Fathers.
Neither of them had liked the ones they’d been gifted.
But Aleksey knew he wasn’t the only one who had decided that, as with destiny, you could choose your own family too.
They climbed out of the car and made their way to the private wing. Ben was on his phone. Both Squeezy and Tim had returned to Devon for the weekend, and he’d been trying to raise them since they’d landed. ‘Any luck?’
Ben shook his head. ‘They’re probably in bed with their phones turned off.’ He took a breath. ‘I was eating toast and marmite in the mess when I heard about my dad. I remember—I had a mouth full. I didn’t even like him much. He wasn’t even my dad. But I still can’t even smell that stuff now. You?’
Aleksey gave him a sideways glance. ‘I was in the next room. I heard the gunshot.’
Ben clenched his jaw. ‘Fuck. Sorry. I forgot.’
When they arrived outside Harry’s suite, there was no bustle in the corridor. Aleksey assumed death was not an unusual occurrence for a hospital.
Just before Ben pushed open the door, he asked anxiously, ‘What if they’ve removed him already, Nik, and there’s someone else in here?’
There was no answer to this, so Aleksey brushed past him and went in first.
Harry, on seeing him, exclaimed, ‘Well, there you are, son. I wondered if you’d take the helicopter or the ferry. You’re just in time!’ He was sitting up in bed, his arm in a cast, and he had a laptop open in front of him. Someone had moved his bed right against the window, so he appeared more outside than in, which Aleksey supposed was the point.
‘You’re not dead.’
Harry frowned, thinking about this slightly forced observation. ‘Ah.’ He held up his good hand. ‘I struggled to use that infernal device you so kindly gave me with two, so I’m afraid it defeated me with only one, and I had to ask a very kindly young lass for assistance. What did she say?’
‘Urgent. Come now. We thought…’
‘I see. My apologies. But itisurgent. Look what I have found for you.’
Ben was laughing openly by this time and said to no one in particular, ‘Squeezy bought you a computer?’
‘Timothy did. It’s a little more challenging than the phone, but I’m getting the hang of it. Did you know you can watch the oceans on live cameras? Hard to believe. I’m keeping a bit of an eye on Cape Horn at the moment. But look.’ He swivelled it around for Aleksey to see the screen.
Attempting to keep his face neutral, Aleksey looked as requested. Then with a frown took out his glasses and considered the picture more carefully. He bent in close, then sat down in the plastic chair.
‘Isn’t she a beauty?’
It was a boat.
Or more to the point, it washisboat.
Ben, leaning on his shoulder to see the screen as well, flicked his ear and muttered, still highly amused, ‘I’m starving,’ then sauntered off, presumably to find the canteen.
But he could not take his eyes from the computer.
He didn’t need to know the whys and wherefores of location, cost, or anything else really. Itwashis boat—the one he’d been seeking. But he listened as Harry explained that it was an original Cornish Pilot Cutter, refurbished in Falmouth, and now up for sale. It was unique and the price reflected this. But as he was currently wearing cologne that cost well over half a million dollars for a sixteen-ounce bottle—a very tiny treat indeed—the slightly higher price tag for this sixty-something feet of utter nautical perfection didn’t phase him at all. With an oak on oak hull, all brass fastenings, berths for eight passengers and another six for crew, he could not take his eyes off its sleek design. It wouldn’t even fit in the boathouse—well, theircurrentboathouse.
‘I was looking to see if I could find a new dinghy for the wee chap—his got smashed, and it was a splendid little wayfarer. So I asked Timothy to set me up on some boats-for-sale pages and there it was. So, you see, it is rather urgent. It’s anauction site, apparently, and one has to bid if one wants to buy something. Did you see the name?Sticky Wicket. Rather appropriate for you, wouldn’t you say?’
Aleksey recoiled a little and removed his glasses. ‘Sticky w—is that allowed for the name of a boat? Is that not a bit—obscene?’
Harry studied his keyboard for a moment, apparently mulling this over, and then murmured, ‘Wicket is a cricket term, son. Sticky wicket means a problematic situation. A crisis. Or perhaps…a storm…’
‘Oh. That makes more sense then.’ He returned to watching the auction. Successful sniping required great concentration, after all.
* * *
Chapter Forty-eight
