I laid my knife and fork on my empty plate and pushed it away from me slightly before replying. “I did a bit at a local gun club – before they closed it down, obviously,” I said.
“No military stuff then?” he asked, voice a shade too casual.
Physically, I sat still but mentally, I jumped. What had I done to give myself away?
My mind threw a rocky excuse together with all the care and skill of a third-rate cowboy builder. “We’ve an army camp with an outdoor range near where I live,” I said. “I went there once to see if I fancied joining the Territorials and we had a go with nine-mil pistols.” I shrugged. “I enjoyed that, but I didn’t fancy the weekend soldier bit much.”
He nodded. “I thought you’d done some before,” he said. “You’ve got some promise, Charlie. Bit inconsistent maybe, but I reckon we could do something with you. A few more weeks here and you could be quite a passable shot.”
For a woman. I heard those extra words. Even though his lips didn’t move and no sound came out.
Blakemore paused by the side of us then. “The boss wants you for a team briefing,” he told Rebanks, jerking his head towards the door from the dining hall. He passed a dark gaze over me, as though I’d been the one who’d stopped Rebanks to chat.
The weapons’ instructor gave me a last grin and tilted back the last of his coffee before getting lazily to his feet. “Be seeing ya,” he said with a wink.
But the two of them exchanged words before they reached the doorway and Blakemore turned back to lance me with a brooding stare before he followed the other man out.
I watched the two of them leave with a sense of foreboding that tightened my chest. I’d tried to be low key. I’d tried not to stand out from the crowd. Hell, I’d gone out of my way to miss the target. How on earth was that showing promise?
I got to my feet and dumped my plate with the pile of dirty crockery in one of the plastic bowls to one side of the room. Then I went slowly upstairs wondering what I’d learned, and at what cost?
***
I decided not to risk the roof again as my location to call Sean that night. Instead I went out onto the terrace, down the steps to one side, and walked across the rough car park where we’d first practised our driving drills. I ended up enveloped by the shadow of the trees on the far side.
From there I could see the whole of the rear of the Manor laid out in front of me, the windows streaming light into multiple shadows across the ground. It was quiet out there, removed from civilisation and cold enough for my breath to cloud in front of me.
And if Gilby came this way again I would see him – and his stealthy follower – long before he saw me.
At least, that was the theory.
Sean’s mobile was on divert to a land-line, which he answered on the fourth ring. His voice when he picked up was lazy, relaxed. In the background a soaring choir of voices swelled and broke. Either Sean had his stereo system wound up or he was hosting a very unusual house party.
“Hang on Charlie,” he said, “let me just turn this down.”
I heard him lay the receiver down onto a hard surface with a click, just as the main soprano took flight in the background. The male and female chorale swept in behind her, creating a rush of emotion, an overwhelming wrench of sadness. Then the voices died and were lost, and all I could hear were Sean’s returning footsteps.
“Sounds cheery,” I said dryly.
“It’s a John Rutter requiem piece, so I don’t think it’s supposed to be,” he said. “I was looking after a guy in the States last year who was really into it. When you’ve heard it night and day for a month you either grow to love it or hate it.”
He paused and I knew I should have brushed the comment aside and got on with my report, all business, no personal asides, but I found I couldn’t do it.
The stark realisation surfaced that I needed this brief snatch of respite with Sean. I’d missed the reassurance of his voice, even at the other end of a phone line, hundreds of miles away, from another country.
It was not an admission that made me proud.
“Don’t apologise,” I said now, recognising his hint of embarrassment that I’d caught him listening to classical music. “It sounds interesting. You’ll have to let me have a listen to the whole thing when I get back.” And just so he didn’t think I’d let him off the hook entirely, I added, “I wouldn’t have put you down as being into that kind of thing.”
He laughed softly and batted that one straight back, a return blow that made me squirm. “Well, Charlie, as I recall when we were together we spent more time making music than listening to it.”
Memories came bursting up along with his words, fragments of other times and places. A host of stolen moments, always in a hurry, always against the clock. We’d never had time just to be together. Never had the chance to find out if we fitted anywhere else except in bed.
Haste and secrecy had brought us together in a shower of sparks, with a kind of emotional violence that had left me shaken to the centre. I’d never experienced anything like it, before or since.
Especially not since.
I was glad of the darkness, and that I was alone in it. I blushed scarlet to the point where I could warm my chilled fingers on the heat coming off my face. I stuttered some incomprehensible reply and hurried the conversation on.
Across my babble Sean asked, “So how did it go on the range today?” I could still hear the amusement in his voice.
“Interesting,” I said, thankful to be on safer ground, and I told him about my discovery.
As I spoke I took the round out of my pocket and turned it over in my fingers. There was just enough light bleeding into the trees from the house to be able to make out the bullet’s cylindrical shape and the characteristic notched hole in the nose.
“There isn’t a good reason I can think of for Gilby to be using Hydra-Shoks,” Sean said, all trace of that teasing humour wiped out of his voice. “OK so they tend to ricochet less, and they don’t go through body armour as easily—”
“Which would be useful to us if we happened to be wearing any,” I interrupted.
“Which you’re not,” Sean agreed. “Gilby just wouldn’t be using them for training. Hollowpoints generally don’t load as freely, so you tend to get more stoppages, not to mention they’re too expensive to waste on target practice. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Unless he’s using them to get rid of people who get in his way,” I said, my voice grim. “Did you make any headway finding out what Gilby might have to hide?”
“We’re still working on it,” he said. “How did you get on today anyway? Did you shoot sloppy?”
“Sort of,” I said, remembering again those three closely-grouped rounds when I hadn’t been paying enough attention. Had that little lapse been enough for them to rumble me? “Not sloppy enough, it would seem. I’m not sure what I did, but Rebanks asked me this evening if I’d ever done any military shooting.”
Sean sucked in his breath. “What did you tell him?”
I repeated my TA story then asked, anxious, “Is there any way he can check up on that?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Sean said slowly. “Hang on.” He must have put his hand over the receiver. There was the sound of muffled voices in the background, but I couldn’t catch the other one clearly. “I’ve just got Madeleine onto it.”
“She’s working late,” I said. I didn’t think I brought anything sharp to the statement, but I must have been wrong about that.
Sean sighed. “It’s just work, Charlie,” he said, but his voice was gentle. “You should know that by now.”