“Thank you,” Kael said. “Let"s eat.” The meal was wonderful, but he couldn"t
take his eyes off the girls, who knelt up on the beautiful leather-seated oak chairs.
They had already stood up on them in their shoes. Amelia struggled to her feet, yet
again demanding that Kael admire her dress. “Uncle Kael, look!” She spread her
arms, teetering dangerously. “My dress is velvet.”
“She"s going to fall,” he said in a panicked voice. Adam reached out a hand to
steady her, but he did not suggest she sit.
“My dress is velvet too.” Zoe jumped up to display her own attire, which was
clearly not velvet. Within seconds, they were screaming at each other about their
dresses, jumping up and down on their chairs, insisting Kael say which dress was
the prettiest.
“Uncle Kael likes my dress best.”
“No, he likes mine best.”
“Don"t they have an Off switch?” he asked, beginning to feel desperate.
“"Fraid not, old chap.” Freddie and Adam seemed able to ignore the noise and
continue to eat without indigestion.
“Do you like the quiche, Daddy? What about the chicken? Is that good?” Angel
shouted over the noise. “I made it from a Foodwishes recipe on YouTube.”
Desperate for the girls to shut up, Kael raised his voice above the din. “You
both look nice. Now sit down!”
The girls sank quietly into their seats and began to eat again, seemingly
content.
Adam watched them obey before saying, “We"ll have to take you home with us,
Kael. I can"t get them to do that.”
Kael looked at Angel. “Everything is very tasty and very beautiful.”
The table was a polished oak frame with a beveled glass top, making it
possible to see from where Kael sat how much food the girls had dropped on the
floor. Beginning again to argue about their dresses, Amelia picked up her sippy cup
and threw it at her sister. The top popped off, spilling the remaining juice on the
table.
“Oh my God.” Kael began to get up, grabbing his napkin to clean up the mess.
Then he thought better of it. The napkins were very expensive damask.
Angel and the Assassin: Be Brave
71
“Daddy, it"s okay. Calm down. It"s a party, not a crime scene. We can clean up
later.” Angel ran to the kitchen for a cloth while Kael knocked back a full glass of
wine.
For the remainder of the meal, the girls were relatively quiet except when they
said confusing things. “Uncle Kael, my teacher likes you,” Zoe said.
“I"ve never met your teacher.”
“I showed her the picture,” Zoe said. She had cream sauce from the pasta dish
all over her face. Kael fought a constant inner battle just to keep from rounding the
table to wipe it off.
“What picture?” He looked at Freddie. “I told you at Christmas there were to
be no pictures. Did you take one?”
Freddie laughed. “You big eejit. She drew it in class.”
The girls began screaming, “You big eejit,” over and over again. Kael gripped
the arms of his chair until his knuckles turned white.
When they finished eating, Angel began to clear the dishes. Zoe got down from
her seat and pulled her plate off the table as Kael watched in horror. She was going
to break it, and it was part of a set from Harrods. Each dinner plate cost £50. Angel
must have seen the terror in his eyes and quickly took the plate from Zoe. “Girls, I
need your help in the kitchen.” He shepherded them out of the dining room.
With relief Kael watched them toddle off and grabbed the wine bottle to refill
his glass. “How can you stand it?”
Freddie and Adam burst out laughing. “I always knew you weren"t the fatherly
type,” Freddie said. “Even when we were kids, all I wanted was to be a dad and
have a cozy home to rest my weary pegs at the end of the day. All you were ever
interested in was sex and getting top marks and being the best player on all the
sports teams.”
“College Grange won the all-schools rugby trophy every year I was there,” Kael
pointed out—then wondered if he sounded obnoxious. He was getting a bit drunk to
combat the stress of having two children in the flat.
“It was certainly down to you that we won those trophies,” Freddie admitted.
“But you were nice,” Kael said quietly. “Everyone liked you. They hated me.”
Freddie reached over to grab his hand and squeeze it. “They were just scared
of you, mate. They didn"t know you like I did.”
Voices rose up from the kitchen, and all three men watched as Angel carried in
a chocolate birthday cake on a glass cake plate with two candles blazing on top. The
girls ran on either side of him, and all three sang “Happy Birthday to You.” Freddie
and Adam joined in, their voices octaves deeper. When they got to the name part,
Angel sang clearly in his high, sweet voice, “Happy birthday, dear Daddy,” the girls
sang, “dear Uncle Kael,” and Freddie sang, “my old mate.”
With the birthday cake glowing in front of him, Kael felt his eyes prick with
emotion and said more gruffly than he intended, “I don"t really eat cake.”
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Fyn Alexander
A split second of heavy silence followed. He met Freddie"s eyes, which said
eloquently,
You’d better eat this one or deal with me
. He looked at Angel standing
beside him, waiting for his verdict on the creation. The cake was unmistakably
homemade. It was a bit lopsided, and the white writing above the candles was done
with one of those squeeze tubes. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DADDY.
Kael grinned at Angel and wrapped his arm around his boy"s waist. “But in
this case, I"ll make an exception.” The relief on Angel"s face and the visible release
of tension from his slender body made Kael feel ashamed.
Why can’t I be like normal people? Why do I have to kill to feel alive? Why am I
terrified of mess and small children? Why am I even questioning myself? I’ve always
known I was like this. What’s wrong with me?
“Make a wish, Daddy.” The words, obviously repeated several times, finally
had an impact. He covered his lapse by saying, “Give me a minute. I"m just looking
at how great it is.”
“I only made it from a packet mix, but it"s fab, isn"t it?” Angel nodded as if
urging Kael to agree.
“Yes, it"s fab.”
Angel clapped his hands and wiggled his hips the way he did when he was
happy or excited. Zoe and Amelia immediately copied him.
