The Age of Zeus

NHS."

"He can take it. He was a soldier."

"Even so. Some British hospitals are worse than war zones. What's he telling them about how he got injured?"

"Accident with a lawnmower. He was fixing the blade back on, slipped, fell against it, cut himself. He's going to play the dumb Yank. He can do that quite well."

"Can't they all."

"We reckon a busy, overstretched A and E doctor isn't going to enquire too deeply. The wound does look like a knife wound but the lawnmower story's just about swallowable, especially since Rick's had a beer or two and they'll smell the alcohol on his breath. Drunk and American…"

"Chances are they won't report it as suspicious."

"Chances are."

"We-e-ell now…" Prothero took a deep breath. "First things first. I think I will have that drink after all. Whisky if you've got it. Doesn't do to mix. Second of all, I'll tell you this. No word of a lie, it did occur to me that you were caught up in what's been going on lately, the monster killings, the attacks on the Olympians, all that. Don't ask me how, but a couple of times it definitely flitted through my mind, like. 'That could be Akehurst,' I said to myself, 'out there giving the Pantheon a bloody nose. That'd be just the sort of thing she might do.'"

"Really?"

"Really. Which is partly why none of what you've been telling me comes as a total surprise. The Agonides clip had something to do with it too. I watched that, and blow me if one of the armoured figures in it didn't move just like you do. You know me, how I am about posture and bearing and all that. That could easily be Akehurst, look you, I thought, because we Welsh even think in stereotype phrases like 'look you.' Sounds like her as well, I thought, though the dialogue was pretty hard to pick up on. And you've phoned me a couple of times lately, according to my caller ID. I didn't call back because I felt you'd leave a message if you wanted to chat — when you were ready to chat. But to phone me at all, out of the blue like that, after such a long silence…"

He sipped the whisky she had just brought him.

"So all in all," he continued, smacking his lips, "the evidence has been pointing pretty firmly in a certain direction, though not so firmly that I've been able to go 'eureka!' — 'til now. You should have come to me earlier, bach. You should have known you could share all this with me and I wouldn't breathe a word of it to anyone else."

"I've come to you now."

"Now that you need my help."

"Sorry."

"No, it's fine. Nice to be needed by someone. Especially by the best DS I ever had. You should see this new chap they've got me working with. Barely looks old enough to shave, and if the good Lord gave him any brains at all it was only as a token effort, just so's he'd have something to put in his skull. His reports are atrocious! University degree, and he can't even spell 'forensic.' Puts a 'k' at the end, which, I grant you, has a certain ironic aptness but is hardly a ringing endorsement of the quality of modern higher education. Doesn't even bother him that the spellchecker underlines it. I'd have you back in the job like a shot, Akehurst, if that was a possibility." His expression clouded. "Only it isn't a possibility, is it? Not now. Not from the way you've been speaking. You're set on rejoining the Titans, is that right?"

"I am."

"And kicking yet more Olympian arse."

"Yes."

"And what you want from me is to make this" — he gestured towards the hallway — "go away. Is that it? Remove the body. Baffle any investigation. Keep your record clean so that you can carry on with your mission, which you now feel more fervently about than ever."

"No. I mean, yes about the mission. You're dead-on there. I'm going to get the Olympians back not only for Ade but for Zaina. They turned a friend against me. They made me kill her. And, worse, if I'd been the one who'd picked up the phone…" The sentence trailed off into a shudder.

"It was an accident, the way you described it. Self-defence. Your friend was not in her right mind, and she fell on the knife while you were trying to restrain her."

"Still, I was the one who pushed her onto it. I as good as stuck it into her."

"The Aphrodite defence has been used successfully in courts of law. The mob that killed that would-be assassin in Corsica, for instance. They were held to be not responsible for their actions, not of sound mind, because of Aphrodite, and it applies here too, the other way round."

"I don't care. I'm not trying to wriggle out of this, sir."

"I'm not 'sir.' I'm not your boss any more."

"Nor," Sam went on, "am I hoping you'll help me cover this up, sir. I wouldn't dare ask something like that from you. Wouldn't dream of it."

"That is, I must admit, a relief," said Prothero. "Call me old-fashioned, but I have this thing about being police and not perverting the course of justice."

