the line of cars to greet Flynn as he approached.

Thomas was so absurdly glad to see him that, for a moment, his voice wouldn’t work. He put out a hand awkwardly—their introductions had already been made, but he could hardly go up and embrace him, much as some idiotic part of him wanted to. Much as, strangely, Flynn looked as if he would have liked to return the gesture. Both settled for a brief, fervent handclasp. “Hi,” Thomas managed. He looked at Belle, now standing at Flynn’s side as if she belonged to him, or vice versa. “My dog seems to like you. Which is weird, because she doesn’t like anybody.”

Flynn smiled. “Great place for her to start—with the bloke who tried to drown her master, I mean. How are you?”

“Fine. How have you been?” Automatically Thomas found himself glancing at the healing scratches on Flynn’s brow and cheek. “No colds, or…”

Flynn broke into laughter. Helplessly Thomas reflected that it was one of the nicest sounds he’d ever heard—generous and natural as the sunlit wind. “Fine, Dr. Thomas. How’s your shoulder? Any sign of rabies?”

Thomas found that he was grinning back. It felt good to be resisted like this. Even the healthiest and least self-centred of men seemed to feel the need to detail their little aches and pains when asked how they were by the local GP, and he in turn would use his role in place of conversation. “No. Not yet, anyway. Look, Flynn, I’m glad I saw you. I…”

A shadow fell. Belle shifted and subtly turned herself round so that she was shielding both Thomas and Flynn. For a wonder, she emitted a low growl, and Thomas took her firmly by the collar as the six-foot Celt emerged from between two cars. My ancient enemy, he thought, smiling at the lurid concept, and stepped forward as Flynn, who had for some reason gone a little pale, said, “Oh, hi, Rob. Robert Tremaine, this is Thomas Penrose, the doctor up at Sankerris. My saviour from the other week.”

The new arrival looked Thomas over. At first his expression did not indicate any particular pleasure at the introduction or the idea of the rescue. He had a striking, raw-boned face on which contempt would sit easily. Then he smiled, a wide bright flash only slightly marred by predatory, overlarge teeth, and thrust out a hand. “Ah,” he greeted Thomas warmly. “Flynn told me what happened. Pleased to meet you. I owe you a great deal.”

For a moment, Thomas tried to misunderstand him. Why, he didn’t know. There was less than no reason for the ache of disappointment trying to begin in him, the slight strained tightness in his throat. What had he been thinking? Tremaine slung his arm around Flynn’s shoulders, drew him close in to his side and briefly ruffled his hair, and there was no room left for confusion. No need, either, for this great strapping airman to be scent-marking his territory, which was what it looked to Thomas for all the world like he was trying to do. What had Flynn said to him? Or was this just a general warning display, put on for all passing males, however unlikely they were as potential competition? Whatever was going on, poor Flynn looked mortified. Time for some inane, normalising conversation. Thomas thought he could just about remember how to do that.

He shook Tremaine’s hand briskly. “Good to meet you too. That was quite a display up there. You and Flynn are cracking pilots.”

And somehow that was wrong. Perhaps his small talk was rustier than he’d feared. Flynn’s pallor had deepened. “Oh,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “Robert’s the pilot, not me. I’m just crew. The tea bag.”

Thomas frowned. “The what?”

“Means we tie him to a rope end and dip him in the water,” Tremaine clarified, giving Flynn a squeeze. “Flynn’s the business end. Harder job by far.”

Thomas could believe it. He’d seen a couple of rescues, when he’d gone out in the lifeboat to help with the survivors, and had wondered at the nerve of the men who got winched down into the heaving waters, tied to their friends, their craft and their lives by one thin umbilical. If Flynn was ashamed, he had no reason. He’d never claimed to be a pilot.

“Right,” Thomas said, not certain how to go on. “Well, it was an amazing sight. I…”

Flynn smiled, visibly deciding to help him out. “Wow. Did you come on purpose to see us?” He looked around, saw the camper van and grinned. “Oh, no. You just couldn’t escape.”

“No, I got parked in. But I did come to see you, actually.” This was Thomas’s chance. He could have done without Robert’s assessing grey gaze on him, but it couldn’t be helped. “I wanted to say I was sorry for dropping off the parcel like that. I meant to give it back to you, but—”

“It’s all right.”

