The only thing more dangerous than a
trained killer, his father had once said, is a trained liar.
Richard therefore eyes the lawyer at
his doorstep with suspicion.
Not only because, having received a
prestigious legal education, Señor Francesco Hernandez is schooled in a certain
controlled boisterousness with the truth; but, thanks to an early career in a
Mexican drugs cartel of no less prestige, Francesco can also demonstrate a
certain controlled boisterousness with a wide variety of personal weaponry —
edged, rifled and otherwise.
Francesco really is both a trained liar
and a trained killer.
Which, for most people, makes him quite
a dangerous handful when he turns up unexpectedly at four o’clock in the
morning — in military terms, almost exactly the perfect time for a pre-dawn
strike on the enemy.
But Francesco is not military. Richard is not the enemy. Richard knows Francesco the Lawyer-cum-Killer
from childhood. Francesco is his father’s
right-hand man. Inscrutable, intelligent
and infuriatingly informed about everything, Francesco is the only person
Richard has learnt to truly rely on. Whilst,
automatically, being ever-so-slightly wary of.
Right now Richard is too tired to be
too wary as he stands in the doorway of his mews flat. He wears boat shoes, a florid silk dressing
gown and a puzzled expression — an unfortunate combination which makes him look
like an eccentric aristocrat. Richard
does not consider himself to be an eccentric.
He considers it eccentric to read the Telegraph online, highly peculiar that people would choose to live in the Provinces,
and quite beyond the pale to go to bed without pyjamas.
What is for certain is that
Richard doesn’t have the look of a man who sees a lot of early mornings. He has that indefinable pampered look of
someone who doesn’t know the meaning of rush hour or cashflow crisis. Despite this, a resolute jaw saves him from
looking puppyish; indeed, with an idea in his head and a couple of Clicquots in
his belly, Richard has been known to radiate a certain dogged gravitas; then he
becomes more solemn than usual and his forehead gleams and draw attention to
the extent that his untidy, straw-like hair has begun to recede.
What we have here — the trained eye
would conclude — is not your Alpha Male.
What we have here instead is a bumptious, bovine Beta, a scatty Young
Fogey with a pudding’s chance in Hell of achieving anything useful.
But those that really know Richard know better.
Pushover he ain’t. Should he
suddenly decide it is The Right Thing To Do, Mr Richard Espinosa-Smith will
emerge, like a plucky gunboat, from a fog of dissolute whiffle and stolidly
devastate any obstacle or opposition in his (often frighteningly unimaginative)
path.
Richard will, it has been noted, fuck
people up old-fashioned-style if he has to.
But he’s no Alpha Male.
What confronts Richard on his doorstep
certainly is an Alpha Male. Francesco —
the cultured ex-sicario of Los Aguilás de Sangre, of Chihuahua
province — is, as ever, attended by a cloud of fierce, distinguished aftershave
that marks his territory like a sophisticated lion. But what does he want? And why does he think now is a good time to
ask for it? Military strike, social
call, or the usual whimsical summons from his father — as far as Richard is
concerned, whatever the most educated assassin in Mexico is playing at in
Mayfair, it’s a bloody stupid time to turn up on somebody’s doorstep expecting
a sympathetic hearing.
Francesco doesn’t look like he is doing
sympathy today. His expression is very
grave indeed. So grave that Richard is
about to joke sourly, “has somebody –“
“Your father,” Francesco says, “is
dying. You must come now. Adelante.”
Richard does not panic. He knows that people die. Even in Mayfair.
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