He hadn’t wanted to leave. To sneak out like a thief in the night, without explanation, without saying good-bye. But the voice had called and left him instructions. And the voice must be obeyed.
Balling his hands into fists, Billy pressed them to his eyes, willing himself not to cry. He had to stay focused. And positive. Focused and positive, that was the key.
He was here, after all, in London. He’d made it. That in itself was no mean feat. But the first thing he learned when he arrived on British soil was that Alexia De Vere was not here. Parliament was on its long summer recess, and the home secretary was on a three-week break in Martha’s Vineyard of all places, less than a hundred miles from the hospital where Billy had been locked up. He could have stayed where he was! The irony was so bitter it choked him, a cold hand of fate closing around his throat.
Alexia De Vere was gone. But she would be back.
There was nothing for it but to wait.
Simon Butler was furious. Social Services was about as much use as a water pistol in a forest fire.
“We’ve got some leaflets,” the bored moron on the so-called help line informed him, unhelpfully. “Or you can go on our Web site for details of your nearest local drop-in center.”
Simon remembered this same, not-my-problem attitude from when his brother Matty had been ill. “What’s your Web site,” he asked tersely. “Www-dot-I-don’t-give-a-shit-dot-com?”
“I understand your frustration, sir—”
Simon Butler hung up. There had to be a better way.
Billy Hamlin was feeling better.
The sun had come out, and London no longer looked like a study in gray. Women put their short skirts back on, people smiled at one another in the street, and the pub crowd had spilled onto the pavements, people perched on picnic tables smoking and laughing and enjoying the novelty of having their evening tipple “alfresco.”
Parliament reconvened in nine days but Alexia De Vere was due back in six.
It was almost over.
He usually went to the Old Lion on Baker Street. It was busy and anonymous, with more passing trade than regulars, and Billy liked the barman there. He was friendly but not intrusive, and he slipped Billy chips and peanuts for free. But the Old Lion had outdoor seating, so today Billy made an exception and went to the Rose and Crown in Marylebone instead.
For the first two beers he was fine. But as the afternoon turned to evening and he kept on drinking, his mood darkened.
“She was going to marry me, you know.”
“Who was?”
A group of young men sat next to him at the bar, smartly dressed City types. How long have they been there? Billy wondered. He hadn’t noticed them before.
“Toni. Toni Gilletti.”
“Right. Okay.” The young men turned away.
For some reason, Billy felt slighted. He grabbed one of them by the arm. “I know things, you know. I know things about the home secretary. I could bring the British government down. That’s why they’re after me.”
“What’s your problem, asshole?” The trader shook his arm free, accidentally pushing Billy back off his bar stool in the process. Losing his footing, Billy crashed into a nearby table of diners, sending plates and cutlery flying. Somebody screamed.
The next thing Billy knew he was on his feet. Someone, one of the diners, had thrown a punch. Panicked, he lashed out wildly, kicking and shouting as the bar staff manhandled him onto the street.
“Come back and I’ll call the police,” the landlord shouted after him. “Fucking loon.”
It wasn’t until he started walking home, weaving his way through unfamiliar streets, that Billy realized how drunk he was. His lip was split, he felt nauseous and dizzy, and one of his eyes appeared to be starting to close. Worse, he had no real idea where he was. The smiles he’d seen on the streets earlier had all gone now. People he passed glared at him, their expressions ranging from distaste to outright hostility.
They’re afraid of me.
The thought made him sad.
By the time he made it back to his guesthouse, one of a row of nondescript Victorian houses along the Edgeware Road, it was close to midnight. Wearily, he tramped up the stairs. A stranger was standing outside his door.
“Billy Hamlin?”
Like a trapped rat, Billy looked from left to right, hunting for an escape, but there was none. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“Don’t worry, Billy.” The stranger smiled. “I’m not from the police. You’re not in any trouble. I’m here to help.”
Beneath the posh British accent, Billy recognized the earnest, concerned tone of the professional social worker. He’d heard it so often back in the States, it was depressingly familiar. But who would have reported him here? Who even knew he was in England?
“Look, I’m fine. I don’t need help.”
“We all need help, Billy, now and then. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I don’t know who sent you. But I’m fine. Please leave me alone.” Billy fumbled in his pockets for his door key.
“Here.” The stranger came up behind him. “Let me help you with that.”
The knife was so sharp, Billy Hamlin barely felt it slice between his shoulder blades and puncture his heart.
Chapter Twenty-one
Alexia De Vere sipped her iced cranberry juice as she gazed out of the plane window. On her lap, a thick ministerial brief lay open reproachfully. Immigration Solutions for 21st-Century Britain. Somehow even the title sounded dispiriting, a glass of cold water in the face. Alexia couldn’t face it just yet.
Her vacation on Martha’s Vineyard had done her a world of good. Lucy Meyer in particular had lifted her spirits and strengthened her resolve. Alexia had done the right thing by closing the door on Billy Hamlin and her past. Lucy had confirmed it. No good could come of her and Billy meeting now, of conjuring up the ghost of Toni Gilletti and the life she, Alexia, had worked so hard to leave behind. Gradually she started to rewrite the story in her head. She hadn’t callously turned Billy Hamlin away. Billy was ill, and she had gotten him help. Edward Manning had dealt with things, and Alexia trusted Edward Manning. It was time to move on, and get on with the business of government. As for Teddy, put simply, what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Teddy was asleep beside her now, snoring peacefully with a half-drunk glass of Glenfiddich in one hand and yesterday’s edition of the Times in the other. With typical thoughtfulness Teddy had flown back to Martha’s Vineyard for the final days of their holiday last week rather than staying on in London and waiting for Alexia there. How many other political husbands would clock up eight thousand air miles in a week just so they could keep their wives company?
Alexia had particularly enjoyed having Teddy with her because Roxie and Michael had both returned to England the week before. Poor Michael had torn himself away from sweet little Summer Meyer with infinite reluctance in order to get back to Tommy and the business. Roxie, not wanting to stay on without her brother, had flown home too. The last few days at the Gables had been like a second honeymoon for Teddy and Alexia, memories that Alexia would cherish for a long, long time.
I wasn’t in love with him when we married, Alexia thought. But I love him now. I love our life together, everything we’ve built.
Easing the newspaper out of Teddy’s hand, being careful not to wake him, she flipped through the home news pages. Edward Manning had briefed her by e-mail twice daily during her vacation, so she was already up to speed on all the news that mattered or that required a statement or action from her. But she hadn’t actually held a British paper in her hands for three weeks.
UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES RISING
The headline irritated her. Bloody Times leader writers. It was shameless the way they manipulated that data. Jobs were actually being created across the public and private sectors, a point Alexia had made on the BBC News at One via satellite link only yesterday. The Times might be a Murdoch-owned paper, but as far as Alexia could tell, all the journalists who worked there were bloody Trotskyites.
She flipped to page two, and a dull piece about wind farms. Renewable energy bored Alexia rigid, but green issues were important to the PM, so like the rest of the party, Alexia paid lip service. She wondered whether any of the rest of the cabinet knew about Henry Whitman’s affair with Laura Llewellyn, the very beautiful, very married eco-lobbyist whose husband, Miles Llewellyn, was the Conservative Party’s single largest financial donor? Alexia doubted it. She’d only found out herself by chance, running into Henry and Laura quite by accident at an obscure Yorkshire hotel the week before last year’s party conference in Blackpool. If gossip had been flying around, Alexia would probably have been the last to hear of it. Her so-called colleagues in the cabinet were the most standoffish bunch of bastards it had ever been her misfortune to work with. And Alexia De Vere had worked with a great many bastards.