of the gunman Palace had sent up to Ternhill, and from what he relayed to Jones about the man, none of the details seemed to match at all.
For starters, the actual gunman sent by Southampton was forty-seven years old. He was tall, well over six feet, with black hair streaked with gray.
But the man Jones had met tonight claiming to be the lone asset from Southampton was of average height, with brown hair, and he appeared to be under forty.
Jones sipped his pinot noir. His salad was placed in front of him but he did not touch it.
“Dammit,” he said softly. It was settled now. No, the man locked in the inn back near the pub wasn’t who he said he was. He was some sort of infiltrator, here in possession of a great deal of knowledge about what had happened in Ternhill and Rauceby, but he was definitely not who he claimed to be.
Jones shook his head at the audacity of it all.
He reached for his mobile again, ready to call his employees waiting back in the inn near the pub, to instruct them to beat the man to death and then throw him in a ditch on a country road.
But as he started to lift the phone a hand appeared over his, gently holding the phone down.
The man connected to the hand sat down at the table, and when Jones looked up, he realized it was the stranger.
For a man unaccustomed to feeling fear, Jones found the tightening twinge in his chest especially unsettling.
The local crime boss turned to his man, who was positioned far across the room. But the bodyguard was facing the entrance, not his boss, and it was evident now that the stranger had slipped in from the kitchen in the back of the dining room.
Jones spoke softly, but sternly. “I call out and he pulls his gun. It’ll be over for you quick, lad.”
The stranger lifted Jones’s napkin off the table, took it back to his lap, and wrapped it around the .45 pistol he pulled from under his shirt. He put the napkin and the gun back on the table, its barrel pointing at Jones.
In his best impersonation of a Southamptoner he said, “Does his gun look anything like this? Probably so, since I nicked this one from your driver out on the street.”
Jones turned to the window, then back to the man in front of him. “Where is my driver now?”
“He’s resting.”
An eyebrow twitched as Charlie Jones realized he was beaten. He recovered and said, “I talked to some mates in Southampton about you. Men with the firm down there. They say the bloke they sent to Ternhill was forty-seven years old.”
The stranger said nothing.
“C’mon, then. Let’s have it.”
“Have what?”
“The secret to that youthful skin of yours.”
It was a joke, but the stranger made no reaction to it.
Just then, the bodyguard at the bar scanned back in the direction of his boss. His head began to turn back to the front door, but then it snapped back to the table across the room. He rose to his feet quickly, obviously astonished to see the stranger from the pub now seated with Jones.
Court grabbed the napkin-wrapped pistol and held it under the table. Calmly he said, “You’re gonna want to wave him back to his stool, Charlie.”
Jones did so. The man hesitated, then sat back down, but opened his coat and put his hand inside, his eyes locked on the stranger.
Court eyed the bodyguard back, matching the man’s malevolent stare. Without taking his eyes from this threat, he said, “I’m just here to talk.”
“I was bleedin’ right not to trust you.”
“No, sir. You were wrong. I’m exactly who I said I was. I’m the bloke who’s gonna exact some payback from the people who got all your boys killed.”
“But you ain’t from Southampton, are ya?”
“I’m from one of the other firms. I won’t be sayin’ which.”
Jones closed his eyes a moment, a look of frustration on his face. “I knew something was off about that accent of yours.”
Court found himself momentarily crestfallen; he thought he should have been awarded an Oscar for his performance. But he made no outward reaction.
Jones sipped his wine, but Court could see the man’s nerves. Court had been unnerving people for decades, after all, so he knew the cues.
The Brit said, “Why should I help you now?”
“Because I’m the guy you want fighting for you, and I’m also the guy you don’t want fighting against you. You give