If it wasn’t for the sultry night, Edith would never have known. But the temperature had climbed relentlessly during the afternoon and failed to dissipate at sunset. By the time she dragged herself off to bed, the weight and the pressure were almost unbearable.
She lay sweating in the darkness, sprawled on top of her bedclothes, hoping the promised thunderstorm would bring some relief. Her bedroom was stifling. In a vain attempt at cross ventilation, she threw the sash window up as far as it would go and propped open her bedroom door with an old shoe to let the listless air pass straight through.
And, because of that, she heard her father on the phone in the hallway.
She’d been dozing—too hot to sleep, too tired to do more than attempt it—when something furtive, gleeful, in his voice alerted her. She rolled over and lay motionless on her back, listening.
“You got a front-page exclusive and paid me a pittance, so you better make it worth my while this time.” Her father’s voice was low and greedy, amplified up the wooden stairwell into a ghostly echo. “Turns out the other mob would have paid double for that picture and not turned a hair. If you want what I’ve got now, it’ll cost you.”
There was a pause, while whoever was on the other end considered, or argued, or placated. Flattery, Edith decided, scathing. That’s the best way to deal with my father.
They must have come back with the right amount, though, because the next thing she heard was her father say, “Aye, OK then,” in an eager rush that he tried to swallow back with a grudging, “That’ll do, I suppose.” But they’d know they had him hooked. And with that flimsy agreement, he couldn’t wait to spill what he knew, like a kid with a secret too hot to hold onto.
“It looks like the bloke we’re after is an ex-squaddie, name of Pete Tawney… Yes, of course I know you’ve already got that in the press handouts!” he said, irritated. “Coming to that, aren’t I?”
Pete Tawney? Edith wondered. Fools! They’ve got the wrong man. But another, less welcome emotion followed on right behind. Had Patrick given her—her—a false identity? It made a mockery of the special bond between them. Her Patrick would never lie to her…would he?
“All right, then,” her father went on, mollified by whatever oil was being poured down the line. “Like I said, this guy Tawney’s ex-army, right? So, who do you think checked in to one of the local hotels at Penrith yesterday morning, fresh up from a certain army base in Hereford? Does the phrase ‘Who Dares Wins’ mean anything to you?”
Edith’s heartrate stampeded. She got the significance without needing her father’s heavy-handed hints. They’d sent trained killers after him, not policemen. So, they didn’t want to capture Patrick; they wanted him dead.
“Yeah, you got it.” her father’s voice was unbearably smug now. “Of course, the army’s claiming they’ve left the SAS, all gone into ‘private security’ but a bit too much of a coincidence they turn up here, now, isn’t it? And I’m sure if one of your nosy reporters went asking questions about these four blokes…”
He must have shifted position, turned away from the stairs, because his voice dropped to a murmur and Edith reared upright, straining to make out the words in the darkness.
“Oh, and you remember that McColl woman in the last picture? Well, looks like our boy took a shine to her,” Edith heard him say, and was flooded with a jealous rage. No! He wouldn’t…
“Cocky sod called her to apologise for taking out one of our boys. Said it was a mistake… Yeah, I thought you’d find that interesting. Worth the price, eh?” He gave a fat chuckle. “That’s right, same account as last time, in my daughter’s name—Edith. Can’t be too careful, eh? A pleasure doing business with you again.”
Edith heard the receiver go down and her father let out a long noisy exhale, a physical reaction to his own treachery. The door to the back sitting room opened, suddenly increasing in noise from the inane TV show her mother used as nightly anaesthetic.
Edith wanted to go down there and launch herself at her father, screaming and kicking, incensed by his loathsome actions, shocked by the violence of her own response.
How dare he sell Patrick out and put those thirty pieces of silver in my name?
But as she swung her legs over the edge of the mattress, a cold fear gripped her. Even now, some shadowy Black Ops hit-squad were out there somewhere in the darkness, hunting Patrick down.
She’d been born way after the famous storming of the Iranian Embassy in London by the Anti-Terrorism team of the SAS, but she’d seen the TV clips replayed often enough to believe the mythology woven around the Regiment. They were invincible, invulnerable, without mercy.
No! The single word was a stark and plaintive denial inside her head. They won’t get him. Not if I can help it…
Creeping unnoticed out of the house wasn’t hard. She scrambled into her clothes without turning on the light, pulled her bedroom door shut behind her, knowing her parents wouldn’t bother to look in before they went to bed.
She tiptoed down the stairs, avoiding the squeaky treads, grabbed her helmet and keys from the hall as she passed through, went out silently through the front door. Then she ran along the street and round to the alleyway at the back, slipping the chain on the scooter.