"I'd be ashamed if the thought even crossed my mind. All I want is for you to know that I did not commit murder here. When the body is eventually found, when it comes out that the police are searching for former detective sergeant Sam Akehurst in connection with a suspected homicide, when the story hits the headlines and the shit hits the fan, I just want it known by you that I'm innocent. I don't care what anyone else thinks, so long as one person, you, is in possession of the full facts."

"Akehurst… Sam… I'm truly not liking the way this sounds."

"How does it sound?"

"Permanent," said Prothero. "Irreversible. Like you're heading down some path you don't think you're coming back from."

"Well good, that's how it's supposed to sound. What happens to me isn't important any longer. It's what happens to them that counts."

He surveyed her over the rim of his tumbler. She could see thoughts churning behind those bright, penetrating blue eyes of his, affection wrestling with duty, past vying with present.

Finally he said, "I'd be a fool to try and talk you out of this. I'd be wasting my breath. Your heart's set, and frankly I pity those poor Olympians. They've mucked with the wrong lass, and they don't know what's coming. You can't expect me not to call in the discovery of a dead body, though."

"No, of course not."

"So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you ten minutes. You phoned. You sounded peculiar on the line, a bit 'off.' I came round to see you. You let me in. Then, while I was standing in the hall goggling at the corpse, you ran. Gave me the slip, scarpered out the garden way, over the fence and along the alley at the back. Wheezy, paunchy, middle-aged Prothero gave chase but there was little hope of him catching young, slim, nimble you. OK so far?"

"And why did I phone you?"

"To get me over here, to… confess to your old guv'nor, I suppose. Only, you must have had a last-minute change of heart. Took one look at me. Panicked. Fled."

"Who is the woman in the hallway?"

"A friend who you had a falling-out with, will be my assumption. Over a man. Yes?"

"Sexist but acceptable."

"You'd rather it was over a knitting pattern?"

"A man gives me reasonable motive. There'll be no clear evidential history between me and Zaina Mahmoud, though."

"You said she was a cop. Maybe that's how you two knew each other. Met and bonded at some training seminar a while back, then ended up dating the same fellow. Another cop perhaps, or a mutual friend, someone who commutes between London and — where did you say she was from? Manchester. The thing is, the why of it won't be anywhere near as significant as the fact that her body is lying in your house with your knife in her and your fingerprints all over her. That's the picture everyone'll see, that's what'll stick in people's minds, and by comparison the background details will hardly matter. Besides, crimes of passion so often are random-seeming. There's not always a direct, unambiguous trail linking one person to another. You know this."

"I do."

"So now I'm sitting here, having helped myself to a glass of your whisky, and I'm getting my breath back and also reeling because I'm stunned — stunned — by what my erstwhile protegee has done. And in ten minutes' time I'm going to finally muster up the mental wherewithal to phone Despatch and get them to send Scene of Crime over and the rest. You have ten minutes to clear the area and get on your way to wherever you're going, Sam. I'm sorry it can't be longer, but we have to make this as realistic a timeframe as we can, don't we?"

"I'm just glad you didn't ask me to punch you, so that you can say we had a scuffle and that's how I got away."

"Come now," said Prothero with a wry half-smile. "I have my manly reputation to consider. Stopped by a punch from a woman? The boyos back at the station would be ribbing me mercilessly about it for months. Mind, the way I'm feeling right now, getting hit's probably what I need to bring me to my senses."

"How about a hug instead? Would that be all right?"

They had never hugged before. He took her in his arms, tightly, and she buried her face in his jacket collar, which smelled of dry cleaning fluid and him.

"Thank you," she whispered. "For everything."

"Ah now, let's not have any of that."

"You didn't have to agree to do any of this for me. Lie for me."

"No, and I'd much rather be telling everyone the truth, because that exonerates you. But then everyone would start wondering why the Olympians targeted you and your friend, and that'd lead to some unwelcome complications. Your face is going to be on TV soon, there's nothing I can do to prevent that, and Dionysus and Aphrodite will recognise you, and if you stayed here to face the music and clear your name the Olympians would know where you were and come after you in force. So you have to go on the run. It's the only way you'll be free to fight your war. And that's what matters to you, so it matters to me too."

He eased her away from him, holding her at arm's length, clasping her shoulders.

"Go get the buggers, Akehurst," he said. "Hurt them. Make them pay."

She hadn't been seeking Prothero's blessing, and didn't need it, but Christ she was pleased to have it.