The Sugared Game - K.J. Charles Page 0,10

locked. Most likely he’d simply left the light on.

All the same, he backtracked soundlessly to his desk and picked up the Messer, his old trench knife, which he’d taken from a German sentry once he’d ensured the man would have no further use for it. Like him, it was a practical relic of the war: it had an eight-inch blade that took a razor edge, and if he’d been the sort who notched the handle for every kill, it would have looked like fretwork.

Knife in hand, he slid back up the stairs, avoiding the points that creaked, with a flutter of the old excitement in his gut. He paused outside the bedroom door and listened.

Not a sound. He was probably making a fool of himself over a forgotten light, though at least there would be nobody here to see him do it. Still, no point taking a risk. He adjusted his grip on the Messer, narrowed his eyes against the light, and slammed the door wide open.

It bounced off the wall, rather than hitting anyone on its way there. Will took two quick steps forward, keeping his back to the wall and the knife out, and scanned the room.

There was a man sitting in his armchair, reading one of his books. As Will stared he looked up, gave a quick flick of a smile, and unhurriedly marked his place with the dustjacket flap.

“What the bloody hell,” said Will.

“Good evening,” said Kim.

Chapter Three

Will gaped at him, lost for words. Kim raised a brow. “Do you always enter bedrooms so dramatically?”

“I thought you were Zodiac. What’s wrong with the front door?”

“I didn’t want to announce my presence to anyone else.”

“Why not? What are you doing here? And come to that, how did you get in?”

“Your back window.”

“Again? For crying out loud. I only took the nails out last week!”

“For which I’m glad,” Kim said. “It would have been unsubtle to smash it, and defeated my purpose.”

Will glowered at him. “Which was what?”

“Getting in here without anyone noticing me.”

“It’s a shop. You can walk in without anyone paying attention all the time. I wouldn’t pay attention if you walked in.”

“You’re a born bookseller,” Kim agreed. “Sadly, I need to be a bit more careful than that.”

That wasn’t greatly surprising. As Will understood it, and subject to the very real possibility that Kim had misled him, he solved problems in secretive ways for British Intelligence in one form or another. “Who is it now? Zodiac? Did you annoy the Reds? Or is the War Office fed up of you? I wouldn’t blame them.”

“None of the above,” Kim said. “I’m being blackmailed.”

Will considered that statement, then put the Messer on his mantelpiece and sat down, on his bed since there was only the one chair and Kim was in it. “By whom?”

“That’s the question, but let’s not plunge straight in when I haven’t even asked how you are. How are you?”

Will glowered at him. “We both know you’re here for something. You might as well tell me what.”

“We can still observe the niceties. And I am aware you might not care to hear my woes, in which case you should have a chance to say so, thus saving us both a tedious recitation.”

“Is that your idea of an apology? It is, isn’t it? You behave as though I never existed for months, turn up when you want something, and that’s the best you can do?”

Kim gave a tiny shrug. “Do you want an apology?”

Will bit back a fervent ‘yes’. He was deeply pissed off, but Kim didn’t owe him anything and never had. It didn’t work that way. Will wasn’t a country girl, courted and cast aside by a London seducer, and it would not do to give the impression that he felt jilted. Kim’s demeanour gave no indication of regret, still less a desire to resume relations, and Will was damned if he’d embarrass himself by behaving differently.

“What I want is a drink if I’m going to have to listen to whatever damn fool thing this is,” he said. “I suppose you want me to hit somebody for you.”

“I was hoping to approach the subject with a little more finesse.”

“Wrong shop. Whisky?”

Kim was an amateur mixologist with a well-stocked cocktail cabinet in his mansion flat. Will kept a bottle of cheap Scotch on the mantelpiece. He sloshed it out and handed Kim a tumbler.

Kim sipped the neat spirit with a wince as Will kicked off his shoes and stretched out his legs on the