He smiled. ‘That is personal also—for someone in my family. Tell me why I should drop my interest in the boy.’
Entirely caught off guard, which had been his intention, she too checked her watch, as if she wished to be anywhere else but there with him. ‘I can’t. And that’s the truth. It does concern you, but not in the way you think, and it’s not my secret to spill. I can only tell you again that I would literally bet mylifeon the fact he didn’t cut your brake lines.’
‘Then tell him I want to meet him.’
‘In a more civilised manner than kicking my doors in?’
‘Much more.’
‘Jesus, your smile is scary.’
He rose and stretched and was pleased that her eyes followed the resultant swell in his size and power. ‘Not at all. Set up the meeting.’ She raised an eyebrow, and he added, ‘Please,’ much to her evident amusement.
* * *
They decided to detour briefly to the island to drop off the shopping and feed the dogs before setting off once more to Oasis Rock, now with their recently purchased diving equipment. Harry, staring off into the west as he piloted the boat, commented casually, ‘Going to be a fine day tomorrow. Full sun and balmy.’
Aleksey lowered his brow, attempting to see any of this in the clouds which curtained the horizon. Harry tapped his hip pocket. ‘Met Office.’
Tim, quickly picking up on this obvious hint, suggested brightly, ‘You could dive tomorrow, then.’ Seeing the annoyed reception this got, he added very swiftly, ‘We bought some more charcoal and some lobster tails. We could have a little barbecue. They probably won’t keep until tomorrow…’ He sat mutinously with his arms crossed at his boyfriend’s sceptical laughter.
Aleksey caught Ben’s eye and smiled at his expression. ‘No, it is a good idea, doctor. After almost half a millennium, our hoard of treasure can wait one more night.’
Later that evening, he was extremely glad that he’d postponed the dive. The night was as wet and cold as it had been all day, the rain not letting up and buffeting against the mullioned windows. They lit the fire in Guillemot, warmed up and relaxed, and did little else but eat and speculate on what they might find beneath the tantalising spear of rock. When the moron began to tell his boyfriend about their trip to get the dive equipment, faux apologising that they hadn’t had a suit for a tiddler like him, Aleksey’s thoughts drifted back to mullets, and to the conversation he’d had earlier with the bookshop owner. He was recalling the moment when she’d claimed that Ben had come-on to her, and his reaction to this startling claim. It mirrored so closely the response he’d had to the moron’s teasing in the boat—that Ben had apparently been offered a blowjob by a local with a bad haircut. Despite an instinctive pretence at being suspicious, at neither of these moments had his heart stopped; the world had not ceased to spin for a brief moment of time; he had not felt the instability of everything he was and desired, as if an earthquake had shuddered beneath unstable foundations. Was this how love was meant to be? That when it was challenged you were entirely immune to that doubt? Is this how other people lived their lives, and yet he was only just experiencing it aged fifty, with more than half his allotted span gone? He had never had this certainty in anyone up to this point. His parents had been equally unreliable, albeit in different ways. He had learned very early on that he could rely on neither of them for support of any kind. His jobs had involved so much deception and projection of false fronts that at times he had genuinely not known who or what he had become. And then there had been the long span of pretence, his Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen years, trapped in self-inflicted absence of everything except addiction. Addicted, in a way, to the martyrdom of spite.
But now… Now there was Ben.
And he could still not work out why this was so.
He was roused from this extremely pleasant contemplation of Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen when the moron flung himself down on the sofa next to him, in a move that so mirrored Ben’s way of doing this to get a rise out of him that he almost greeted the idiot with a smile. Ben and Tim had left to fetch some more wine, so they were alone. He swiftly turned this incipient amusement into a frown and was about to tell him to move further away, when the annoying one commented, ‘Funny thing happened today, boss. Talking about that chandlers place. Remember the guy with the redneck hair? One who fancied Diesel? Well, he was in there again, and when Pretty Boy weren’t looking, he texted someone, I reckon, cus after half an hour or so, this guy came in, and he were paying our little Benji way too much attention, if you get my drift.’
‘I am not sure I have understood a word you have said to me since I had the misfortune to meet you. In English please?’
‘I think they’re planning to sex-traffic Diesel, that’s what I think.’
‘Oh, God.’
‘No, seriously, see this is how they’ll do it; they’ll wait till they’re in there alone with him—yours truly obviously put them off today, me being like menace on steroids, and I’ll admit to you projecting your usual air oflook in my direction and you’ll end up beneath the waters of Les Dentsputting ‘im off before—but when he’s alone, they’ll snatch him, and he’ll end up on one of those Albanian yachts being—’
‘Albanian?’
‘Course. Get with the programme, matey. So, these Albanians have Pretty Boy, and they put him up for sale—in anauction. Sex-slave sale, if you get my drift.’
‘Ben. A sex slave?’
‘Well, you’ve gotta admit he’s got the skills for it.’
‘And, what, someone buys him?’
‘Bids for him first. That’s the best bit, see, they outbid each other.’
‘And what’s Ben doing all this time? During the auction?’
‘Well, yeah, that’s where I don’t reckon they’ve thought this through enough.’ He made a concerned and helpful face, which was more worrying in some ways than the conversation. ‘Imagine trying to keep Diesel a prisoner and fucking him if he were objecting.’
Aleksey snorted. ‘I don’t have to imagine it.’
‘Oh, fuck off!’ The moron sunk into gloomy introspection, possibly picturing this.
