This Other Country (14 page)

Ben gave him a derisive look but it definitely wasn’t one of his best. His concern, apparently, was for James, and as soon as the bus started to pull out of the driveway, he leant over. “Are you okay?”

James nodded, touching his face lightly. “They swore it was an accident—it was supposed to look real but the guy was new?” He turned around in his seat so he could keep his back to the driver. “But you know what? Fuck them! I came here to convince myself I wasn’t gay—you know? I thought I didn’t want to be a fucking girl, a gayboy, a cissy, a poof—any fucking thing I’ve thought about gay guys. But you guys are…fuck.
Awesome
. I was in that chair and they hit me? I thought
fuck you
! Shit, yeah, I’m gay, and I’m proud of it! Hit me again!”

Nikolas couldn’t see the sense of any of that—make any connection between being strapped down in a chair and hit with realising you were gay—but gave James the benefit of his road to Damascus moment.

They all fell asleep on the trip and woke when the bus stopped, not knowing where they were. Told to get out, they found themselves outside a pub in a rundown dirty street of redbrick houses with dustbins spilling rubbish onto the pavement. It didn’t seem to Nikolas like a place to start a romantic night out, but he acknowledged to himself he was probably not the best judge of romance. Both he and Ben had been in worse places, but then they’d been armed and expecting to kill someone. The driver told them he would back in two hours to take them to the restaurant—but they had to start the evening at this pub.

Nikolas pulled Ben to one side as the others chatted unconcerned, watching the bus depart. “Are you getting a…what’s that word you used? Hinky? Yes, hinky feeling about all of this?”

Ben was clearly too tired and hungry to bother with thinking and pulled away.

Nikolas frowned and tapped Ben’s head with his knuckles to wake him up. “Do you get the impression another agenda is being followed here?”

“Huh?” Ben made an agonised face. “Is this a pub? Will it have alcohol? Will it have food—even crisps and nuts, hell, even pork scratchings? I think yes. So, shut the fuck up maybe,
Nigel
, and go in?”

Nikolas shook his head ruefully. He knew his marching orders when he heard them. “I’m not even going to ask what a pork scratching is.” He dutifully followed Ben inside.

§ § §

Nikolas didn’t have to be ex-Special Forces to confirm something “hinky” was indeed happening when they entered the pub.

It was not a place any of them would have gone voluntarily—Nikolas because he was a billionaire and now lived a life entirely insulated from this level of poverty and ignorance, a protective bubble he extended around Ben as well. He was fairly sure though that this was not a pub any openly gay man would choose to have a drink and most certainly not one where a group of gay men would choose to socialise.

It was grungy, the carpet squishy with undefined spills. It didn’t appear to have been redecorated since the obsession with brown patterned wallpaper in the 70s. The music was loud, raucous and accompanied by a large-screen TV showing a music video of a naked woman gyrating. There was a pool table and a dart board, which was mounted on the wall over a St George’s cross flag, and the bar was packed with the kind of men Nikolas had sacked off his survival course: shaved heads, tattoos, and undoubtedly stores of tinned goods stacked up against the inevitable (and welcomed) apocalypse. But they were in Burnley, according to the pub licence over the door, which Nikolas noted with interest had expired two years previous. He knew from the perspective of these men that there
was
an apocalypse of sorts happening around them, and they’d banded together to survive, to see their culture live on, in a new world that didn’t want them. It didn’t make for easy comradeship with anyone who entered their territory unasked. That Doctor Atwell had planned the evening would start in this place only proved he was following a different agenda to the rest of them. But exhausted, starving, stripped of their money and therefore any ability to leave and eat elsewhere, the small group had no option but to dig in, try to blend, and wait for the bus to return and collect them.

Ben went immediately to the bar and asked about the tab, which they’d been assured had been set up in Doctor Atwell’s name. The barman gave him a sour glare and told him he’d never heard of the bloke and wouldn’t set a tab up for anyone—it wasn’t that kind of establishment. He added a muttered obscenity under his breath and went to serve one of his regulars. Ben was a few inches away from a packet of crisps. Nikolas knew from Ben’s expression that he was also a few seconds away from just taking it. He looped a finger into Ben’s belt. “Sit down.”