Not a reassurance—a cutoff, a plea that he didn’t go on. Thomas, never slow to pick up on human distress cues, closed his mouth. Too late, of course. The grey eyes had acquired a curious lupine sheen. In retrospect Thomas could see it had been tactless of him, trying to allay his own anxieties like that—Tremaine did not look like the kind of lover who would tolerate…

“Hoi!” Tremaine abruptly yelled, making Belle raise her hackles. He was looking off between the parked cars. Following his gaze, Thomas saw a skinny teenager approaching through the crowd, a pretty long-haired girlfriend hanging on one arm, the other stacked high with secondhand books, CDs and a stuffed giraffe from the tombola stall. “Yes, you, you inconsiderate little shit,” Tremaine continued, as the poor lad noticed him. “Do you realise you’re stopping a very busy doctor from reaching his patients?”

The boy, ashen, broke into a trot, scattering belongings on the turf. “Oh God,” Thomas said. “Don’t, Robert. I’m not on duty.” But even if Tremaine had heard him, which he doubted, he was too late—the kids were pelting in what looked like sheer terror for their van. The boy skidded to a halt for one second, staying well out of range of the formidable airman in his glaring orange flight suit.

“Sorry, dude!” he shouted to Thomas, jumped into the Volksie and roared off as fast as the clustered vehicles and pitted field would allow.

Tremaine turned back to face him. He was beaming from ear to ear, having apparently thoroughly enjoyed the exercise of frightening children. “There you go,” he said to Thomas. “Bloody hippies, eh?” Thomas, who’d inwardly expressed the same sentiment not half an hour before, felt a sudden sense of affinity for them. Flynn, too, looked as if he would rather have been on the bus. “Right. You can go about your business, Doctor. And we have to go about ours, flyin’ Flynn—time we warmed the birds up for the four o’clock. Bye, Thomas. Nice meeting you.”

Thomas elected not to watch them leave. He tried to define for himself the pain it would have cost him to do so. Partly it was just the chagrin of being walked off on, a mild humiliation he could avoid by turning his back and going about his business. And in part, he realised, it was his reluctance to see Flynn hustled off. He did not want to think about Rob Tremaine doing that. Did not want to envisage Flynn allowing it to be done.

He was packing up the Land Rover when a warm grip fastened on his arm. His nerves were raw from his encounter with Tremaine—this was, he had reminded himself grimly, why he avoided people in general—and he repressed a violent flinch. But it was only Flynn. His grasp was tight, electrical. “Thomas,” he began urgently. “I’m sorry about that. Rob’s okay, just… Listen. I’ve only got a second. There’s no hard feelings over the package. Really. I wanted you to have it, but I always go too bloody far. Look, will you come and join us for a drink in the Fox tonight? To say thank you, since you won’t accept my crazy offerings? It’ll just be me and the lads. Please?”

Thomas opened his mouth to refuse. What am I meant to do with you and the lads in a bloody airbase pub? But Flynn bestowed on him a smile of such persuasive sweetness that the protest melted on his lips. “We’ll be there around seven,” he said. They both stood in silence for a moment. Thomas could not have said what they were waiting for. Flynn, still smiling, was interrogating his gaze, brow furrowing, lower lip caught in his teeth. He looked almost hopeful—and thoroughly confused. When the shifting wind brought rotor roar to them once more, he let go Thomas’s arm with a faint, near-guilty start. “I’ve got to get back,” he murmured, and turning away, set off at a jog through the crowd. Steadying himself on the Rover’s wing mirror, Thomas watched him go.

He had no idea what to wear. He worried about it briefly, staring into a seldom-used full-length mirror in his bedroom, then shook his head in impatience. Suppose he dressed up, who would that be for? Flynn was—comprehensively—taken, and even had it been otherwise, Thomas could not imagine a world in which their lives could possibly converge. He was damaged goods, a battered war vet with OCD and an incipient booze problem. He wouldn’t lay a hand on Flynn’s bright young life, even if he could.

Clean and reasonably well-ironed would have to do. Thomas took one of his white linen shirts out of the wardrobe in which hung five others exactly like it and issued himself one of five sets of identical black cords. He checked that Belle had water, biscuits and her favourite rubber toy, and apologised to her—she was no more prepared than he was for him to be spending an evening out.

