CHAPTER SIX #2
‘If you insist on giving it,’ she answered, unable to suppress the smile she felt building inside her. ‘Pray, who are you, sir?’
He stood in his stirrups then so that he was able to remove his helmet from his head and make a low bow.
As he straightened up he said, ‘On this blessed sunny morn made all the more beautiful by your presence, I am your servant, my lady, a simple man-at-arms who seeks only to protect and serve, and my name is Edmund Meredith Tudor.’
London 2019
Tudor had not been home more than an hour when he heard the familiar tread of his ex-wife’s heels as she advanced down the wooden gangway.
One of the advantages of living on a houseboat on the Thames was that visitors had to make the walk along the boards to where the house was moored, so if the windows were open he could hear them coming.
One of the disadvantages was that there was no back door to slip out of to avoid unwanted guests.
And this one, an angry Melissa, he could have done without.
‘Rhys? Rhys, you in there?’ She was just about the only person alive who still called him by his first name. She hammered on the door.
With a sigh, he opened it.
‘Good evening, Melissa, what can I do for you?’ he asked, even though he already knew the answer all too well. He had dropped Emily off before returning to the boat. Time enough for her to tell her mother about the trophy. And the attack.
Melissa pushed past, all classy suit and Dior, storming onto the boat and into the open plan living room space.
Her heels continued to make fierce stabs, this time at the old polished wooden floor, causing Tudor to wince.
Since the divorce, after leaving the family home, he had not had much interest in where he lived.
Flats had been places to sleep, eat, keep necessary stuff.
And then an uncle he didn’t even know he had died and left him The Kingfisher and he finally had a place that mattered.
The boat was small, a retired trawler, cleverly converted into a two berth house, with an enviable mooring in sight of Albert Bridge and across the river from Battersea park.
It was worth a bit, but he knew he would never sell it.
It was his way of dealing with the city; a part and yet apart.
The engine still worked, though The Kingfisher had not moved for twenty plus years.
Still, it gave him the sense he could cast off and let the river bear them away any time he wanted.
Right now it seemed like an attractive idea, but not with a fuming Melissa on board.
‘You are one selfish son of a bitch!’ she declared, pausing in her striding to glare at him, hands on hips. ‘You knew how much that tournament meant to Emily, but could you keep your messy work business out of it? Just for one day put her first? Oh, no!’
She took a breath but he chose not to interrupt. Experience had schooled him.
‘And because it’s your work, because it’s you, it’s not just people imposing themselves on her day, her time. No. Nothing so mundane. It’s people trying to bloody kill you! Tell me, how does it feel to know your sorry arse was saved by a fifteen year old girl?’
Tudor processed what she was asking. It was clear Emily had decided against saying just how much she herself had been at the centre of what happened.
True, she had fought off the attackers. Less true was the idea that they were only after him.
Which is what had been weighing heavily on his mind every mile of the journey back from Manchester.
He walked over to the kitchen area and opened the fridge door, taking out a bottle of Bud.
If his daughter had seen fit to shield her mother from the scariest detail of what had happened, he certainly wasn’t about to undo what she had done.
After all, she was the one who had to live with Melissa.
‘Want one?’ he asked, holding up the beer.
‘No!’ she yelled. Then, ‘No,’ in a small voice, the fight suddenly gone out of her. The fear that had made her angry now sapping her strength. ‘What the hell happened, Rhys?’ she asked, sinking onto the old leather sofa.
The storm had passed. He flicked the top off the Bud and went to sit next to her.
‘The truth?’ he asked, as if she’d want anything else.
He gauged a joke about her being a lawyer and needing the whole truth to be ill timed and kept it to himself.
‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. When she shot him a venomous look he tried again.
‘OK, yes, it was probably to do with work but I don’t have all the answers yet. ’
‘Probably?!’
‘When I know more, I’ll tell you, I promise. What I do know, is that we have one seriously skilled girl.’
‘She won the trophy,’ her mother pointed out.
‘Yes, but, what she did went beyond that. I’ve never seen her move that way. She had so much power… honestly, it was…’ he caught Melissa’s expression and stopped. ‘All I’m saying is, she’s an exceptional fighter.’