Ben grimaced but joined the others at the table. Nikolas had his back to the wall, his eyes scanning the rest of the room. “Does anyone have any money?” There was a universal shake of heads. Nikolas allowed his gaze to leave the patrons for a moment and flick across the faces of the five men with him. It was unfortunate in a way Mathew had been the one to attach himself to their group. Along with Samuel, he was the one most likely to give provocation to the patrons in the pub. He was wearing make-up—his nails were painted in lurid colours, and his eyelids sparkled with glitter. He was extremely attractive and knew it, showing off an impressively honed body in skin-tight clothes. Samuel was flying on something other than the atmosphere of the pub, and he was giving oddly innocent yet at the same time provocative glances to the backsides of the men playing pool.

Nikolas expected John to be his most reliable ally, other than Ben, of course, but John seemed to be having something of a Damascus moment, too. He was looking mutinously around as if daring anyone to ask him if he was gay—to which he appeared to be desperate to say yes for the first time. Nikolas had no idea about coming out—why would he?—but he was fairly sure this pub, on this night, was not a good time to experiment with your universal right to do and be whatever the hell you wanted. This was about territory, about belonging, and it was definitely not their territory and they didn’t belong. Nikolas was about to point out, therefore, all they needed to do was sit tight and wait for a couple of hours and then they could leave, when the bartender came over to their table.

“You…
gentlemen
…gonna order something? This isn’t a beauty parlour.”

He appeared to be playing to his audience, and Nikolas heard some sniggering from the guys playing darts. The barman began to clear tables around them.

Nikolas leant close to Ben’s ear and asked softly, “How well do you reckon you play billiards?”

Ben turned, apparently incredulous. “In here? Now?”

Nikolas chuckled. “Not
our
version. I meant the game where you concentrate on the
coloured
balls?”

Ben smirked slightly. “Oh. I guess okay. Why?”

“I intend to buy you that packet of crisps—at the very least. Come on.”

Nikolas got up slowly. Ironically, in many ways, he fit in better with the patrons of the pub than the men around the table, and he knew this as he walked slowly to the back room where the game was.

He went up to the group playing pool and offered to play them for money.

He was told to fuck off—faggot.

Nikolas went very still. He’d never been called a faggot before. It was a brave or foolish man (or one backed up by half a dozen mates) who called anyone who looked like Nikolas anything. He was ripped with muscle and carried himself like a fighter—a dancer: light on his feet, quick penetrating gaze, quiet manner. Added to this, he was badly scarred and six foot four. Of course, these men with their football shirts and low-slung jeans, their beer bellies and ancient allegiances, couldn’t know he was also a murderer—a man who’d tortured and killed, and survived horrors they couldn’t even imagine.

It was unthinkable to Nikolas, therefore, that the man he’d addressed had insulted him, turned his back, and carried on playing with his friends—laughing at the faggot.

Nikolas suddenly felt himself tethered once more. It was only one finger in his belt, so not much actually restraining the power contained within him. But it represented far more than a digit hooked in a belt. It was the bond they shared, the love, the commitment. He closed his eyes for one moment then nodded. He was Nigel Stannis, not Nikolas Mikkelsen—and God forbid these men ever met Aleksey Primakov. He was Nigel the gay florist, and he did this for Ben, who needed him to stay in that role to help a friend.

In some ways, retreating from that table was the biggest commitment Nikolas had ever made to Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen. And he knew Ben understood this.

Nikolas backed from the small room and left the pub, walking a little away so he was not under a street lamp. He lit a cigarette and methodically brought his heart rate down, his breathing under control. He sensed Ben alongside him—no words needed. The others were coming out to join them, the drama which had just played out entirely unnoticed by any of them. They’d seen Nigel Stannis approach the table and then leave. Simple.

It was raining and had turned cold.

