Eye for an Eye (16 page)

Colwyn breathed
a silent sigh of relief and reached into his briefcase for the
papers, only to look up sharply when Kate let out a sudden cry.

‘What more? Why
his background, of course. Family, wife, girlfriend, children - we
know nothing about that side of him, and it can tell you so much
about a man.’ She turned to Colwyn. ‘Sorry to talk about you like
this when you’re right here, but it’s just something I feel we need
to know. Would that be OK?’

‘Ah, what did
you have in mind?’ he asked cautiously.

‘To meet your
wife or girlfriend, to all go out together for a drink and a chat -
would that be all right? So we can see what sort of a man you are
outside of business?’

‘Heck, honey,
you might be putting him on the spot here - suppose he’s one of
those gay fellas?’

Kate gasped.
‘Oh my Lord, I never thought! Oh Colwyn, I’m so sorry.’

‘Please! Kate,
Alan, there’s no need for all this! I’ll be happy to go out for
drinks with you, and no,’ he laughed engagingly. ‘I don’t have a
boyfriend to bring along. The thing is, I’m rather “between
relationships” at the moment. My girlfriend was tragically killed a
few months ago in a car accident, and I’m still coming to terms
with her loss.’

He paused,
putting up a hand to forestall their exclamations of sympathy. ‘No,
really, it’s all right. Please don’t say anything.’

After a deep
breath, he recovered his usual poise and gave them a small smile.
‘Kate, I do understand what you’re saying. You’re perfectly
correct, a social event does reveal more of a man’s character. As
it happens there is someone I’ve just met, a very nice young lady
who I’m sure would be happy to meet with you and set your mind at
ease. How about I give her a call later and see if she’s free
tonight? Shall we say seven o’clock at the Rose and Crown in Yonge
Street?’

‘Well if you’re
sure that’s OK, we certainly would like that. I look forward to
meeting the young lady.’ Kate squeezed his hand between her
withered fingers.

‘We’ll see you
tonight then Colwyn,’ said Alan. ‘Goodbye now.’

Colwyn showed
them to the door with relief, then dosed himself with antacid
before picking up the phone to call Robyn. She appeared to have
some difficulty in answering.

‘Hello, oh
hell, is this the button? Hello? Robyn… Heverill speaking.’

‘Robyn,’ he
purred. ‘Good to hear your voice. How are things?’

‘Oh, fine,
thanks. Pretty busy, you know, dashing about here and there as
always. How are you feeling, Colwyn? Any better?’

‘Why thank you
Robyn, yes, I’m much better now. Is that hammering I can hear in
the background? Where are you?’

‘Um, I’m at a
building site. It’s er, one of Uncle Josh’s projects that Daddy
thought I should see. Jolly interesting.’

‘Really, you
must tell me all about it later. I tell you what, Robyn, how about
I take you out for a drink tonight? There’s a rather special place
I’d very much like you to see, and I think you’d feel right at home
there. Do say you’ll come?’

‘Ah. Let me
check my diary, hold on a sec.’ He heard papers flicking. ‘Oh dear.
No, I can’t tonight, I’m sorry. How about tomorrow?’

‘You can’t? Are
you quite sure? You see, there are some people that I’d love you to
meet, and we’re all going to this wonderful English pub on Yonge
Street for drinks at seven. It would be marvellous if you could
join us, Robyn.’

‘So who are
these people, then?’

‘Kate and Alan
McNamara, a delightful couple who are planning to invest with me.
They want to see that I have a social life, and that I’m not gay.
It sounds like a plot for a sitcom, doesn’t it?’ He forced a laugh
and tried to ignore the spasm in his intestines. ‘Do you think you
could come along and help me out, Robyn?’

‘Well it does
sound interesting, but could you make it tomorrow night? I’d be
free to join you then.’

‘Tomorrow?
Wonderful!’ He clenched his hand round the phone. ‘I’ll get back to
Kate and Alan and see if they’re able to change nights. You’re
quite sure you can’t get free tonight?’ He gritted his teeth at her
reply. ‘I’ll just have to wait till tomorrow then, won’t I? I’m
looking forward to it already. Thanks Robyn, bye.’

He ended the
call and sat back, slamming the phone into its cradle.

