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It was raining when the black cab he had taken at Heathrow dropped him on Kingsway outside Smith’s café. It was about three in the afternoon and the thoroughfare was crowded with people. Despite this the café was quiet and he took a seat inside ordering coffee and a sandwich. When one of the waitresses brought the order he showed her a picture of Sam he had brought with him.
She nodded her head. “I recognise him, yes he comes here. Early in the morning with all the American newspapers.”
Josh smiled. “That sounds about right.”
“He looks different now, not so smart.”
“Does he come in much?”
“He used to come in a lot, every day sometimes but I haven’t seen him since last week.”
Josh understood immediately Sam would stop coming here because he feared he might have been recognised with Josh. The café was a good place to wait until the rain passed, but he couldn’t rely on it as way to find Sam. He had to start searching and he was beginning to realise the impossibility of the task he had taken on.
When he had paid he went out into the street. Following the route he had taken with Sam he crossed into Lincoln’s Inn Fields, he walked through the park and then back around the edge of the square. The buildings he passed yielded no clue except a certainty Sam loved it here, a museum in a Georgian house, the Land Registry, The Royal College of Surgeons. If he stood here long enough Sam would walk by, absorbing the antique strength of these institutions. So far, he had to admit it was his only plan.
He found The Old Curiosity Shop, it was still closed and there was no Sam waiting for him this time. No Sam, no Little Nell, nobody.
He stood for a while and watched the world go by. Josh saw young, dark men in suits and coats going about their business. He had to look twice before knowing they were not Sam. London was a big city, London was one of the biggest cities. It would be virtually impossible to find someone in the best of circumstances. When they were deliberately hiding, what chance was there?
He remembered standing here as Sam had written directions on a piece of paper for him. Why hadn’t he grabbed hold of him there and then and refused to let him go?
He followed the haphazard curves of the streets passed the London School of Economics. Students milled about outside clutching books and files and soggy umbrellas, none of them were Sam.
He walked up Kingsway again, passed Smiths, passed shops and offices and Holborn underground. Sam knew this area well, he knew the back streets and the cafés. Josh was certain he either lived or worked here. Josh formulated a plan to go from door to door asking for him. Brilliant. Plan B. That should only take about a year.
Kingsway ended at High Holborn and walking up Southampton Row, he was faced with a hotel. A large modern building called The Grange, which looked like half the hotels he had ever stayed in. Josh stared at it, he had no idea why the place should be significant to him but it was. He looked down at the overnight bag he had brought with him. It was weighing heavier with every step and he had to stay somewhere.
He crossed the road and was greeted and admitted to the hotel by a doorman in an aubergine bellboy suit and top hat. He checked in and, as an afterthought, showed the receptionist the picture of Sam. She shook her head and informed him it was her first day.
“Ask Vic over there.” She directed him back to the doorman. “He reckons he knows everyone.”
Josh approached the doorman who, enjoying a quiet moment, had taken off his top hat and was twirling it in absentminded circles, revealing a violent mass of spiky blond hair. Josh showed him the photograph of Sam which he took willingly. For a moment Josh thought he saw a flicker of recognition in the young man’s eyes but he shook his head.
“Sorry mate, I’ve never seen him.”
“He could have been a guest or an employee in the last six months.”
“No, I don’t remember him.”
Josh took the picture back, realising again how hopeless his task was. “Thanks anyway.”
He went up to his room, peeled off his Mac and pulled a bottle of something out of the mini bar. He drank it while flicking through channels on the TV and when the bottle was empty he lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.
Once again, sleep defeated him. Dozing briefly he had to fight his way out of a nightmare and anyway he was aware he had to phone Leo. Who would be beginning to wonder if all his Senior Staff would disappear one by one at six monthly intervals. Taking a leaf out of Sam’s book he decided to use a public payphone so the call would be marginally less easy to trace.
He got up again after an hour and took a hot shower. It didn’t revive him. The lack of sleep began to linger in his bones, in a tightness in his chest, in a sore throat.
He constantly had Mandy’s voice in his ear now and when he stepped out of the shower the phone ringing in his room triggered the most detailed memory he had had so far of her final call to him.
“I think they might try to kill you.” Her voice was clear over barely suppressed terror. “They think you know. Oh -.” An explosion of shattering glass and guns firing terminated the call.
When he came out of the flashback he was kneeling on the bathroom floor, clutching his head in his hands and crying with the pain the vision brought. He turned quickly and vomited into the lavatory.
