Blackwater - By Conn Iggulden Page 0,12

to have him just stand there and talk like we knew each other was surreal.

‘I’ll call the police,’ I said.

Denis raised his eyebrows in something approaching surprise.

‘Michael said you don’t scare easy,’ he said. ‘I can’t see it, myself.’ I glanced sideways at Michael, but his face was blank. No chat from him, or demands to be given whisky. In the great man’s presence he was solid business, a professional.

I still said nothing, so Denis gestured for me to be brought along. I found myself being marched into my own kitchen once more. I had a sick feeling that they were going to kill me. For a moment I imagined Carol coming back in a few days, and I’m ashamed to say I took pleasure in the guilt she would feel.

The whisky bottle was still where I had left it, and Denis poured himself a glass of it, taking a sip as he faced me. If I’d planned ahead, I realized I could have laced it with some poison, like in an Agatha Christie book. Honestly, though, where would I have got hold of a decent poison? He’d have tasted weedkiller, surely? The trouble with that sort of thing is that you end up in prison for life. No matter how things turned out, I wasn’t going to let that happen.

Michael snapped his fingers in front of my nose. ‘Pay attention and answer the question,’ he snapped.

My mind had wandered again, preferring vagueness to the actual reality of waiting to be murdered.

‘I don’t know where she’s gone,’ I said. Some part of me had been listening and that was what Denis had asked. ‘She’s gone away,’ I added. I wanted to answer their questions. I wanted the conversation to go on and on, all day if they liked. I didn’t want to imagine what would happen when the talking stopped.

‘Tell me, David,’ Denis said, pulling up the other chair and sitting down. ‘Tell me why your wife can’t bear to think of leaving you?’

I blinked at him, trying to look as if I was giving his question some serious thought. Only Carol would find me, and she might not be back for days.

‘I don’t know. She loves me,’ I replied. Denis was not a pleasant-looking man to stare at. His skin was flushed and his eyes were flat and cold. His freckles stood out on the pale, bony head, and for an instant I could only see them, like a web of dots on his face.

‘Are you cruel to her, David?’ he said to me suddenly, almost in a whisper. I could feel him tense as he watched me. He really wanted to know. Poor sod never understood her.

‘She’s the only thing I value in the world,’ I said, leaning closer to him. The truth of this was somehow clear, and Denis shifted uncomfortably. I wondered what his own meat and veg wife had been like. Did he have red-haired little kids with bony faces and hard laughter? Carol was a force of nature compared to his sort of home. I could almost sympathize with what he’d been through.

‘You should walk away from this mess,’ I told him as he stared. ‘She needs me, so I stay. Anything else, anyone else – they’re just strangers.’

I could see he was struggling with some internal argument. He practically shook with irritation and he knocked back the glass of poison-free whisky without seeming to taste it. I heard the bottle clink on the glass as he refilled. I didn’t much like the prospect of him getting drunk in my kitchen.

Denis turned round in his seat. ‘Are you wearing gloves, Michael?’ he asked.

I glanced up to see that Michael was. Denis too had a pair, and I had a sudden sense of dropping from a great height. I don’t think I’ve ever heard something more frightening than that casual question. When Denis turned back to me, I had to hold my hands together on the table to stop them shaking.

‘I could make you vanish, David. No husband for her to come home to, understand? Perhaps there would be room then for a man who’s more than some weird little parasite. You don’t even work, do you, David? You just sit here and spend the money she makes for you. Does that make you feel like a man, David?’

‘She would never trust you if I disappeared,’ I said slowly. ‘She knows you sent Michael the first time. She’ll know it was you.’ I liked the