He felt cheated and peeved. Couldn’t even enjoy a special, happy little private moment without interference. He glanced out of the window. It was a beautiful night outside. How nice it would be to take a stroll through the garden. Maybe carry his drink out to the summerhouse on the north lawn and puff away at his cigar while gazing up at the stars?

Happy again, Dudley poured more of the excellent Armagnac, grabbed the Havana and his lighter, left the study and padded downstairs and out into the starlight. The gentlest breeze stirred the branches of the weeping willow by the house and the night air was perfumed with the scent of springtime flowers. Sometimes it was permissible to appreciate the works of Lucifer’s rival. But what most filled Tristan Dudley with joy and inspiration right now was the deep sense of satisfaction at the way he’d handled the Annie affair. At times like this, he felt like a Master of the Universe. Why, the Great Lord Satan Himself couldn’t have played this one better, or shown more devious skill in manipulating the gullible masses.

Dudley often mused that if the Devil were to assume human form and come to live among people, he’d choose either of the two careers in which he himself had displayed such excellence: the law, or politics. And though Dudley wouldn’t dare to speak such sacrilegious thoughts to his Pandemonium Club comrades, least of all to the Grand Master, he secretly reckoned that in either of those arenas he’d easily give the Devil a run for his money.

I am a badass. The baddest of them all!

Those were the giddy thoughts running through his mind as he ambled towards the far end of the north lawn and reached the three steps leading up the classically styled pavilion summerhouse. He came here sometimes to read a book or work on a speech, during those rare idle moments in a politician’s life when you could be alone. Solitude was at a premium when you spent most of your life surrounded by armed bodyguards. His security team lived in an annexe adjoining the east wing of the house. He hadn’t seen any of them since returning from the funeral, and supposed the current shift were patrolling some other part of the grounds. But he didn’t need them. He felt extremely safe and very, very content. Now he was going to lounge undisturbed in his wicker throne, light up his cigar in fine style and drink a toast to his own sheer brilliance. This is the life, he thought.

Dudley climbed the first summerhouse step. Then the second.

But he never reached the third. He let out a muffled cry of surprise and terror as a hand clamped over his mouth, and then a force that he could not resist pulled him violently backwards off his feet and slammed him to the ground.

Chapter 53