Dan Abnett - Border Princes

‘Apparently, two of his colleagues had been duffed up by youths in that area recently, and he thought we were out to get him.’

‘Poor bugger.’

‘Yeah. To make things worse, Jack sends him on his way with a cheery “Next time I see Jehovah, I’ll put in a good word for you”.’

The waiter brought the bill over. Gwen waved it to her.

‘I’ll do that,’ said James.

‘I invited you out, remember. My treat.’

She gave the waiter her card. ‘Did Jack really say that?’

James nodded. He sipped the last of his wine and laughed to himself. ‘He’s a menace.’

‘So, you never got him, then?’

‘No, we didn’t,’ James said, sitting forward again and shaking his head. ‘We’re back on it tomorrow. Jack’s quite fired up now, a matter of principle, I think.’

‘Captain Jack always gets his man,’ said Gwen.

‘Well, Captain Jack was off his stroke this afternoon. Zero for three. First the oik casing houses, then the window cleaner who thought we were wanting words about a pliant hausfrau he’d dallied with. Then, the Jehovah’s Witness.’ James counted them out on his fingers. ‘We were up and down Pontcanna all afternoon like a fiddler’s elbow.’

‘I thought that was in and out?’

‘You’re right. What’s up and down?’

‘A whore’s drawers?’

‘Thank you. I haven’t run so far in years. My calves are like toffee apples.’

‘What, crispy and sweet?’ Gwen asked, smiling to the waiter as she punched her PIN into the reader he offered her.

‘No, baked hard and round and… OK, not toffee apples. Either way, I’m totally exhausted.’

‘Not totally, I hope,’ she winked. She took her card and the tear-off strip from the waiter. ‘Thanks.’

‘Not totally, I suppose,’ James said. ‘Well, you paid for all this, and very nice it was too, but weren’t we supposed to be talking?’

‘We were talking.’

‘I told you all about running around Pontcanna like a nong. We didn’t talk about… talky stuff.’

‘The night’s still young,’ she said.

James helped her on with her coat. They thanked the girl working the restaurant’s front of house, and went out into the clear, chilly night. Fairy-light stars and an elegantly simple waxing moon stood out in the glassy blackness over the Bay.

‘I paid extra for that,’ Gwen said.

They walked along the Quay, hand in hand. The restaurants and bars were throbbing with music and bodies.

‘You wanted to consult me, I believe,’ James said.

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Consult away.’

Gwen leant on the railing. The oxide tang of the water was sharp.

‘Rhys and I have been together for a long time. We’re like socks that get rolled up together and dumped in the wash, week in, week out, just because we match. Never mind the holes that need darning.’

‘But you match?’

She nodded. ‘Always have. Never mind the holes. You can live with holes. That’s why God made shoes. To hide the holes in your socks.’

‘Can I ask, at this point, what shoes are representing in this elaborate analogy?’

Gwen chuckled. ‘Bugger only knows. Daily life? I didn’t really think that one through.’

James looked pensive. ‘And — just so I’m clear, you understand — are you saying you only wash your socks once a week?’

She cuffed him on the sleeve. ‘I’m being serious.’

‘So am I,’ James replied earnestly. ‘Living with a woman who only washes her socks once a week, that could have long-term consequences.’

She looked up at him. ‘Long-term? This is my point, you see? There’s only one reason I’m even considering breaking Rhys’s heart, and that’s us. You and me. It’s not a road I’m even going to think of going down unless there’s you and me at the end of it.’

‘I see. I thought you were tired of him?’

‘I don’t know what I am, as far as Rhys goes. Settled. Inert. Static. I’m being selfish, I know. I bloody know that, but I also know I want more. However, I don’t want to hurt him over nothing. I’d only do it if it was truly important.’

‘Right.’

‘And for all I know, this may just be a bit of fun to you. A laugh. A fling. That’s fine. I’d understand. But that’s why I have to consult you. I’d like to know where you stand.’

‘OK,’ James said. There was a pause.

‘No rush, no pressure.’

‘OK.’

‘In your own time,’ she added.

‘Right.’

‘Bearing in mind I paid for dinner and this whole romantic seaview.’

He looked very solemn. ‘So… whether you dump Rhys or not depends on whether I see a future for us? Or not?’

‘In a nutshell,’ she said.

‘You like to put people on the spot?’

‘It’s in my nature as a policewoman.’

‘Gwen,’ he said softly. ‘We’ve had a great time, this week. Despite everything.’

‘We have.’

‘I don’t know how to say this,’ he began.

Her face fell. ‘It’s OK. Just say it. Just say it, James, so I can hear it.’

‘I’m really sorry,’ he whispered.

‘Right. That’s all right, that’s-’

He hushed her with a finger on her lips.

‘I’m really, truly sorry, but you’re going to have to break Rhys’s heart.’

They caught a cab from the rank on the Quay. They sat as far away from one other as they possibly could on the back seat. Too close, they’d become volatile elements, intermix and explode. They didn’t even look at each other as the street-lamps strobed by overhead.

‘Keep the change,’ James told the driver, the cab’s engine purring hot gas into the night cool.

‘Really, mister?’

‘Oh yeah, really.’

‘Have a nice night,’ the cabbie called as he pulled away.

Gwen laughed as James failed to get his key in the lock at the fourth attempt.

‘Not a good omen,’ she giggled.

‘Shush, my hands are shaking.’

‘Nervous?’

‘Yeah.’

The door opened and they blundered inside, wrapped around one another. The deep kisses felt like the first they’d ever shared. It was weird, charged, startling.

‘Hang on,’ he said, ‘hang on a sec.’ Pulling open the last few buttons of his shirt and ditching it, he headed into the kitchen. She heard the fridge door thump open, followed by a clink of glasses.

James reappeared with a bottle of Moët and two crystal flutes.

‘I came by earlier, and put this in the fridge,’ he said. ‘In case… just in case we had something to celebrate tonight.’

‘Oh God, that’s so sweet,’ she whispered.

Two hours later, they remembered the champagne and opened it. It was warm by then, but they didn’t care.

Flicker. Fast-cut: a bridge, a river, a palace. Shades on the high walls.

Too fast to follow, too jerky and chop-cut. Flicker. Edit. Edit. Smash-cut: the bridge, very old, very worn. Smash-cut: the thundering torrent of a river boiling along a deep, stone-cut channel under the bridge. The river is a mile wide. The bridge, therefore, worn and crumbling though it seems, is a mile wide too.

Smash-cut: the palace, made of silver-green bricks, towers reaching up into the clouds. The palace shimmers. Its high, silver-green walls are like the lustrous scales of a sleeping reptile. The sky is a silent bowl of black, marked by pinpricks of fire.

Smash-cut: the lurching segue of dream logic. Someone is running across the ancient bridge. Running fast. Fast footsteps on stone. Someone is running away from the palace across the ancient bridge. It’s him. He’s running away across the ancient bridge. Why is he running?

The shades on the high walls stir. Alerted by distant sirens, they begin to move, leaping and scurrying, like shadows, like whispers, like wraiths. They are barbed, and armed for killing.