‘Well, that went well,’ Katie muttered, frowning after Goodie and shifting Anya onto her other hip.
‘What did you expect Katie,’ Benji said, ‘she’s ornery.’
‘What’s ornery mean?’ Katie asked. ‘Don’t tell me you’re speaking Russian again; it really annoys me when you slip into other languages.
‘It’s not Russian, it’s Texan; it means “stubborn and difficult to deal with”. I learnt it off that American bloke who helped Dad out with the film-set security.’
‘Wow, that’s perfect for her,’ Katie said, ‘and for you in fact,’ she carried on, nodding towards Benji. She sighed and looked over at Nick. ‘You weren’t much help. Thanks for nothing, Mr Important Business Man. Now she can hide out and brood to her heart’s content in your vast mansion. Come on, Geoff, this has been a waste of time.’
‘Wait,’ Nick said as she started to walk away. If there was a chance that even a small chink of light could be shed on Goodie’s background he was going to be grabbing onto it. ‘Where are you staying?’
‘We’re all in The Coach House,’ Katie told him. ‘Sam had to stay so we decided to invade.’ She looked panicked for a moment and rushed on. ‘He did check that it was okay, and The Coach House is bloody huge and so far away you’ll barely know we’re even here.’
Nick smiled slowly and shook his head. ‘I think you’ll find we can do better than that.’
*derr-mo– shit
*cariad– sweetheart
*twp– stupid, simple-minded
*preeveet– hello, hi
Chapter15
Just her and the knife
‘There is no need for this,’Goodie said to Nick after she’d practically dragged him away from everyone in the living room. It had taken surprisingly little time to convince Katie that he could accommodate her family plus Benji for the weekend. Various excuses had come into play: his mother loves children (this one was true); it would be too complicated for him to alter the security arrangements at this stage what with MI6 being involved (this was stretching the truth – MI6 may have been keen that he was protected but he was sure they didn’t give a monkey’s about the logistics); his family would be offended (this was an outright lie – the Chamberses were thick-skinned in the extreme).
Fortunately, with the mention of MI6, Katie’s eyes had widened almost comically before she had leaned in and asked: ‘Do you think they could be watching us right now? From satellites?’ She sounded both terrified and hopeful. ‘It’s like that film the51st State, isn’t it? You’re like Will Smith.’ Nick had fought his smile down with ruthless efficiency, widened his own eyes and blinked slowly. ‘Oh my God; you can’t even speak about it, can you?’ Katie whispered. ‘Say no more; I’ll go back to The Coach House and talk to Sam.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Nick told her, and she’d nodded distractedly, not for one second questioning the fact that he wasn’t taking his close protection officer with him, which had been one of the main points of his argument. ‘You do know that that little boy has slipped away again.’ Stealth-wise, Nick would have to put Benji right up there with Goodie: he’d only just noticed the little shit was gone.
‘Bloody hell,’ Katie said, scanning the house and gardens. ‘He’s a slippery bugger that one.’
‘Is he yours?’ Nick asked. There was no resemblance and he’d noticed Benji calling her Katie.
‘Ohno,’ Katie said as she started walking down the drive, Nick easily keeping pace with her short strides – her voice was so full of relief that he almost laughed. ‘His mum, Sarah, is my best friend and his dad, Rob, is Sam’s partner in the security company. Sarah and Rob have gone away for their first child-free week in ten years and all the kids –they’ve got five in total by the way – apart from Benji have gone to their grandparents’.
‘Why not Benji?’
‘There’s no way they could handle him,’ Katie muttered darkly. ‘He needs a trained professional.’
‘Are you a nanny then?’
‘Me? I’m a GP; I meant Sam.’
‘Sam’sa trained nanny?’
Katie burst out laughing. ‘No youtwpbugger; I meant Sam’smilitarytraining. That’s what you need with Benji – tracking skills, endurance training, counter-intelligence stuff.’
Nick started laughing.
‘I’m not kidding,’ Katie said, now deadly serious.
When they arrived at The Coach House Nick stood with his arms crossed over his chest and an amused expression on his face as Katie told her husband how they had to stay at the main house, giving some garbled explanation about satellites and national security, even bizarrely adding in another Will Smith reference for good measure. Sam had listened patiently, sipping his tea. When her rant was over he simply looked at Nick and raised an eyebrow in the non-verbal style which seemed to be his main method of communicating, and Nick just shrugged one shoulder.
‘Fine,’ was Sam’s one-word agreement, which earned him an excited kiss on the cheek before Katie dumped Anya into his arms and sped out of the kitchen to pack up their stuff.
