Bruce-Lockhart Second Skin

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-7391238-8-8
Verlag: Muswell Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 352 Seiten

'Bruce-Lockhart has done it again. A brilliant follow-up to The Lizard' Charles Cumming 'A Graham Greene for today' Helen Lederer Five years after a murderous encounter on the island of Paros, Alastair Haston's world is upended by a startling discovery: a son he never knew existed. Desperate to learn more, he travels to Athens, but his pursuit is intercepted when MI6 intervenes, coercing him into a high-stakes espionage mission - to infiltrate a suspected mafia operation intent on abducting his son, As the chase unravels across the Mediterranean, Alistair has a chilling revelation, could the spectre of his past be returning to taunt him? Could the answer lie in that fateful, deadly summer on Paros five years ago?

Actor-turned-novelist Dugald Bruce-Lockhart was born in Fiji in 1968. After reading German at St Andrew's University, he trained as an actor and graduated from RADA in 1994. Since then, he has worked with UK theatre companies including the RSC, The National Theatre, The English Touring Theatre, Bath Theatre Royal, Hampstead Theatre and The Old Vic, among others. As a long-standing member of Edward Hall's internationally-acclaimed Shakespeare ensemble, Propeller, he played roles including Henry V, Petruchio, and Olivia, before becoming an associate director. He toured the UK as Hannay in The 39 Steps; and West End appearances include Freddie in The Deep Blue Sea, Lysander in Propeller's Midsummer Night's Dream, Bill Austin in Mamma Mia, and recently, Victor Prynne, in Private Lives. His TV and film work includes Call the Midwife, The Castaways, Professor T, The Crown, From Time to Time, Hart's War, Alive and Kicking, Deserter, Case Histories, Foyle's War, Midsomer Murders, Trust, and Hotel Babylon. He narrated a landmark documentary series for the Smithsonian Channel, Aerial Britain, which launched in the UK in 2019. He also works as a theatre director and acting coach, and lives in Kent with his wife and two children.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bruce-Lockhart, Dugald

Leseproben

1

July, 1994

A month away from my 26th birthday, I was temping for a lifestyle magazine in a fifth-floor office overlooking London’s Drury Lane; an airless, claustrophobic environment at the best of times, with its Formica desks, fax-machines and phones sprawling beneath a stratum of cigarette smoke. Terry, my esteemed colleague from Kent had been moved to my workstation to help improve my telesales technique, but the oppressive heat was taking its toll on even our most experienced players and charitable thoughts were thin on the ground.

‘You’re too nice,’ he muttered, stubbing out his cigarette and leaning back in his swivel-chair. ‘Gotta be more of an arsehole.’

‘Sure,’ I replied, wondering if Terry ‘Top Gun’ Keeley, had a life beyond Millpool Publications’ nicotine-stained walls.

‘Treat ’em like the enemy,’ he added, flicking the fake Rolex on his wrist. ‘Get inside their head and fuck ’em over. Like a game of chess.’

‘Right.’

It was best to stick to one word answers with Terry.

‘You’re not here to make friends,’ he continued, toying with his Zippo lighter, as the room darkened. ‘You’re here because you wanna make some dosh.’

A sudden gust of wind rattled the window, heralding the imminent arrival of a summer storm.

‘Yup,’ I replied, nodding enthusiastically; resisting the urge to inform him the only reason I was undertaking such soulless work was because my contract teaching English in Japan had been pushed back to September, leaving me in the lurch over the summer. Stupidly, I’d fallen for the ‘no experience necessary’ blurb, along with the promise of ‘huge commission potential’, rather than opt for honest graft on a building site, or a bar job. Too late now, I’d committed.

‘Just chess, man,’ he sneered. ‘Start using your queen and stop pissing around with the foot-soldiers. Pawns are there to be sacrificed, yeah?’ He stuffed the cigarette into the corner of his mouth and, picking up his phone – his ‘Walther PPK’ – placed another call.

Truth was, chess was something I was good at. Chess, I could do. But I’d been fingering my metaphorical kings and queens for three weeks straight and had failed to make a single solid move. Telesales was simply not my thing.

Then all of a sudden, the telephone rang.

I stared at it in disbelief. Red flashing light, rhythmic vibration on the desk …

Thomas Cook?

Condé Nast?

‘Want me to take it?’ Terry offered, sucking on his cigarette. ‘Split the commission.’ As he reached forward for my phone, I batted away his hand, grabbed the receiver and sucked in a lungful of smoky air.

‘Millpool Leisure Publications,’ I rasped, trying not to cough. ‘Alistair Haston.’

‘Good morning,’ came the reply.

