Falloir (Passion Noire Book 2) (29 page)

‘Time for bed said Zebedee,’ I say, meaning that it’s time to leave.

‘What?’ he says.

‘That’s what my mum—your gran—used to say when it was our bedtime. It’s from a TV programme that was on when I was tiny. I can’t even remember it.’

‘Oh. I don’t get it.’ For some reason, he dissolves in hysterics and slides off his seat again. I sigh. I’m not looking forward to getting him back to Veuve’s flat but I know I have to and the sooner, the better. She’ll kill me if she knows I got him pissed. I help him up and put my arm around his shoulder, allowing him to lean on me as I attempt to get his feet to go forwards. We lurch sideways and end up crashing into the table that the cute girl and her boyfriend eventually managed to grab when the occupants left.

‘Sorry, folks,’ I say, trying to keep him upright enough for his legs to work.

‘You’re cute,’ The Kid says, leaning over to the girl.

She laughs before replying. ‘So are you. What’s your name?’

Mercifully, before he can announce that his name is The Kid, her boyfriend slams his empty pint glass down on the table and stands up looking like he wants trouble. He catches my threatening eye and backs off instantly.

I think the whole place hears The Kid exclaiming, ‘She said I was cute!’ right before I manage to drag him out of the garden. He’s still going on about it when we’re halfway home but then, suddenly he stops as if something’s just occurred to him.

‘Do you really like your gift?’ he slurs, before hiccupping loudly.

‘I do, yes. Thank you.’ I tug him to continue our homeward journey before Veuve drives past in a cab and we’re busted.

‘But you don’t wear necklaces,’ he declares, his feet refusing to move more than a step.

‘I wouldn’t swap it for anything, not even the Ferrari,’ I reassure him, then have to grab him before he falls flat on his face causing me to mumble, half under my breath, ‘I might be tempted to trade you.’

‘Nobody wanted me. They tried to trade me but I was too big ... too much trouble. They only trade boys when they’re younger. Girls can be older but they prefer them young. That’s why we were thrown away—we were too old to trade.’

For a second, I wonder what the hell he’s going on about but then the horrible truth of his past puts it in context. The realisation that he thought I was serious makes me feel sick to my stomach. Trading in humans is probably the only kind of trade he’s heard of. I wish I’d had chance to speak to Thierri—the sooner I can find out more about this Ross guy, the sooner I can smash the whole child prostitution ring and rid London of one evil ... and as many evil bastards as I can lay my hands on.

‘Kid, you’re worth more to me than anything. Any amount of money ... any car ... anybody ... got it? I wouldn’t trade you for anything. It was a joke—a stupid, not funny, pathetic joke and I’m sorry.’

He squints his eyes and stares at me. ‘You can have a not funny joke? That doesn’t even make sense. But you wouldn’t trade me for anything? Not even Veuve? I think you like her ... you think she’s cute, don’t you?’

Oh man. ‘Yes, I think she’s cute. But no, I wouldn’t trade you for her and thankfully, I’m lucky enough to have both of you. I don’t have to choose. Now do you think we could get home before she turns up and we’re both in trouble?’

He giggles. ‘You fancy her. Does that mean that you two ...?’ He gasps. ‘It
does,
doesn’t it?’

I take a deep breath. I don’t want to lie to him but Veuve is insistent that we keep our newly evolving relationship a secret from him until we decide whether it’s going anywhere.

‘You’ve had too much to drink. You don’t know what you’re saying. It’s time you were in your bed.’

He huffs and starts going on about the girl who said he was cute but it frees his legs up as well as his tongue and we lurch forward, albeit diagonally and up a grass verge but at least we’re moving.

‘I can’t believe that girl said I was cute. She was pretty.’

I attempt to steer him back on to the pavement but fail. ‘Yes, she was. Very pretty.’

He stops again and it’s so abrupt that I keep moving and he pulls out of my grip, landing smack on his arse on the grass. My patience is beginning to wear a bit thin but the knowledge that I caused this helps me to hang on to the last threads as I wrestle him back on to his feet.

‘She wanted to know my name. I didn’t want to say The Kid. She’d think I was a kid. It makes me sound like a kid.’

He has a point—one that’s crossed my mind more than once. ‘Okay, so maybe as we walk, you could think of what you’d like to be called. The Kid isn’t your real name anyway, it’s a nickname so you could think of another one. A more grown up one.’

