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“I watched you walk through Cambridge when you graduated. Congratulations. But then I never thought you’d get anything other than a First.”

“That was the day you left the shark.”

Jack put more containers on the table and the last two in the microwave. “You were supposed to have had it that Christmas, but… You kept it. I saw it in the bedroom. And the photo book.”

“Check out my underwear drawer too? I sleep with Sharkie. Safer than sleeping with you.”

Jack chuckled.

By the time the final containers were on the table, Zeph had started to help himself to the food. He was starving.

“Thomas says you know.”

It wasn’t hard to figure out what Jack was referring to. “That you’re not in witness protection? I worked it out. Well, it was a guess, but… When did it all start?”

“The day Thomas rescued me from abusive parents. He’s not my uncle.

He came to my house to do a job. He could have killed me but he didn’t.

The house was on fire and he rescued me.

He gave me hope that my life could be different.

For the first time that I could remember, I didn’t go to sleep hungry or cold.

Thomas never struck me, rarely raised his voice.

He was kind. I thought he was the best person I’d ever met.

At six, I was easily impressed. Keep eating. ”

Zeph dug the chopsticks into the food.

“He gave me a choice. Stay with him, let him look after me, or go with strangers who’d be paid to look after me.

I chose him. I’ve never regretted that. He said I’d have a job to do when I was older.

That’s what he was training me for. I didn’t know then what it meant.

He said I’d be an adjuster. Easier for a small boy to understand. Someone who makes things right.”

“He groomed a small boy to be an assassin like him? That’s a terrible thing to do.”

“He thought it was the only way to make it safe for me to be in his life. I had no objections.”

“You never questioned what you were doing?”

“Of course I did. Especially after…”

“After what?”

“After I met you.”

“Did Thomas yank you out of school because of me?”

Jack nodded.

Oh God. “Was what you did always right?”

Jack shrugged. “I understand that many people would consider what I do to be wrong. But all jobs were done with the aim of righting wrongs. Thomas accepted or rejected the contracts. Once a job was done, what happened next was out of our hands. And yes, I know that sometimes things didn’t always work out for the better. ”

“Government sanctioned work?”

“Would it make it more acceptable if that were the case? You think governments always do the right thing?”

“I suppose I don’t like the idea of one criminal paying you to get rid of another.”

“Not every job was accepted. Thomas would never have killed one drug baron to benefit another. We both worked for governments but were never on official government business. I was trained to do what governments couldn’t legally do in places they were not supposed to be.”

“Which governments?”

“British, French, Spanish, Americans… The CIA isn’t allowed to operate on US soil.”

“How did he train you?”

“Thomas is very good at his job. He wouldn’t have stayed alive this long otherwise.

What he couldn’t teach me, others did. Some lessons were more difficult than others but they were all useful.

He said he was the only one I could trust. Only him.

Then I met you and I realised Thomas was wrong.

I could trust you. I am trusting you right now by telling you any of this. ”

“You didn’t trust me enough to stay with me.”

“I was protecting you. I wanted you to be angry with me for leaving. To hate me. Maybe you did, though not for long. But you got hurt. I regret that.”

“I was angry, sad. Mostly, I was resigned. No point fretting over what you can’t change, no matter how much you might want to.”

“That’s the way I feel too. I wanted out but it isn’t that simple.”

When you fell in love me. But Zeph wouldn’t say that.

“Thomas was shocked when you found him.”

“If anyone discovers what I told him, I’ll lose my job. I could be sent to prison. Thomas could have killed me. He could have sent you to kill me.”

“Yet you still told him.”

“Because I wanted to see you.”

“And here I am. And he didn’t send me to kill you. He knows what my response would be to that.”

Zeph wanted to sit on Jack’s lap, hold him, kiss him. Not let him go. Ever. But maybe that chance had gone. Jack wasn’t who Zeph thought he was.

He wasn’t in danger. He was danger.

“You want to ask me how many people I’ve killed?”

Zeph shook his head. “I’m guessing it doesn’t matter after the first one.”

Jack gave a tight smile. “You’re right.”

“Now I understand why you said that line from Counting Stars was your favourite. Everything that kills me makes me feel alive. It was mine because of the cancer, yours because your life is spent running towards and away from people who want to kill you. How does it feel when you kill?”

