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Never mind, these brothers might find fate caught up with them later. Life had a way of paying out evil men.
It was why he was fairly sure he’d not have to worry about old age.
He took them to see Ben Rider.
He knew they would be angry to find him already dead, but, alive, Gussy would have made a very unconvincing substitute. Even dead, he was hard to see as a killer.
Furious, the brothers turned Gustav’s body over and, needing more illumination for their inspection, one of the bodyguards switched on the Christmas tree lights. Even Aleksey found this a morbid touch so retreated to his alcohol while they ranted and fumed at this unexpected ruining of their plans.
He was embarrassed on their behalf by their metaphorical wailing and gnashing of teeth. The honour of Ben Rider’s death was diminished if they could not claim it personally, apparently.
He did not remember any honour in the accounts of their country’s preferred methods of death. But he allowed that he hardly had the moral high ground in that debate.
His explanation for the premature killing—that Rider had suspected a trap—was so readily believed that Aleksey realised he was dealing with people for whom betrayal was as predicable as it was acceptable.
Finally, the brothers acknowledged the fact they could not change what had happened. But they wanted the body.
Aleksey had hoped they might. He didn’t know what to do with it. He’d considered the pond and some large rocks for this very contingency, but he hadn’t wanted memories of those moonlit ripples ruined.
Usama was dispatched to bring in the extra men stationed in the grounds.
As they were standing around, toeing the remains, they all heard the very distinct sound of a number of cars arriving to the front of the house.
Aleksey laid his bottle very carefully on the buffet table and held his hands up in a universal gesture ofbe calm.
He held Ibrahim’s gaze for a moment and the other man nodded.
He straightened his jacket, swept his hand through his hair and walked slowly and very purposefully towards the front door.
He was coming to the conclusion that just tossing chess pieces into the air was a really, really shit way to make a plan.
He knew who it was before he opened the door, of course.
It was inconceivable that they were here and not in a croft thousands of miles away, but here they were—courtesy of being able to use a nation’s air force as your own private taxi service, he assumed.
He greeted Philipa and her Barbour-clad paramour at the door with his best smile. He was very drunk, so he knew it was a particularly good one.
It was unbelievable. Not only were they here, but they’d brought the usual ragtag bunch—the vacuous weekend hangers-on.
He had a good lie formed already (and he reckoned anyone who could make a credible story out of six armed Iraqis and a dead relative in the living room was a master of his craft), when His Royal Haughtiness stormed past Philipa and punched him squarely on the nose.
* * *
Chapter 57
Nine Years Ago
It was a brave man who at five foot seven assaulted a man nine inches taller, Aleksey reckoned, but the little man, perhaps knowing he had the entire British establishment on his side, not to mention the Queen of England, got a good one in—right on the bridge of Aleksey’s nose, which made his eyes water, and forced him to cup it in pain, lie untold. The alcohol roiling in his stomach didn’t help, and he clenched everything to hold it down.
He’d wondered at the time of booking them, whether he should have sent the bagpiper, team of Highland dancers, and a top haggis chef to recreate Balmoral entertainments for Philipa at her lonely exile in the croft. It had seemed very funny when he’d had the idea, smoking alone in his bed one night, picturing some of the things they’d done together in that very room—flaunting taken to a pleasing extreme, if he did say so himself.
The clenching failed. Doubled over, vomiting, tears streaming down his face, he now saw this for the error it had been. But it was still funny.
Until he heard the screaming.
Philipa had found the body.
He still believed the situation was salvageable, and was about to invent another more plausible lie, when he realised she was screeching her Godson’s name. The corpse was not so unrecognisable to her, clearly. And the name she was wailing wasn’t Ben Rider, obviously.