‘Like Jones?’ he says, as I urge him to begin walking again.

‘Yeah, kind of. But remember I told you that my name’s really Jackson but people called me Jack when I was a kid and then Jax when I got older? Well, Jax is what I prefer to be called by those who know me well.’ It occurs to me that these days, hardly anybody calls me Jax. That nickname was coined in the Corps but, since I left, I’ve used the alias Jones most of the time. I can’t actually remember the last time that someone called me Jax.

‘So why do people call you Jones?’

‘When I was a Commando, I often used different names so that nobody knew what or who I was unless I wanted them to. And, if I was captured or identified by the bad guys, they wouldn’t have any Intel on me. But, when I left, I did some work that was a bit like being a Commando and a bit like being James Bond. So it—’

‘Who’s James Bond?’ he asks, reminding me exactly how difficult it must be for him to understand what I’m saying.

‘He’s a character in books and films. He works in secret for the govern—the people who run our country. He works in secret to find out what bad guys in other countries are up to. Or, he’s given information from other spies and he goes on secret missions to help stop the bad guys. For him to work in secret, he has fake names and code names because some of the bad guys are very important people in their country so they get to find out a lot about people. If James Bond was travelling on a real passport in his own name, they could find out that he was on a plane, travelling to their country. Or that he’d booked a hotel. And loads of other things. And bad guys don’t like people who want to stop them so they’d try to stop him or even kill him. They could find out where he lives. They could follow him and watch what he’s up to. Or worse, like I say. So using fake names helps him to do his work and to keep him safe. Only people that he trusts know his real name.’

‘Is that what you do now?’ he asks, quietly. I get the impression that he’s in awe but also a little worried for my safety.

‘Not very often and I’m an expert in beating bad guys.’

‘So why does Veuve call you Jones? Doesn’t she know your real name?’

‘No, I don’t think she does. I was introduced to her as Jones by Dean—you remember him? I knew him from some everyday work—not the very secret stuff. I don’t use Jones for that. I have other names for that. I’d just rather that as few people knew my real name as possible. That way, if I have something dangerous to do, or if there’s somebody who would like to get revenge for something that I’ve done in the past, it helps to keep me safe. I don’t trust many people so I have different names for different parts of my life.’

‘Why doesn’t Veuve know your real name? Don’t you trust her?’

Did I? I had no reason not to. ‘It sometimes just happens. I don’t know her real name either. That doesn’t necessarily mean that she doesn’t trust me. It just happened because of how we met.’

‘You do know her real name. It’s Veuve. Everyone knows that.’ He looks indignant but then seems to realise that he can’t speak for everybody. ‘Don’t they?’

I realise I’ve put my foot in it again. La Veuve Noire is obviously a pseudonym but could her name be Veuve? I’d assumed that it was a nickname that had something to do with her French mentor, Thierri. It must be ... if La Veuve Noire means The Black Widow, then veuve must mean widow because noire is black. Who’d call their baby girl
Widow
for fuck’s sake? No, that can’t be her name. Although I’d like to know where that nickname came from. I suspect it has some link to the terrible events of her past but maybe there’s something I don’t know. The Kid seems to take my silence as agreement.

‘What is trust anyway?’ he says. He’s sounding more sober—that’s the only good part about this conversation as I see it. How the hell do you define trust to someone with such limited experience and understanding?

‘Okay. See that car, coming towards us?’ I nod my head in the direction of the oncoming car, since my hands are required to keep him upright.

‘Yeah.’

‘I could push you in front of it so it would hit you, couldn’t I?’

He stops walking and scowls at me. ‘You wouldn’t!’

Unable to help chuckling, I shake my head. ‘No, I wouldn’t. But you know that, don’t you?’

He nods so I ask him how he knows.

‘You wouldn’t do something bad like that. I’d get hurt. You wouldn’t hurt me.’

‘You’re bang on, Kid. And because you know that, you trust me not to hurt you. You trust me not to push you in the road when a car’s coming. Just like I work out who I can trust to know my real name. Trusting is about believing something or someone will do the right thing or what you want or need them to do. Do you get it?’

He screws up his face. ‘I think so. But why am I bang on? What does that mean?’

