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CHAPTER ONE

As soon as the lights went out I knew I was in trouble. Power cut, blown fuse, act of God – happens to honest folk. My dirty past ensured a different scenario. I was a cigarette paper away from a hole in the head.

Streetlight ghosting through the window made my body a perfect target. I stepped away from the door and dropped down onto the floor, belly-low. Unarmed, fear stuck like a chisel in my chest. At any second I expected the stutter of gunfire, the shatter of glass, the room stitched with metal. Game over.

Black seconds thudded past.

Killer-calm, I went through the moves. My prospective tenant hadn’t yet shown. Booked through an agent, the elusive Miss Armstrong could only view my rental property after work. The lady was, allegedly, hardworking and couldn’t spare time during the working day. From my new perspective on the floor, it seemed that she was the bait for someone out to get me, and there were dozens of possibilities. Odds-on my attacker was a hired assassin, someone who’d filled the void I’d left behind and, if he didn’t shoot within the next five seconds, he was on his way in. I’d always preferred to get up close and personal. It was a fair bet that he was cast in the same mould.

Eyes adjusting to the darkness, I used my elbows for traction and scooted across the carpet to the kitchen. A knife offered little protection against a gun, but it made me feel more secure. It was also possible that I’d strike lucky. I didn’t intend to die without a fight.

Cracking the door open, I slid inside. Windowless, the room pooled with dark, shifting shadows and that gave me an advantage. In one swift movement, I stood up, reached out, swiped the biggest knife from the block and stepped behind the door. Mute, breath sucked in, I waited.

‘Hex, is that you?’

I froze, peered dead ahead, exploring the darkness. The mention of my soubriquet, known only to a favoured few, sounded at once intimate and incongruous.

‘McCallen?’

‘Apologies for the subterfuge.’

I don’t like surprises. One moment I believe death is about to wave me through its checkpoint, the next the only woman who has ever truly fascinated me rocks up and wants to play games. Displeasure gave a cutting edge to my voice. ‘Is this your idea of a joke?’

‘I pretended to be your new tenant because I didn’t think you’d agree to see me.’

‘What about the light trick?’ I hissed.

‘Nothing to do with me.’ The air around me parted. Citrus and sandalwood and hints of tobacco, then McCallen’s breath on my face, her lips brushing my ear, then my mouth. If she’d come to kill me, I was a dead man, but at least I’d die happy. I kissed her back, long and slow. Sure, she’d rattled me, but then McCallen always did.

‘Must be a power cut,’ she murmured.

‘You think?’

No sooner had the words left my lips than we were flooded with light. McCallen took several paces back and we blinked at each other.

She looked even better in the flesh than I remembered and, if I were honest, I’d thought about her a lot in the intervening twelve months. I took a moment to appreciate her full lips, neat nose and her voluptuous figure. Her copper-coloured hair was longer. It suited her.

‘Are you going to put that down?’ The amusement in her green eyes implied that I’d overreacted. It wasn’t as if the location was some rural backwater where power surges and consequent electricity cuts are commonplace. This was Cheltenham, big population, home of GCHQ and high tech. As far as I was concerned, the jury was still out. I don’t do coincidence. What I could be certain of was that today was not my time to go.

‘Old habits.’ I replaced the knife in the block.

‘You’re looking good. More rested.’

Not one for small talk, I cut to the chase. ‘How the hell did you get in?’ It wasn’t the most obvious question, but it was the one that sprang to my lips first.

‘I’m a spook. How do you think I got in?’

‘Even you can’t travel through walls.’

Her mouth creased into a smile. ‘You know what? I’ve missed you.’

Inside, I was delighted. Outside, I was Mr Cool. The rational side of my brain told me that McCallen had blagged her way back into my life for one reason only, to use me. ‘And how did you track me down?’

‘Joe Nathan, as you now like to be called, is not much of a stretch from Joshua Thane.’

This worried me. If McCallen had seen through it, so could others. She let out an earthy laugh. ‘Honestly, Hex, you must be losing your touch. Remember the false passport you had in Barcelona?’

I sighed. My last gig. Mystery solved.

‘So how’s life now that you’ve gone respectable?’

Boring, mundane and banal. ‘Terrific.’

‘Managing to stay out of trouble?’

Nice try. ‘Fancy a drink?’ I smiled.

She smiled back. ‘Why not?’

On the way out I checked the fuse box in the communal hall. No switches thrown. No evidence of trouble. Didn’t mean a damn thing. If anyone had messed with the box, he’d have worn gloves.

Surrounded by chi-chi shops, the flat was off Montpellier Street and we could take our pick of bars. Finding one that wasn’t rammed, even in January, required more effort. We finally commandeered a table in the window of the Montpellier Wine Bar, a popular, if expensive, hangout for Cheltenham’s upwardly mobile and fashion-conscious.

McCallen took a seat and asked me to get her a vodka, ‘straight with ice and a slice of lime’. In spite of her upbeat manner, I thought I caught a trace of something haunted in her eyes, and wondered how the hell I was going to disappoint her without causing offence. Whatever she’d come to ask, my answer had to be no. I’d spent too long trying to rehabilitate myself to get involved in something that might force me to cross a line again. Nice as the kiss was, I didn’t believe she was after a date.

I pushed my way through to the bar, ordered a pint of lager and a double Russian Standard for McCallen, and mused on why exactly she was here with me and my newly adopted persona. Coming up empty, I paid for the drinks and returned. We chinked glasses like old friends and I settled in for the warm-up before the main act.

‘Why Cheltenham?’ she asked.

