Death's Ink Black Shadow (24 page)

Miles returned.

Ben slid off to put the kettle on but he was followed. “Do you worry about the radiation from the tor?”

“Huh?”

“The rocks! Granite! They give off more radiation than a nuclear power plant. Your bedroom must be full of radon gas.”

Ben’s first thought at this was to blame Radulf, but then he frowned and heard it more clearly and muttered, “What?”

Miles was trying to get up on one of the counter stools, but it was too high for him and he wasn’t the right shape to hop. He gave Ben an incredulous look. “Decaying uranium!”

“What? Depleted uranium! In the bedroom?”

Miles stopped his struggles. “Oh, goodness, I think I’d better make this much simpler for you. That’s exactly the opposite—
depleted
of U235.”

“Huh?” Ben glanced at Nikolas for help. Nikolas was showing Mrs Toogood some pictures of the construction of the house. He was deliberately not catching Ben’s eye. Ben could tell. Ben suddenly had a brainwave and said to the boy, “Do you like chocolate cake?”

Miles’s eyes widened then narrowed, and he slumped. “No.”

Ben jerked back a fraction and was tempted to reply that he looked as if he did. Cautiously, he produced the cake he’d made earlier. Miles’s brows lowered. “You baked it?”

“Yup. First one I’ve ever tried—for you guys. Nikolas doesn’t eat sugar or carbohydrates.”

“No. I don’t either.”

“I do.”

Miles’s jaw dropped. “But you’re so…” He pouted a little, watching Ben cutting the cake and sliding the slices onto plates. He began to blush furiously. “Emilia said…” He toyed with a smear of chocolate on the counter. “She said Razer was…”

“Razer?”

“Oh, I mean Nikolas. That’s his…but she said he was, and you were…and I don’t understand. I asked Granny, but she said I’d understand when I was older.”

Ben mimed desperation at Nikolas but there was convenient inattention from his other half. He responded carefully, “Sounds like a good plan to me—wait ‘til you’re older?” He saw a despairing expression sink into the boy’s features and added, “But you want to understand now…”

Miles nodded eagerly. “Yes! I do. I
have
to, you see. If I understand things then…they won’t happen.”

“Bad things?”

“Yes! I mean, why do cars crash? See if everyone understood the physics involved in a crash they could avoid them. I have to know things.” Miles had finally made it up onto the stool and was now staring at Ben. “What if all the air ran out, do you see? That’s why we need to start thinking seriously about living on Mars—just in case.”

“You and your grandmother, on Mars?”

“Oh, yes, it’s entirely feasible, and she could even have a little garden. Mark Watney…Are you trying to distract me?”

“Is it working?”

“Not at all. Is it a secret thing? Like a secret identity?”

Ben snorted. “For Nikolas it is, yes.” He focused once more on the group at the table. Nikolas was now observing him with Miles. Their gazes locked and for one moment there was nothing else, no one else, in the room. All Ben’s thoughts swooped and zeroed in on Nikolas, and he felt Nikolas’s doing the same with him. They gave each other wry smiles. It was the first time in weeks that he enjoyed the connection he always shared with Nikolas—had from the first moment he’d met him across a desk in Whitehall, despite what Nikolas might dispute about that claim.

When he came back to the present, Ben discovered Miles wrinkling his nose in disgust at the looks they’d given each other. Ben was about to comment, forcibly, on this disdain, when the boy said gloomily, “You’re just
gay
. I thought it was going to be something really
good
—like you were both sleeper agents or something. Maybe androids. I know that’s a little unlikely, but it seemed to me that if I was an advanced robotics engineer, I’d make my prototype robots look like you two. Not me…”

Ben leant his elbows on the counter and put his face close to the grubbier one. “If you were a British undercover operative on a secret mission, so secret that if it was compromised the government might fall, and you had to conduct this mission by living day to day, cheek by jowl with a
Russian
agent, what cover would you pick?”

Miles narrowed his eyes. Then he opened them wide, and confided in a sotto voice, “Being
gay
.” He squinted at Nikolas. “That’s
brilliant
. You can go everywhere together. No one suspects a thing! Gosh, you do play your roles well. Do you have a gun?”

Ben tapped the side of his nose. He heard Nikolas snort but ignored him.

