Alan Turing patted Margaret’s hand helplessly, and listened to his queen ramble on. He couldn’t do much for her now, but as long as she asked him to, he would listen.
The house smelled of food brought from a nearby pub. It was far from Noel Matthews’ first choice of cuisine, but it was infinitely preferable to his mother trying to exercise her culinary skills … which were nil. His father, a stay-at-home invalid, had done all the cooking while his wife went off to teach at Cambridge, but since his death Amanda had relied solely on takeaway and frozen dinners heated in the microwave. It showed in the fact her big frame was now packing more weight than the last time he had seen her. While he set the table she was busy opening the containers and placing serving spoons in the shepherd’s pie, the Brussels sprouts, the blackberry and apple crumble, and the green salad Noel had insisted she add to the order.
‘Darling, while it’s lovely having you home and seeing my grandson, what you’re doing is rotten and you know it,’ Amanda was saying.
A sharp pain at the hinge of his jaw reminded Noel to unclench his teeth. ‘There was an easy solution. Niobe just had to agree to move back to Britain with me.’
‘Her family is all in that New England area—’
‘Yeah, and they’re all complete arseholes. Why she suddenly decided she needed to reconcile with them is beyond me. She seemed to think Jasper changed everything for them, but he’s an ace and they’ll hate him as much as they hate her for being a joker because they hate wild cards. Why she can’t see that—’
‘Because the ties of blood are strong. You’ve separated a child from his mother, Noel. I can’t approve of that.’
‘Can’t I be both?’ he quipped with bitter irony in a reference to his intersex status.
‘Now you’re being an arsehole. Go and get Jasper. Dinner’s ready.’
He checked the cosy study where he had spent so many hours with his father, then Jasper’s bedroom. His son was nowhere to be found. Old habits leapt to the fore and he found himself gripping the butt of the pistol that he always carried and checking the knives secreted about his person. Could this be some of the many enemies he had made as an elite assassin for Britain’s ace spy agency, MI7? Or could it be the Silver Helix itself come for a little payback?
He felt a cold breeze and ran to the back door. It had blown open. His heart was hammering as he rushed into the back garden, fallow now as the final day of a miserable February drew to a close. The fact that it was sunset meant he was unable to teleport if there should be a threat. He cursed under his breath and headed down the slope towards the River Cam, where fog was rising off the water like the waving tendrils of a witch’s hair.
A small figure squatted by the river’s edge. Noel slumped with relief and joined his son. ‘It’s cold and wet out here, Jasper. You should have a coat.’
‘I just wanted to see the fog. It’s so weird,’ the boy said. ‘It’s like it’s alive.’
‘Well, dinner is ready.’
Jasper nodded and stood up. At nine years old he was becoming coltish, all legs and elbows. Noel dropped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close.
‘Dad, are we going to go home soon?’
‘Well, technically this is home too. I have the flat in London, the place in Paris—’
‘But they’re not really home because … because …’ He looked up hesitantly. ‘I really miss Mom.’
‘We’re … working on it. I just want you to be a good Englishman as well as an American, which is why I want to live here for a while.’
‘So why doesn’t Mom want to come here?’
The memory of wet smears on the carpet where Niobe’s and his three little ace homunculi had died in a hail of bullets flashed across his memory. Niobe pressing a hand to her chest weeping, remembering the pain of the bullets that had killed her children.
‘I’m not sure,’ he lied. She’s also worried I’ll fall back into my old ways, he thought. He remembered how he had reached for his weapons in a moment of panic and had to acknowledge that she might be right.
They stepped into the house to hear a plummy BBC voice on the telly. ‘… Word from Windsor is that it is only a matter of hours now. If so, it truly is the end of an era. An unprecedented time of peace and prosperity for mainland Britain for which she deserves some of the credit …’
Jasper looked up. ‘What’s going on? What does that mean, Daddy?’
‘Tomorrow we’ll all be saying God save the King.’
Alan took a quick deep breath before opening the door to the Victorian house he shared with his husband. It was falling down a bit, showing its years, but they’d redone the electrics a decade ago, and it should hold up for some time yet.
‘I’m home!’ Alan called out, letting the door swing closed behind him. It was warm inside – too warm for his comfort, to be honest, but Sebastian was feeling the cold more these days, the arthritis in his joints acting up. Alan wouldn’t ask his husband to turn the heat down, but he was quick in stripping off his coat and cardigan.
Sebastian came through the swing door from the kitchen, letting through the scent of a chicken curry, and Alan’s stomach rumbled in response. Sometimes people assumed that a metal man wouldn’t eat, but Alan’s skin was only metal on the outside. His internal workings were entirely human, every part of him fully functional. And now that functional stomach was reminding him that he’d missed lunch, and breakfast had been much too long ago.
‘Dinner’s ready. I’ve been keeping it warm.’ Sebastian gave him a quick, dry kiss, lips to lips, and then headed back into the kitchen. Alan followed.
‘You didn’t have to wait for me,’ he said. It was late, past ten.
‘I don’t like eating without you. You know that,’ Sebastian said quietly. He climbed onto the step stool, reached down plates from the cupboard. The dishes they’d picked out together on their wedding day, heavy bone china in cream, with a simple gold rim. Alan didn’t usually bother noting such everyday details, but perhaps his time with the Queen was making him more sentimental than usual. Five years ago, he and Sebastian had promised each other they’d use the good china every day. They’d waited long enough to finally be able to marry; there was no point in waiting for anything else.
Sebastian had looked handsome at their St Paul’s wedding, in his morning coat and top hat. Oh, he had the thickness of late middle age, twenty extra pounds lodged solidly in his belly. But he’d still looked good back then. In the last five years, Sebastian had aged visibly; his hair was almost pure white now, with matching bushy white eyebrows, and twenty extra pounds had turned to forty. Alan didn’t really mind: he liked a solid man, and at the age of seventy-four Sebastian had surely earned the right to slow down a little and eat his fill.
Unfortunately, Sebastian minded, and that had its consequences in their rather desolate bedroom. Now his hand trembled a little, balancing the plate heavy with rice and curry, and Alan reached out to take it from him. Sebastian pulled away. ‘I’ve got it, Alan; don’t fuss.’
‘You should’ve eaten. The doctor said—’
‘Enough,’ Sebastian snapped. He took a quick breath, visibly steadying himself. ‘It’s almost time for the news – we can watch together.’ He handed Alan a cold beer, and then they were moving back through the door, heading into the sitting room, with its comfortably worn leather furniture and