Kael closed his eyes to pretend, but before he could open them, a wish exploded
in his head.
Make me worthy of this boy’s love. And don’t let anything bad happen to
him ever again.
Kael dished up the cake while Angel served coffee, and afterward they went
into the living room. It was almost dark out. Kael lowered the blinds and fixed the
lights at a subdued level in the hope that it would have some kind of soporific effect
on the girls, but they had disappeared from the room again with Angel. Freddie and
Adam sat side by side on the couch, looking so comfortable with each other. Kael
sank into a leather armchair. “Thanks for helping him do this,” he said very quietly.
Resting his hand on his protruding belly, Freddie looked utterly content. “I
know it"s stressful for you being around kids and even worse when they"re in your
home, but you have to admit, Kael, it was a lovely dinner.”
“Yes, I admit it.”
Angel returned minutes later with the girls. Between them they held an
enormous sheet of paper with wax crayon scribble all over it. “It"s your birthday
card, Uncle Kael,” the girls said shyly in unison.
It was hideous.
Kael tried to make out the figures and saw himself with a bald head towering
over everyone. He vaguely recognized a ball-like rendition of Freddie and one with
dark hair that had to be Adam. Strangely the girls had drawn themselves bigger
than their fathers. And at the top with wings, looking down on the whole scene, was
a person drawn entirely in yellow. “That"s Angel,” Zoe pointed out.
Angel and the Assassin: Be Brave
73
“Uncle Kael is speechless at your artistic prowess, girls.” Freddie looked at
Kael, then mouthed,
Admire it.
“It"s totally sick, isn"t it, Daddy?” Angel encouraged.
“Yes, it"s sick,” Kael repeated. “Thank you, girls.” Content, they went to sit on
their fathers" laps, and Angel laid the picture out on the coffee table, then knelt
beside his chair.
“Here, Daddy.”
Kael took the small gold-wrapped package. “This looks interesting.” He opened
it, careful not to tear the paper. Inside was a box, and in that sat a pair of silver
thumbcuffs, beautifully made. “It"s a charm, Daddy, but feel free to use them on
me.”
Kael held them up to show Freddie and Adam, who laughed. Kael tucked them
back into the box. “Come here.” He patted his lap, and Angel climbed in, draping his
legs over the arm of the chair and resting his head contentedly on Kael"s shoulder.
“Thank you,” Kael whispered.
Zoe had fallen asleep in Freddie"s arms, her cheek against his chest. Adam
rocked Amelia gently as her eyes closed. Kael cupped Angel"s face and kissed him,
overwhelmed with gratitude and protectiveness. What a wonderful afternoon. He
was so lucky.
“Will you adopt more kids?” he asked Freddie and Adam.
“No,” Freddie said at once. “We"ve got our hands full with these two.”
“Don"t you want a boy?” Kael asked.
“God no,” Freddie said. “Look how I turned out. Look how
you
turned out.”
They all laughed.
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Fyn Alexander
Chapter Nine
“Bye, Daddy. I love you.”
Kael waved from the car window at Angel as he walked through the school
gates beside Jack. “Work hard,” he called. He had just looked right to merge into
traffic when his mobile buzzed. It was the secure line Conran had given him, and he
had got back into the habit of carrying it everywhere. He snatched it off his belt.
“You always seem to get me when I"m at the gym or on my way.”
“Parliament Square, twenty minutes. I"ll be at the Winston Churchill statue.”
Conran hung up.
“Will you now?” Kael said out loud, but his adrenaline began to rush and the
excitement he felt when a job was imminent surged through him. What a fool he
had been to even think he could have an ordinary life.
The day was beautiful. Mid-March and the sun was shining, which was rare
for London. The streets were loud with early-morning rush-hour traffic. By the time
Kael reached Parliament Square and found a place to park, Conran was sitting on
the wall behind the statue looking at his watch. Big Ben struck ten o"clock.
“You"re half an hour late,” Conran said, rising and beginning to walk across
the grass.
Kael did not respond. The stress of teaching languages to ungrateful morons
was behind him. He had been feeling remarkably content the last few weeks. The
Argentine hit had calmed him the way a long massage calmed a normal man. His
birthday dinner had made him feel loved. All those years of loneliness, where all he
had to look forward to was the next job in between long stretches of sex, staying fit,
and visiting his mum, seemed a thing of the past. He had lived like some kind of
animal with no family ties—a shark or a crocodile—feeding and fornicating but
never feeling. Angel had made him human.
Partly to irritate him and partly because he actually felt gratitude toward the
man for setting him back on track, Kael threw his arm around Conran and
squeezed his shoulders. “There are times I feel something akin to affection for you,
Stephen.”
“Get off, you fool.” Conran shook him off, making Kael laugh out loud and grab
him in a tight body hug for no other reason than the pleasure of making the man
squirm.
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75
“You know you love it.” Finally he released him. “Let"s sit.” Kael pointed at a
vacant bench a few yards away, and they sat down. “Right, what have you got for
me?”
“Have you settled into the fact that you are not meant to be in the classroom
with ordinary people?” Conran extracted a folder from his briefcase and handed it to
Kael.
“Yes.” He took the folder but looked at Conran. “Killing has the same effect on
me that prayer has on other people. It brings me close to God.”
“You say things like that just for effect. But you are remarkably calmer since
Argentina.” He nodded at the folder, and Kael opened it.
A small photograph was clipped to a sheet of paper. The man was in his late
forties and balding. Kael read his vital statistics. “Graham Clement. Five feet ten
inches. Eleven stone six pounds. Brown, thinning hair. Clean shaven. No tattoos or
scars.”
“I"m afraid you can"t keep the picture, but knowing you, you don"t need it.”
“I could pick him out of a crowd six months from now.”
“Yes, I know you could,” Conran acknowledged. “We want him back alive. He