It’s an uncomfortable move that lasts less than a dozen seconds before he steps back as if he’s had an electric shock put through him.
“Is there a body?”
Franklyn shakes his head. “Intelligence.”
“Can I ask who it’s from?”
He looks at Blair as if needing permission because technically I’m one of the old enemy.
“I’ll tell him anyway, so you may as well disclose in front of him.” There’s a level of irritation to her voice.
“A Norwegian source, or so I hear.”
“Thank you, Franklyn. Please tell Micky to see me when he’s got time.”
Franklyn doesn’t go immediately. He stays for a few moments still looking at her, sitting on the bed, and I wonder why he’s spent his life serving this family rather than having one of his own.
Ben was always bemused by Franklyn. He suggested that the man got his kick by what he saw and I never questioned why until now.
I watch him leave, hear the click of the door. I wait, and then go over and open it, checking to see if he’s actually left.
“Why did you do that?” She looks at me with tearless eyes.
“Because I wasn’t sure he’d actually go.”
“Do you think it’s true?”
Copenhagen. A library. A woman with dyed dark hair and eyes like Benjamin Smith. A woman who believed her brother was dead. Who needed him to be dead.
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
Because I had a letter. Words that told me he should be dead but he was alive and almost well. But I can’t tell her.
And nearby.
“Because I don’t know for sure and I want him to be alive.” I look at her; delicate features, pools of blue ink for eyes, that stubborn chin. A face that men would kill for. A crown that men would die for. A heart than one man would sacrifice himself for. “But I think he might be dead.”
Liar.
Liar.
Liar.
“He might be dead. He might be dead and I might never know for sure.”
I hold her as she cries, silent sobs that make me swallow the hard lump that’s grown in my throat and she clings to me as if she’s drowning and I’m her only chance of survival.
“It will be alright.” The words are hollow.
She pulls back and looks at me. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
Lie to you.
“I killed someone.”
“Why?”
