Note: There's an accusation of paedophilia against a character in this chapter, based on misinterpreted observations of day to day activities. There's no descriptions of any sexual activities, or any forms of abuse.

July 2012

"So… How's business?" Vivianne asked, eyeing him over the rim of her glass as she spoke.

MacTavish shrugged. "No news is good news, I guess."

Her face fell. The eager, but demure smile replaced with a disdainfully twisted lip. She raised an eyebrow. "How long has it been?"

He rubbed his chin, his fingers rasping over a spot of stubble he'd missed, and mentally adding up the days. "Just over... two weeks since the medical."

She exhaled through her nose, her lips pursed together in a thin, angry line.

"Wheels move slowly." He made a dismissive gesture with his hand, trying to give the impression that it didn't bother him: a blatant lie. "There's a lot going on I don't know about. Important things."

She sighed and took a long gulp of her wine before she spoke. "They haven't even given you a timeframe of when they'll set a date. You know you're fit for duty; they know you're fit for duty. That's bullshit." She gestured with the glass. "It's not right."

"Yeah, but.." He stopped, realising that he'd said that aloud. He glanced around quickly checking that there was no one about to observe him talking to himself, but the country backroad was predictably empty. With a start he realised that he had phased out about two miles back, and failed to notice that the entrance to the village had come and gone.

He swore, and after another quick check that he wasn't about to be flattened by a passing car, swung the bike in a wide u-turn and started pedalling back the way he had come.

Christ, what the fuck is wrong with you ?

It was getting worse. He tried to deny it, but it was definitely getting worse. More and more often, his thoughts turned to her: between the sets of presses as he lay on the bench, as he stacked the dishes in the cupboards, in the long, slow strokes of the paintbrush across the wall. Each time, they were back in the park, backs against a tree, just talking again.

At first, he'd dismissed it as a natural consequence of all the shit that had happened: his brain's way of processing the complex trauma of the Russian operation, his own recovery and frustration with its progress. He needed someone to talk to, and frankly, who else was going to listen? Everyone he knew was dead, deployed, or had their own problems to worry about, so he started talking to Vivianne, in his head.

It was wrong, and a bit weird, frankly, if he pressed himself to admit it, but it wasn't, he told himself, like he was actually going to act on his fantasies, actually going to preposition Gaz's widow. He just liked... pretending they were talking, enjoying a friendly chat. He liked her smooth, plummy voice, her confidence, and she'd been friendly enough in the shop. He had thought about that a lot. Thought about the moment when he'd taken the picture from her grasp, their accidental touch and her smile. It's only natural , he thought, as he pressed his feet down, putting some effort into regaining his lost momentum, that you kind of fixate on her, and you only talk.

You're a fucking liar.

He stopped pedalling, and the bike whirred on under the head of steam he'd built.

You want to do a lot more than fucking talk to her.

He glowered down at the road, and clenched his teeth, trying to shut out the voice of his treacherous conscience.

She's beautiful, and you want to touch her, to taste her lips, to-

"For fuck's sake!" He snapped, aloud. "Fuck!"

At the sudden noise, a small rabbit bolted from the long grass at the verge. He slammed on the brakes and brought the bike to a skidding halt just as it passed centimetres beyond the front wheel.

"Jesus Christ!" He exclaimed.

He watched the grass shake as it dived under the hedge on the opposite side, and away into the barley. He laughed at the absurdity of it, his heart pounding in his chest from the sudden stop, and then he couldn't stop laughing. It would be just his shit luck to come a cropper with a broken leg because of some terminally anxious bunny.

Finally, as he heard the roar of an engine approaching behind, he finally pulled himself together and pushed off again. Keep your eye on the target, mind on the job, he told himself. Just get it done.

"You remember Simon Riley?"

Price worked his way round to that question innocently enough, MacTavish recalled, slowly sidling through the basic exchange of pleasantries, small talk and three hobnobs before he started the slow spiral down towards his real objective.

MacTavish did remember Riley. They'd been sort-of friends, acquaintances, on the edges of each other's little social groups, sometimes sitting around the same table in the pub, talking bollocks about cars, or work or football with the others. He had liked Riley, enjoyed his acerbic observational wit, but in the months abroad, and long vacation from reality wallowing in his own self pity since his return, he hadn't even thought about him, or any of the rest of his old mates. How long had it been ? He asked himself. The weeks had started running in to one another. How long had it been since the barbeque? How many people had he said he would need to catch up with and then let it lapse?

