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vain, flashy man, Rory, a barrister who drank too much.

      Alex and George’s mother had struggled valiantly to keep their dysfunctional home together, until stomach cancer had overwhelmed her when Alex was in his early teens. Things had started to go downhill soon afterwards. The electricity had been cut off regularly, and he remembered overhearing the shouting matches between his father and suppliers in the courtyard when they turned up at the house demanding payment.

      The most humiliating episode for Alex had been when he was summoned to a meeting with his housemaster at boarding school, who explained in the kindliest tones that he was going to have to leave because his fees hadn’t been paid. Alex had gone home for a week until another field had been sold off to pay the bill. He had burned with shame as he had walked into breakfast on his first day back amid the other boys’ taunts and jeers.

      Despite all this, Alex had been brought up to be loyal and dutiful. Wellington was an army school and had drilled the service ethic into him — although he couldn’t help seeing the irony of its motto: ‘Sons of heroes.’ His father had insisted that Alex follow him into the Blues and Royals straight from Wellington, without going to university: ‘You don’t need any of that leftie claptrap.’

      His father’s reputation and his own lack of a degree had been key factors in Alex not being promoted from major to colonel. He had thus faced the prospect of becoming that stock figure of quiet ridicule in English society: the passed-over major. A Tim-Nice-But-Dim, a try-hard who had never made it. Traditionally they were to be found in retirement in the provinces, living off their pensions, running village fêtes or gymkhanas.

      His upbringing had left Alex with a brittle pride. This touchiness would not let him face the ignominy of hanging around the regiment to complete sixteen years’ service before picking up his pension, so he had left and joined the world of private military companies. He was a romantic and hated the idea of joining his former colleagues in the usual safe jobs they went on to — insurance broking or estate agency — and so he had turned to becoming the original freelancer.

      His father had objected virulently, spitting out the word ‘mercenary’ with contempt. In response Alex was quietly and bitterly angry at him for having ruined his chance of serving his country as he’d hoped. An intense suppressed tension had existed between them ever since.

      ‘Hello, Dad,’ Alex said now in a controlled voice. He tried above all things not to lose his temper. His father was pathetic but he was still his father.

      ‘So, have you fixed that roof of yours then?’

      The roof in the family home in Bradbourne Road was leaking. His father had a sixth sense for picking out the things that were bothering Alex most and challenging him on them. ‘Keeping you on your toes’, he called it.

      Alex had been back in London a month now since his contract in Angola had ended. He had effectively put himself out of a job by finishing off the bandits who had plagued the Lucapa diamond mine since the end of the civil war.

      Money was the other main issue chiselling away at Alex’s heart. He had no new assignments lined up and his usual contacts in the defence business had not been able to pass on even the hint of a new project. It usually took several months to get a contract sorted out and he was not sure how he was going to pay the bills and fix his leaking roof in the meantime.

      Lists of figures would drift through his head at night. There was the exorbitant estimate to redo the roof, which, combined with all the other repairs to his crumbling home, was over six figures, and his neighbours were threatening legal action if he didn’t get on with it. He had also recently received letters from another firm of lawyers, threatening him over his father’s debts. The old man had obviously lost control of Akerley entirely, although Alex still didn’t know the full extent of the problem.

      He took a deep breath and tried to fend off his father’s jab. ‘Well, I’m working on it. I’ve got some quotes—’

      ‘Working on it! What does that mean?’

      ‘It means I’m not there yet but I will be.’

      ‘Working on it, Alex, always working on it,’ Sir Nicholas chuckled with derision. ‘You see, you need to be a bit more bloody decisive, like me.’

      ‘Hmm,’ Alex muttered.

      ‘Now look, the dry rot is getting very bad in the north wing here, lot of the roof timbers are about to go. Seeing as you’re just back from Africa and flush with funds I expect that you can fork out a bit to help keep the place running.’

      ‘Dad, I need to get Bradbourne sorted out first.’

      ‘Bugger Bradbourne, child! What about looking after your alma mater!’ This was a well-worn argument. His father knew that the family pile was no longer sustainable since he had sold off most of the farmland around it, but had made it his cantankerous cause célèbre to die in the house he was born in.

      Alex’s jaw tightened. He stood up and began pacing back and forth in the living room. He pressed the receiver hard against his head and his dark brows drew together.

      ‘Look, let’s just get to the point here, Dad. We need to sell Akerley. Without the land the house is just a liability — we’re living in the ruins of our history. We can’t go on as if we’re …’ he raised his free hand in exasperation, ‘… in the Middle Ages or something. You know we—’

      ‘And you know damn well that I never will, so don’t you start that cant again! If you were earning some decent bloody money as a colonel, instead of pissing around with nignogs in the bush, you might actually be able to start putting something back into this family!’

      Alex stopped pacing; his shoulders heaved and he put his head down, his eyes closed, as he summoned up all his strength not to retaliate.

      With forced calm he said: ‘I am trying my best, Dad.’

      ‘Trying won’t do, Alexander! If you weren’t such a fucking failure the family wouldn’t be in this bloody mess!’

      ‘I am not a fucking failure!’ His voice cracked into a shout of rage.

      Provoked.

      Exposed.

      Defeated,

      Humiliated.

      He had failed.

      He had been drawn into an argument, allowing his father to score the petty victory he had been looking for to make himself feel better.

      Alex slammed the phone down but he could hear the braying, triumphant laugh all the way from Herefordshire. His father’s uncanny ability to zero in on his weakness had worked yet again.

      Alex was shaking with anger as he walked to the back of the living room and stood with his hands on his hips, staring out of the window at the overgrown back garden. He did not see or hear anything else as the scene played itself over in his head.

      Murderous fury consumed half of him; the rest was simply crushed by his father’s scorn and his own fear of what he was.

      I am not a fucking failure!

      The phone rang again.

      He stared at it uncomprehendingly for a moment and then snatched it off the cradle and barked, ‘Yes!’

      ‘Mr Devereux?’ asked a voice in a concerned tone.

      Alex could not place the accent exactly, something Middle Eastern but with an American overtone.

      He forced himself to sound more civil. ‘Yes, this is Alexander Devereux.’

      ‘My name is Mr Al-Khouri. I represent an organisation that is interested in doing some business with you, Mr Devereux.’

      ‘Yes?’ Alex replied cautiously.

      ‘I realise that you cannot talk on the phone but I would be interested to meet you tomorrow to outline a project.’

      ‘Right,’ Alex managed.

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