Will acted almost instinctively. He stepped in front of Kate, putting his bulk between her and the three men.
'Leave her alone, lads,' he told them.
The men looked at her and laughed. 'Who are you?' one of them goaded him. 'Her pimp?' The three of them creased with laughter once more, just as the repressed anger Will had been feeling all afternoon welled up in him.
The man who had insulted him didn't even see Will's fist as it flew through the air with such speed and force. But he knew when he had been hit. His cheek cracked and his nose exploded in a shower of blood. He hit the ground with a thump.
'Jesus, you fucking psycho!' one of his friends exclaimed as they bent down to see if he was OK. 'What the hell did you do that for?'
Will looked at the smear of blood on his fist, disgusted with himself for having lost his temper so easily. It was the drink, he told himself. He wanted, more than anything, to be away from this place, but he couldn't leave the girl.
Will kneeled down and grabbed the man who was looking after his friend by the scruff of the neck. 'Take your mate,' he whispered threateningly, 'and fuck off out of it.'
The man gave him a hateful look, but he nodded his head, picked up his friend, who was still bleeding profusely from the nose, and the three of them hurried away.
My God, Will thought to himself. Has it come to this? Roughing up drunken yuppies on the streets of London. The ex-SAS man felt sick with himself and all of a sudden the alcohol-induced wooziness returned. He turned to Kate, who had a shocked expression on her face. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'd better go.' He plunged his hands into his pockets and walked down the street. If he got the right train, he could be back in Hereford in a couple of hours.
'Wait!' Kate called. She fell in beside him, having to trot in order to keep up. 'Look, er… thanks. For back there, I mean.'
Will shrugged as he walked, then pulled out his hand and looked indifferently at the other man's blood on his skin.
'Oh my God!' Kate said. 'Are you all right? Are you hurt?'
'I'm fine.'
'No you're not,' she said decisively. 'Come on, you've got to get cleaned up.' She tugged on his sleeve to slow him down, then lifted her hand and hailed a black cab that was passing. How it happened, Will didn't know — his mind was still scrambled by the events of the day — but before he knew it, he was being hustled into the back by this woman he barely knew and twenty minutes later he was walking up a narrow flight of stairs to her flat in North London.
It was warm and comfortable. Will waited in Kate's pristine kitchen — such a far cry from his own — while she found him dry towels and a dressing gown, before showing him to the bathroom. He mumbled a few embarrassed words of thanks, then closed the door, stripped off his dirty clothes and turned on the shower. The water was hot and it felt good as it seared his skin, washing away the blood and the grime and the effects of the alcohol he had drunk. He closed his eyes and allowed everything to wash over him. Seemingly from nowhere, the words Pankhurst had spoken flashed through his mind: 'If a military man stops his career before the time is right, he risks wasting away into nothing.' Was that what was happening to him? Was he becoming a shadow of his former self? Was the old Will Jackson dead? He found himself frowning at the thought. What would his wife have said? 'Get yourself together, Will. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.' He could almost hear her voice.
'You all right in there?' Kate shouted from behind the door.
He turned off the shower. 'Fine,' he said, before climbing out, throwing on the towelling dressing gown and roughly drying his hair. The mirror was steamed up, so he wiped his hand over it to get a look at himself. Why was he doing that? he wondered to himself as he ruffled his dark hair into position. He glanced down at the clothes on the floor. Should he put them back on? Imperceptibly he shook his head. Will knew where this was leading.
I shouldn't be here, he told himself. It isn't right. But then he thought of his own flat in Hereford. Bland. Unwelcoming. He had gone to the pub to forget his troubles, but who would blame him if he tried to find oblivion in the arms of this woman who seemed to be making her intentions perfectly clear.
It had been a long time. A very long time. He took a deep breath and caught a glance of himself in the mirror once more.
When Will finally stepped out of the bathroom and looked down the corridor, Kate was waiting for him, framed in the doorway to her bedroom. She had changed clothes: gone was the business suit, replaced by a pair of tightly fitting jeans and a sapphire blue top that accentuated the curve of her hips and her breasts. She leaned nonchalantly against the edge of the doorframe, a mischievous smile playing on her lips.
Will took a step forward. That unfamiliar trembling of anticipation washed over him and suddenly it was all he could do not to run towards her. 'Do you pick up a lot of hooligans in bars?' he asked lightly.
Kate arched one of her eyebrows. 'Are you a hooligan, Will?'
'When I want to be.'
'Well, I might start bringing home a few more, if they all look like you.'
'They don't,' Will replied. 'Mostly they look like that bloke with the broken nose.'
'Ah,' Kate replied, and Will thought he heard a slight tremble in her voice. 'In that case, I think I'll stick with you.' She turned and stepped into her bedroom.
It was dark outside by now and Kate had dimmed the lights. She stood at the end of the bed, her smiling eyes looking widely up at him as he walked in. Will approached and put one arm round her, against the small of her back. She needed no encouragement to press herself against him and as he felt the warmth of her body and the hotness of her breath against his, a world of stress and worry seemed to fall from his shoulders.
They kissed — tentatively at first, but with increasing passion. Will's free hand slid up her top and she took in a deep gulp of pleasure as his fingertips brushed her breasts. She pulled on his dressing-gown cord, then lightly placed her hand on his chest muscles, before taking a step back and removing her top in one deft movement.
Will approached her again, then pulled her roughly towards him, feeling that long-forgotten thrill surge through his body. She looked up at him with undisguised longing in her face and their lips met again. The kiss was more passionate this time, more serious, and Kate moaned with pleasure as their lips met, digging her well-manicured nails firmly into his skin. Will pushed her on to the bed. She gazed up at him, then closed her eyes with an expectant smile as he lowered himself eagerly on to her body.
The basement of his safe house was illuminated only by a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Below it was a large, square, wooden table at which he sat, the constituent parts of a disassembled Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machine gun spread out in front of him. A small, oil-filled radiator on one side of the room emitted a surprising amount of warmth, so despite the cold outside he wore nothing but a pair of jeans and a vest that displayed the contours of his biceps. His beard was neatly trimmed and his dark skin shone in the lamplight.
On the corner of the table was a television. The sound was muted, but the images showed the British Prime Minister and the American President shaking hands and smiling for the cameras. Ahmed's lip curled and he reached over to switch off the set. There were some things he couldn't bear to watch. Instead, he went back to his work.