Private London (Private 4)

‘Sorry, I thought I’d turned it off,’ I mumbled as I fumbled the phone out of my pocket. But Kirsty was too quick for me and grabbed the phone out of my hand like a heron spearing a trout. She looked at the phone, turned it off, threw it to the side and slapped me hard across the face.

Behind me I could hear my best man fighting hard to suppress a laugh. But Kirsty fixed him with a basilisk stare and any thought of laughter disappeared like a candle flame snuffed out in a high wind. She turned back to her uncle, the minister.

‘Get on with it, then,’ she said.

The minister, Reverend Crake, cleared his throat and then smiled at her. ‘And do you. Kirsty Fiona Webb, take Daniel Edward Carter as your lawful wedded husband?’

She waited long enough to twist the hook and then nodded. ‘I do,’ she said.

It hadn’t been the best omen for our marriage.

I remembered Richard Smith’s amused, laughing eyes that day. And then I looked down at his daughter’s eyes nine years later. Closed now. Machinery keeping her alive.

I’d find the sons of bitches who’d done this to my beautiful god-daughter and make them pay, I swore to myself.

Or I’d die trying.

Chapter 27

I FOLDED MY other hand over Alison’s and gave it a squeeze. ‘Kirsty didn’t want you there, you know that.’

‘Of course I knew that. I’d told her plenty of times that there was no reason to be jealous.’

I grimaced slightly. ‘Yeah. That probably didn’t help.’

‘I know.’

‘My best man at the wedding was Captain Smith. Her father.’ I nodded at Chloe. ‘The man who saved my life.’

‘The war,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

I had never spoken to Alison about the war. Never spoken to anyone about it. They tried to get me to have counselling. But Dan Carter is strictly old school.

As I said, I’d come home invalided out. Eventually I was out of the wheelchair. But I swapped my baton for a bottle and tried to chase the demons away with that. I wasn’t the first and I sure as hell wouldn’t be the last.

All I managed to do, however, was chase away my wife, my family, my friends.

Like I say, it’s a familiar story, not one I’m proud of. Not one I beat myself up over, either.

Look closely at who most of the homeless in London are, or at those who are languishing in prisons when they should be in hospitals. Military men and women who had given more than they were asked in service to their country and got short shrift for change.

I was one of the lucky ones. I didn’t end up freezing to death on a West End backstreet while the civilians walked by with their gazes averted. Eventually I came to terms with things. I realised I was carrying the guilt like a lame man who’d been cured hanging on to a walking stick that he no longer needed. But it wasn’t my guilt to carry and so I tossed it down and started living again. I went back into work. I turned my life around.

But not in time to save my marriage.

On cue, like the devil you speak of, my ex-wife turned the corner of the corridor at that moment and walked towards us.

My hand flew guiltily away from Alison’s. Stupid, I know, but it was a knee-jerk reaction and I could see that Kirsty had noticed it. Some emotion was playing in her eyes – was it a frown or was it a smile? I couldn’t tell. Maybe that was the problem. I never could tell with Kirsty. Never sure whether she was going to slap me or kiss me. Or both.

But I had a notion of what the look in her eye was that Friday evening. It looked a lot like sympathy.

‘Alison,’ she said simply.

‘Kirsty.’

Kirsty looked at me, hesitating for a moment, and I felt a chill dancing over my heart. Someone walking on my grave.