Sins of the Father (15 page)

“Are you teaching at SIS?” Angel asked quietly.

“Yes, just a two-hour seminar.”

“On what?” Angel’s beautiful light gray eyes opened wide as he looked up at him. Kael knew Angel would far rather be sitting in his classroom at Vauxhall Cross than in his history or English class at Redmond.

“Torture,” he whispered with a grin.

Angel’s face lit up. “Doing it or withstanding it, Daddy?”

Ignoring the question, Kael said, “I’ll pick you up at four, and we’ll go straight to the gym.”

Outside in the crisp noon air, Angel walked him to his car in the teachers’ car park. Several boys in smart uniforms just like Angel’s called out to him as they passed. With pride Kael noted how popular Angel was. Everybody liked him. The only friend Kael had ever had was Freddie. He had always hung out with groups of boys at school, but no one sought him out individually. They were all scared of him.

Angel hugged him, hanging on tightly for a moment, his cheek pressed against Kael’s chest. When they parted, Kael leaned against the car, watching Angel’s leggy, racehorse walk as he hurried back to the building, the sun gleaming on his pale blond hair.

I love you, Angel.

* * * *

“Sir, what’s the likelihood of being tortured? Has it ever happened to you?”

The seminar had gone well, and Kael had seen the man watching him intently throughout. Watching more than listening. He was in his early thirties, big, and tall, but with a quiet disposition. The quiet wasn’t the problem, nor his retiring demeanor. It was the fear in his eyes.

“I have found myself in a few very sticky situations over the years. This job might not be for you. What made you want to be an operational officer?”

“I’ve been with SIS for seven years, but I’ve always been in IT. I want something more exciting.” With a self-deprecating smile, he patted his belly. “I want to get fit.”

“Join a gym.” Kael looked at the soft, protruding belly. “If you were accepted for training, somebody thought you had some potential. See how it goes.” He clapped the man on the shoulder and strode off toward the lift.

On the third floor, in the quiet, sedate reception area, Conran’s secretary looked up at him from her desk outside her superior’s office. The stout, usually dowdy woman was actually looking quite attractive. The old-fashioned twin sets she always wore were replaced by a fashionable dress that made her look younger and slimmer.

“Hello, Mr. Saunders. Do you mind waiting a minute or two? Mr. Conran is involved in a rather important three-way.”

“I didn’t know he was that sexually adventurous.” Surprised that the woman started to laugh, he said, “Was I funny?” He had meant to be sarcastic.

“Yes,” she said, still chuckling. “You’re usually so serious.”

“Oh.” Still brimmingly happy that Angel’s future education was working out to plan, he sat down in the tasteful, wood-framed leather chair near her desk. “You usually look really frumpy, Mrs. Lane. You look very nice today.”

With a rosy-cheeked smile, she said, “Diplomacy has never been your strong point, has it, Mr. Saunders?”

Angel had told him about his bluntness before.
“You never sugarcoat it, do you, Daddy?”
“I meant it as a compliment,” he said defensively. He had seen the woman on and off over the last ten years, but more often in the last year, since he had been teaching classes at Vauxhall Cross. It wasn’t that long since she’d seen him pin Conran up against a wall, so she was right about the diplomacy. “You look younger. I thought you were fifty.”

“I’m forty-three, sir.” Her smile was fast fading.

“Never ask a lady her age or her weight, Daddy.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m not very good at guessing.” He pulled out his mobile, which he had turned off in the library at Redmond. Angel sometimes sent him sweet little texts, which always made him smile. He pressed the On button. “I forgot there’s no signal in here,” he mumbled, pocketing the phone again. He still bought disposable phones and destroyed them every few weeks, but since having Angel in his life, he always made sure his boy had his number in case he needed him. Lately he had been giving the number to his mum as well so she didn’t always have to wait for him to phone her. She just couldn’t understand why he kept changing his number.

A glance at Mrs. Lane proved she was still not best pleased with him. Attempting to redeem the moment, he said, “So why did you get yourself a makeover? That’s what it’s called, isn’t it? A makeover? Because you do look better.”

Folding her hands in her lap and sitting back in her swivel chair, Mrs. Lane said, “My husband left me. He said I’d let myself go.”