‘Luckily for you.’
‘Luckily for me.’
He felt her gaze sweeping over him then, checking his head.
‘She said they hit you with a baseball bat. You were knocked out. Where’s the wound?’
‘You always said I’ve got a thick skin. Looks like I’ve got a skull to match. Or, I guess, I was lucky.’
‘Again.’
‘Again.’
A small, tetchy silence joined them. Tudor was reluctant to be the one to fill it.
He didn’t have answers, and he wanted them as badly as she did.
He was not keen to let her see how much the attack had rattled him.
He knew how close he’d come to being wiped out.
He also knew that Emily had triumphed over ridiculous odds to save herself and him. Which raised even more questions.
As if sensing she would get nothing further out of him, Melissa stood up and headed for the door.
Without turning she said, ‘She doesn’t go anywhere with you until this is sorted out.
’ When he made a noise of protest she wheeled round, hand raised against him saying anything.
‘It’s not up for discussion, Rhys. Sort your shit out, then you can see her again. It’s that simple.’
Tudor got to his feet. ’But, we’ve been training at the Aurora gym…’
‘So you can explain to her why she can’t go there any more.’ And then she left, not slamming the door, but closing it with the calm authority of someone who has made their point and knows themselves to be in the right.
The moment DI Chowdhury chose to arrive at the Chelsea houseboat mooring was the exact moment Melissa chose to leave it.
As the entrance consisted of a narrow iron gate that allowed access to the wooden walkways, it was a cosier meeting than either woman would have liked.
Even in the darkness lit only by street lamps and a string of LEDs over the gate, Deborah felt exposed.
She stopped, carefully maintaining a blank expression.
Ex-lover regarded ex-wife coolly. She noticed Melissa’s surprise at seeing her, and understood it.
After all, her affair with Tudor had ended years ago.
It had been an army romance. When both of them moved on to other professions, other lives, they had lost touch.
Deborah never really knew if Melissa truly cared about it.
From what Tudor had told her, their marriage had been beyond saving way before they had had their brief relationship.
But then, wasn’t that what all unfaithful husbands would have their mistresses believe?
She stepped to one side to allow Melissa to pass. ‘Looks like Tudor is popular today,’ she said, instantly wishing she hadn’t. It was a trite, jokey comment, and her feelings for him had never been trite, and his relationship with his wife was certainly no joke.
The other woman looked as if she might respond but thought better of it.
She brushed past wordlessly and strode towards her car in the small parking area without so much as a backward glance.
Deborah was reminded of how she’d always been slightly in awe of her, with her glossy, flawless hair, her high maintenance look that suited her so well, her successful career, and her ability to juggle it all with family life.
Except that, of course, that hadn’t been so successful.
And now Deborah had a career of her own that was pretty darn impressive.
She shook off the remnants of past feelings that were trying to settle upon her.
She wasn’t that breathless, insecure girl any more.
She made her way along the boardwalk, following the solar lights that were fitted to the planks.
Each river-borne residence was charmingly lit with lanterns or fairy lights.
There were no more than a dozen boats in all, but the collection made an appealing community of vessels of varying shapes and sizes.
She checked the boat names and numbers as she passed them until she came to The Kingfisher.
If she had had to pick out a boat for Tudor, it would have been this one.
Where the others had been very much made into houses that happened to float, his was still clearly a boat.
She stepped up the narrow gangway that led to a humble blue door.
She knocked. Within a moment, Tudor opened the door, bottle of beer in hand.
She wondered if he had taken her for Melissa returning.
He certainly seemed surprised to see her.
She liked that. Tudor was seldom wrong footed.
He quickly recovered his guarded composure. ‘Detective Inspector,’ he said with a respectful tilt of the head. ‘Am I in trouble?’
‘More than likely, but that’s not why I’m here.’
‘Oh?’
She rummaged in her shoulder bag and pulled out a bulky object in a large padded envelope. Handing it to him she said, ‘Thought you might be pining for this.’ The gun felt heavy and cold even through its wrapping.