Out, for God’s sake, with a wild bunch of RNAS flyboys and hotshots, and Robert Tremaine, who for all his bonhomie and surface charm, would plainly have liked to deck him at the fairground that afternoon.

Thomas smiled wryly. Flynn wanted him there, and he owed him one friendly act. Then it would be over.

Over before it started, almost. Thomas walked into the Fox in Breagh village and nearly turned and walked straight out again. The racket hit him like a brick. He realised with a shock how long it had been since he had ventured into even the quietest of pubs, and this place was rocking, U2 blasting out of the speakers, the unrestrained shouting and laughter of military men off duty. A few beleaguered women too, Thomas noted, making his way through the crowd, although they also looked as if they belonged to the base.

The whole place had more the air of an army canteen than a Cornish bar. It was modern, and utilitarian in structure, harsh neon lights glaring. Pretty horrible, really, he wryly reflected, asking himself once again—as he had half a dozen times on the road down from his lonely, sea-swept coast—why he had accepted Flynn’s invitation. Now he was here—and his arrival hadn’t gone unnoticed, a few heads turning to check out the civilian entering the RNAS den—he would have to make a decent show of it. He’d timed his arrival for half an hour later than Flynn’s estimated seven o’clock, in the hope of not getting there first, but it didn’t seem to have worked.

Had he always been like this? Diffident, barely able to hold his head up in a noisy crowd? Suddenly Thomas was annoyed with himself. Probably he laid too much at the door of his experiences in Helmand. Yes, he’d always been shy. But he’d had the grace to hide it, to reach back to offered friendliness. It didn’t really matter that Flynn wasn’t here. And this might be a Navy pub, but they didn’t own it and could just put up with him while he had a drink at the bar like a normal person.

A warmth at his elbow. Thomas felt it through the rolled-back sleeve of his shirt. He turned around, smiling. Yes.

“I didn’t think you’d come.”

The room was very warm. Thomas wondered if that had set the colour under Flynn’s tan, but as he watched, it faded. God, was this still a world in which he could make someone flush with pleasure at his arrival? He pushed the idea away. Flynn could just as well have been regretting the invitation, embarrassed that he had turned up.

“Well,” Thomas said. “I wanted to talk to you. I didn’t get the chance to explain, about the sculpture.”

It was strange, he thought. The crush at the bar was one shade off a rugby scrum, but it felt as if the two of them were quite alone. He doubted the harried bartender would ever notice them, especially since neither he nor Flynn seemed able to spare attention to catch his eye. He had managed to commandeer a barstool, and Flynn had squeezed in beside him so that they were elbow-to-elbow on the beer-soaked formica surface.

“You don’t have to. I was down in Marazion that afternoon, and I must’ve still had water on my brain—not because I bought you something, I mean. To go over the top and embarrass you.”

“Oh, it didn’t. At least…” Thomas shook his head. “Not in that way, though I know how much those pieces cost. I meant to return it to you personally, to explain. Then things went a bit…” he searched for an expression to convey the debacle at the Hawke Lake barricade, “…a bit pear-shaped, and I ended up dumping it with the guard on the main gate. I’m sorry.”

Flynn laughed. “I can imagine the scene. In fact, Junior Seaman Davis described it in detail when he brought the parcel to my barracks. He said you looked ready to take on the whole airbase, one man at a time. They’re silly bastards. Forget about them.” A movement in the crowd threatened to knock Thomas off his barstool, and Flynn stretched out a warning hand to shield him. “Christ, what a bunch of thugs. We’ll go somewhere quieter in a minute. Just…just tell me one thing. Did you like it?”

“What?” Thomas asked stupidly. He had been too caught up in watching his companion’s easy grace. He’d seen him so far in a wetsuit and an unbecoming orange flying kit. In his civvies—just a black T-shirt and jeans, but outlining every plane and curve of his shoulders, his hips—he was distracting. Like the sculpture, pleasing from all angles. Renewing his charm with each motion. “Oh, the… Yes. I loved it, actually. Was it okay? Could you return it all right?”

“Er… Yes. Yes, sure. Come on, let me get you a drink. What’ll you have?”