After
successfully rescheduling with the McNamaras, he called up the
spreadsheet on his computer and frowned. Several large payments
were due Friday, and he’d been counting on having their money by
then to cover them. Now he’d have to do some creative juggling
between his accounts and miss out on some interest payments, just
to avoid raising red flags at the bank. It was just so infuriating
that he had to put up with these stupid stresses, when the money
had been practically in his account already. It would be a pleasure
to think of Kate McNamara’s face when she found that her precious
nest-egg had hatched and flown away. Almost enough pleasure to
erase today’s stress, but NOT QUITE! He slammed his hand on the
desk and ground his teeth, looking for a way to vent his rage.

He pushed away
the chair and stormed into the bedroom, hurling drawers open in
search of his gym gear. An hour on the punch-bag might do some good
and let off a bit of steam.

He arrived in
the gym to find the punching bag was already in use. Gloves on, he
approached the young man who was practising his uppercuts.

‘Do you mind if
I take over here? I’m on a tight schedule today.’

The young man
looked at him, frowning slightly.

‘I just need
another ten minutes, OK? You can have it then.’

‘How about some
one-on-one sparring, then? That way we can both get the
practice.’

Colwyn let his
voice remain soft and persuasive while his muscles quivered with
tension.

‘Sure, I guess
that would be OK. We could do that.’

They circled
slowly, sizing each other up. The young man tried a couple of jabs
which Colwyn blocked easily. He was waiting for the guy to hit him
properly.

They exchanged
a flurry of blows which landed harmlessly, then one got through
which stung. Colwyn felt an icy surge of rage and began to hit
hard, pounding his fists into his opponent anywhere he could reach.
He jabbed and feinted, striking with full force wherever there was
an opening.

He watched with
detachment as the young man started to bleed from several cuts to
the face, and kept on hitting him so that he couldn’t back away and
stop. The other guy fought back bravely but Colwyn could see fear
in his eyes. It spurred him on to a final series of vicious punches
which left the young man sprawled on the floor, bloodied,
white-faced, and curling up in pain.

Colwyn tossed
his gloves down contemptuously and strode off to find Harry.

‘There’s a mess
in the boxing room that needs clearing up. See to it, will
you?’

‘Yes, Mr.
Symons. Right away sir.’

‘And if there
are any questions later, you saw that it was a fair fight, didn’t
you Harry?’

‘Oh sure, Mr.
Symons. Understood. Anything you say.’

Colwyn smiled
coldly.

‘It’s a
dog-eat-dog world, Harry. Remember that.’

He left Harry
gazing after him with admiration.

The activity
had banished his physical discomforts, and the victory had put him
back on top of the world again, so up in his apartment he was ready
to take on his next challenge. He pulled out his cell-phone and
called up Robyn’s number, leaving a message when she failed to
answer.

‘Good news,
Robyn,’ he said warmly. ‘We are on for tomorrow night. You’ll love
Kate and Alan, and I’m sure the English pub will make you feel
right at home. Thanks Robyn, bye.’

Once she had
finally figured out how to retrieve her message and had played it,
Robyn dropped the cell-phone back into her bag and made a face.

‘Ugh, you slimy
bastard. I wish I could just wipe you away like the streak of
excrement that you are.’ She looked around guiltily but nobody else
in the studio was within earshot.

It was almost
five o’clock but felt more like ten-thirty after her hard day’s
work. She had no plans that evening other than soaking in a long
hot shower, or maybe even a bath, to take some of the aches and
pains out of her muscles. She’d told Colwyn she was unavailable
from sheer bloody-mindedness just to annoy him. She’d guessed from
the faintest hint of strain in his voice that it had worked.

She ran a tape
measure over the wall panels she’d constructed and checked the
results against the sketch. Everything was correct, so tomorrow she
could put them up and join them together ready for plastering. It
was satisfying to build things, even if they were only temporary.
Much better than having a paper-based job like a parasitic con-man,
where you didn’t contribute anything to society and just stole
other people’s money.

She brushed the
sawdust out of her hair, put the tools away, and wearily clocked
out for the day.

Back at his
apartment, Mike was hunched over the computer, barely grunting an
acknowledgement of her cheery “hi honey, I’m home!” She peered over
his shoulder at the screen, but could make no sense of the columns
of figures she saw there.

