Once A Pilgrim: a breathtaking, pulse-pounding SAS thriller

Still, he’d always been able to function on not much kip. Plenty of times he’d not slept for a couple of days straight: if you thought about it like that, three hours was luxury.

He turned on his bedside light and looked at the blonde.

Early twenties and very fit, but not quite so hot with her hair everywhere, her mouth slack and a line of crusted drool snaking its way down onto the pillow.

What was her name?

Emily?

Emma?

Elizabeth?

Something beginning with E, he was sure of that, but he was fucked if he could get any further than that.

He could just about remember her coming on to him at the bar over in Fulham.

About ten-ish, when he’d been about eight pints deep.

It had been Guy de Vere’s annual birthday bash – always a big night, and a good chance to catch up with one or two blokes he’d not seen for a while.

He hadn’t gone there looking for a woman – there were enough women in his life as it was, and they complicated things: he liked simplicity, and routine, and order.

But somehow they always seemed to find him.

He moved slightly, and she stirred.

‘Morning, John,’ she said, opening two enormous blue eyes and looking very directly at him. Her voice was clearest cut glass crystal, roughened slightly by the Marlboro Lights she’d been smoking all night. She gave a sleepy smile, and then looked at him reproachfully. ‘You really are a very naughty boy.’

‘Am I?’ he said.

‘Bringing me here, doing all those unspeakable things to me, when you hardly know me and you’re old enough to be my father.’ She yawned. ‘I’m not that sort of girl.’

‘I think you are. And I’m not old enough to be your father.’

‘You’re not far off.’ She rubbed her eyes and ran a forefinger over his chest and up onto his chin. ‘Who did this to you?’ she said, tracing the upside-down crescent of the scar below his mouth.

‘A guy,’ said Carr.

‘How?’

‘He threw a grenade into a room I was in.’

‘What terrible manners.’

‘It was a bit cheeky.’

‘What happened to him?’

Carr looked at her, sideways. ‘I happened to him,’ he said.

The girl chuckled. It was a breathy, filthy sound, and Carr felt his heartbeat quicken a little.

‘Where was it?’ she said.

‘That’s classified,’ he said. ‘Sorry, love.’

She chuckled again. ‘You don’t even know my name, do you?’ she said.

Eeny meeny miny moe.

‘Emma.’

‘Uh huh.’ Her hand was off his chin now, and was resting on his pectoral muscles.

He tensed them slightly in response: no point doing all that work at the gym if you didn’t get the pay-off.

She laughed, reading him like a cheap paperback.

‘I have to be honest, John,’ she said. ‘I don’t normally go for men with tattoos. But you can be my bit of rough.’

Carr looked at her sideways again, an eyebrow raised. ‘Is that so?’ he said, with a slight grin.

‘I’ll have to housetrain you, of course,’ she said. She pointed to one of the designs. It showed a winged figure holding two swords. ‘What’s this one?’

‘St Michael,’ said Carr. ‘Patron Saint of the Airborne.’

‘Really? How fascinating.’

He rolled out of bed, naked, and walked to the bedroom door.

Her eyes followed him, taking in the artwork covering his upper arms and back. To her eye, it meant nothing; to Carr, each tattoo told a personal story, of death, and sin, and other regrets.

‘Must have cost you the earth,’ she called after him. ‘Nice arse, by the way.’

He heard her dissolve into giggles as he padded out into the hallway.

A quick piss, and he was in the shower.

She joined him a few moments later, and they did it all over again under the hot water.

Later, in the kitchen, he made her a cappuccino and himself a mug of strong tea, and stood there looking out of the window.

Chewing paracetamol for his head, wondering why he felt uneasy.

Below him, Primrose Hill looked a picture in the dawn light, the bare branches of the trees picked out by a rare hoar frost.

The girl stood next to him, swamped by his ivory bathrobe, warming her hands on the coffee cup.

‘I’m going to have to go to work in my going-out clothes, thanks to you,’ she said. ‘I’d borrow a shirt, but I think you’d get three of me in one of yours.’

‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘Is there a Mrs John?’

‘Used to be.’

‘Oh?’

‘Divorced a while back. We drifted apart.’

‘Oh. Children?’

‘Boy and a girl.’

‘Tell me more.’

‘George is in the Army, Alice is in her first year of A levels.’

The girl snuck an arm around his waist. ‘And is there a woman in your life?’

‘Women,’ he said. ‘Plural.’

‘Well, that’s not very gentlemanly, is it?’ she said, with a smirk.

‘I never said I was a gentleman. I’m not into being tied down. Tried it once.’

‘I’d like to see you again.’

He turned to look at her, eyebrow raised. ‘Of course you would, darlin’,’ he said. ‘You don’t see this walking down the street every day, do you?’

She laughed. ‘I like a man with confidence.’

‘I was taking the piss,’ he said. ‘A bit.’

She put the coffee cup down, and went to get dressed.

When she came back he was still standing, looking out of the window.

‘I’ve written my name and number down on your pad,’ she said, handing it to him, and grinning. ‘And where did you get fucking Emma from?’

He looked at the notepad.

Her name was scrawled above a mobile number.

It said ‘Antonia de Vere’.

He looked up at her, staring closely now, the realisation slowly dawning.

Regimental balls and summer barbecues and Hereford parties over the years…

Everyone bringing their families.

Wives, sons.

And daughters.

Oh, shit.

‘Yes,’ she said, giggling. ‘I didn’t think you recognised me. But then I suppose I am all grown up, now.’ She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘Don’t worry,’ she whispered, into his ear. ‘I won’t tell daddy if you won’t.’

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