Angel and the Assassin

Scouse accent.” He punched me gently in the shoulder
    the way he had that summer, like we were just mates and not having sex every
    chance we got. He asked if I could help him out. He was looking for work.
    I said, “Come on.” I walked away and he followed me the way I used to follow
    him. I walked him to the nearest pub, straight into the toilets and into an empty
    cubicle. “Up against the wall,” I told him.
    He said, “Christ, Kael, could you buy me a pint first?”
    I said, “No.” So he dropped his trousers and leaned both hands against the tiled
    wall. I fucked him with all the anger and frustration and resentment I’d felt towards
    him at the end of that summer when I had loved him and he had walked away. He
    kept saying I was hurting him and I was glad. I wanted to hurt him.
    I finished just as another man walked into the toilets. I walked out with Shawn
    following. In the bar I bought him a pint and a meal and he ate it like he was
    starving. He asked me what I was doing these days. He kept calling me lad like he
    had that summer. I watched him like he was a stranger, someone I didn’t recognize. I
    used to love it when he called me lad with that twinkly-eyed grin. Now he just looked
    scruffy and pathetic
    “Don’t call me lad,” I told him.
    He’d always been a messy eater but I didn’t notice when I was a kid. When I
    loved him he could do nothing wrong. He wiped his face on the back of his hand.
    I asked him what he was doing in London.
    He smiled and said something about greener pastures. He said I looked like I
    was doing well for myself, that I was even taller.

    Angel and the Assassin
    119

    I drank my beer and looked at my watch. I had a training session that
    afternoon on how to kill in public places and leave without anyone noticing. I
    decided Shawn wasn’t worth practicing on. I told him I had to go.
    “We could do this again. Where do you live?” he said. It was obvious he was
    homeless, but he wasn’t welcome in mine.
    I told him no thanks. I was busy these days.
    He asked me if I was still queer.
    “Yeah, I’m still still queer,”I told him.
    “When did you turn into such a bastard?” he asked.
    I told him, “I always had the potential, and you helped.”
    I never saw him again.

    Angel‟s blanket lay soft and clean in the bottom of the tumble drier. Kael held
    it up. It had needed a good wash, and it looked better.
    In the bedroom he placed the blanket carefully beside Angel‟s face. Still fast
    asleep, the boy moved slightly, laying his cheek on the soft cloth. Kael lay down
    beside him and threw his arm across his waist, then kissed his head. “Sweetheart,”
    he whispered.

    120
    Fyn Alexander

    Chapter Fourteen

    Despite the cool September afternoon, the Princess of Wales Memorial
    Fountain in Hyde Park was full of children in bathing suits running through the
    water, screaming and laughing.
    As much as Conran thought he knew everything about Kael‟s life, Kael knew
    even more about his. He knew that on Sunday afternoons Conran spent family time
    with his wife and three little blond children.
    Sitting on a distant bench with Angel beside him, he barely recognized the
    stuffed shirt from College Grange and Vauxhall Cross running along beside the
    huge oval fountain, hand in hand with a thin little girl in a pink frilly dress and
    white fluffy cardigan.
    The man who had crawled sweating and panting on his dungeon floor was the
    same man who now bought ice creams for the three children and sat them in a circle
    on the grass to eat them. His wife sat on the wall of the fountain watching.
    Wearing sunglasses to protect his eyes from the bright white sky, Angel leaned
    on Kael‟s shoulder, watching the passersby. “Daddy, how come you let me come out
    today?” He had been so eager to get out of the flat he almost ran when they got to
    the park. Kael had to hang on to him, forcing him to walk beside him unobtrusively.
    He wasn‟t out of danger yet.
    “I‟m going to sort out the little problem that was making me have to hide you.”
    “I still don‟t understand why I‟ve been hiding.”
    “You don‟t have to. You just have to do what I tell you.”
    “Yes, Sir. Can I have an ice cream, Daddy?” Angel gestured at the bicycle ice-
    cream vendor who had just sold ice creams to Conran.
    Kael pulled a handful of £1 coins from his pocket. It was time he approached
    Conran and made his demands. “Here, get your ice cream and then walk over to the
    man