Luke Delaney - The Rule of Fear

‘You all right?’ Renita asked without being heard. ‘Sarge. You all right?’

‘Yeah,’ he answered as her words cut through the intoxicating effects of Kelly. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Good,’ she told him. ‘Van’s on the way.’

King had keys, but still he knocked on the front door then took a step back. He wrung the neck of a bottle of wine while he waited next to Sara, who was holding an elaborate bunch of flowers and a box of expensive chocolates.

They listened as heavy, military-sounding footsteps approached followed by the sound of at least two locks being freed. The door swung ceremonially open, revealing the tall, straight-backed figure of a man in his sixties standing unsmiling in the entrance, his hair cut short and neat, his clothes as clean and pressed as his uniform had been before he retired as a full colonel from the army.

‘Made it here at last then,’ he greeted them.

‘Dad,’ said King.

‘And how are you, Sara?’ his father asked, ignoring his son as he stepped aside to allow them to enter.

‘I’m fine thank you, Mr King,’ she answered through a nervous smile.

‘No need to stand on ceremonies,’ he told her. ‘I keep reminding you to call me Graham. Everyone else does these days.’

‘Sorry,’ she apologized. ‘I keep forgetting. I’m fine thank you, Graham.’

‘You’d better come and say hello to your mother,’ he told King. ‘Let her know you’re still alive. For some reason she still worries about you. Can’t think why.’

‘No,’ King rolled his eyes at Sara when he was sure his father couldn’t see. ‘Nor can I.’

The two couples began to eat their way through the meal that King’s mother, Emily, had taken hours preparing. King couldn’t help but think what a pointless exercise it had been – taking so much time to make something that would disappear in minutes and probably not be appreciated by anyone. He became increasingly aware of the growing pain in his shoulder and back as he watched his mother picking at her food as she’d done all her life – ensuring she remained slim for the Colonel. Her ash-blonde hair was pulled back into a permanent ponytail and she spoke with a heavily clipped accent – on the rare occasions her husband allowed her to get a word in edgeways. Even now, King felt he hardly knew her. He had been sent to boarding school at seven years old and then on to university and finally the police. This was their home, not his. As far as he was concerned, they’d never shared a home .

‘You still haven’t asked about Scott,’ Graham reprimanded him, with no attempt to conceal his annoyance at King’s apparent lack of interest in his own brother.

‘I was going to,’ he replied, ‘when Mum wasn’t around.’

‘What’s your mother’s presence got to do with anything?’ Graham demanded.

‘Well, I didn’t know if she wanted to talk about it,’ he explained. ‘She gets upset.’

‘Nonsense,’ Graham insisted. ‘Your mother’s fine. It’s not like he’s not going to make a full recovery. It’s not like he’s lost any limbs or been disfigured. Many have, you know. If you ask me he’s been bloody lucky.’

‘Funny idea of luck,’ King argued, ‘being shot.’

‘Could have stood on an IED,’ Sara added awkwardly before realizing she wasn’t helping – drawing stony looks from both King and his father.

‘He’s going to be fine,’ Emily tried to end it. ‘That’s all that matters.’

‘Quite,’ Graham huffed as they settled into silent eating until Sara tried once more to break the tension.

‘How long has Scott been back from Afghanistan now?’ she asked.

‘Six months or so,’ Graham answered.

‘Weren’t we supposed to have left there more than a year ago?’ she asked naïvely.

Graham cleared his throat to answer, but King spoke before he could. ‘Not everyone,’ he explained. ‘The army left some military advisors behind.’

‘Shot by the very people he was supposed to be helping train,’ Graham spat the words out like bile. ‘Let the whole lot of them go to hell in a handcart,’ he added.

‘Where is he now?’ Sara asked, making King move uncomfortably in his chair.

‘Still in hospital,’ Emily quickly told her, as if only she had the right to answer the question.

‘But he’s getting out very soon,’ Graham took over again, ‘as Jack would have known if he ever bothered to visit him.’

‘I did know he was being released soon,’ King surprised them.

‘You didn’t tell me,’ Sara smiled uncomfortably.

‘That’s because Scott doesn’t like me talking about him to other people,’ he explained.

‘He didn’t tell me you’d visited him,’ Graham said, suspicion thick in his voice.

‘What Scott and I do is no one else’s business.’

‘Christ,’ Graham laughed. ‘You’re not schoolboys any more keeping silly secrets. For God’s sake, it’s not bad enough Scott got himself shot in Afghanistan – you manage to get yourself stabbed in the police. What sort of an idiot almost gets himself killed walking the beat ?’

‘It can be a difficult job, Mr King.’ Sara had forgotten his father’s instructions to call him by his Christian name. ‘Policing London is dangerous. You can never be sure what you’ll walk into round the next corner.’

‘Nonsense,’ Graham dismissed her. ‘Joining the army in this day and age was always going to present certain risks. Scott knew that and so did your mother and I, but almost getting yourself killed walking around East bloody London. I mean …’

‘Which is exactly why I didn’t join the army,’ King fought back. ‘What’s the point of doing a job where you’ve got a good chance of being blown up or shot? Sounds like a pretty stupid thing to want to do to me.’

‘Which is probably why you got injured in the first place,’ Graham accused him. ‘A touch of karma, I think. You spent so much time avoiding joining the army because you were afraid of being injured, you got injured anyway.’

‘I don’t think so,’ King replied, just about holding it together.

‘The police,’ Graham held his arms out dramatically. ‘There’s no future in it.’

‘He’s on accelerated promotion,’ Sara reminded him.

‘Accelerated promotion,’ Graham scoffed. ‘He’s a sergeant. Now if he’d joined the army he would have started at lieutenant – the equivalent rank of inspector. None of this playing around in the other ranks nonsense. It’s not too late, you know,’ he continued down a familiar track. ‘I could still pull some strings and get you into Sandhurst. You’re still young enough, just.’

‘It’s not for me,’ King insisted. ‘I’m not like you or Scott.’

‘And what exactly is wrong with being like me or Scott?’ he demanded.

‘Nothing,’ King looked for a way to escape the conversation.

‘Then at least think about it.’

‘No,’ he answered bluntly.

‘Why not?’ his father demanded.

‘Because the army’s for fools,’ he couldn’t stop himself from blurting out.

His father breathed in deeply, preparing to attack before his wife finally stepped in to bring matters to an end. ‘That’s enough, you two,’ she insisted with a smile, as if the argument had been nothing more than friendly jousting. ‘We’re just glad that both you and Scott have fully recovered. You gave us quite a scare.’

‘Indeed,’ her husband forced himself to agree – the redness in his face and his slight trembling betraying the anger he still harboured.

‘It wasn’t intentional,’ King told them, happy to continue with the fight until he felt Sara kick him under the table. ‘But at the end of the day Scott’s going to recover and that’s all that matters.’