Angel and the Assassin

mates
    from the first day of their training together.

    I fell in love for the first and last time when I was 14 years old. Every summer
    holidays I went home from school. I got the train to Lime Street, Liverpool, and then

    Angel and the Assassin
    47

    took buses to the council estate where we lived, carrying my bags all the way. When I
    got in my mum was out doing her shift. She was working in an old peoples’ home by
    then, as well as the launderette. She called herself a shite shoveller because she was
    always cleaning up after someone.
    I walked in the door and there he was, her latest boyfriend, Shawn. He got up
    from the couch where he was sitting watching The Crystal Maze, and grinned at me.
    He shook my hand and said “The genius, I’ve heard all about you from your mum.
    She’s so proud of you.” I put my bag down and he took me to the chippy and bought
    me something to eat.
    We talked all the way there and all the way back like we’d known each other
    forever. After we finished eating he took me into my mum’s bedroom and we had sex.
    I was 5’10” by then and I was taller than him by three inches, and much stronger.
    For the rest of the summer he had sex with my mum at night and me in the
    daytime when she was at work. He treated me like I was a grown-up, like him, and
    he was thirty-five. We had such a laugh. We walked all over the place together and
    talked. We had sex in public places like the cemetery and the park when no one was
    around and laughed at what would happen if we got caught. He said he wasn’t
    really an arse bandit and he knew I wasn’t. It was just a laugh.
    But I was in love with him by then.
    At the end of the summer I didn’t want to leave him. I asked if he would write
    me letters and come to see me at school. He said, “Don’t be stupid, lad. It was just a
    bit of fun.” But I kept hoping I’d hear from him.
    By the time I got home for the Christmas holidays he was long gone. Fuck love!
    It wasn’t worth it.

    Kael looked at the clock as he returned the diary to its hiding place. He‟d been
    writing for fifteen minutes, and the shower was still running.
    A sudden, all-encompassing stillness descended over him. The kind of stillness
    that alerted him to danger and had saved his life on numerous occasions throughout
    his career.
    Something was not right. All his senses came into play, and he inhaled deeply
    but smelled nothing. That was wrong; there was always a smell when someone was
    present, and his brain had already memorized Angel‟s unique scent.
    He listened intently. There was only silence and the rushing of water. He lifted
    Angel‟s pillow to find the faded blue cloth secreted there. Scanning the room, he ran
    his hands over the mattress on Angel‟s side of the bed. Every vestige of Angel‟s
    warmth was long gone from it. He wasn‟t in the flat!
    Kael reached the bathroom in five or six long strides. Steam coated everything:
    the mirrors, the stainless-steel fixtures. The air was thick with it. The little bugger
    had left the shower running on purpose to fool him. And it had worked!
    Turning off the water, he listened again as he ran silently into the living room
    and to the front door. The inside bolts were unlocked but not damaged. Still naked,

    48
    Fyn Alexander

    he searched every corner of the flat: the living room, the dining room, the kitchen,
    the dungeon, the spare bedroom, and the cupboards.
    There was no trace of Angel and no sign of a foreign entry. The boy had left of
    his own accord and was wandering the city somewhere unprotected. If Conran knew
    he was alive and had witnessed a kill, he wouldn‟t last the day. Someone would
    make him disappear, and if it was not Kael‟s own people, it would be Andresen‟s
    contacts who wanted the shipment they had paid for.

Resolve settling in, Kael felt completely calm.
    On a mission every move had to be thought out beforehand, every emotion
    checked. Ignoring the desire to shower, he brushed his teeth and rinsed his face
    very quickly. He had a day‟s growth on his chin, and his head needed the attention
    of his electric razor, but he could take care of that later. In the bedroom he pulled on
    dark jeans, a black T-shirt, and black leather boots. A glance through the big
    window at the sky showed an overcast afternoon, typical British weather for
    September. Grabbing a leather jacket from the coat cupboard on his way out, he
    went in search of Angel.
    For a good thirty minutes Kael walked the