When will I learn to keep to basics with him? ‘It means you’re right about something. Just as I’m bang on about Veuve not being very happy with us if she knows you’re drunk so come on.’

His feet start to move again and we manage to get back to the block of flats without any more problems. Until I realise that we can’t get inside the main entrance.

Great.

I figure that we’re done for if she’s home anyway so I press the buzzer on the intercom. There’s no reply. Mercifully, we’ve only waited a few minutes when a teenage girl comes out and holds the door open for us to enter. I’m grateful but I also feel like giving her a lecture about keeping strangers out of the building. Thankfully, I refrain. Especially when The Kid announces is a particularly loud voice that she’s not very cute.

If I’d thought getting him to walk on level ground was difficult, getting him to walk upstairs is a nightmare. I end up throwing him over my shoulder, something I’d considered on the walk home but I hadn’t wanted to end up with vomit down the back of my jeans. I let us into the flat and carry him straight to his room. I slide him off my shoulder, straight on to his bed.

‘Now, for goodness sake, go to sleep. Do not get out of bed. If Veuve catches you in this state, we’ll both be in trouble. There’ll be no more pub visits ... no more cute girls. Got it?’

He smiles in a dopey, drunken way. ‘Got it.’

I double check that Veuve hasn’t returned and climbed into bed—it was a long shot: I’m sure that if she’d come back and found The Kid missing, I’d have had her on the end of the phone within moments. I slump on the sofa debating whether I should text her to make sure she is intending to come back tonight. It’s not as simple as it sounds. I’m not used to the social niceties of being part of a couple. She’s not either.

I’m knackered. I’d be quite happy to take a shower and hit the sack but it’s her flat and she might not appreciate coming home to find me in her bed. But if she is coming home, I don’t mind waiting up ... either way I’m going to want to know everything that happened after I left. The obvious thing to do is text her. But what if she thinks I’m being clingy? I don’t want to freak her out. I don’t know how I’d feel if I was out somewhere and she texted me to find out what I was up to. I think I’d be okay with it, but it’s easy to say that when it’s a hypothetical question.

A thump in the hallway distracts me. I’m on my feet, squaring my shoulders when the door slams inwards and The Kid practically falls inside, still fully dressed. As he focuses on me, he stares, clearly wondering why I have my fists drawn, ready to give someone a good hiding.

‘Sorry,’ he says, backing towards the door. ‘I shouldn’t have got out of bed, should I?’

I drop my hands to my sides, feeling sick that he’s backing away from me, wide eyed and wary. ‘Hey, buddy. I thought you were asleep. I wasn’t going to hit you—I would never hit you. I wondered who was out there and overreacted. Like I say, I thought you were asleep.’ I shrug. ‘That’s the downside to having been a Commando, you don’t take chances. I’m sorry if I scared you, Kid.’

Relief has made him sag against the door. ‘You didn’t scare me,’ he lies. ‘But I like that you’re not afraid to fight. It ... it makes me feel safe.’

I want to tell him that I couldn’t keep his mum safe but I’ll make damned sure that he never comes to any more harm. I also want to promise him that I’ll personally take care of every one of the bastards who made him fear others so that he has no need to feel scared anymore. But I don’t want to risk upsetting him with thoughts of his terrible past. ‘Good. Why are you out of bed? What if Veuve was here and what if she puts her key in that lock right now?’

His eyes grow large. ‘I just wanted to say that we forgot about my name. Can we find one tomorrow? I want a grown up name. Like Jax,’ he says, making me smile.

‘We sure can. I think we should involve Veuve though. And not while you can’t walk without bouncing off the walls so come on, back to bed.’

He grins happily as I help him back down the hallway and into bed.

‘Jones? Actually, if you trust me I should be able to use your real name. Can I?’

I nod, unable to stop the warm feeling inside me that bubbles out of my mouth and forces me to smile down at my nephew.

‘You’re family. Of course you should call me Jax ... or Uncle Jax—no, wait! That makes me feel old. You may as well say Uncool Jax. I think Jax will do just fine.’ I reconsider my words when I see him frown. ‘Unless you want to call me Uncle Jax then that’s fine. I guess I
am
getting old.’ I grin to reassure him but he shakes his head.

‘Jax is a tough name. It’s right for you. I want a tough name.’