I shrugged. “What good is knowing someone’s weakness, if you don’t exploit it?”
I hadn’t intended to taunt him, but now I was here my anger rose up and roared in my ears.
“Ah, is that why you’re here?” he asked. “To exploit my weakness?”
“Actually, no. I saw the news this morning,” I said, and when he did no more than lift an eyebrow slightly, I added, “I was hoping for some kind of an explanation.”
He was still wearing the suit I’d seen him in on the TV, the knot of his tie sitting up perfectly into the vee of the starched collar. God forbid he should ever loosen it in the presence of anyone except his wife of thirty-something years. And probably not even then.
“Ah,” he said, the barest of smiles crossing his lips. He strolled over to the low table and picked up the Dalmore, studied the box with a vaguely disdainful air and put it down again. “And you think a bottle of cheap single malt buys you the right to one, hm?”
The “cheap” jibe surprised me. “For myself, no,” I said coolly. “For my mother, I think it probably wasn’t worth the price.”
I didn’t need to imagine his sigh this time. He made a show of pushing back a rigid shirt cuff to check the antique gold watch beneath it.
“Was there something specific you wanted to say?” he asked, sounding bored now. “I do have an appointment.”
“Who with? Another reporter? The police?” I nodded to the bottle. “Or perhaps you just can’t wait to open that?”
For the first time, I saw a flash of anger, quickly veiled, followed by something else. Something darker. Pain? He took a breath and was calm again.
“You’ve clearly made up your own mind without any input from me,” he said. “But then, you always were a spoilt and willful child. Hardly surprising that you’ve made such a mess of your life.”
The gasp rose like a bubble. I only just managed to smother it before it could break the surface.
“‘A mess’?” I repeated, the outrage setting up harmonic vibrations that rattled at the heart of me. “I’ve made a mess of my life? Oh, that’s rich.”
He made an annoyed gesture with those long surgeon’s fingers of his, staring at me over the thin frames of his glasses. “Please don’t go blaming anyone else for your mistakes, Charlotte. We both know you’re over here solely because the people who have laughably employed you wanted the services of your semi-Neanderthal boyfriend enough to offer you some sinecure. And because he was too sentimental to leave you behind.”
“They offered me a job alongside him,” I managed. I was disappointed to note that gritting my teeth did nothing, it seemed, to prevent the slight tremor that had crept into my voice. “On my own merits.”
“Ah, yes of course.” He glanced upwards for a moment, as if seeking heavenly intervention. When he looked back at me, his face was mocking. “Face it, my dear, you’re little better than a cripple. A liability to those around you. You’ve already proved you can’t be trusted to do a job without injuring yourself and others. What possible use could they have for you?”
“For your information, I’ve just been passed fit,” I said, ignoring the fibrous tension burning up through the long muscles of my left thigh that made a lie of my words. I tried not to think of my abandoned fitness test, of what Nick was likely to put in his report. “I’ll be back on—”
“Credit me with some experience in these matters, Charlotte, if nothing else,” he interrupted, glacial now. “You may not approve of my ethics, but my surgical abilities are quite beyond question, and I’ve seen your records. You may be walking without that limp any longer, but your health will never be exactly what one might describe as robust again. A little light office work is about all you’re fit for. You know as well as I do that they’ll never quite trust you again.”
The shock wave of his words pummeled into me, sent me reeling back before I could brace myself. It took everything I had not to let him see me stagger.
“Oh, that’s right,” I said, soft in my bitterness. “Your daughter—the disgrace. All your self-righteous lectures about the shame I’ve brought on you, on Mother, and for what? For being a victim. And then when I stop being a victim, still you damn me.”
I paused. He said nothing and his silence only spurred me on. “You’ve never liked Sean—you’ve made that pretty bloody clear. But he’s stood by me better than my own parents have ever done. And now I find you’re nothing but a drunken butcher. How does that square with your sense of bloody superiority?”
“That’s. Enough.” It was almost a whisper. His face was bone white, his gaze everywhere but on me. When he put a hand up to his eyes I saw that it shook a little, and I was fiercely glad. But when he spoke again, his voice was neutral, almost dismissive. “I think you’d better leave, Charlotte. Throwing insults at each other is time-consuming and hardly productive, wouldn’t you say?”
I whirled back towards the door and found I’d barely made it three strides into the room. I grabbed the handle and twisted, but found I couldn’t leave it there.
“‘Surgical abilities beyond question.’ Is that right?” I threw at him. “Well, at least whenever I’ve had cause to stick a knife into somebody I’ve always been stone-cold sober.”
CHAPTER 3
“You finally made it in, huh?” Bill Rendelson said. There was a row of clocks hanging on the glossy marble wall above the reception desk where he held court, and he pointedly twisted in his chair so he could check the one set to New York time. “The boss wants to see you—like, yesterday.”
I’d barely stepped out of the elevator before Bill had delivered his ominous message. He heaved his blocky frame upright and stalked across the lobby to knock on the door to Parker Armstrong’s office.
Bill could have buzzed through to let Parker know I was here, but he liked to rub it in. He’d been with the agency since the beginning, so the story went, and three years previously he’d lost his right arm at the shoulder in a parcel-bomb attack on the South African businessman he was protecting. His principal had survived unscathed, but Bill’s active service career was over.
When Sean and I had first started working for Parker, I’d assumed from his abrupt manner that Bill had taken against us for some reason, but it was soon clear that he didn’t like anyone very much. I often wondered if Parker’s keeping Bill on—in a job so close to the heart of things but without actually being able to get out there anymore—was an act of kindness or cruelty. Sometimes I thought perhaps Bill had his doubts about that, too.
Now, he pushed open the door in response to his boss’s summons, and jerked his head to me. I stiffened my spine and walked straight in without a pause, nodding to him as I went. He gave a kind of half sigh, half grunt by way of acknowledgment, and yanked the door shut behind me as though to prevent my premature escape.
Parker Armstrong’s office was understated and discreet, like the man. Modern, pale wood furniture and abstract original canvases. Not for him the usual gaudy rake of signed photos showing chummy handshakes with the rich and famous.
The office occupied a corner of the building and was high enough not to be easily overlooked—no mean feat in any city. Parker’s desk sat across the diagonal, so his chair was protected by the vee of the wall, his back to the windows, to allow potential clients to be slightly intimidated by the view.
He was on the phone when I walked in, and I expected to have to wait while he finished the call, but he wound up the conversation almost right away, stood and came round the desk to meet me.