Under His Influence

“I need you to look after her. John is going to ask for a divorce and I’m sure you realise it’ll be devastating for her. For reasons that are too complicated to explain, I probably won’t be able to be there for her. Please, I’m begging you, can you take my place?”

“What’s so fucking important that you can’t be there for your best friend? You are shagging him, aren’t you?”

“It’s complicated. I can’t go into it now. I just need you to tell me—”

“Yes, yes. Of course I’ll look after her. Poor kid. She’s been used up and hung out to dry by that bastard.”

“Thank you, thank you. Good. Listen, I need you to be waiting outside the house. Get there as soon as you can.”

“I’m at work!”

“Make an excuse. I can’t have Anna leaving there alone. I don’t know what she might do.”

“Where are you anyway? Why aren’t you here?”

“I’m out on a story. So you’ll be there? Yes?”

“Yes, okay.”

“Goodbye.”

An hour later, when Anna went pelting down the garden path, half-blind with tears, Liam caught her at the gate, took her in his arms, and guided her safely away.

“Do you feel bad?” Mimi, standing by the door, watched John as he took in the scene from the picture window at the front of the house.

“Bad? Guilty, you mean?”

“Yes, guilty. Her life, needlessly in ruins, because you made a mistake.”

“Don’t be dramatic, Mimi. It isn’t in ruins. She’s twenty-three, she’s beautiful.”

“She’s pregnant by a man she adores, who wants rid of her.”

“That’s scarcely unique.”

“You’re heartless.”

John whirled around. “Actually, I’m not. I have our version of a heart, just like you Earth people. It works differently, that’s all.”

“Does it have compassion? Regret? Remorse?”

“None of those are anything to do with the function of the heart.” John frowned, genuinely bemused. “Don’t you understand basic biology?”

“Yes, I do, but you seem to have misunderstood some of the most common facets of humanity. Whatever is translating your motivations into Earthly ones isn’t doing a very good job.”

“In my world,” John said, crossing the room to Mimi, crowding into her space so that she took an alarmed step back, “we do not waste time with unprofitable emotion. All those things you mentioned—remorse and so on—have no place in our thoughts. I’m sorry if it shocks you, but it’s our way. We are pragmatists.”

“I’ve no problem with pragmatism, but you take it to an extreme. You need to balance it. I don’t think I’d like your world.”

“No, well, yours isn’t really cutting it for me. But under the circumstances…”

“Yes. About those.”

“When do I get to meet Merchant?”

“I had a message from my editor. He’s set up a meeting for tomorrow night, at the Fleet Street Ball.”

“Excellent. You’ll come with me?”