The Losing Game (16 page)

Also, from up there, if need be, he’d easily be able to slide down the other side of the ridge and into the car park. Okay, maybe not easily. His ankles weren’t what they used to be. He drew in a stinging, icy breath and rubbed out the burn in his thighs.

Kit was the one who could jump from fence to wall to roof. Not Dante. He carried an extra twenty years and more than another twenty kilos.

Dante looked around in vain for something to stand on. Kit also might be able to climb a drainpipe with less effort than it took Dante to ascend a flight of stairs, but the flimsy plastic pipe bolted to the wall would never hold his weight. He didn’t dare try. Inside the building, faint sounds of life and laughter reverberated. If Dante could hear them, they’d hear him scrabbling about outside, bringing down the guttering, slipping about on the single-story roof.

Briefly poking his head around the side of the building, Dante saw Lucas’s luminescent shape, completely still, except for his hands. He considered abandoning his attempt at stealth, walking over to Lucas, and dragging him home by the scruff of the neck. Lucas liked to fuck. Wouldn’t that be a better direction to take this?

His back pressed to the wall, Dante crouched down and put his head in his hands. Fifteen years since he’d been involved in a real crime, and never in the field. Except that once.

Dante unzipped the neck on his jacket. Fear had his temperature soaring.

He had no idea what Lucas was going to do, but whatever it was, Dante didn’t have a useful weapon, and he didn’t have a counterplan. Dante stood and shook the blood back into his legs. He rolled his shoulders.

The flash of headlights ahead, and at the same time, the sound of a door opening and loud, indistinguishable voices on the other side of the building put Dante on high alert. He dropped to his haunches, scrabbled along the ground, pressed to the wall, and peered around the end of the building. Lucas hadn’t moved.

The car drove by and pulled into the car park. A taxi. The voices faded as the taxi doors slammed. Dante had enough time to hop to his feet and steal into the shadows. From his hiding place, as the car went back the way it had come, he was able to see the taxi driver. A woman with her hair in a ponytail and three passengers, one in the front, two in the back. He wasn’t certain, not with the taxi driver obscuring his view, but he thought the front-seat passenger might have been Richard Shaw.

The moment the taillights disappeared, Dante sped around the corner, only to see the white thermal image of Lucas, sprinting across the field toward Hare’s Lane.

Dante didn’t have a hope of catching him on foot, but he had a good idea of where he was headed, and he could track him with his handset. He sucked in freezing air that burned his throat and lungs, and returned to his car, his eyes not leaving the blip-blip light on the GPS map.

The blower fogged the glass. Dante was tempted to scrub it with his forearm rather than wait for the condensation to clear, otherwise Lucas might make it to Shaw’s house before Dante could catch him. It was only a mile away.

Instead he pulled away crouched in his seat, looking through the growing patch of clear glass at the bottom of the windscreen. He divided his time in seconds, one on the road, one on his handset. His heart beat double-time.

At the end of the street, Dante paused at the junction, convinced that Lucas would turn into Milton. The glowing dot on his screen continued to move on and on, past Milton. Away from Milton?

Was he taking a round route? If so, why?

Dante turned the corner and parked, trying to second-guess where Lucas might go, not wanting to intercept him and be discovered if the situation didn’t warrant it. He followed the signal impatiently, torn between catching Lucas too soon or too late. Too late for what, though?

Dante removed his glove and wiped his hands on his scarf. On his handset screen, the flashing dot crossed the Roseport Road.

“He’s going home.”

He’s going home.

Dante knew reconnaissance when he saw it. His suspicions were confirmed. Lucas still had plans for Richard Shaw, and they didn’t involve a glass of bubbly and some mistletoe.

LUCAS RAN
home from the Blue Bell, embittered. He shouldn’t have been surprised. In this weather, even a drunkard wouldn’t brave the cold. There had been no guarantees tonight would be the night.

Not for the first time, Lucas wondered if he was losing his mind. Stalking Shaw, waiting in the dark, fretting that some distant satellite was tracking his movements. If, at some ungodly hour, there might be a knock on his door, and the dogs would be on him, sniffing out the unlawful scheme in his brain.