Male. Middle-Eastern? A slight echo suggested international.

‘Hi,’ I countered.

Pawn to king four.

‘Mister Haston,’ exclaimed the caller, in a tone that was neither interrogative nor statement.

The Ruy Lopez opening. Predictable. Safe.

‘Hit me.’ I snapped, cutting to the chase.

Terry nodded enthusiastically.

Encouraged, I stuck a foot up on the desk, swivelled away towards the window, where a pigeon sought shelter from the first fat drops of rain.

‘You want to review your options,’ I continued, wedging the receiver between my shoulder and ear as I reached behind me for the stack of magazines. ‘Front cover’s gone. Back cover under offer … centre-page spread?’

‘This is mister Manolis,’ the caller replied.

Manolis? Had to be Greek.

Waiting for him to continue (Terry’s rule was never to speak unless you had to – ‘let ’em hang themselves’), I swivelled back to my desk, wondering when I’d placed a call to Greece, and to whom. Olympic Airways? Club Med?

‘Just trying to recall when we last spoke,’ I said, giving in and shuffling a stack of paper, as if searching through a copious Rolodex. ‘If I’m not mistaken, it was, er …’

‘This is the first time we are speaking.’

‘Of course.’

Whoever I had called previously – some underling – I was now talking to a key player; someone who had the power to change company policy, if only I could persuade him.

‘How can I turn things around for you today?’ I’d heard Terry use that one.

Nothing but static.

Stalemate.

As a flicker of lightning drew my attention to the window, I wondered if I’d be better off admitting defeat and coming clean, but then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Terry watching me, a lopsided grin plastered across his pointy features. When I spun around to face him, he dropped his head, scratched the back of his ear and began to dial.

Unless …

‘I’m still here, mister Manolis,’ I exclaimed, peering around the office, noticing several heads were turned in my direction. ‘What’s on your mind?’

Humiliate-the-rookie-day, was it?

‘I am calling on behalf of my daughter,’ Manolis said, finally.

‘And how the devil is she?’ I jeered, scanning the room for the culprit.

‘She is not well.’

‘I AM sorry to hear that, mister Manolis.’

‘Kristos.’

‘Kris-Kross? Of course,’ I replied, stifling a laugh as I spun back to the window, noticing that the pigeon now had company. ‘Well, Kris-Kross, I hate to break this to you, but, shit happens.’ Over at a table by the door, several more of my illustrious colleagues were studying me with an air of smug amusement.

‘Amara cannot talk,’ he said finally. ‘Because of her injuries.’

At which point, I saw my boss returning from the toilets, heading in my direction. Time to wrap it up: ‘It’s been a pleasure, Kris-Kross, but I’d better get back to washing my hair.’ And then, to cut to the chase: ‘Wanker.’

I turned, ready to slam down the phone, but at the last moment stopped, receiver hovering in mid-air. ‘Did you say Amara?’

‘My daughter.’

Hovering briefly at my side, my boss patted me on the shoulder then passed on by, while behind him on the windowsill the pigeons shuffled to a corner and began to copulate.

Amara …

I’d only ever known one person by that name: the actress I met in the Greek islands, summer of ’88 …

‘You’re calling from Naxos?’ I asked, tentatively.

Amara’s father had a restaurant in Naxos. I’d been there – before she and I …

‘Athens,’ he grunted.

I hung suspended in a curtain of cigarette smoke as an image presented itself: Amara, standing at the docks, shielding her eyes from the setting sun as the police-launch pulled away from its moorings and transported me captive towards Paros. In another life …

‘Mister Haston?’

A life I’d all but erased from memory.

‘She has been in an accident.’

Across from me, Terry held his thumb held out horizontally like a Roman Emperor waiting to give his verdict.

I shook my head and turned away. ‘Forgive me Mister Manolis, is she okay?’

I just called her father a wanker.

He proceeded to recount how Amara, her husband and their son had been on holiday south of the capital. Amara had taken the child to the beach, and on returning, she had skidded and driven the car off the road. Both she and her son were found unconscious and had to be cut free by a fire and rescue team. They were now recovering in hospital in Athens.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I replied, finally. ‘That’s – awful.’

‘It is a difficult time,’ he said flatly.

‘I see,’ I replied, not seeing at all, wondering also how he had managed to find me.

‘When accidents like this happen,’ he continued, ‘there is always an investigation.’

Then again, Amara knew I’d been to St Andrews Uni. They’d have passed on my home contact details – got my work number off the answerphone.

‘What I am trying to say,’ he continued, ‘is that they can be very thorough. And it is only a matter of time before they contact you directly.’

A distant...