I move my hand from the steering wheel to her thigh, the sweatpants old ones, ones she’s had for years, from before I left.
My phone rings, going straight through the hands-free in the car. It’s the fifth phone call; all are urgent, all are bringing into play the plans that were made in the unlikely case of an assassination or a serious threat to one of the family.
Blair listens as I speak, issuing orders, taking in information. The shooter’s identity has been revealed to us; the media are speculating. There have been riots on the outskirts of the city; clashes between rival groups and people just looking for an excuse.
Blair speaks to her parents. Her mother sobs, her father is wordless, stunned. When she ends the conversation she turns her phone off and stretches out.
“He shouldn’t have made that speech.”
It isn’t my place to say anything.
“You advised him not to. His security advised him not to. My father told him to stay away, but Lennox has to always go that one bit further and thinks he knows better.” She pauses. “Knew better. Fuck.”
It’s then it hits her. I’m driving at close to a hundred miles per hour and I can’t do anything other than squeeze her thigh while she sobs.
I call my team, tell them we have to pull over but they’re not to approach our car. Four miles later, a lane is closed, helicopters hover above, some from TV stations. I park the car, shanked by other vehicles. Then I pull Blair over the central console and onto my lap, holding her into my chest while she cries, not knowing what to say because there isn’t anything that can be said.
“What am I going to do?” she says when she’s got some breath back. “What do I do without Lennox?”
“Nothing at the moment. You let everything settle and wait until you can see clearly.” I cradle her as if she’s fragile, feeling the warmth of her body against mine. I don’t know if anyone’s looking in and I don’t especially care because out of everything I’ve seen, Blair being upset tears me in two.
She buries her head into my chest and I feel her relax and her breathing become steady.
“I’m sorry.” She sits up, rubs away tears.
“What the fuck are you sorry for?”
“Crying on you.”
I shake my head. “For fuck’s sake.”
She half laughs. “You’re not – we’re not – we don’t do feelings.”
My hands are huge on her. She’s always been slight, with a small frame that reminded me of a bird when I first saw her. We never talk about how we feel. We just fuck. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel.
“Blair, I can do feelings. What’s just happened – if you want to talk about it, I’ll listen. Can’t promise I won’t try to fix shit though.”
She grasps my T-shirt with both hands, pulling at the material. “I can’t ignore it when you do that. We should carry on. I need to get home.”
I nod. “You don’t.”
She untangles herself and sits back in her seat. I give the head’s up that we’re moving again to the rest of the entourage and we carry on, taking the road north.
* * *
The castle’s lit throughout when we arrive there just before eleven. Blair heads straight to her parents and I go straight into a meeting about what happened and what will happen.
Anyone in the public eye is a target. People fix on a person they see in the press and come up with a hundred things about them that aren’t true. They might want them to be true. And they might do something about it.
Blair received threats. She had people that tried to communicate with her daily, sometimes hourly. She was always going to be somebody’s target, but her political views were never public property.
Lennox was the heir with a vision. Blair was just his sister. Whatever had happened hours ago had changed that.
Twelve people sat round the table. I made the thirteenth. Gethin, Murray, Kelvin, Micky. The key players. They all look ashen; Gethin looks wrecked.
“Any confirmed details?” I accept the glass of whisky that’s pushed my way.
Micky is the one to speak. He’s recovered well from his operation, looks better than I remembered in months.