Whilst they'd been solving the Russian problem, Price explained, Riley and the rest of his company had absolutely not been skulking around Lake Chad as part of an Anglo-American task force, driving Boko Haram away from American oil interests in the region. He'd returned with a rampaging case of malaria and a recommendations for handful of medals for dragging and driving his surviving, delirious comrades back to safety when everything went to shit around them. That had been three weeks ago. It might be nice, Price suggested, to have a friend in similar circumstances to talk to, that is, if he didn't mind the whispers.

Riley had been a quiet type, MacTavish remembered, keeping himself to himself outside of work, and that had encouraged the gossip. The first rumour, that he was at least part Gypsy, MacTavish suspected Riley had both invented and spread himself to good effect, charming an assortment of women in pubs and clubs by offering to read their palms. This might not have bothered anyone, but the self-fulfilling prophecy that the woman in question would meet a handsome, red-headed stranger who'd steal their heart, tended to result in a shag irritatingly often. He supposed that's where the rest of the talk had come from: jealous poison spread by the men passed over by women in favour of Riley's charlatan palmistry routine. Whatever the reason, MacTavish felt that it was extremely unlike that Riley still lived with his Mum, or, given that he never even glanced at the odd under-age interloper who made it into the club, that he was, as they whispered accusingly, a paedophile.

Yet, Price had some concerning intelligence, information that gave even MacTavish cause for doubt: Sundance had seen Riley picking up a brace of giggling girls outside the supermarket in his car. Tony had seen him at the playing fields, watching the school hockey teams face off. Finally, the last straw had been when one of the higher-ups had seen him hanging around at the gates of the posh school in the town and suddenly when some old Rupert's teen daughter appeared to be a potential target of lechery, the Head Shed began to turn their gaze towards the problem.

He considered, as he pedalled along the road in the blazing sun, how neatly he'd been had. It was mid-morning, but already he was sweating from the baking heat, the fabric of his t-shirt clinging to his back with sweat. Price had cemented the idea that he should get in touch with Riley anyway, so it hadn't been such a leap to offer to reconnaitre the situation on an informal basis on his behalf. Price hadn't ordered him to do it, he realised, just manipulated him into a situation where he felt compelled by his sense of justice to act on his behalf. MacTavish shook his head, and laughed out loud, sweat falling like rain onto the handlebars. The wily old bastard , he thought.

He gripped the handlebars again, and banked, turning the bike with the weight of his body, and then speeding out of the turn with a final burst of frenetic energy that let him coast to the end of the road. He slung his leg over the bike seat and balanced, one foot on the pedal, freewheeling to a stop just shy of the address in question: an ex-council semi, in Credenhill village proper, a literal stone's throw across the berm and perimeter fence. He had been expecting a pokey flat like his own, but this was a proper house, with neat paintwork, blooming window boxes and an assortment of pastel blinds pulled down behind sparkling windows. He paused to catch his breath, and checked his phone, reading the message with the address twice, even though he could see Riley's old Range Rover backed into the drive.

Just next to the car, five teenage girls lay sprawled on the small patch of grass that made up the front garden. He looked at the house, and then down to where they were lounging in its shade. In turn, they regarded his appearance with and ouvert suspicion and he did likewise. Looking over the gangling legs, flat chests and serious expressions on babyish faces, he wasn't sure exactly how old they were, but they were clearly well south of proper and they were definitely lounging on Riley's front lawn. He already didn't like the implications.

"I'm looking for Simon?" he said.

"Oh yeah?" said the tallest, sitting up. She glared back at him through narrowed eyes, her expression one of open hostility, and he saw the resemblance then: pale skin with a cinnamon dusting of freckles and wild auburn hair currently constrained in a severe braid. Sister? Niece? He considered hopefully. Now that he was here, he realised for the first time how woefully out of his depth he was, and how serious the situation actually was. He hoped it was all a huge misunderstanding.

As he stared at her she rose up, gawky limbs unfurling, until she was standing in front of him, her skinny shoulders braced, a hockey stick hanging loosely in one hand. She scowled at him. Something in her gimlet-eyed stare told him that if he made a single false move he'd find out exactly how well she could swing it at his head, even if she was two foot smaller and about a hundred pounds lighter than he was.

"What'd you want?" She demanded. He was certainly they were related in some way now, her accent a gentrified, smoothed out version of Riley's harsh London tone.

