She felt it change. She’d seen his eyes look down and she wanted him to look. She wanted him to see. She wanted Ben to feel desired, valued, to feel like a man and come back to what he was because he’d taken life so others could live and he’d done it again. She wanted him to look and be turned on. She wanted him to feel the tenderness of intimacy. He had dignity and pride. He was something so special and for that he should not be left to die so alone and frightened. It was when he looked up back at her eyes that she knew it was wrong. A mistake made, something that was suddenly stupid and cheap.

‘Get out,’ he whispered, the words trembling and full of emotion. ‘Get the fuck out . . .’

She moved fast. From his bed to the door to her own that was closed quickly as the tears spilled down her cheeks. Humiliation. Loss. Rejection. She wept then. She wept for the first time in years and she did it quietly, almost silently, as Ben lay on his bed with his own cheeks glistening.

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Seven

The morning is the same as every other morning. He wakes up to Safa knocking on the door and goes through the motions of showering, brushing his teeth and getting dressed.

‘Drink,’ she says bluntly in a tone he doesn’t register.

‘Eat,’ she says. He takes a freshly baked croissant from the bowl and goes through the motions of putting it in his mouth.

‘Ben!’

‘What?’ He looks up, startled at the glare coming from Safa.

‘You didn’t even notice.’

‘Notice what?’

‘The croissant,’ she snaps, getting up from the table.

‘Eh?’ he asks, confused until he realises this is the first time they’ve had them, plus the fact that he used to love fresh croissants, which no doubt was on Wikipedia.

‘I’ll wait outside,’ Safa says, getting up and taking the black bag with the pistols with her. Ben watches her go, knowing he should say something, but he doesn’t.

‘She got them for you,’ Harry says.

‘Yeah,’ Ben says for lack of anything else in his head.

‘She’s trying.’

Ben looks at him, sensing a build-up to something else. Harry shifts on his chair and bites into a croissant that flakes apart with crumbs falling lightly to the plate in front of him. ‘What happened when you were seventeen?’ Harry asks.

‘Safa ask you to ask me? Get me talking?’

‘I’m interested,’ Harry says.

‘Not much to say. I was walking home on a country lane. Car pulls up. Five blokes attacked a woman and her kid . . .’

‘And?’

‘That’s it.’

‘You killed them?’

‘Yes. Killed three outright, another died while we waited on the ambulance. The last was DOA.’

‘How?’

‘Knife.’

‘How did it play out?’

‘Dunno.’

‘What happened after?’

‘Got arrested but they let me go. The blokes were gang members . . . like gangsters?’