I’d come back home, but I didn’t wish to reveal this to her, or anybody for that matter. ‘As good a place as any,’ I shrugged. ‘Classy, friendly, full of wealthy people, not too nosey, and the architecture’s impressive.’

‘Of course, you’re in property now.’

It sounded as though I was a major entrepreneur. I was involved to the extent that I’d bought several houses, done them up and let them out. The rise in demand for affordable rental accommodation chimed with my plans for an honest life. I was making a respectable rather than lucrative living, my blood money already given away to charities and good causes. ‘Not much career opportunity for an out-of-work contract killer,’ I said with a flat smile.

She shot me a stern, reproving look. ‘Don’t do yourself down. You redeemed yourself.’

I wished I had her certainty. Truth was, I was like an alcoholic on the ‘Twelve Steps Programme’. I thanked a higher deity each day for not having to get up in the morning and kill to order. The thought of what I’d done for almost fifteen years made me feel physically sick. It mattered not that my targets were bad men, men who’d tortured and who had also employed people like me to stay on top of their criminal and grubby piles, but I’d be a liar if I said that I didn’t miss the trappings of my old existence: the buzz, the lick of danger at my heels, the variety, the international travel and the feeling of power. For the past three hundred and eighty-nine days I had stayed in one place and let life haul me, one twenty-four hour set at a time. I no longer carried a gun. I’d dispensed with anything that could be reasonably called a weapon. I had walked away from the company I kept. I avoided old haunts. I wanted to tell McCallen that I’d embraced my new life with a wholehearted sense of wonder and gratitude. I couldn’t quite do that yet. Yes, I had good days, but the bad ‘I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing’ days outnumbered them. I guess it was character building and good for what passed for my sorry soul.

‘You must be wondering why I’ve tracked you down.’

‘I take it MI5 haven’t sent you in an official capacity?’

She hooked me with one of her big smiles. That was the thing about McCallen – she didn’t just smile with her lips, she smiled with her eyes. ‘Strictly off-the-books.’

And that spelt trouble. Having lusted for McCallen for so long, I didn’t like the effect she was having on my sense of purpose. One look and she could derail me.

‘I have a proposition,’ she said.

‘Unless it’s connected to a business opportunity, I’m not interested.’

She lowered her voice. ‘It doesn’t involve violence.’

‘What does it involve?’

‘Knowledge.’

Against my best intentions, I must have conveyed curiosity. McCallen went on to explain. ‘I’d like you to take a look at a set of photographs.’

I grinned, took a slug of my pint. ‘Are they dirty?’

McCallen elevated an eyebrow that suggested she thought me base.

‘What sort of photographs?’ I was an expert in asking the obvious.

‘Crime scene shots.’ She reached for her bag. I stayed her arm, looked deeply into her eyes.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Slippery slope and all that.’

‘Where’s the harm?’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

She sat back up, sipped her vodka. In spite of the noise from the bar, we were enveloped in our own silent bubble. I’m an infinitely patient man so I can live without conversation. I can do quiet. McCallen is different.

‘I’m providing you with an opportunity to do good,’ she insisted.

‘Nice pitch.’

‘Won’t you reconsider?’ She turned those big green eyes on me. I wondered if I could get her beyond kissing. A steamy image of us both on a bridge in London flashed through my mind.

‘Why me? You have plenty of other means at your disposal.’

‘Because it’s private.’

‘Private or personal?’

Colour invaded her cheeks. She said nothing. The first ‘tell’.

I took another drink. ‘Are the police involved?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then let them do their job.’

‘It’s not that simple.’

It never was where McCallen was concerned. Ambitious, looking to the main chance, her career was as important to her as my survival was to me.

‘Look, it involves three innocent people.’

‘Really?’ The cynicism rang clear in my voice.

‘All were shot dead in the same place by the same person.’

I blinked slowly and clenched my jaw. ‘Wasn’t me.’

‘I appreciate it wasn’t you.’

Glad we’d cleared that up, I took another drink.

‘You must have read about it in the news.’

‘I make a point of not reading the news.’ Another part of the ‘weaning off’ process.

At this, she broke into a wide smile. ‘Even better. I was afraid you might have a preconceived view.’

‘Can I ask you a question?’ I realised then that I’d caved in.

‘Afterwards.’

She wanted to reel me in first.

‘I don’t need to tell you that the identities and lifestyles of the victims will reveal far more than the crime scene,’ I said.

‘But the crime scene paints an interesting picture to a man of your particular talents.’

My particular talents? If only McCallen knew the whole, unvarnished truth – that I’d learnt from the very best, that my mentor had been a man who worked for Mossad, that I’d loved him as a son loves a father and that the tang of his betrayal was still sharp and bitter in my mouth. I shook my head, but my eyes failed to conceal my interest. Like a rat in for the kill, McCallen could spot weakness at fifty paces. She stood up, whisked a large brown envelope out of her bag and placed it on the table in front of me. ‘I’m going to get some air. I’d appreciate it if you’d take a look and give me your honest opinion.’

‘About what?’

‘Anything that leaps out of the picture.’

What she meant was the sequence of events, location, and the type of individual responsible, amateur or professional.

‘You’re not expecting me to be able to identify the killer, are you?’

‘Be good if you could, but my expectations aren’t that high.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

At this, she pursed her lips and blew me a kiss.

I glanced around. I’d chosen a relatively private spot in amongst a horde of serious drinkers. Everyone seemed too intent on having a good time to bother with a guy like me. It didn’t stop me from checking or watching for the sidelong look followed by the suddenly averted gaze.

‘Pretend they’re holiday snaps,’ McCallen said, disappearing out into the night.