“He was right. All you needed was a kick in the ar…bum.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said. “Especially since I don’t really want my husband back anyway. Do you have a wife, Mr. Saunders?”

“I’m gay. I have a partner.” The warmth that rose in him when he spoke those words surprised him. He had been asked before if he was married, and his answer was always an angry “I’m gay” or “I’m queer.” He was thoroughly insulted by anyone thinking he was straight.

“You don’t look gay,” she said.

Gripping the wooden arms of the chair until his knuckles turned white, Kael said, “What’s that supposed to mean? Because I’m masculine and don’t have that voice, I can’t be gay?”

With a calm smile, she said, “I was being a bit tactless, Mr. Saunders. Like you when you said I needed a kick in the bum and you thought I was fifty.”

“Oh, I see.” And the miracle was, he did see. With Angel’s help, he was improving his people skills all the time. “I think what I should have said was, you’re looking really good these days, Mrs. Lane.”

“To which I would have replied, thank you very much, Mr. Saunders.”

Conran’s door opened, making Kael sigh with relief.

“Saunders, come in.”

“No. I’m picking Angel up at four to go to the gym. Where’s the letter?”

“I need to speak to you. We might as well do it now.” Conran held the door until Kael walked through. “Sit down. Do you want a drink?”

“No, I brought the car. Did you get the letter?”

“Yes, it’s right here.” Conran sat down behind his desk and passed Kael an envelope. It was on official parliamentary stationery. “Hope it does the trick for you.”

“So do I.” The envelope was not sealed, and Kael slid out the letter and skimmed it. “The deputy prime minister? Well done, Stephen!” He looked up. “He says here he met Angel.”

“He did, for about five minutes at my New Year party.”

Feeling victorious, Kael tucked the letter into his inside pocket. “Now, what do you want?”

“Romodanovsky arrives at Dorneywood tomorrow with his son, Dmitri. I’m not sure why he’s there. To spend some time with his father, I suppose. He’s at Cambridge.”

“I know. Romodanovsky decided to share his family details with me, as if I cared.”

“They’ll spend two nights at Dorneywood. Friday and Saturday. And they’ll leave at noon on Sunday. All meetings will be held on site. The usual security, which consists mostly of Specialist Operations officers and a few local police, will be in place. The perimeter is already secure. You will have the same team you had at Downing Street. Thornton, Crosswell, Mackie, and Ellis.” He paused before saying, “And Angel if you want. It will be a good learning experience for him. Do you want me to get him a security pass?”

“All right. Get it, and I’ll decide tomorrow.”

Kael stood and put the letter into his inside jacket pocket. “I’m going to be late for Angel. Talk to you soon. And thanks.”

“We’re almost civil with each other these days, aren’t we?” Conran smiled.

“Almost,” Kael agreed. “How’s your arse?”

Conran smiled. “Bruised.”

* * * *

The sky was overcast when Kael walked out of the building onto York Road. Traffic whizzed past and car fumes assaulted his nostrils as he strode quickly to his car a few hundred yards along the street. Sitting in the driver’s seat, he pulled out his mobile. There was no text from Angel, but there were four missed calls from his mum. Something must be important. Kael punched in her number at once, and on the first ring, she said, “Kael?”

“Hello, Mum. I had my phone turned off because I was teaching and before that I was at school with Angel. We sent off his university applications and—”

“Kael!” she interrupted.

The panic in her voice frightened him. “Mum, what’s up?”

Several seconds elapsed before she said, “Can you lend me £2000, luv?”

“Two thousand? That’s a hell of a lot of money. What do you need it for?”

Without pause she said, “Bail. Shawn’s been arrested.”

Yes
! Kael felt like punching the air. Shawn in jail meant the useless git was out of his mum’s life, at least for a while. “If he’s been arrested, he has no one to blame but himself. Let him stew. He can plead guilty, serve his few months, and he’ll be out to break the law again before you know it.”

“No, luv, this is different.”

“It’s not different. He’s going to be doing this until he’s too old to do it anymore. What was it this time, theft or fencing stolen goods?”

“Kael, for Jesus’ sake, will you stop.” The shrillness of her tone sent a shot of panic through him.

“What the heck’s upsetting you so much?” he asked gently. “You know what Shawn’s like, and it’s not as if you’ve never had a boyfriend arrested before. I wish you’d find someone who was good enough for you, Mum.”

