you going to put that down?’ The amusement in her green eyes implied that I’d overreacted. It wasn’t as if the location was some rural backwater where power surges and consequent electricity cuts are commonplace. This was Cheltenham, big population, home of GCHQ and high tech. As far as I was concerned, the jury was still out. I don’t do coincidence. What I could be certain of was that today was not my time to go.
‘Old habits.’ I replaced the knife in the block.
‘You’re looking good. More rested.’
Not one for small talk, I cut to the chase. ‘How the hell did you get in?’ It wasn’t the most obvious question, but it was the one that sprang to my lips first.
‘I’m a spook. How do you think I got in?’
‘Even you can’t travel through walls.’
Her mouth creased into a smile. ‘You know what? I’ve missed you.’
Inside, I was delighted. Outside, I was Mr Cool. The rational side of my brain told me that McCallen had blagged her way back into my life for one reason only, to use me. ‘And how did you track me down?’
‘Joe Nathan, as you now like to be called, is not much of a stretch from Joshua Thane.’
This worried me. If McCallen had seen through it, so could others. She let out an earthy laugh. ‘Honestly, Hex, you must be losing your touch. Remember the false passport you had in Barcelona?’
I sighed. My last gig. Mystery solved.
‘So how’s life now that you’ve gone respectable?’
Boring, mundane and banal. ‘Terrific.’
‘Managing to stay out of trouble?’
Nice try. ‘Fancy a drink?’ I smiled.
She smiled back. ‘Why not?’
On the way out I checked the fuse box in the communal hall. No switches thrown. No evidence of trouble. Didn’t mean a damn thing. If anyone had messed with the box, he’d have worn gloves.
Surrounded by chi-chi shops, the flat was off Montpellier Street and we could take our pick of bars. Finding one that wasn’t rammed, even in January, required more effort. We finally commandeered a table in the window of the Montpellier Wine Bar, a popular, if expensive, hangout for Cheltenham’s upwardly mobile and fashion-conscious.
McCallen took a seat and asked me to get her a vodka, ‘straight with ice and a slice of lime’. In spite of her upbeat manner, I thought I caught a trace of something haunted in her eyes, and wondered how the hell I was going to disappoint her without causing offence. Whatever she’d come to ask, my answer had to be no. I’d spent too long trying to rehabilitate myself to get involved in something that might force me to cross a line again. Nice as the kiss was, I didn’t believe she was after a date.
I pushed my way through to the bar, ordered a pint of lager and a double Russian Standard for McCallen, and mused on why exactly she was here with me and my newly adopted persona. Coming up empty, I paid for the drinks and returned. We chinked glasses like old friends and I settled in for the warm-up before the main act.
‘Why Cheltenham?’ she asked.
I’d come back home, but I didn’t wish to reveal this to her, or anybody for that matter. ‘As good a place as any,’ I shrugged. ‘Classy, friendly, full of wealthy people, not too nosey, and the architecture’s impressive.’
‘Of course, you’re in property now.’
It sounded as though I was a major entrepreneur. I was involved to the extent that I’d bought several houses, done them up and let them out. The rise in demand for affordable rental accommodation chimed with my plans for an honest life. I was making a respectable rather than lucrative living, my blood money already given away to charities and good causes. ‘Not much career opportunity for an out-of-work contract killer,’ I said with a flat smile.
She shot me a stern, reproving look. ‘Don’t do yourself down. You redeemed yourself.’
I wished I had her certainty. Truth was, I was like an alcoholic on the ‘Twelve Steps Programme’. I thanked a higher deity each day for not having to get up in the morning and kill to order. The thought of what I’d done for almost fifteen years made me feel physically sick. It mattered not that my targets were bad men, men who’d tortured and who had also employed people like me to stay on top of their criminal and grubby piles, but I’d be a liar if I said that I didn’t miss the trappings of my old existence: the buzz, the lick of danger at my heels, the variety, the international travel and the feeling of power. For the past three hundred and eighty-nine days I had stayed in one place and let life haul me, one twenty-four hour set at a time. I no longer carried a gun. I’d dispensed with anything that could be reasonably called a weapon. I had walked away from the company I kept. I avoided old haunts. I wanted to tell McCallen that I’d embraced my new life with a wholehearted sense of wonder and gratitude. I couldn’t quite do that yet. Yes, I had good days, but the bad ‘I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing’ days outnumbered them. I guess it was character building and good for what passed for my sorry soul.
‘You must be wondering why I’ve tracked you down.’
‘I take it MI5 haven’t sent you in an official capacity?’
She hooked me with one of her big smiles. That was the thing about McCallen – she didn’t just smile with her lips, she smiled with her eyes. ‘Strictly off-the-books.’
And that spelt trouble. Having lusted for McCallen for so long, I didn’t like the effect she was having on my sense of purpose. One look and she could derail me.
‘I have a proposition,’ she said.
‘Unless it’s connected to a business opportunity, I’m not interested.’
She lowered her voice. ‘It doesn’t involve violence.’
‘What does it involve?’
‘Knowledge.’
Against my best intentions, I must have conveyed curiosity. McCallen went on to explain. ‘I’d like you to take a look at a set of photographs.’
I grinned, took a slug of my pint. ‘Are they dirty?’
McCallen elevated an eyebrow that suggested she thought me base.
‘What sort of photographs?’ I was an expert in asking the obvious.
‘Crime scene shots.’ She reached for her bag. I stayed her arm, looked deeply into her eyes.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Slippery slope and all that.’
‘Where’s the harm?’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
She sat back up, sipped her vodka. In spite of the noise from the bar, we were enveloped in our own silent bubble. I’m an infinitely patient man so I can live without conversation. I can do quiet. McCallen is different.
‘I’m providing you with an opportunity to do good,’ she insisted.
‘Nice pitch.’
‘Won’t you reconsider?’ She turned those big green eyes on me. I wondered if I could get her beyond kissing. A steamy image of us both on a bridge in London flashed through my mind.
‘Why me? You have plenty of other means at your disposal.’
‘Because it’s private.’
‘Private or personal?’
Colour invaded her cheeks. She said nothing. The first ‘tell’.
I took another drink. ‘Are the police involved?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then