“Thanks. Just an orange, please.”

“You’ll need more than that to get you through a night with this lot.”

Thomas glanced round him at the pandemonium, smiling. “Probably, but I’m driving.”

“You can still have one.”

“No, I can’t.” Thomas kept his smile in place, but felt Flynn’s attention refocus upon him—a quick, gentle concern, a warm readiness of perception he hardly knew how to bear. He did not want to tell this new friend that just one, on a night like this, would trigger the next fifteen or so, and maybe Flynn knew already—had heard in the village shop that the Sankerris GP sometimes went on discreet, off-duty three-day benders. Struggling to keep it light, he said, with mock solemnity, “I’m a doctor, Flynn. It’s my job to preserve life.”

“Yes, but not in bloody formaldehyde, Doc!” A big hand landed on Thomas’s shoulder. He jumped, hard, and felt Flynn move imperceptibly to steady him. Rob Tremaine had erupted from the crowd behind them, grinning maniacally, plainly three sheets to the wind. “Bill,” he yelled to the bartender, who dropped a glass as if it had scalded him and abandoned the customer he’d been serving. “Pint for me and for Flynn, and make the doc’s a screwdriver. And bring them out the back, for God’s sake—I can’t hear myself think in this circus.”

The pub had a small beer garden, more of a yard, fenced around with concrete-poured walls similar to the ones that enclosed the airbase. Security concerns, Thomas wondered, trailing Rob and Flynn outside, or maybe an attempt to shield the neighbouring houses.

“Is it always like this?” he asked, watching Tremaine steer Flynn to a table, a proprietorial hand planted on his spine, aware that, if he did not take care, he would find himself disliking Tremaine intensely.

Flynn glanced round at him, smiling wryly, perhaps reading the thought. “No. Special occasion. Birthday.”

“Oh.” Thomas took a seat at the wooden trestle. He thought that Tremaine, settling opposite, would have pulled Flynn onto his lap if he could. Fine with Thomas, if Flynn had not looked uncomfortable, stiff with resistance in his grasp. “Yours?”

“No, mine,” Tremaine boomed, lifting his pint. “Cheers, lads. Drink up. No, Flynnie here’s a February baby, a merry…” He trailed off suddenly, as if catching himself about to commit a faux pas.

“A merrybegot?” Thomas finished for him. He had knocked back his drink without noticing, and could feel the familiar dangerous sparkle in his blood. That was old Cornish. And now that he’d listened to him for a while, Tremaine was hiding a good old West Country drawl beneath his officer-class RP. Come to think of it, Thomas recognised the name. Recognised him, he thought.

“A merrybegot’s a baby conceived in May,” he explained to Flynn, who was looking bewildered. “Off in the greenwood after a Beltane ceremony.” He gave Flynn a smile from which he could not hide a trace of tenderness. “They’d arrive in February, with the lambs. Considered blessed by the gods. Robert, you’ve got to be one of the old Sankerris Bay Tremaines, to know that.”

Robert stared at him. Thomas hadn’t meant to take the wind from his sails, but he wasn’t sorry to see it go. “Yeah,” he said, then, clearly regretting the unguarded response, “No. That is, I am, but from the London branch. Moved away from here to make money centuries ago and never looked back.”

Thomas let it go, but he found he was amused. Plainly this great sophisticated airman was scabby little Bobby Tremaine, descendant of a family of notorious seventeenth-century moonrakers. Thomas should know, having not only treated the current little scions of the race for fleas and malnutrition, and arranged social care where necessary, but being descended himself from an equally infamous rival smuggling gang, whose territory had overlapped theirs, with violent results. Penroses and Tremaines, fighting tooth and claw for contraband, luring ships to their doom on the rocks of Sankerris cove. He used to run the streets with Bobby, although even then, with the ruthless pack instincts of childhood, he and his friends had distanced themselves from the Bay kids, their poverty and disasters. You’d play with them, but not invite them home. The family face was distinct. Thomas wondered why Tremaine was lying.

Ashamed of his old prejudices, his readiness to judge, Thomas smiled at him. He was the last person to object, if someone had chosen some other life than the one he’d been born with. “Well,” he said. “Happy birthday. I’ll go and get a round in.”