When she spoke again, she was so quiet Kael could hardly hear her. “He’s been charged with sexual assault.”

They both fell silent. Kael was reminded of the moment when he’d been knocked unconscious with the butt of a gun in Paris last year, the sick hollow feeling in his head, followed by an odd faintness before he passed out.
Angel was right.

“Kael?”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t do it. He may be a thief. He
is
a thief, and he’s lazy and not all that bright, but he’d never diddle a kid.”

“How old was the boy?” Kael asked.

“A teenager, thirteen or fourteen, something like that. But he didn’t do it. He swears up and down he didn’t do it, and I believe him. You know Shawn. You know he wouldn’t do anything like that.”

Kael glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard. It was already a quarter past four and it would take him twenty minutes to get through the heavy rush hour traffic to Angel. He put the phone on speaker, put his seat belt on, and pulled into traffic. “Listen, Mum, I’ve got an important job over the next few days. When it’s finished, I’ll drive up and sort this out.”

“We can’t leave him in jail on a charge like that. He’ll get beaten up. Everyone says child molesters get beaten up in jail. Even if they’re not guilty.”

The fucker was guilty all right. “There’s nothing I can do. I have to interpret for a foreign politician. No one else can speak his language. I’ll come when I can.”

“Can’t you just transfer the money? All I need is to prove I’ve got it in my bank account. I’ll make sure he gets to court when he’s supposed to. You’ll get it back.”

“Mum, I have to go. The traffic is really bad, and I have to pick up Angel. I’ll be there in a few days. Leave Shawn where he is unless someone in his family wants to bail him out.”

“That lot haven’t got two pennies to rub together,” she said. “Kael? How did you know it was a lad?”

“Bye, Mum. I love you.”

Twenty minutes later, Angel got into the car outside Redmond College. “You okay, Daddy? You’re late, and you don’t look well.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m fine! The traffic’s bad, that’s all. You know how irritable I get when I’m held up.”

Looking straight ahead, Angel replied, “I sure do.”

* * * *

For two hours, they worked out in the weight room until Kael was dripping with sweat and some of his initial feelings of anger and betrayal at Shawn were blunted. Angel’s fair cheeks were pink with exertion, and he looked tired. Now they stood side by side, running on treadmills.

Staring straight ahead, Kael refused to make eye contact with anyone and did no more than nod hello when any of the staff or regulars spoke to him. He had never been terribly friendly in all the years he’d been going there, though he’d had a fair number of sexual encounters after his workouts. A few years ago, he’d heard one of the staff refer to him as The Machine because he went in, worked out for hours at a time without speaking or smiling, and then left. But everything was different with Angel. They all knew his name and chatted with him whenever he took a break. On Angel’s first day there, one of the trainers had wanted to set up a workout program for him and kept coming over to give him instructions on the machines until Kael had finally said,
“Get lost. He’s my boy and I’ll train him.”

“What are you doing?” he asked when Angel turned his treadmill off.

“I’m exhausted, Daddy. I already had soccer this morning as well. I can’t keep up with you. I’m going over to the reception to get a drink.”

“Come right back,” Kael said without altering his pace. Watching his boy stroll over to the reception area and lean on the counter, he took note of how much more muscular Angel was becoming, though he was still very slender. Sweat ran down the fair skin of Angel’s bare back. Kael wore only a pair of black shorts with his trainers, but Angel had worn long workout pants with his favorite pink Nikes. Bare-chested, the little rubies in his silver nipple studs glinted under the fluorescent lights. After about five minutes, Kael glanced over to see Angel drinking a Gatorade while chatting with a muscular man who looked to be in his forties. Kael had seen the bloke before. Handsome and tanned, he reached out to smooth Angel’s sweaty hair back from his face.

Enraged, Kael jumped off the treadmill and was between them in a split second. “Get your fucking hands off my boy!”

“Whoa, cowboy.” The man raised both hands, palms out.

That was all it took for Kael to land a fist in his face.

“Daddy, no!” Angel screamed. “He didn’t do anything.”

In a second, they were surrounded by staff. Kael was panting with anger, not exertion, watching while the man was helped to his feet. Looking up at him, his lower lip trembling, Angel looked ready to cry. “Daddy, we didn’t do anything.”