‘Making any
progress?’ she asked diffidently.

‘Mmm,
maybe.’

She could see
that he was too engrossed to give her a satisfactory answer or to
listen to her day’s news so she retreated to the bathroom for the
long hot soak she’d been promising herself.

‘Stuff you
then,’ she muttered, slipping into the bath. ‘I won’t tell you
about my job. I’ll just do it all without you, shall I?’

She eased into
the hot water up to her neck and lay there luxuriating while the
worst of the day’s tension drained away. She could feel the muscles
in her legs twanging as they relaxed, and gently stretched them out
while flakes of sawdust spread across the water.

At last, clean
and feeling loose, she emerged.

Mike was still
concentrating on the computer screen and she realised that nothing
short of a total power outage would pry him away from it. She
ignored him and fixed herself a sandwich, then had a belated attack
of conscience and fixed one for him too. She placed it beside him
with a cup of coffee, and stood counting the seconds till he
noticed it. After forty, she started tapping her foot.

‘Hello - earth
to Mike, are you receiving, over?’

He grunted.

‘Never mind
then!’ She left him to stew with his own cooling coffee and went to
read a book.

At ten o’clock
he was still hard at it, while she really needed to talk to him
about the next day. She tapped him on the shoulder and waited
politely.

He grunted.

‘Can I talk to
you for a minute, please? Mike?’

‘Not right
now.’

‘Mike,’ she
said sweetly, ‘have you saved your work?’

‘Huh?’

She held up the
power cord to the computer and made to yank it out of the
socket.

‘Robyn, wait!’
he ordered. ‘Don’t do that! Just hold on a second, will you?’

His fingers
danced over the keyboard while he kept shooting sideways glances to
make sure she wasn’t moving. ‘Almost there, don’t touch that plug.
If it’s not shut down right, the data can be corrupted - a few more
seconds is all I need. There!’

He slumped back
in his seat and ran both hands through his hair. ‘Now what the hell
is so important that you risked destroying a week’s work? Is the
house burning down?’

‘I made you a
sandwich.’

His lips
thinned and she could almost hear him counting to ten before daring
to answer.

‘A sandwich?
That’s it? A sandwich?’

‘There was a
cup of coffee too.’

‘I can see
that. Thank you very much, that was thoughtful of you. Now will you
please go away so that I can work on these figures in peace? You do
want me to stop Colwyn Symons, don’t you?’

‘Yes, but you
don’t have to work yourself into an early grave to do it. Lighten
up, will ya?’

She pulled his
chair away from the desk and spun him around to face her. ‘We can
work together on this but it means talking to each other. If you’re
bent over that bloody machine you’re dead to the world. Come back
to real life for a few minutes and don’t be so damn serious. This
can be fun you know!’

‘Fun?’

‘Yeah, why not?
Why else would you do it? Isn’t it fun, being a fraud investigator?
Don’t you get a kick out of it when you find out what some of these
buggers are doing and put a stop to it?’

‘It’s what I
do. I’m good at it. But I haven’t thought of it as fun, no.’ He
considered further. ‘Maybe in the first few years, perhaps, but
life sort of caught up with me after that.’

‘The old
domestic problems, huh? Well are those bothering you now? No. So
why aren’t you having fun again like you used to?’

‘I just work,
OK? I do the best job I can, and it gives my life some purpose. I
have something to do when I wake up that helps make the world a
better place - I think that’s all you can expect from life.’

‘Balls! You can
expect a hell of a lot more than that! When’s the last time you
spent an evening laughing?’

‘Laughing?’ He
looked blank.

‘Yeah, laughing
- chuckling, giggling, hooting, whatever you want. Bet it was a
while ago, huh?’

‘Maybe at
college…’ His eyes creased in a smile. ‘The night we first
discovered tequila.’

‘There you go,
that was fun. How much fun have you had lately?’

He sighed. ‘OK,
I take your point. I’m just a boring person with no life. You know
what? I can live with that.’

‘You’re not
boring! I hardly know anything about you but I can tell that.
You’ve got a lot of mystery about you and that’s always
interesting. Like that case of make-up you have, the way you can
change your appearance - oh, and the hairdresser said you have wigs
too - what’s that all about?’