The Alex King Series, A BATEMAN [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

talk. Or before I got the chance to interrogate them.”

“What?” she looked at him incredulously. “Who? How? When?” She shook her head, realising just how stupid she had sounded. “What are you talking about?”

“A GRU agent held a gun on me,” he said. “It escalated, and I killed her.”

“Her?”

King nodded, an image of the woman going for her reload. He was still angry she had pushed him to it. “Yes. But somebody else tried to kill me, too.”

“Did you kill them?” she asked, tearing at her own suit. “That’s how it usually ends when somebody comes after you.”

“Not this time.”

“But they’re dead?”

“Yes.”

“Then who killed them?”

King shook his head. “That man with the mulled wine,” he said. “I know him. And I need to tell you about him. So, let’s get that drink, because it won’t be quick.”

32

 

From their own private alcove, affording the generous and comforting heat of the log-burning stove, King settled into the comfortable wing-backed chair and clearly observed the reception desk through the open concertinaed doorway. He had been about to ask the manager to look at any CCTV the hotel may have had of the grounds but had been put off by the in-depth conversation he had been having with both the Russian waiter and barman. There had been the air of conspiracy about it, although Caroline had been quick to remind him that he had effectively passed on their lack of hospitality skills with the waitress. What looked like conspiracy could well have been a stern word about standards and expectations.

King hadn’t noticed any cameras on his ride up in the snowmobile. He had surveyed the hotel for a while, much to Stewart’s consternation, but he wasn’t going to change the way he operated for him. The man should have known the importance of a recce, even if it was just a casual observation. The two men had checked in separately, thanks to King parking the snowmobile down the side of the hotel, out of the way of the main entrance. The winding road up the mountain, or what King decided was merely a huge mound – an almighty engineering feat, but no less a mound all the same – had been easy enough and King saw by the tracks that a caterpillar style machine had taken regular trips, compacting the snow as hard as concrete. It would have made sense to bring up the hotel’s supplies from the carpark this way. The snowmobile coped with the corners and gradient effortlessly, but he could see why the funicular had been constructed. Cars would not cope at all, and the prepared carpark below had been full of all sorts of vehicles. He had counted a dozen. He assumed some would belong to staff, but otherwise it had meant the hotel would be barely half-full. He thought of the impending storm and considered it was just as well.

“So, you and he go back to MI6?”

King took his eyes off the reception desk and looked back at Caroline. “All the way. Another life,” he paused. “It’s not pretty, but I want you to know.”

“You’re scaring me, Alex,” she said quietly. “Who is he?”

“He recruited me,” he said. He stared into the fire now, the flames hypnotic. The drinks came, but he barely noticed. He was in another world.

Caroline edged his beer across the glass table closer to him. “Go on,” she prompted.

“I haven’t told you this, but I went to prison.”

“I know,” she said. “I guessed.”

“You guessed?” King asked. “What does that say about me?”

She shrugged. “I can read you, Alex. Just snippets you say, or how you react to conversations, or dramas and films on the television. Little tells.”

He shrugged. “I was in and out for all sorts. Fights and thefts mainly. I had nothing, and it’s not an excuse, but I had to feed my brothers and sister from before I was ten. If I didn’t well, she certainly wouldn’t have.” He had told Caroline about his mother before, but only skirted the issues. She had been a crack whore and the family had disintegrated into care after she had arranged a punter to be with her own twelve-year-old daughter. King had been unruly and far enough into his teens to be considered a n adult and he had never seen his siblings again. He had found them though, many years later and had seen them right financially. Although, it had been an anonymous endeavour. “I started with the biblical loaf of bread to feed my family.” He smiled. “And then the odd television or stereo…”

Caroline had been privately educated, went to a good university and entered the army as an officer. She attended Sandhurst and had childhood memories of her pony and skiing trips in the Christmas holidays. She bristled and felt entirely guilty when she heard snippets from King’s childhood. “It must have been tough,” she said, aware of the emptiness in her words.

King looked away from the fire and took a sip of his beer. He nursed the glass, but the flames were a welcome distraction from making eye contact with her. He loved to look into her eyes, but not for this. “I killed two soldiers in a bar fight,” he said. “I was an arrogant shit, and I boxed semi-professionally. They were back from a tour in the sandbox, pretty drunk and hitting it big with the women. They had their pay and were throwing it around. I was a tosser. There were words, insults and punches thrown. I was faster. But it didn’t stop there. When they were down, I went back for more…”

Caroline saw that his eyes were glistening. Usually so cold and hard, they looked vulnerable for the first time. She sipped her gin and tonic, unsure what she should do. The distraction was welcome.

“I went to