CHAPTER TWELVE

They needed somewhere to sit out of the rain and wait for the bus to return, so Nikolas suggested they shelter in the chapel across the road, a forlorn reminder of their enforced sobriety. Ben was about to point out it would be locked, but Nikolas had already jogged across the road. Ben let him make his own discoveries. He could sense a tsunami of anger and resentment pouring off Nikolas like the scent of a trapped predator. When they caught up with him, he was staring at the door in frustration. “Who locks a church? Who fucking locks a church? What if you needed to urgently speak with God?” He turned on the others. “Sit!” They immediately dropped down on the steps as he rounded the building out of sight.

“What’s he doing?”

Ben shook his head at John’s question, not sure he wanted to know the answer. James got up and peered around the corner and informed them in a sotto voice that Nikolas had opened the side window of the church and had hopped up and over the sill. In a more animated tone he whispered, “He’s breaking into a church!”

Ben couldn’t tell whether the man was outraged or impressed. He knew what he was and hissed, “Stop it!” through the narrow gap in the widow. Nikolas appeared again and left the church as easily as he’d entered. He looked smug. Ben knew that expression only too well. “Tell me you didn’t.”

Nikolas grinned and held out a couple of five-pound notes, some coins—and a button. This he glared at. “Who would cheat God with a button?” He chuckled and pocketed the money. Suddenly, waving their various exclamations of horror away he asked coldly, “Where’s Samuel?”

Ben cursed.

Mathew mumbled sheepishly, “I think he needed…” and mimed sorting.

They all turned back to the pub.

They all heard the scream.

§ § §

There were six men around the pool table when Nikolas and Ben entered. Six men around it and one on it—Samuel. His jeans were around his ankles, and the man who’d called Nikolas a faggot clearly had no justification for insulting anyone for having an interest in another man’s backside. He was preparing to examine Samuel’s with his pool cue. Four of the other five were holding Samuel down, smacking him around the head, pulling his legs wide for the invasion. The fifth was capturing the fun on his phone camera.

Nikolas hesitated for one second. Four playing darts, two at the bar. A lot could be assessed in one second, which was just as well, he reflected, as he brought his hand up, and backwards punched the guy who’d come at him from the bar.

He broke the guy’s nose, which started everything really. All the patrons would have remembered of that one second was the two big men returning and then all hell breaking loose.

Nikolas took out the guy with the pool cue first. He was literally taken out, so he didn’t get much time to enjoy his meeting with Aleksey Primakov—Nikolas picked him up by his collar and belt then threw him head first through the window to the street. Next, three of his mates went down—Ben took them out while Nikolas was returning. Slow, heavy men, fuelled on outrage and beer, they were no match for him.

One of the remaining two, the one who’d been holding Samuel’s legs wide so the guy with the camera could get a good shot, turned with a face as white as the chalk on the scoreboard. He tried to say something, but the music was so loud his shocked voice didn’t carry. When he saw he hadn’t been heard, he tried again, raising his pool cue. It could have been in defence. It could also be called a swing at Nikolas’s face. Nikolas took it for the second option and broke the attack with his arm, caught the stick and pulled the man up close and personal. A head butt shattered the guy’s nose, and as he went down, a knee plastered the cartilage over his face. Whatever he’d been trying to say, he wouldn’t be repeating for some time.

The last man at the table, the one with the camera, tried to run. He too was shouting something. He tripped over one of his friends, falling heavily to the stained carpet, his phone sliding under the table. He tried to scrabble away, but Samuel, who was huddled on the floor dressing, reached out and caught his ankle. The man grabbed at the hand and snapped it viciously back, the snap was audible, even above the music, and was followed by an even louder scream.

Nikolas separated them, dragged the heavy man over to the back of the room and snapped his arm at the elbow. He wouldn’t play pool or any version of it for a long while.

Together they circled the two remaining dart players. One appeared to size up his chances and then bolted, throwing himself through the broken window to the pavement outside. The remaining man met Ben’s fist and went down in a spray of broken teeth and blood.

The last man, who’d been drinking at the bar, had tried to run for the door, but John had locked him in, sliding the bolts home. Afterwards, he claimed he hadn’t gone all Van Diesel—stopping the guy leaving so he could be beaten too—but he’d wanted to keep anyone else from entering. He was clearly quite pleased with himself either way, for not only did he trap the guy, he hit him with a chair, while Mathew kicked him in the knee.