“Did you know that James Bond carries the gun Hitler committed suicide with?”

“Well, similar. A Walther PPK?”

“Similar?”

“Yes, similar gun, not the same one. Not the
actual
one in the bunker that did the deed.”

“Oh! I’ve always wondered how James got Hitler’s gun. It seemed such an odd coincidence.”

“Always?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve been researching guns forever. It’s important to know—”

“Just in case.”

Miles tapped the side of his nose, just as Ben had. “Exactly.”

He needed help getting off the stool, but Ben lifted him, handing him a large slice of cake, which he was now very happy to take to the table and enjoy.

Then he began to tell
Razer
off for feeding Radulf a piece of the chocolate icing. Nikolas listened to the lecture about proper nutrition for dogs and then began relating to the wide-eyed boy the effects of arsenic on dogs’ digestive systems, which was much gorier and more impressive than chocolate.

Ben slapped Nikolas’s head as he came to the table with a final slice of cake for Emilia, and everyone, even Nikolas, laughed.

Enid Toogood was admiring the gardens once more. Babushka, watching her, suddenly announced in her halting English, “Nicer more much France. Phat.” She shot off some more words in Russian to Emilia.

Emilia suddenly clapped her hands. “Yes. Stay here for the week! Grandma wants you to stay with us!” She turned to Miles, and for a teenage girl who had recently expressed disdain bordering on contempt for anyone in the junior house, she did a good impression of an eager older sister, telling Miles about her horse, Mr Darcy, her house, and all the things they could do together.

Babushka waved her hands. “I pretty house. Big house. More big me need. You rest me. Better than
dead dog
!”

Ben and Nikolas seconded the invitation. Nikolas told Enid he’d teach Miles to shoot. There were plenty of sheep on the moors for target practise, apparently.

Fortunately, she didn’t appear to hear this last thing as she was discussing the offer with Miles.

They agreed. Very readily and happily as far as Ben could see. Perhaps the hundreds of miles she had just driven at no faster than fifty miles an hour influenced her decision.

There was a moment of complete calm in the kitchen. Ben leant back and regarded everyone tucking in with relish to his cake, chatting about all the things they could do over the week. He glanced once more at Nikolas, expecting to see a similar satisfaction with the turn their lives had taken.

Instead, just for the briefest of moments, he saw a man who appeared to be hearing once more the ghostly echoes of a long-lost innocence.

§ § §

Nikolas got Miles and Enid Toogood settled into Babushka’s house.

Ben, driving the little Morris into the garage, where it sat dwarfed by their Merc and slightly intimidated by the Maserati, was concerned about him. The sense that Nikolas was playing a part was even more noticeable when there were other people present. As Ben was completely shut off from him, he had to accept Nik’s outward appearance of nonchalance and his protestations that there was nothing wrong—that Ben was just imagining things, being ridiculous. He would have probed further, made more of a stand, but when they met back up and returned to the kitchen they discovered that Radulf, being blind, had apparently mistaken his food bowl, which was alongside the range at the back of the kitchen, with the plate holding the remains of the chocolate cake, which had been on the counter. An easy mistake to make, obviously. He was now throwing up and shaking, and didn’t even try to hide the vomit in Nikolas’s spare shoes, which he usually did.

Nikolas heaved him into his arms. “Vet.”

Ben ran to get the car, and they bundled him onto the backseat. Normally, Nikolas would have given the dog a metaphorical kick up the backside for stealing and eating cake, but given his insides were traumatised from the events of the day before, he was clearly taking the incident more seriously. He phoned ahead as Ben drove, Radulf wrapped back in his emergency red blanket once more.

They carried him straight into the surgery, jumping any queue, mainly thanks to the impressive entrance they made. Both six four with a wolfhound slung between them, the awed residents of Ashburton with their pugs and caged cats could only watch with interest as the apparently dead dog was manhandled past them.

As soon as Radulf was put upon the table, he revived.

He managed a feeble retraction of his muzzle in warning at the vet. The vet was made of stern stuff. Heart rate normal, no bleeding, gums good colour. The thermometer came out of the drawer. The muzzle raised some more, accompanied by a rumble from the belly and visible fangs. The vet agreed with Radulf—absolutely no requirement to know what this dog’s temperature was. The offending instrument was returned to the drawer where it belonged.

