about a hundred yards he slowed his step. Stopped. Stood under the amber lights and shook his head. What an arsehole, the voice in his head told him. He’d handled that all wrong. Stupid and clumsy and callous. She obviously wasn’t the kind of woman who asked men out on dates every day. It had been an effort for her to come out with it, but he’d stepped on her like an insect. She deserved better than that. He needed to go back and explain the situation. That he liked her, but just couldn’t see much of her. How he could never possibly be attracted to anyone, not for a long time and maybe never again. That it wasn’t personal – it was just him and his problems. That he was sorry.
He turned and strode back to the cobbled side-street where he’d watched Lucy walk away from him. It was poorly lit and narrow, and the high buildings either side threw long black shadows across the cobbles. Little more than a long alleyway. There was nobody around.
Just Lucy and the three guys.
They were thirty yards away. They had her pressed up against the wall. One in front with his hand on her throat. One each side, blocking her escape. She was struggling and kicking. One of them had her bag, and she was holding onto the strap, trying to snatch it back away from him. Then she let go, and Ben heard a laugh over her faint cries.
He moved stealthily against the dark shadows. They were too preoccupied with Lucy to notice his approach, but not even a professional soldier would have heard him. Two of them were white, and the third one who’d ripped her bag out of her hands was Asian. The one holding her throat looked the most useful. Shaved head, nose ring, confident attitude. Definitely the leader. The other white one was short, chunky, mostly fat. They were little more than kids, aged probably between seventeen and twenty, all in the same kind of designer sports gear.
Just kids, but dangerous kids. Something glinted in the dull amber light. The leader had reached inside his jacket and drawn out a blade. A kitchen knife, black plastic handle, maybe eight inches of serrated steel. He waved it in Lucy’s face. She let out a stifled scream and he growled at her to stay still and shut the fuck up.
Ben’s fists tightened at the sight of the knife. He moved closer, completely quiet. They still hadn’t seen him.
The Asian kid was rifling through her bag, looking for her purse whilst his fat friend grabbed her arm, trying to pull off her watch. Her eyes were locked open in terror.
Ben stepped out of the shadows. They froze. Stared at him. Lucy gasped his name.
His mind was full of the ways he could take them out. Three seconds, and they could all be down and broken on the ground. As for the knife, it was big and scary to the average victim, but the leader kid had no idea how to use it. Not against someone trained to take it off him and drive it into his brain pan before he could even draw a breath.
They were dangerous kids. But still kids.
‘Open the purse,’ he said to the Asian one. The kid glanced down at it, then back at Ben. He blinked.
‘Go on, open it,’ Ben said, keeping his eyes on the leader. His voice was steady and soft.
The knife kid was frowning and Ben could see the confusion in his face. He knew what he was thinking. Three against one, but something was horribly wrong with the balance of power. His confidence was ebbing away fast, and the defiance in his eyes was fading into fear as he fought for words. The knife was wavering a little in his fist. He slackened his hold on Lucy, and she wriggled away from him.
The Asian kid did what he was told. The purse was tan leather, well worn. He unsnapped the catch and opened it.
‘How much cash is in there?’ Ben asked.
The kid dipped his fingers inside the purse and came out with a twenty.
‘Not much of a haul, boys,’ Ben said. ‘Less than seven pounds each. Then you’d find that the debit card’s no good because the account is already in the red. And the credit card is maxed out. Let’s face it, she doesn’t have the money. So you go home with seven pounds. Real hard guys. A great night’s work, something you can go and boast about to your friends.’
The kid with the knife finally found his voice again. ‘Fuck you,’ he said. But he couldn’t hide the quaver in his throat.
Ben ignored him. ‘OK, let’s make a deal here.’ He reached into the back pocket of his jeans. Took out his wallet and flipped it open. Inside it was a sheaf of fifties, crisp from the cash machine. He counted through them slowly, taking his time, feeling their eyes on him. He picked out six notes and tucked the wallet back in his jeans. ‘Three hundred. A hundred each. Better than seven. And much more than you’re worth.’ He held it out to them. ‘It’s yours.’
The knife guy stepped forward to take it.
Ben pulled the money back. ‘This is a trade. That means I want something from you in return. Four things. One, let her go free. Two, give her back her bag. Three, put the knife on the ground. Then I’ll give you the money. Nice and easy. Four, then you leave, and I don’t ever want to see you again.’
They hesitated.
‘If you don’t want to trade, that’s OK too,’ Ben said. ‘The only thing is, you’ll all be dead within the next half-minute because I can’t think of any other options. It’s up to you.’
The Asian kid was beginning to tremble violently. The knife kid’s eyes were bulging wide. Nervous glances passed between them all.
‘I’m offering you a way out here,’ Ben said. ‘I’m buying your lives back from you, so that I don’t have to kill you.’
The leader stooped and laid down the knife. The blade clinked against the cobbles. The Asian kid handed the bag back to Lucy, and then they all moved quickly away from her. She was shaking, pale. She scurried over to Ben’s side, and he laid a hand on her shoulder.
He kicked the knife away across the alley. ‘Good choice. A defining moment. You’ve no idea how lucky you were tonight.’ He held the money out. The leader kid’s fingers were trembling as he went to take it. Then all three of them turned tail and ran like hell.
‘Are you all right?’ Ben asked Lucy.
She looked up at him. Her eyes were wet in the darkness. ‘I can’t believe what you just did. How did you do that?’
‘Let me walk you home,’ he said.
The seventh day
The Bradburys lived in a large Victorian semi-detached house on the edge of the leafy suburb of Summertown. Ben arrived at twelve thirty with a bottle of wine and some flowers for Jane Bradbury. He hadn’t seen her in a very long time. Physically, she’d changed little, other than some grey streaks in her dark hair – and he thought he could see a certain fragility in her thin frame that hadn’t been there before. He remembered her as a quiet woman, slightly in the shadow of her ebullient husband. But today she was even quieter than he recalled.
Lunch was served on the patio at the rear of the house. The garden hadn’t changed much in almost two decades. Tom Bradbury’s rose bushes were even bigger and more colourful than Ben remembered, and the high stone walls around the edge of the garden were now covered in ivy.
After lunch they sat and sipped wine and made small talk for a while while the Bradburys’ Westie, a sturdy little white terrier, all muscle and hair, ran to and fro across the lawn, sniffing through the grass on the trail of something. ‘That dog looks exactly like the one you had last time I was here,’ Ben said. ‘Surely it can’t be the same one?’
‘That was Sherry you remember,’ Jane Bradbury said. ‘This is Whisky. Sherry’s son.’
Hearing his name mentioned, the dog stopped what he was doing and came running. He trotted up to Ben, sat back on his haunches and offered his paw.
‘Our