"Is he in?" MacTavish asked, jerking his head towards the house. Without the stream of air passing over him, he had started to overheat. Sweat slowly dripped down his face, stinging his eyes.

She shrugged. "Are your intentions honourable?"

"What?" He rubbed the sweat from his eyes, but that just made it hurt more.

"I said: Are you intentions honourable?"

"What's it to you?" he snapped, trying to stare her down through a blurry, watering haze.

"Oi! Leave off!"

He looked up, vision finally starting to clear. Through the blur, he saw Riley's head and shoulders leaning from an open window upstairs, grinning down at him.

"Alright mate, I'll see you round the back." He said, and withdrew.

MacTavish glanced back at the girl. She still glared daggers at him, but he ignored her, and headed up the side of the house, feeling her angry stare needling into his back with every step. He thought he heard her start to speak he swung the gate open, but the noise was lost in the squeal of the hinge.

He stopped as the gate swung shut behind him, convinced that he'd walked into the wrong backyard. He found himself on a neat patio, complete with barbecue and floral parasol-covered picnic table, bordered on one side by stout fence and a large extension on the other. There were actual roses being trained up the doorframe. He looked back down the side of the house, double-checked the car on the drive, and was about to walk back round the front to make sure he was in the right place, when Riley bounded out of the back door. He embraced MacTavish in a bearlike hug and laughed.

"How you been, mate?" He said, as he let go and stood back to regard his visitor.

Riley's face had been roughly handsome before, but now it was gaunt, the cheekbones jutting out, the fat scoured away by the ravages of malarial fever. The belt of his cut off jeans concertinaed the fabric where it would have otherwise gaped. He had always been pale, but now he looked ghastly with a sickly, yellowish tinge to his freckled skin. Christ. He looks like death warmed up , MacTavish thought.

"Shit." MacTavish replied, with a shrug. "You?"

"Shit." Riley answered. He mimicked his shrug in response, and MacTavish realised he could see the bones move beneath the sallow skin.

They regarded each other, the awkward silence encompassing the grim history of their lives. MacTavish didn't know where to start, couldn't find the words to summarise the pain, the loss and despair that wracked him still, nevermind start to make a fumbling enquiry into the hell Riley had recently returned from.

"Getting better though." said Riley, brightly, ignoring the uncomfortable gap in their conversation "Getting my strength back." He grinned, and MacTavish spotted the gap where one of his teeth used to be.

"You look like a fucking ghost." blurted MacTavish.

"Yeah. A lot of people been saying that. I think it might stick." He grinned.

"There's worse, I suppose." MacTavish observed and they both laughed.

"You want a cup of tea?"

"No thanks." MacTavish shook his head.

Riley thrust a bottle of water at him regardless, and he took it gratefully, wiping the sweat from his brow with the edge of his t-shirt. He unscrewed the bottle and took a long slug, the liquid like a shard of ice thrust into his throat. He wetted his shirt with some and wiped his face again whilst Riley began to rifle through the piles of wood stacked against the house.

He was about to ask about the girls, when he heard a voice behind him.

"Dad?"

He turned round to find the girl who'd challenged him standing in the gateway. She squinted past him, shading her eyes against the sun with one hand and gripping the gatepost with the other, swinging through the entrance into the yard. She glared at MacTavish again, and then looked beyond him.

"Can I have some money to buy drugs?"

" No ." MacTavish turned back to see Riley, planks of wood stacked on a bony shoulder, about to start off up the garden, staring past him at the girl.

"What about the cinema then?"

"What? On a day like this? I thought you were off watching the rugby?"

"We're only going because Harriet has to watch Leo." She rolled her eyes. "We'll be done by lunchtime and the cinema's got air conditioning."

Riley considered this, and then capitulated. "Yeah, alright." He dropped the wood from his shoulder and took a moment to rummage in his back pocket. He pulled out a folding wallet and then, in a long, backspun throw, lobbed it across the garden towards her. She caught it, and pulled out a ten pound note.

"Thanks Dad! See you later!"

The gate slammed shut behind her, and Riley stared after her, hands on hips. He shook his head, laughed and turned back to the panels he was sorted.

MacTavish looked at the gate and the back at Riley, who looked askance at him. "Dad ?" he asked, unable to conceal the incredulity in his voice.

"Yeah." Riley answered, and sighed. "Fourteen."

"What?"