He’d kept his online activity clean. He’d promised his workmates a return to the old Lucas, the one who ate his lunch in company and who drank shots at the office Christmas party. He’d told Dante he’d given up on his plans to avenge Grace—to keep him out of it. To protect him should anything go wrong.

He’d covered his tracks, hadn’t he?

Lucas hid the gun in its usual place and went directly to bed without turning on a light.

Sleep took a long time to come, and when it did, in fitful bursts, disturbing dreams followed. Unlike his childhood anxieties, translated into dream-language as loose teeth or of being caught in public naked, Lucas dreamed of the gun. It took on a life of its own. It turned up in his desk at work. In his lunchbox. In his boss’s handbag.

By morning, Lucas felt hungover, mouth furry, head pounding. The thump-a thump-a in his head beat faster than his heart. It seemed to come from outside his body. Lucas buried his head under the covers as he realized the noise wasn’t in his head. Someone was knocking on his front door.

In nothing but his underpants, he rolled out of bed, staggered onto the landing, and called down the stairs, “Just a minute.” He pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, ran his fingers through his hair.

Christmas was just over a fortnight away. Religious groups and charities often called at this time of year, asking for one’s soul or one’s money. Sometimes both. Though not usually at this ungodly hour….

Oh.

It was ten o’clock.

Lucas’s heart skipped a beat. Not because of last night’s foray into the dark, but because the last time the police had called, on that fateful spring afternoon, it had also been a Saturday. Only it couldn’t be the police bringing bad tidings. Not this time. Lucas no longer had a next of kin.

He couldn’t think straight. Not without coffee. He scrubbed his face with his hands and took the stairs two at a time. He opened the door with a labored smile.

To Dante.

“It’s you,” he said, surprised.

“Yes, I’m fairly sure it is. Hello.”

Lucas licked his lips, shockingly, embarrassingly aware of his unbrushed teeth and a crust of something foul at the corner of his mouth. The disaster continued unmitigated, from his crinkled top to his bare feet. When had he last cut his toenails?

Dante was as handsome as ever in the daylight, in a soft-looking, chestnut leather jacket and black trousers with creases down the front so sharp they could have cut through butter. “I’m sorry. I’m not in the habit of turning up unannounced, but I felt like when I left you on Thursday, I’d been abrupt. It was a difficult day. I know I could have called, but I wanted to see you. To see how you are.”

Lucas clamped his mouth shut after what might have been long seconds of it hanging open. Christ knew whether his poisonous breath had infected Dante’s personal airspace.

Belatedly, he said, “I’m well.”

Dante nodded. In the morning light, his eyes were as piercing and serious as ever. Perhaps there was a hint of nervousness too. Now that Lucas had taken Dante down from his pedestal, he liked him better. The man hadn’t lost his charm, only some of his distance.

“I’ve woken you. I’m sorry.” He took half a step back, as if to leave.

“It’s all right.” Lucas brushed away a drying glob of sleep from the corner of his eye, which Dante would have been blind not to notice. If Lucas had been on an all-night bender and slept in a gutter, he doubted he’d have looked worse. “Do you want to come in?”

“If it’s not an inconvenience.”

Lucas opened the door wide and pointed Dante toward the kitchen. “Can I make you a tea or coffee?”

“Whatever you’re having.”

“I always start the day with coffee. Can I take your coat?”

“It’s all right. I’ll just put it on the stool here.” Dante sat on the other counter stool as he had two days ago, looking every bit as handsome.

Like Lucas had every day for the last decade and a half, he went straight into his morning ritual. He took the espresso pot from its permanent home on the induction hob, unscrewed the top, and filled the base with water. From the fridge, he took the coffee tin and loosely spooned ground beans into the filter cup. Sealing the filter to the base, he replaced the spouted top and put the whole thing back on the smallest ring on the hob, with the heat set to medium.

Sometimes Lucas made coffee this way after lunch, or in the evening. He could do it with his eyes closed, which was a blessing, struggling as he was to wake up.

Apparently Dante’s eyes boring into his back weren’t as efficient as a caffeine hit in elevating his sluggish pulse. Though his heart rate did seem to be creeping upward naturally, slowly, along with his temperature.

Lucas turned around to find he was being watched. Dante slipped his handset into his jacket pocket. “Just turning the volume to zero. I don’t like being interrupted when I’m being entertained.”