The phone continued to ring as he stood at the sink and splashed water on his face. He abandoned an attempt to brush his teeth with trembling hands. The phone stopped for a moment then started again and he gathered himself sufficiently to answer it. It was the receptionist who had checked him in.
“Mr Lyman, I’ve got Mr Seaborn in reception for you.”
He didn’t answer immediately, not fully believing what he had heard.
“Are you there?”
“Seaborn, you said?”
“Yes.”
“No kidding, send him up.”
There was a muffled conversation. “He says would you mind meeting him down here.”
“Sure, I’m on way.” He knew he hadn’t mistaken the look on Vic’s face when he first saw Sam’s photograph. He had clearly been protecting Sam from unwanted visitors but had immediately contacted him.
Josh dressed in jeans, a T-Shirt and black sweater. He grabbed his Mac in case Sam wanted to make out in the park again.
Sam wasn’t in the foyer or the lounge that adjoined it. When the receptionist saw him she pointed at a side door. “He said he’d meet you outside.”
This didn’t surprise Josh, given how careful Sam had been when he had last seen him. He pushed open the side door and found himself in a small bay for loading and unloading taxis and coaches.
There was one taxi there taking payment from a fare and a man stood near the door smoking. There was no sign of Sam.
When the taxi drove off and the passengers had gathered their luggage and gone inside Josh found himself alone with the man. There was a stillness about him which drew Josh’s attention and it was then as the man dropped his cigarette and took a step nearer to Josh that he realised he had walked into a trap. The man was Agent Webster.
Before he could move he felt something jab into his side and restraining hand gripped his arm. Looking down he saw a glint of metal. Webster spoke in a whisper. “Don’t move, Josh. It’s a gun.”
Josh sighed. “Perfect, that’s just perfect,” he muttered. “I’m still the Deputy Chief of Staff you know, do you really think this is a good idea?”
“Shut up. You’ve got something of ours.”
“What have I got?” He demanded. “I haven’t got anything.”
The gun making a disturbing clicking noise reminded Josh he had been told to shut up. “Lets walk to the car.”
He had started to pull Josh along when they were both distracted by a car screeching to a halt next to them and a top hat flying past their heads. The hat was followed by a tumble of two male bodies, bulldozing into them. Josh stumbled and Agent Webster was knocked to the ground, the gun flying out of his hand. Before Josh fell he was grabbed by one of the men and bundled into the back of the car. The man got in with him and the second who couldn’t be anyone but Vic with that hair, scooped up the gun and his hat and leapt into the drivers seat taking off with more screeching.
“Fantastic, Fantastic. Fucking brilliant.” Vic yelled as Josh shook off his dizziness and looked up to see who it was who was holding him with such steadying hands.
“Sam,” he said in wonderment.
“Josh, I can’t believe you’re here.” Sam touched his face. “Vic phoned me to tell me you were staying in the hotel and asking for me. We just saw what was happening. Who was that?”
“I don’t know. Could be one of any number of people who seem to hate me.”
“So you left well alone with the Mandy thing, just like I asked you to.”
“Uh…yeah. As in, hardly at all.” Josh shivered as a ripple of delayed shock reverberated through him. He looked at Sam. He was energised by what had happened, his eyes were flaming with suppressed anger and he looked utterly, devastatingly gorgeous.
“Josh,” Sam said. “This is so dangerous. Why did you come here?”
“To rescue you. You know…obviously.”
Sam sighed in understanding. “My hero.”
“Sam, I was sure one of us would be dead by now.” He gathered Sam into an embrace while Vic followed a circuitous route round back streets at great speed.
“Whose Sam anyway?” Vic asked when he finally slowed to a halt outside a block of flats on a side street.
Josh let Sam go and Sam looked behind to see if they had been followed. Then he turned back to Josh, concerned eyes wandering over him. “Did you get hurt there?”
“Nah, I’m fine.”
“Because you look a bit, you know, not very well.”
“I’m getting that a lot.”
Vic turned back hooking his arm over the back of the seat. “So not Phil but Sam?”
Sam nodded. “This is Josh, I’m Sam. It’s quite a long story but I’m not in fact an East End gangster.”
Vic nodded at Josh. “Is your mate all right, he looks a bit rough?”
Sam turned back to Josh, who was trying to quell another wave of dizziness. “Josh, what’s happened to you?”
”That’s a fun story.”
”Have you had a death threat?”
“Brilliant,” said Vic enthusiastically.
“No, you have. And they know you’re here?”