"Fourteen. That's how old I was when she was born." He shook his head, grinning without humour "That's what you were gonna ask, right?"

MacTavish looked down at the wallet, which had flopped open onto the picnic table, and was being circled by a curious, fat bumblebee. He picked it up and looked at the photograph rammed into one of the clear plastic slots: a younger, more boyish faced Riley in his Para outfit, crouching down with his arm around a younger, plumper version of the angry girl with the hockey stick, in a grey school uniform with a neon pink backpack in her hand. She smiled shyly at the camera, pressed in to the grinning boy who could have passed for her brother.

"Uh… I never heard you had a kid. You've never mentioned it." He said, eventually. Out of all the things he wanted to say about what he'd just been told, it was the politest he could manage. He folded the wallet closed and held it out to Riley, who slid it back into his pocket.

"Keep it on the down low, don't I? You think I want any of the fucking pervs round there giving her bother? Christ, you hear how some of them talk?" He jerked his head to the looming barbed wire at the end of the garden. "No thanks." He twisted his lips, as if he'd just tasted something particularly vile.

MacTavish considered the irony of this statement in the current context of his visit for a second, and then a thought struck him "She must live with her Mum while you're away?"

Riley shook his head, and puffed out his cheeks, exhaling through pressed lips "Last time I heard anything about her , she was about to be sent down for GBH and possession." He shrugged, as if this was an entirely normal state of affairs. "My Mum looks after her." He jerked his head towards the house. MacTavish could hear the sound of someone washing up, and the tinny noise of the radio from within. Well , thought MacTavish, that wasn't the rumour I came to confirm, but hey-ho!

Over the next hour, the novelty of having an ear to bend for his suppressed parental bragging overtook Riley, and in between dragging pieces of wood across the garden, hammering and drilling, he droned on about Jade's scholarship to the posh school, Jade's GCSEs, Jade's hockey team and all Jade's innumerable friends. MacTavish, who felt that Riley had enough on his plate to begin with, just let him talk. Fourteen? MacTavish thought. Riley might be a year younger than him, he considered. What was I doing when I was fourteen? He wondered. Occasionally, he made encouraging noises into the silence, or asked a question, but mostly he let it blend together into a continuous buzz of background noise whilst they worked.

He realised that despite everything that had happened, Riley was still the same old Riley. Sure, he was thinner, and he wasn't nearly as fit as he once had been, but he was just carrying on. Price hadn't gone into details, but his face had told him that whatever had gone down out there, it had been bad, and MacTavish knew that coming from Price that was saying something. Yet, here was Riley, drilling and hammering and chattering away like nothing had happened.

A soft breeze rose, the leaves of the tree that bordered the edge of the fence rustling as the wind passed. Riley was concentrating on a spirit level, whilst MacTavish held a piece of wood in place. In the sudden silence as the wind died away, he could hear the distant drone of a vacuum cleaner inside the house suddenly die and be replaced with the distant noise of the radio. A bee buzzed passed his ear. He regarded the blooming plants, the budding apples on the tree that butted against the barbed wire. From a few doors down, children screeched and yelled. Life pressed around him, and he felt it more keenly than he had done in months.

For the first time, he saw the sad state of his own lonely existence with a clarity that he hadn't before. MacTavish could count the number of serious relationships he'd had on one hand. Sure, he'd been a regular visitor to various beds, but he'd regarded the idea of love as something cloying, as a weight that would drag him down. He always felt like he was suffocating when things got serious, made his excuses and quit before he was too entangled. He had regarded being lumbered with a kid as a death sentence. But looking at Riley, talking of taking his daughter to her hockey practice with genuine pride, he wondered if he might have been wrong.

Riley had roots here, he realised, and instead of dragging him down, they braced him against the horrors he'd suffered. He understood that the responsibility gave Riley something to focus on, that filled the void left when the fighting was over. He found joy in things that MacTavish regarded as pointlessly mundane.

He leant on the post they'd hammered into place, shifting absentmindedly when Riley pointed to another spot he wanted to mark. He thought about what it would be like to live in Riley's little corner of domesticity, and of course, he thought of her.

Notes:

I've subsequently learnt, after writing this chapter, that in the USA, the term "Gypsy" is extremely pejorative, whilst in the UK, it is normal to hear Roma people use this as a way to refer to themselves and to see it used officially to describe a particular ethnic group of Traveller people, of which there are several groups living in the UK.