When it came time to leave, Radulf walked out by himself.

Ben had a feeling the vet’s reputation would spread far and wide after this almost miraculous recovery.

Nikolas appeared to be furious with the dog, returning to his earlier contention that he was a complete fraud. Ben was tempted to retort childishly that it takes one to know one, but he knew the tirade was Nikolas’s way of expressing his genuine worry that the dog had nearly been killed—again.

Ben suggested they go to a pub and eat. One of his favourites, a few miles from Ashburton, had a huge log fire and wide hearth which could accommodate a recovering wolfhound—charlatan or not. He told Nikolas to guide Radulf to the best spot while he fetched some drinks and the menu. Nikolas muttered that if the bloody dog could see chocolate cake and a three-inch glass tube he could find the damn fire for himself.

They settled into harmonious peace once Ben returned to the table with a beer for himself and a whole, unopened bottle of vodka for Nikolas.

Food rarely cheered Nikolas up, he always seemed affronted by it, but alcohol always did. Ben relented from his usual keep-Nikolas-away-from-temptation stance and told him to have at the icy liquid.

Nikolas did and became much more relaxed after a couple of hours, even willing to admit that they’d over-reacted a little to finding one vast dog had ingested one remaining crumb of cake.

Ben watched the level in the bottle drop and when he judged the time just right he murmured, “We’re not going home until you tell me what is wrong, by the way. You know that, right?”

Nikolas shrugged, a gesture that was beginning to cause Ben considerable annoyance. Before he could point this out, however, Nikolas replied, “What do you think is wrong, Ben? You tell me.”

“
Nothing
! That’s what I’m trying to say! Nothing is wrong. Radulf is fine. We have Emilia and Molly Rose, bloody hell, we even have Miles Toogood now! Babushka, we’re all
fine
! All safe. And you have your son. Your
son
. What could possibly be wrong, Nikolas? This is the best it’s
ever
been!” Ben smelt coffee but clenched his jaw and allowed that there
was
actually a coffee pot simmering behind the bar.

Again with the shrug, this time a very small, single-shoulder one. “Absolutely. There you go. Nothing wrong.”

Ben leant back, exasperated. “You are
impossible
. Don’t shrug!”

Nikolas didn’t. He polished off his vodka and poured another. “I think I will be completely Russian tonight.”

“There’s still vomit to be cleared up in the kitchen, if you’re missing it.”

“Ack. That’s your job.”

Ben smiled. “Seriously. You have to relax. The universe isn’t
always
out to get you. Everything is good.”

“Okay. If you say so then it must be.
Vsego khoroshego.”
Nikolas downed his drink in one.

Ben narrowed his eyes. “That means good-bye.”

Nikolas smirked. “Not at all.”

Ben got no further conversation or sense out of him. Radulf, his standby to talk to, was asleep, so he got up and went to play darts with some locals.

§ § §

They didn’t leave until closing time. It was dark. Radulf walked steadily to the car and climbed in with only a little help from Nikolas, which he was more than willing to lend with one boot.

Nikolas wasn’t wholly drunk, but he wasn’t entirely sober either. Ben, who was driving, was disgustingly so and determined to make up for missing out on alcohol by indulging in another favourite hobby all night. Nikolas was in just the right mood for some serious fun.

They took the main road back to the house, the A38 all but deserted at this time of night. Ben ducked down and glanced through the side window to the north, toward the moors. “Can you see the Northern Lights this far south?”

“Of course not.”

They drove on until their turn off and then a few miles more to the lane. Ben frowned and nudged Nikolas. “Wake up. Look. There it is again.”

Nikolas grudgingly opened his eyes. He was silent for a moment but then said in a very calm voice, “Oh, no, Ben. That’s the house. It’s burning.” Before Ben could shout out his horror, Nikolas added in a thoughtful, almost pleased tone, “Unoriginal. How disappointing.”

Ben was driving frantically, and thrust his phone at Nikolas to call 999.

It wasn’t their house. Their house was
reflecting
the flames.

The fire was in the grounds, in the trees.

Ben crashed the off-roader onto the lawn and swerved around the vast rhododendron bushes that Enid Toogood had admired, and drove to the oak house, which was aflame.