“I take no enjoyment in it, but when I’ve done what I set out to do and survived, there’s a sense of satisfaction. I feel more alive than at any other time.”

“That’s sad.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me. I am what I am.”

“You sound cold but you’re not.”

Jack shrugged. “I always try not to hurt anyone more than necessary. Sometimes it is necessary.”

“Where do you draw the line?”

“It’s a grey area.”

Zeph swallowed. “Was what we did all lies?”

“None of it. I remember every moment I spent with you. Those memories preyed on me, sank their claws into me, ravaged me, wouldn’t leave me alone. They also comforted me, made me want to be with you, made it harder not to be with you. Above all I needed to know you were safe.”

Do you love me? Can you love me? “Are you happy?”

“Is anyone truly happy?”

“That’s a terrible answer. Are you happy?

Thomas said you didn’t want to do this anymore.

But I know it’s not that simple. There’s a ripple effect when you kill someone.

Others might be sent to kill you. You have to kill them and keep swimming until one day, you meet another shark who’s better than you, faster, more deadly.

I see the clues now in what you said that I didn’t see when you said them. ”

Jack nodded. “Eventually, someone will catch me or I’ll get too tired to keep swimming, or forget what I need to do in order to keep swimming safely.

My life’s been spent maintaining a constant awareness of my surroundings: judging lines of sight, possible angles of attack, thinking about which individual might prove to be a threat and how I could bring them down.

I can’t walk anywhere in a straight line.

I have to be continually vigilant and never stay too long in the same place. ”

“That must be exhausting.”

“It was. It is. But I walked in a straight line with you.”

Except I was a distraction.

“Except you were a distraction.”

Now Zeph was reading minds.

“But it’s not just that. Someone might use or hurt me to get to Thomas and vice versa. If you were threatened, I’d want to rescue you and in rushing to do that I might make mistakes. So you’re a danger to me and I’m a danger to you. That’s a poor basis for a relationship.”

Zeph put his chopsticks down. His appetite had gone.

Jack picked them up and put them back in his fingers. “Keep eating.”

“Just let me feel sorry for myself. Give me a minute.”

“Let me know when you’re done.”

Zeph released a choked laugh.

“When Thomas found out I’d been watching you, he thought about telling you I was dead, that it would be kinder. I couldn’t agree to that.”

“I kept hoping you’d come back. I hovered between grief and anger. Settled in a sort of depression. Then just…existed. I only wanted you.”

Jack reached across the table for his hand and took hold of his fingers. “I wanted you to find someone else. I don’t want you to be sad.”

“Then don’t leave again.”

“One last job.”

Zeph groaned. “And that’s because of me spotting Thomas? He said you’d be killed if Al-Talib wasn’t dead by Saturday. I’d ask you not to do it but I know you want to protect him. He said you’d been pulled into working for the government. What have you been doing since I last saw you?”

“Some of it I spent protecting a Texan oil guy.”

“Not now?”

“He sold up and moved to Hawaii. He figured he was safe.”

“Is he?”

“Not my problem.”

Zeph stroked Jack’s fingers. “Who wants Al-Talib dead?”

“The CIA.”

Zeph sagged. “Are the two governments not talking?”

“Three governments are talking.”

“The Saudis too?”

“Al-Talib is funding the activities of extremists and fundamentalists. The Saudi royal family want him stopped. He’s an embarrassment.

Al-Talib is crafty. He makes his donations in cash or gold or jewellery, hard to trace as well as hard to stop.

The Saudis won’t sanction his killing. The CIA will, but it can’t happen in the States.

The British flap their hands and do nothing. ”

“So he’ll be killed here?”

“Yes.”

“Al-Talib looked as if he was alone when we spotted him on CCTV.”

“He wouldn’t have been.”

Zeph rankled at the thought of his software missing something. “What now?”

“I do my job and don’t get caught. Thomas as well.”

Zeph tightened his hold on Jack’s hand. “I caught you. Maybe…one night’s detention?”

“One hour.”

Zeph nodded. He’d take what he could get. And when this was done, could Jack finally be his?