By the time he got back, Rob and Flynn were nowhere to be seen. He set the drinks on the trestle table, reflecting grimly how much easier it had been to thread the crowd and make his presence known at the bar with even one shot of alcohol inside him, how much easier still to get back if he’d magicked his second orange juice into a screwdriver too. What had stopped him was the knowledge that, if he did, he’d have to find somewhere in Breagh to spend the night. What he did to himself was his own business, but there the harm stopped.

He seemed to have lost his hosts anyway. Well, Tremaine had looked ready to drag Flynn off to his lair. Thomas’s stomach lurched at the thought, but he told himself that he was relieved. He could get out of here now.

There was an archway to the left of the doors back into the pub. Thomas thought it led to the toilets and then through to the front and the car park. A delicate May dusk had fallen, a violet cobweb behind the glaring white arc light the pub management was keeping trained on the outdoor revellers. The entrance to the passage was stark black in its shadow, from this angle at least. To those better placed at the other tables scattered around the yard, whatever it held was apparently of some interest, and as Thomas drew closer, he picked up the distinct sound of an argument begun in discreet whispers, starting to escalate to shouts.

Well, Tremaine was shouting. Flynn’s voice was in there—trying, Thomas thought, to make a point—but he was still sober, and his low-voiced fervour wasn’t carrying against the tide. Thomas heard, who does he think, and what did you bring him here for, and did his very best to stop listening. None of his business, even if Rob was doing his best to make it that way, and he didn’t want to add to the performance. Flynn and Tremaine were drawing enough attention on their own. Glancing round the crowd, Thomas saw a few benign smiles, as if this might be a regular sideshow on airbase nights out, but only a few. The older men—higher-ranking officers, presumably—looked grim in a way that did not promise any good to Rob’s career or Flynn’s. Locking his gaze to the ground, Thomas took his jacket off the trestle bench and checked for his car keys. Definitely time for him to go.

A gasp from the archway’s shadows. It wouldn’t have slowed Thomas down, except that he wouldn’t have thought Flynn could sound like that. Outraged, yes, and that was the bulk of the message. But under it—tiny, fleeting, a flash Thomas wondered if he’d imagined. Yes, fear.

Flynn, though elegant, looked tough as nails. Nobody’s pushover. For Thomas, that abruptly made it worse. What the hell hold did Rob have on him? Dropping his coat, he strode over to the passageway entrance, ignoring the hoots and warning shouts from the crowd.

Okay, that kind of hold. Not unexpected, though he could hardly believe Tremaine had been mad enough to try it here. He was grasping Flynn by the hair at the back of his neck, and if he’d got away with one forced kiss, Flynn was definitely not having any of the next. His hands were planted flat to Tremaine’s chest.

Without conscious thought on the subject, Thomas decided enough was enough. He grabbed Rob’s shoulder. “Hoi,” he said, his own old Cornish burr rising through his manners and his surgery veneer. “Flynn, is this bastard bothering you?”

Tremaine spun on him with a snarl. Thomas was surprised at the purity of hatred on his face. Flynn, released, almost fell over. “Shit,” he gasped. “Thomas, for God’s sake. Get out of here. I can handle him.”

Of course he can. That was what he got for interfering—Flynn looked, if possible, even more mortified now than before. Thomas raised both hands. “Great. Do that. Handle him, please.”

He turned to go. A vast weight landed on his back. Without an instant’s thought, he ducked, uncurled and sent Rob Tremaine flying over his shoulder to crash in a flail of arms and legs in the courtyard.

A roar of laughter went up. Thomas didn’t think it was funny. He had no idea he’d remembered his unarmed-combat training, let alone that he’d be willing to use it on a helpless drunk. First, do no harm… He glanced at Flynn, whose face was still a white blank of shock. Self-disgust tore at him. He had got into a public brawl within half an hour of starting his first social endeavour in years.

He went to crouch by Tremaine, automatically beginning diagnostic checks—that his head wasn’t damaged, that his pupils were the same size. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You startled me. Are you hurt?”

Tremaine’s big fist shot up and fastened in the front of his shirt.