She pushed the bike to the far end before she thumbed the engine into life. It seemed very loud in the close, still night, but it wasn’t late enough to be a cause for curtain twitching. As she phutted up the steep hill and out onto the main road she was filled with a fearful sense of adventure, of being absolutely alive.
She met little other traffic and reached the Retreat without incident, despite expecting balaclava-clad soldiers to abseil into her path at every turn.
There were no lights showing at the byre when she arrived, and she dithered outside, anxious. He’d seemed so unfazed by her announcement that Special Branch was on his trail. The last thing she wanted was for him to think her an idiot.
Then, just as she finally raised her hand to knock, the door fell away inwards and there he was in the opening. Edith jerked in surprise.
“You going to stand around out there all night?” he asked, not sounding at all like a man groggy from sleep. He was wearing loose black trousers with a drawstring waist, his long feet bare. She was struck again by the lack of spare flesh on his now-familiar torso, the slim slabs of muscle across his bare chest.
“I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t think it was important.” She was aiming for casual indifference as she stepped past him into the kitchen. “Didn’t want to wake you, that’s all.”
“Oh aye?” He flicked on the kitchen light and lit the gas under the kettle.
Edith suddenly wished she was a smoker. That she could slant a long French cigarette between her fingers and thread smouldering glances through the smoke. But she’d tried it and didn’t like the taste, or the way the stink clung. Couldn’t afford it, anyway.
She wandered around the kitchen, running her finger along the edge of the moulded worktop. He leaned with his back to the sink, folded his arms across his chest.
“I found out my father was the one who took that picture that was on the front of the newspaper,” she said, abrupt. “He was talking to them again tonight. I heard him on the phone, doing some nasty little deal.” She almost spat. “Traitor.”
Bardwell shrugged. “He is what he is.”
The kettle boiled. He dropped a handful of teabags into an old brown teapot and splashed water onto them. Edith watched in silence, leaning against the fridge, her head tilted so she could feel the buzz of its motor tingling through her scalp.
His attitude was so right, she realised. She’d been enraged by her father’s behaviour whereas Patrick—the one directly affected by it—was simply impassive, unconcerned.
She tried for a similar languid pose as she asked, “Why did you call her?”
Bardwell prodded inside the teapot with a spoon, poured out. He had to come very close to get the milk from the fridge and she didn’t move out of his way, just stood and stared up at him. His eyes met hers, seemed to loiter. Her heart picked up again, flushing her skin.
“My business.” He stirred, handed over a mug. She made sure their fingers touched as she took it and he didn’t pull back. “All part of the plan.”
It was too hot to drink tea. She cupped her fingers round the crazed earthenware, gazed into the depths, ignoring the bubbles of buttermilk that scummed the surface. “So, you don’t, like, fancy her or anything?”
He sipped his tea, eyes steady. “What d’you think?”
She squirmed. “I just wondered, that’s all. She is attractive, I suppose.” She couldn’t prevent a sniff. “If you like that sort of thing.”
“She’s a fine-looking woman,” he agreed solemnly. “But she’s a better investigator. Best they’ve got, though they probably don’t know it. Does no harm to throw her off her stride.”
But Edith didn’t like the way he let his gaze droop, like a man who was lying.
“Nothing else?”
“Now they think I’m interested, they’ll try and keep her back. Their mistake.” He shrugged, put down his tea. “But you didn’t come out here this late just to ask that, did you?”
“Partly,” Edith admitted, artlessly casual now, turning to dump her own mug onto the table. “And partly to ask you if you knew the SAS are up here to kill you?”
That got a response—finally. She gasped as his arms looped around her from behind, though she never heard him cross the kitchen floor. She felt his heat, his hardness, pressing against her back, one forearm under her chin. His voice was a whisper in her ear.
“What have you heard?”
“N–no more than that,” she stammered, suddenly fearful, tripping over her own tongue. “Just that’s they’re SAS, well, ex-SAS. Four of them staying at some hotel in Penrith. That’s all I know, I swear!”
He paused, as if considering, then murmured, “Not getting cold feet, are you, Edith?” His breath tickled against the pulse beating wildly at the base of her neck.
“Of–of course not!”
Just for a moment, he stilled, then his head ducked. She gasped as his teeth nipped at that little pulse. His hands shifted, roaming the front of her body, pushing her shirt open. Edith had never needed a bra, and his roughened fingers found one aching nipple without hesitation. His other hand dipped lower. She revelled in his strength, his utter confidence, as he sent the lust drenching through her.
She knew there was something else she’d wanted to ask him. Something important. Right now, she’d no idea what it was.