You know how it goes, some people you like and some you just don’t. I can tell you this much, you’re not going to like me. No one does. I don’t even like myself, especially not after what I did. Not even before it, really.
My name is Archie (you might already know that), I’m nineteen and before all this I lived with my weirdo mother in the kind of house someone like you wouldn’t want to put a foot inside of. She’s not into housework, see, or decorating, or stuff to make the place smell and look good. She doesn’t really get any of that. Everyone laughs at her like she’s mental and doesn’t understand what’s going on. OK, she’s different, but it don’t mean she’s not a good person inside, despite all the stuff that goes on with her. I know she is, and that makes me feel even worse about being ashamed of her sometimes. Trouble is, it’s not easy having a mum like her, and I hate myself for minding – really, really hate myself. I want her to be normal like everyone else so she won’t get poked fun at and have stuff thrown at her when she walks down the street. Kids do that to make her chase them and she nearly always does.
When BJ came to take me away to work for him he beat her up to make her let me go, and I didn’t stop him because I wanted to go.
BJ’s another story, don’t let’s get into him here.
We haven’t ever met, you and me. I don’t know if we ever will, but I’m laying all this out for you because Dan talked me into it. I know you know him, although he doesn’t talk about you much, but we both know you’re the reason he comes to see me. I find him to be a regular bloke who looks a lot like Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, with his black-framed glasses and chiselled features. OK, he’s got Prince Harry hair, but catch one of his smiles and they light him up like a proper movie star, don’t you reckon? He’s a decent type, you can tell by looking at him, with the right sort of manners and a way of listening that makes you talk even when you don’t want to.
He does that to me a lot. If he didn’t, I don’t suppose I’d be writing this, it would never have occurred to me. I guess Dan’s super-powers are of a particular sort.
No one would feel worried about letting him into their front room, the way they would me; and I have to be honest, I’m getting to like the time we spend together. I don’t know anything about him personally like if he’s married or has kids or anything; I’ve never asked and I don’t think he’d tell me if I did.
He’s probably afraid I might send someone to find his family and hurt them.
I wouldn’t, but I don’t blame him for thinking I would.
The first time I met him I didn’t bother speaking to him. To me he was just another tosser wanting to get inside my head. I’m only doing this now because over time I’ve found it’s easier to go along with him than to fight him. He’s got something about him that makes you want to shut him up, not in a rough way, I’ve never felt like smacking him, but in a way that if you do what he’s asking you’re both happy. I could say he has some serious personable shit going on that everyone warms to, even someone like me.
I can hear him in my head telling me to stop writing about him and get back to the point of why I’m doing this.
I can’t see the point myself, because it’s not going to get me anywhere, but now I’m visualizing one of his looks that usually ends up with me thinking he knows more than I do – and frankly that wouldn’t be hard. He’s a smart bloke. Do I wish I was like him? Sure, I’d have to be crazy not to when he seems to have everything going for him. I wonder how rich he is, he gives off the scent of it and I should know, I’ve sniffed enough of it.
So, what can I tell you about me that you’d be interested to know?
I’m not as tall as Dan – he’s about six foot and I’m five ten – and he’s probably twice my age.
What a crack if he turned out to be my long-lost dad.
If he was I wouldn’t have done what I did to you. That’s a fact.
I asked him before I started this letter if I had to spell out what I did.
‘We already know what you did,’ he reminded me.
He’s right, and it was a dumb-ass question. I guess you want to know why I did it?
Well, that’s not something I can tell you without bringing a whole heap of trouble down on us all, and I think you’ve already had enough of that, thanks to me.
So, where do we go from here?
Dan’s advice was to keep writing anything that comes into my head, and he’ll look it over the next time he’s here. He has to do this because of all the swearing and street slang that comes out of me. He says you won’t want to read all that and I can see he’s probably right.
It’s weird, me sitting here thinking about you and how our paths crossed. It shouldn’t have happened, but it’s no good saying that now because it did, and in our different ways we’re both paying the price. It’s a high one for me, I’m coming to terms with that, but for you … I don’t know how you’re going to live with what happened to you.
CHAPTER ONE
Marcus Huxley-Browne looked up from the warning call he’d just received on his mobile phone. His handsome face was taut, pale, showing none of its usual boredom or arrogance – or the self-satisfaction that came from having so much. He’d been born into an established family; he had all the right contacts and was as famed for his City successes as he was for the celebrations he threw when deals came off.
‘They’re coming for me,’ he muttered, the paleness of his skin turning to grey. He wasn’t looking at his wife, maybe he wasn’t even speaking to her.
‘Who?’ she asked, unnerved by the fear in his deep grey eyes.
He stared at her, seeing her past the commotion in his head. ‘You know nothing,’ he instructed her tightly. ‘You’ve seen nothing. You’ve heard nothing. Have you got that?’ His fists clenched, and she wondered if he was going to hit her, blame her, or something worse.
Who was coming?
She knew better than to ask a second time and stepped aside as he headed out of the room, across the hall and into his study.
‘Come here!’ he shouted.
Obediently she hastened after him and stopped on the threshold of the room she was rarely invited into. He was standing behind his desk, a Huxley-Browne heirloom, one of many that cluttered the house with stately gloom. He looked haunted now, agitated – hunted – as if not knowing where to turn or what to do. Had things been different, she might have felt sorry for him.
‘You don’t speak to anyone,’ he told her gruffly.
She nodded. She’d had this instruction before, but usually he didn’t take any chances; he’d whisk her upstairs and lock her in one of the top-floor rooms.
She used to fight it, but she’d learned not to.
She often heard things from up there, but she never saw the comings and goings outside – cars pulling up, people entering or leaving the house – the windows were too high. However, voices carried even if she couldn’t make out who they belonged to, or what was being said.
She knew what kind of people came. They were his set: the all-male network that he and others of his ilk had created at university, in the City, in private clubs, in various capitals, to trade information; or to start rumours; or to import and export insider knowledge. Girls came too, for the after-parties, lots of them, paid well she imagined – and the dealers in mood-or sexual-performance enhancers came too. Shady, sinister characters from an underworld she could barely imagine.