Once more, Thomas unreflectingly blocked the move, as he had with dozens of soldiers who’d grasped at him in extremity before he could get drugs into them. Rob’s eyes blazed into his. What was the problem here? Yes, he’d caught him mid-tussle with Flynn, but it was hardly as if half his division hadn’t been watching that too. Christ, was it because he’d recognised him? It couldn’t be the first time for that, either, but Flynn was new to the district. Maybe Robert had told him a different story. “Stop it. Are you hurt?”

“What the fuck do you care?”

“The bare bloody minimum, in your case. But I’m a doctor.”

“Oh, yeah.” Tremaine relaxed his grip and fell back, sneering. “Right. I know you too, Doctor. Up in your ivory tower, drinking yourself to death. No girlfriend, no missus. Queer as fuck, I shouldn’t wonder. Well, you chose the wrong night to crawl out and have a grab at my Flynn.”

“Oh, for…” Thomas sat back on his heels. He refused to turn and look around the courtyard, which had fallen silent to listen. He couldn’t blame them. He had lived a quiet life, detached. Probably perceived as aloof. Their attention to this total and sudden exposure felt like hammer-blows to bruised skin. Flynn had stumbled over and crouched on Tremaine’s other side, his face ashen. Thomas couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Rob, please,” Flynn said unsteadily. “You’re pissed. Thomas hasn’t done anything to you. Let us help you up, and we’ll go home.”

“Don’t need any fucking help,” Tremaine growled, and rolled lithely to his feet. Thomas braced not to take a reflexive step back—or, which he was gathering would have been worse, a step to shield Flynn. He was bemused at the impulse. Tremaine was big, but Flynn’s ability to take care of himself declared itself in every leanly muscled inch.

The three of them stood staring at one another, a grim impasse Thomas was at a loss to know how to end. He’d just have walked away from it, had not Flynn’s distress latched itself into his heart, exerting an inexplicable steel-cable tug despite all the disasters being with him seemed to attract. “It’s all right,” he said to Flynn softly, and reaching a hand to his shoulder, made his last mistake.

Tremaine slammed him up against the courtyard wall. If he heard Flynn’s shout or felt his restraining grip, he gave no sign. “Right!” he bellowed, nose an inch from Thomas’s. “I tell you what—you can have the little fucker. Good luck with him. Good luck with the nightmares and the novel fucking ways he comes up with of committing fucking suicide every other fucking week. Ask him why he doesn’t fly anymore. You’ll be a lovely bloody pair, actually—the fuck-up pilot and the alcoholic village quack.”

He let Thomas go. Turned, and began to walk off. Thomas watched, immobile. Everything had started going very slow, an underwater sensation he recognised. For once he welcomed the symptoms of oncoming fugue. Like Flynn’s wave, the seventh wave, it would carry him out of here, what was left of his dignity intact. He would hear and see little, drive home efficiently, go to bed… Voices came oddly to him, distorting, crackling. He could see Flynn’s face, also near to his now. He felt the warm brush of Flynn’s palm down his cheek, almost heard his shocked, pleading voice. Thomas, don’t listen. I’m so sorry.

What was he sorry for? Thomas looked at him for a moment. It was almost a shame that in a second’s time the cold would come down on him, extinguishing everything—rage, which he could do without, and even the exquisite pleasure of that soothing touch. He waited.

It didn’t happen.

“Robert,” he said, low, smooth as silk. Tremaine was nearly at the door, but he turned. Thomas stepped up to him. He drew back his fist, gave the other man time to see it, to know his intention, and belted him as hard as he could in the face.

Tremaine went down—decisively this time—and this time Dr. Penrose did not care if he cracked his thick skull like a melon.

He eased the Land Rover carefully out of its space. He was stone-cold sober now, the alcohol metabolised off in the adrenaline still blazing through his system. The knuckles of his left hand were bleeding. He had disgraced himself, absolutely. He felt wonderful. Had he raised a brief, startled cheer from the watching crowd? He wasn’t sure. Didn’t care. He felt as if he’d punched the face of every army bigot who had ever called him queer, every supercilious public-school major-general who thought that doctors had an easy berth on the front line. Better still, every fear of his own that had been twisting up his life since his return. His heart was pounding. Drawing deep breaths, he wound down the window to gasp the night air, which was cool now, smelling of sea salt and freedom, and pulled out onto the road.