Dante continued to gaze at Lucas, as he rested his forearms on the counter and laced his fingers together. “There. I’m all yours.”

“The coffee, it er….” Lucas could feel his blush rising. “It comes out strong.”

The soft globes of Dante’s pectoral muscles flexed beneath his jumper. Lucas licked his lips, for what felt like the hundredth time, and in turn—consciously or unconsciously—Dante returned the gesture. The skin inside the sumptuous pout of his lower lip was smooth, like the inside of a shell.

Lucas was parched. “I usually top mine up with hot water from the kettle.”

“Then for me too.”

Dante’s voice was as rich and silky as a late-night dark roast. Lucas’s memory hadn’t deceived him and inflated Dante’s sex appeal.

“Milk?”

“Please.” After a pause, Dante asked, “You don’t use a machine?”

“In this kitchen? Where would I put it?” Lucas reached for the kettle. “In any case, my mother made coffee this way, and I’ve always done the same.”

Dante nodded approvingly. Lucas hadn’t sought, nor did he need Dante’s approval, but he couldn’t help liking it. He filled and switched on the kettle while the espresso pot bubbled. Took out cups and saucers. He didn’t use the nice china often. The set had been his parents’ and with previous guests, the pearlescent white had always seemed ostentatious and overblown.

“Have you always lived here alone?” Dante asked.

“No. This was mine and my sister’s house, joint-owned, until she died, that is.”

A stretch of silence followed, filled only by the sound of Lucas pouring the coffee and hot water. He carried the steaming cups to the breakfast bar and returned to the fridge for milk.

He held out the carton for Dante to see. “Is it okay cold?”

“Of course.”

Dante cleared his throat. “Would you like to go out for dinner with me?”

It took a moment for the words to sink in.

“Dinner? When?”

“Tonight? If you don’t already have plans.”

A dozen butterflies, maybe more, fluttered into life inside Lucas’s stomach. What was he going to
wear?
Another thought followed. Saturday nights, Richard Shaw reserved for his wife. Lucas wouldn’t be able to do anything about him tonight. He could spare a few hours with Dante. Take some time for himself.

“Yes. I’d like that. Very much.”

“Good. I could pick you up at seven. There’s a nice restaurant on the mainland, off the London Road in Harts Oak. The Hope & Anchor. Do you know it?”

“No.” Lucas curled in his naked, hairy toes. “Should I dress up?”

Dante lifted his cup. “You must wear anything you feel comfortable in.”

Once Richard Shaw made his grand entrance into Lucas’s mind, he stayed there. His fat, puffy face hung between them. At least Lucas felt his presence, souring the taste of his coffee and the spectacular view of one of the most handsome, elegant men he’d ever seen.

Dante reached into his coat pocket. “I brought you something. It’s not much. I hope you don’t think I’m being presumptuous.” He withdrew a small, metallic pin, in the shape of a rose, smaller than a penny. “I wanted you to know, I really am very sorry about everything you’ve been through. It takes a lot of courage to move on as you have.”

Lucas remembered the roses in Le Plaisir, on the ceiling and around the doorframes, and what Dante had told him they meant.
Sub rosa
, under the rose. He understood immediately—the rose was a symbol of secrecy.

Taking the silver rose between his thumb and forefinger, he said, “What I asked of you…. How we met…. My secret’s safe with you, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It is.”

“And Lois?”

“Absolutely. Her word is as good as mine.”

This time, the silence that followed had the weight and warmth of a thick blanket. Dante would keep Lucas’s secrets, and Lucas would keep Dante’s. The rose was a token of trust.

Downing the rest of his coffee, Lucas at last felt its invigorating magic take effect. He sighed happily and perhaps too loudly into his cup. Of the rose, he said, “Am I expected to wear this at all times?”

“No. Not at all. If you don’t like it, throw it away. I won’t be offended.”

“I do like it.”

“That’s a relief. I’m not usually very good with gifts.” Dante drained his cup and raked his gaze from Lucas’s bare feet to his tousled hair, and down again. “Delicious.”

“Thank you. I thought you might appreciate a traditional brew.”

Dante slipped on his jacket. Buttoning it as far as his chest, he made his way to the hall and stood for a moment, looking at the pictures on the wall at the bottom of the stairs.