“They do?” said Sam. “Oh. Do they know where I live?”
Josh shrugged. “Maybe. But you’re still alive so maybe not.”
“What the fuck are you guys in to?” Vic asked and no one replied.
“Vic, you’ve got that man’s gun.” Sam reached and carefully picked it up. He examined it thoughtfully.
“Josh, can you use a gun?”
“Yeah, from when I was bagman for the mob.”
“I was just asking.”
“I come from Connecticut not Dodge City.” Josh rubbed the back of his neck, he was feeling worse by the minute.
“Maybe I’ll hold on to it,” Sam said thoughtfully.
Vic and Josh exchanged a glance, each haunted by almost identical images of Sam tripping over his own feet and said in unison, “that’s a really bad idea.”
Sam looked up. “What, I’m getting it in stereo now?” He looked at the gun. “Okay.”
Vic took it back from him. “I’ll sling it in the river. I’ve always wanted to do that.”
Josh closed his eyes. “What are we going to do?”
“I think we should go back to my house. I have a passport there and then we should go straight to the airport and go home. We’ll be safe at the White House, until we get this thing out into the open.” He frowned. “That’s if they don’t kill us on the way,” he paused to dismiss his train of thought. “Do you have anything you need in your hotel room? Have you got passport and money on you.”
Josh patted the pocket of his Mac. “Yes.”
“I can get your stuff out of your room, no problem,” said Vic.
Sam said. “Don’t, someone will be watching the room. Don’t risk it.”
“Jesus, are you sure you’re not an East End gangster?”
“You’d better get back to work, Vic. Or you’re going to get into trouble.” Sam ran cool fingers through Josh’s hair, rested his hand on Josh’s forehead. “I’ll have to take your car. I don’t think he can get on public transport.” Josh hadn’t realised he was drifting out of the conversation until he heard them talking about him.
Vic said, “I’ll drive. My shift’s finished now anyway.”
Josh found himself being eased into Sam’s arms, and his head fell against his chest. “Take it easy, Jones,” Sam whispered. “It’ll be all right.”
“Er, Phil. Is he your bloke by any chance?”
“Yes. He’s my bloke and I should never have let this happen to him.”
~*~
When Josh opened his eyes he was lying in bed in a small room. It was simply furnished with a single bed, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers and an armchair. It was an attic room with a softly sloping ceiling and the walls were newly painted white. A lamp on the bedside table lit the room in shadows and it was dark outside.
He sat up and a wave of dizziness overcame him. He recalled he had been ill with a fever and when he had opened his eyes through the hallucinations and the nightmares he had seen this sloping ceiling and Sam. He wandered momentarily if that had been a hallucination too, that the vast impossibility of finding Sam so easily was just a symptom of his fever.
He looked around the room, his Mac hung on a hook on the door next to the coat he had given Sam. A small television on the wardrobe was piled with newspapers. Otherwise the room was clean and ordered. He was reassured he was in Sam’s territory.
He was wearing underwear and a T-Shirt that were not his. Sam must have put them on him and he wondered how long he had been ill. He carefully got out of bed, found his jeans which had been washed and laid over the back of the armchair and put them on.
Opening the door he saw the room was on its own at the top of a flight of stairs, there were three doors on the next floor down and a floor below that. He had no memory of walking up the stairs.
On the floor below he found the bathroom he was looking for and after he had relieved himself he washed his face and looked at his reflection in the mirror. He was pale with deep circles around his eyes but he was aware of feeling rested for the first time in a long time. The trip down the stairs had, however, knocked the energy out of him and he sat down on the edge of the bath.
There was a knock at the door. “Josh.”
He opened it and found Sam there. “Hey, you’re not supposed to be up.” Sam put his arm around Josh and helped him back up the stairs and into bed.
When he had settled Josh sitting up against pillows he gave him a drink from a bottle of mineral water. Then he got into the bed with him and Josh gratefully let him pull him into his arms and he rested his head against Sam’s shoulder.
“How long have I been out?”
Sam’s fingers stroked through Josh’s hair. “You’ve been in and out for two nights and two days.”
“You’re kidding.”
“You had me worried for a while but you’ve mostly been sleeping. You must have been exhausted.”
He remembered Sam’s constant presence soothing away the harsh edges of his nightmares. Other memories returned incrementally. “We were going home.”
“There’s no way you could have travelled. But it looks like whoever stuck a gun in you doesn’t know we’re here.”
“I was supposed to call Leo, he’s going to think…”
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