Movement in his rearview mirror. For an instant he thought that Tremaine might have followed him, and shuddered at the inward roar of anticipation the prospect caused. Easing off the gas, he let the Rover’s engine idle.

Flynn appeared at the window, his hair disordered, breath coming ragged. “Thomas. Wait a second. Please.”

Thomas pulled up the handbrake. He watched as Flynn laid a hand on the window to steady himself, opened his mouth as if to explain. Then he visibly gave up and lowered his head so that his brow was resting on the back of his hand. “Oh God.”

Thomas looked at him. Whatever Tremaine’s power over him, it could throw him into utter disarray. His breath was coming far harder and more ragged than his run from the pub could account for, and the knuckles of the hand Thomas could see were clenched white. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Yes, but…that was the worst social occasion of my entire bloody life.”

Thomas considered. He would have liked to say something to make him feel better, and cast back over his own bloody life to see if he could remember anything worse. He came up dry. “Yeah,” he agreed, after a few seconds. “Mine too. What’s his problem, Flynn?”

“Whatever it is, will you at least believe that it’s my fault as much as his?”

The street was quiet. Its single light caught shades of bronze in Flynn’s hair. His bowed head was eloquent of something approaching desperation, surrender. Thomas resisted, and then did not resist, the urge to caress it, and Flynn looked up in surprise. “Whatever you say. Is he all right?”

“Yes, he… He’s fine.”

“Good. Do you want me to run you back to the base? Give him some time to cool off on his own?”

Flynn laughed tiredly. “My address is bunk two, room six of the west barrack. His is bunk one. Will you just drop me off at the B&B in Boskenna? It’s on your way home.”

Thomas thought, with fear and repulsion, of Flynn encountering Tremaine again tonight. Boskenna didn’t seem far enough—and, as the only accommodation for miles around, not much of a secret bolthole. “Get in,” he said, and when Flynn had clambered up into the passenger seat beside him, he gave the wheel a thoughtful tap and turned to him. “Would it cause a diplomatic incident if you came home with me?”

“What, another one?” Flynn grinned. “Thanks, but you’ve had enough mud slung at you for one night because of me. If I end up spending the night in Sankerris…”

“I don’t live in Sankerris,” Thomas told him. “I live in a half-derelict watchtower on the cliffs near Morvah. It’s got a comfortable sofa and all-round views. It’s peaceful. You’ll be safe for tonight.”

“I… Thomas, Robert’s not dangerous, you know.”

You could’ve fooled me. Thomas bit it back. If he was, the only person who could find out and have it mean anything useful would be Flynn himself. Probably the hard way. “Whatever you say,” he said again quietly. “So, where to, sir? Bunk two, or Zillah Treen’s B&B—which I believe has garden gnomes—or…”

Flynn laughed. “The derelict tower sounds good, if you’re sure. Thank you.”

The Land Rover’s headlights sturdily probed the night ahead. The creaking, road-rattled silence within it was not awkward, though it had prevailed for the last ten miles. Flynn had left his jacket behind in the pub. Seeing him shiver, Thomas reached to notch up the heater. He wasn’t used to finding anyone other than Belle in his way when he made that move, and his wrist brushed Flynn’s knee. Neither flinched, and Thomas sat up again, repressing a smile at himself. It was one step off a comedy grab for his knee while changing gear.

And that was not the worst of it. In the cab’s increasing warmth, Thomas found himself involuntarily noticing Flynn’s scent, which was warm and real beneath his aftershave. He smelled of his life, of the sea, a faint tang of engine oil sometimes prickling through.

Soon they would be home. Thomas wondered why the prospect of having a stranger in his orderly home overnight was not triggering all his alarms. In fact he felt weirdly serene. His knuckles throbbed, showing him a connection, and he smiled.

“That was quite a punch,” Flynn suddenly observed, as if reading his thoughts.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Like I say, it was a bit of a work of art. And he had it coming.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

Another silence fell, briefly this time, fraught with Flynn’s tension. Thomas waited. “All that stuff he came out with,” Flynn said eventually, “about me, and the flying, and… Aren’t you gonna ask?”

Thomas shrugged. The watchtower had appeared on the horizon, its western flank lit by the growing moon. “Assume you’ll tell me, when you’re ready. Will you get that gate for me?”