“Fuck off. I was eight. Talk to me about sad.”
Nikolas began to run his fingers through Ben’s hair. Ben resisted at first but then allowed it, turning into the comfort offered. “By the way, Benjamin, I prefer it when you say fuck me rather than fuck off.”
Ben nodded into Nikolas’s chest. “Sorry. It’s been a bloody awful few days.”
“So, what will you do with the stepfather? Nothing must come back to us.”
“No. I was thinking he was going to kill himself.”
“No. Make him disappear.”
“But then there’s no closure for Felicity or Alice.”
“An accidental death then.”
“He doesn’t deserve that.”
“A very painful accidental death?”
Ben chuckled, even though he knew this was hardly appropriate. Nik stopped running his fingers through Ben’s tousled black hair and slapped his head lightly instead in admonition. “Remember the girl and the woman. They will know the method of the death eventually. You would wish to spare them that. It is not easy to know someone died a horrible death, even if you no longer love them.”
Ben raised his head from Nikolas’s chest and took a deep breath for courage. “Is that a personal reflection from prison camp?”
Nikolas pressed Ben’s head back onto his chest. “Good things can come from bad beginnings. You do realise that the nine-year-old boy living rough on the moors turned into the SAS solider I eventually recruited, don’t you? By the time you were sixteen, you were already an exceptional young man with unusual skills and self-reliance.”
“You neatly turned that conversation from you back to me.”
“As I always will. Come.” Nikolas tapped him on the shoulder. “You have work to do. Do it well, Ben. Nothing to tie this to us.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ben was interested to read in the paper, which he uncharacteristically scanned very carefully every day that week, that a corporate lawyer in the city had recently died in a fluke, but tragic, accident. According to the journalist, the man, Jeremy Haxton, had left work one night and discovered he had a flat tyre. He’d apparently tried to change the wheel. Given the dark of the underground car park, the police concluded he’d been unable to fit the jack correctly. It was an unusual accidental death, they said, but not entirely unheard of. The story went on to point out that the BMW X5 was not one of the heaviest vehicles on the road, but at just under 5,000lbs curb weight, it was heavy enough. Quoted, the coroner explained, “The human head is little more than blancmange wrapped in cling film inside a paper bag placed in a cardboard box wrapped in brown paper.” A diagram of this concept had been provided. Ben liked it. The little brain looked like a sick birthday present.
Ben wondered if there was a widow somewhere reading this same story and, if so, whether she was interested in blancmange brains, or whether she was more concerned to have it confirmed that her husband, Jeremy Haxton, was indeed dead. He hoped that was the case.
§§§
Killing Jeremy had been one of the easiest things Ben had ever done. In so many ways, he’d wanted the man to know what his death was about, but having time to torment your victim with a recitation of his crimes existed only in fiction. Ben had seen a narrow window of opportunity and had taken it. The man never knew what had hit him as he’d emerged from the stairwell late one night.
The laptop’s hard drive he destroyed. Then he smashed the laptop, just because he wanted to.
§§§
When Ben returned home, however, he didn’t know what to do with himself. He felt completely numb. For one terrifying moment, all he wanted to do was run away to the moors. And with a sickening realisation, he saw that this was just like the weeks and months after his mother had abandoned him. He couldn’t concentrate, and he couldn’t care about anyone or anything. Even with Nikolas he was numb, disassociated. He went through the motions of eating, wandering around the house, walking the dog, but nothing registered.
It was worse at night. For the first time in his adult life, he wasn’t interested in sex. It all seemed too much effort, something that should be happening to someone else. The first night, Nikolas had slid into bed alongside him, cupping his face for a kiss. Ben had pushed him off and turned his back, shoulders stiff. He needed endless sleep and felt tired after only a few hours of rising. In some part of his brain, all this worried him for he could see no reason for it—after all, he had killed many people before with less justification—but in the other portion, he just couldn’t care enough to care. He drifted, silent on a still sea of pleasant numbness. He almost stopped talking and dreamt endlessly of the moors. He was almost pleased he could see no end in sight, and wondered whether if he tried hard enough he might just disappear entirely. After three days and nights of seeing his life as a pinprick of light at the end of a long dark tunnel, the end came startlingly abruptly one morning when Nikolas woke him by throwing some clothes at him. “Get up.”
Ben grunted something that sounded remarkably like fuck off but was mumbled enough so Nikolas might just mishear. Nikolas dragged the covers off Ben’s naked body. “Get up. We have a long drive ahead of us.”
Ben sat up reluctantly. “Another job?”
Nikolas pursed his lips, placing a leather travel bag on the bed. “No. Get dressed and then pack for a few nights.”
“Tell me where we’re going first.”
Nikolas gave a sour smile. “And spoil the surprise?”
“I don’t like bloody surprises.”
