“I can hardly ignore it if his mother has a brain tumour,” she retorted angrily, hilariously defending her right to be the guardian angel for a fictional unfortunate.
“Then I suggest you don’t even talk to him so you won’t find out.”
“I can hardly not talk to him if he spends every minute of the day with me.”
“Sibyl,” he said warningly.
“Colin.” She used his tone against him.
“You befriend him and he loses focus, he’s gone.”
“I cannot believe –” she hissed.
“You do it with the next one then he’s gone,” Colin went on and finished. “Do you catch my meaning?”
Her rebellious gaze slid to Phoebe and Mags who were sitting across from her. Phoebe was trying very hard (but failing as her lips were twitching) to keep her face impassive. Mags wasn’t even trying to hide her smile but at least she dropped her head so she smiled at her plate of lasagne.
Finding no reinforcements at the table, Sibyl bit out, “Fine.”
Monday, he had barely sat behind his desk in his office when Mandy came rushing in with his coffee.
“There’s a man out there named Kyle James. He says he needs to talk to you. He says you know him from what he calls ‘The Centre’.” Mandy’s wide eyes got wider as she finished, “He mentioned something about a tranquilliser dart!”
When she finished, her eyes were round as saucers.
Calmly, Colin told her to send him in.
Sibyl’s friend strolled in, taking a good look around him as he did and then put out his hand for a friendly handshake. “All right, mate?”
“Kyle,” Colin responded to the familiar West Country greeting.
“Like the office,” he remarked. “Is Billie’s going to be this nice when you finish building it?” When he stopped speaking, he had a twinkle in his eye.
“I think something like this may clash with the current décor of The Centre.” Colin grinned at him and gestured to a handsome, black leather chair in front of his enormous desk. Kyle sat and waited as Colin took his seat behind his desk. Then Colin enquired politely, “Do you want some coffee?”
“That’s nice of you but I don’t want to take up too much of your time. Need to be on my way soon anyhow.”
Colin sat back and regarded him carefully, wondering why he was there.
The he asked, “What’s on your mind?”
Kyle shifted and looked out the window behind Colin’s head and Colin saw, with interest, Kyle’s normal amiability slowly fade.
“Been asking around. Not good what happened to you and Billie last Friday.” His eyes moved back to Colin, the twinkle was gone and it was replaced by something very serious. “Got a boy on the estate, not a bad kid but he doesn’t hang around with a good crowd. Heard word he was talking about a friend of his who showed up at his place Friday night, arm busted.”
That got Colin’s attention and his back straightened.
“Yes?” he prompted.
“Me and a couple of…” He hesitated and stared at Colin assessingly then, deciding he trusted what he saw, he continued, “My boys paid him a visit. Seems this kid’s friend didn’t want to go to hospital. Eventually he passed out with the pain so the kid loaded him up, meaning to take him to Weston Hospital anyway. On the way there, his friend woke up and demanded he take him somewhere, anywhere, but Weston or Bristol. The kid took him down to some place in Exeter. His friend slipped away after getting treated. Our boy doesn’t know where he went.”
Colin clenched his teeth but nodded his head. He realised in that moment he’d vastly underrated the even-tempered Kyle.
“Another thing,” Kyle continued, “kid told us his friend said some woman owed him more considering his arm was broken. He said he was paid a load but not enough to get his arm busted.” He stopped and watched the muscle working in Colin’s jaw. “Thought you’d want to know.”
“Thank you,” was all Colin could manage to get out. It was Tamara, he knew and he was pleasantly contemplating wringing her skinny, alabaster neck.
“Haven’t told the police yet, figured you might want to do that, er… anonymous-like.”
Colin nodded again, easily catching his meaning. Kyle and “his boys” part in this drama was to remain a secret.
Obviously done with his errand, Kyle slapped his thighs, morphing straight back to his old, friendly self. “Well, that’s it. Got things to do.”
He stood and Colin joined him around the desk for another handshake but when it should have ended, Kyle’s hand tightened.
“We take care of our own,” he said in a low voice and stared Colin in the eye and the older man’s were sober. Then he dropped Colin’s hand. “We’re still lookin’.” Kyle told Colin. “We find out any more, we’ll let you know.”
Colin wrote his mobile and home phone numbers on the back of a business card and handed it to Kyle, making his meaning clear as he said quietly, “Please do that.”
The minute the door closed behind Kyle, Colin called Robert Fitzwilliam to relate the news.
Later in the afternoon, he called the alarm company ordering them to increase security at Lacybourne, including putting a panic button and warning light in his and Sibyl’s bedroom. He then called his housekeeper, Mrs. Manning, to tell her that he was changing all the codes and that he had guests who would be staying for an indefinite period of time.
She asked for the new codes but he told her he would tell her in person when he next saw her, he wasn’t even going to trust his own damned phone line. She, strangely, pressed him but he flatly refused to divulge the information over the phone. He explained she’d have to wait, for the time being, to be let in by him, Sibyl or whoever else his mother or Mags dragged into their drama.
That evening he changed all the alarm codes and explained them and how to work the complicated system to the three women currently occupying Lacybourne. Then, upon seeing three uncomprehending faces, he explained them again. Then, when his mother bit her lip and Mags’s eyes shifted uneasily this way and that, he patiently explained it again.
He did not even want to consider what would happen when the new system he’d ordered was installed.
Preparing for bed, he exited the bathroom after brushing his teeth to see Sibyl sitting cross-legged on the bed wearing another one of his t-shirts. Apart from the fact that she loved him, which he found a vastly pleasurable experience the like of which he’d never known, the second thing he liked best about her was her new habit of wearing his t-shirts to bed. Not just that she did it, but the casual intimacy it evoked that she did.