Carver - By Tom Cain Page 0,50

member of the Ministry of Defence support staff. There’ll be a few of them around.’

Carver was having a hard time paying attention to what Grantham was saying. Alix’s hand was making its way up his inner thigh. Grinning, he swatted it away, then did his best to focus on business.

‘Support staff? Sounds like another way of saying non-uniformed special forces.’

‘Your words, not mine,’ said Grantham. ‘But it shouldn’t be too far out of your comfort zone.’

‘So where do I have to be, and when?’

‘Cardiff Gate services on the M4. There’s a motel there called the Ibis. Go down tonight. Check in under any name you like. In the morning, all your Andy Jenkins documentation will be waiting at reception. Your contact will be called Tyrrell.’

‘Is that a first or second name?’

‘It’s the only name you’re getting. He’ll be waiting for you in the motel car park at 7.00 a.m. in a 58 Reg, metallic-grey Audi A4.’

‘And then what?’

‘Get in the car and go with friend Tyrrell to your destination.’

‘But what is my destination?’

‘An oil refinery.’

‘On Milford Haven, presumably,’ said Carver, thinking of the nearest major installations to Cardiff.

‘That’s one presumption, yes. But anyway, keep your eyes open. Check out as much as you can. See if it helps you in any way to find out what the hell Zorn’s up to. When you get back we can discuss what you plan to do about him. Assuming you know.’

‘Oh, I know what I’m doing,’ said Carver. ‘I just don’t know if it’ll work.’

He ended the call and looked at Alix.

‘Were you talking about me just then?’ she asked, with a spark of humour in her eyes. ‘When you said you didn’t know whether it would work?’

‘Of course,’ said Carver. ‘What else could I possibly be talking about?’

‘I can’t imagine,’ she murmured, leaning towards him and gently putting her hand back between his thighs.

32

* * *

Lambeth

‘SORRY ABOUT THIS,’ Carver said as he opened the door to his flat. ‘It’s not exactly five-star.’

‘But you’re in it,’ Alix said, gazing at him.

‘Yes I am.’

‘Then I love it.’

He took her in his arms then, holding her body against him with the fierceness of a man who never wants to let go. He felt himself get hard, and the press of her hips as she responded to it. The scent of her – not just her perfume but her skin, her hair, even her breath – filled his senses as intoxicatingly as any drug. He covered her mouth with his, and kissed her with a decade of pent-up longing and frustrated desire.

Alix needed the strength of his arms around her. Without them she might not have been able to stand upright. After all this time she was still not immune to him, still failing to retain her self-control as sensations buried for years flooded back with all their old overwhelming power. She felt her body mould to his without any need to think what she was doing. There was no artifice, no tension, just the knowledge that she felt so close, so intimate and so absolutely known to this man that she could barely tell where she ended and he began. The softness of his lips, the rasp of his chin, the way his tongue entered her mouth, the taste of him, the smell of him … It was ecstatic and yet also destabilizing. All her resolution, her determination to remain strong, independent and separate, dissolved. They stumbled through the flat, their lips still locked together, their arms entwined as he led her into the bedroom.

Carver kicked open the door, and only once they were standing right beside the bed did he let go of her. Alix stepped back from him, and in a single fluid movement reached behind her neck, pulled at the bow and let the dress fall to her feet. She stood there in her knickers and her heels, and the sight of her stopped him dead. All this time he’d been imagining what it would be like to see her again, and still he wasn’t prepared for the reality of it. He shook his head in disbelief, and with deep seriousness said, ‘My God, you’re so beautiful.’ And then he was kissing her again, and her fingers were prising open the buttons of his shirt, undoing his belt, unzipping him and slipping under the waistband of his underpants.

As she took hold of him she giggled and said, ‘Hello, old friend.’

Laughing, he wrapped his arms around her again, lifted her off her feet,