‘Why do you think he said that if you could see him?’
‘Because I asked him if he was my invisible friend.’
Once more Ben took her back. ‘That’s a funny thing to ask, Mol Mol. Where was Sarah? Was she there? Did she see him?’
She shook her head, apparently liked the way this made her hair swing so did it again. ‘Nope. She was in the chapel. She said I wasn’t to leave the graveyard and I didn’t.’
‘Uh-huh. But here you are.’
She closed her eyes and pretended to fall asleep from the boredom of having this obvious transgression on the rules pointed out by her father.
She was swapped once more and dramatically started flailing her head around as if she was on a dizzying fairground ride. ‘Why did you ask this man if he was invisible, Molly?”
She regarded him thoughtfully, drawing along his scar with a fingertip. ‘Because he said he wasn’t there and I hadn’t seen him.’
‘Uh-huh. So you asked him if he was your invisible friend. What did he say to that?’
She flung her arms out, enjoying being the centre of attention. ‘He said no he was my daddy’s. I think. Can I have a mince pie?’
Aleksey was feeling the cold now, only in his tennis whites, and Emilia had her arms wrapped around her body, clearly chilled as well. He resumed their walk to the house, Ben now at his side. ‘Don’t question her anymore, Nik. Leave it for now.’
‘No, Papa, question me, question me.’
‘I’m going to. What do you think the man meant when he said he was Daddy’s invisible friend? Is that what he said exactly? Think carefully. I know you take after your father in this regard and find useful thinking difficult.’
She actually put her clenched fists to her forehead in an exaggerated brain-interrogation gesture. ‘I said, “Are you my invisible friend?” and he said, “No I’m your father’s,” so I said, “Daddy’s?”—just like that: “Daddy’s?”—because I was surprised, because Daddy doesn’t have invisible friends like Uncle Squeezy says you do, and he said, “Yes,” but he wasn’t too sure, I don’t think. He sounded like my teachers do when they say, “Give that to your father, Molly,” and I say, “Give it to my daddy or give it to my papa because it usually makes quite a bit of difference which one, if you actually want something to be done with it”.’
There was silence after this detailed but entirely useless explanation of the situation. They entered the large kitchen, and Aleksey placed Molly on a chair. Emilia deposited Jenna into her lap and sat down next to her. ‘I think you’re both missing the point.’ She began to help Molly open the tin of mince pies which, as it was nearly December and therefore officially nearly Christmas, was left permanently topped up on the table. ‘Tell me about the scar and scowl bit, sweetie.’
Molly was well into a mouthful of pastry and mincemeat, so with a bit of crumb spitting explained, ‘He said what you said. I asked him why he was there and he said because he wasn’t afraid of Mr Scarandscowl. Who’s Mr Scarandscowl? Does he have eyes, Papa?’
Emilia watched her for a moment. ‘What did he do then—this man?’
Molly shrugged. ‘Dunno. Can I have some milk?’
Ben sat down on the other side of her. ‘I don’t know and please would sound nicer. Why don’t you know?’
She put her forehead down on the table and muttered, ‘Yesterday upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there.’
Aleksey decided he’d heard enough. He grabbed a jacket and was running along the path in the woods by the time Ben caught up to him. They could hear Sarah calling for Molly even before they came out from under the cover of the trees. Ben went over to her, reassuring her that they had Molly, and Aleksey went straight to the wall which ran between this section of their property and the moors. He was tempted to run back and fetch his horse, or even K9, the drone, but realised they’d already given this trespasser time enough to be long gone. And was he actually a trespasser? Or even a threat at all? Molly had not claimed he’d crossed the wall. The moors were common land. It was a disadvantage of their situation he knew only too well.
Ignoring the other two, he reversed direction and headed up towards the driveway where he suspected the men he paid outrageous sums of money to keep his family safe would be lurking. True, they were not required to be on Molly twenty-four-seven when Sarah was with her, but he felt irrationally and unfairly that they should have subconsciously intuited that their presence was needed.
As he’d suspected, Psycho and Hannibal, who were the two on duty that day, were standing with Squeezy by the scaffolding. Admiring the builders, probably, in the moron’s case, which was a thought he filed away to mention the next time the professor was present. Squeezy turned as he ran up. ‘Whoa. It has knees like a human. ‘S up, boss?’
Aleksey ignored him, as he always tried to, and put his hands on his thighs for a moment to catch his breath. Succinctly, he told them what had happened, adding, ‘I want someone on her full time now. She’s never out of sight. Got it?’
The two bodyguards nodded and jogged away down the drive, eventually disappearing into the shadows beneath the bare winter trees.
‘It’s possible it was one of these blokes.’ Squeezy, towing the gravel, flicked his head towards the scaffolding which surrounded the construction of The Keep. Their new guardhouse was barely recognisable as such yet, but the occasional sounds of drilling and banging were encouraging.
He studied the rising structure for a moment, something odd nagging at his consciousness. Distracted, he asked, ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, we’ve got a shed-load of guys working on it to get it up and running in time for your would-be apocalypse, and they take their breaks sometimes out on the moors. Seems likely? One of ‘em spotted Squirt and went up for a chat? She told ‘im he was like that Jack thingy, and so he just played along, like you might? Diesel knocked half the crew off early to catch the—have a half-day holiday—but when they get back, I’ll ask.’
This is what had struck him as he’d run up. No visible men. ‘A holiday? Why do they need a holiday? Where is everyone? I’m paying for—’
‘—unfucking believable. Fucking billionaires! Would you have us all slaving in the fields, m’lord?’ The moron made a pretense of tugging at an invisible cap. ‘Workers of the world unite. That’s what I say.’
