Crash Course by Derek Fee (freenovel24 .TXT) 📗

down a hill.” He pushed into the room and closed the door behind him. “Don’t forget we’re partners now with everything that entails. I depend on you and you depend on me. That’s how it’s got to be. And if there’s something that I should know about, you should be the one to tell me.” He glanced quickly at the bed and saw the sheets were stained with sweat.

Kane looked at his new partner. This was one of the reasons he liked working alone. He wasn’t the kind that opened his heart to new or old friends. There were certain things in a man’s life that were private. Sacred things that only he should carry with him. Watson was doing his ‘you-can-tell-me-your-secret’ act. But Kane would not oblige. Firstly, because he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it and secondly because knowledge was power and he wasn’t about to hand Watson power over him.

“A bad dream,” he repeated. “Too many spins. Too much violence. Every now and then the eyelid movies replay some old scenes and the adrenaline starts to pump even though I’m asleep.” He sucked in a deep breath.

“You should never try to con a conman.” Doc padded across the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. The floppy bottoms of his pyjamas obliterated his white feet. “You’re not the first man I’ve heard scream in the night like that. I’ve been there. Combat does lots of things to people. The ones that get off easy are the ones who end up in hospital with a piece of lead in their body. The unlucky are those who keep seeing the sights and smelling the smells for the rest of their lives. I’ve seen friends with post-traumatic stress disorder. They scream in the middle of the night for no reason except they see too many eyelid movies as you call them. The problem is that it doesn’t stop there for a lot of them. They beat their wives and children. They can’t hold down a proper job and sometimes they want to relive that traumatic moment when they’ve totally lost it.”

“Don’t try to psychoanalyse me, Doc.” Kane was breathing easily. The crisis was over and it was time to get rid of his new partner. “You might not like what you find.”

“Not too long ago you told me that you were afraid that I’d get you killed. Maybe the boot is on the other foot. Something doesn’t smell right and if I’m half the copper I think I am, I should go straight to your boss with this. You may be suffering a breakdown. I’m not qualified to say. But I’ve seen enough in the army to know that you should at least be talking to somebody.”

“Been there, done that, bought the tee shirt,” Kane said. “Go to Davenport and tell him I had a nightmare and cried out. He’ll laugh at you. Furthermore, he won’t thank you if you compromise an operation that’s already underway.”

“I’m not your enemy. But like it or not something went down here that I think I should know about. Otherwise, the operation might already be compromised.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Kane ushered him towards the door. “Remind me never to have a nightmare when you’re in the vicinity.”

Doc opened the door. “You’ll have to learn to trust me. Sooner or later you’ll have to open up to me.” He opened the door and slipped into the hall.

“Sorry for disturbing your sleep. Pleasant dreams.” Kane smiled and closed the door.

He lay back on the bed and stared directly in front of him at the faded flower pattern of the wallpaper. God but he needed a friend. He thought of his parents. They’d tried to help but he had pushed them away. It was his load and he would carry it alone. Doc’s words resounded around his brain. Maybe he was finally coming apart. Maybe his father was right and those years in SO10 had scarred him so much that his mind was unhinged. But the scars on his mind hadn’t led to the death of his wife and children. That was completely different and that was the reason he was coming apart. The villains he could deal with. It was the photographs in his wallet that caused his palms to sweat and filled his sleeping hours with nightmares. He thought about Tom Bell and wondered whether the night visited the same dreams on him. Perhaps he would be able to provide Bell with the closure that he knew he would never enjoy. He doubted it.

Chapter Thirteen

Doc hadn’t mentioned a word about the events of the previous night, either during breakfast or on their walk to the Penhalion yard but Kane had spent long enough reading people’s thoughts to know that the little Mancunian was preoccupied and that he was most likely the subject of that preoccupation. After Doc had left his room, he had asked himself what he would have done if he had found his partner screaming his lungs out in the middle of a quiet night. One thing was for sure, he wouldn’t let it stop there. So he had to assume that Doc had something in mind.

To Kane, this would simply be another day under the Penhalion lash. During the previous week, he’d been the sole student on a crash course in the basics of powerboat racing. He’d learned how the boat had been designed and built, the basics of marine engineering, and the mechanics of the engines. When he wasn’t in the design office or the finishing shed, David arranged to fill the intervening hours with screenings of videos of actual races. He’d hardly had time to draw breath. He had to give old Penhalion his due, he knew how to work the hired help. That was for sure. Kane had studied with the best and the best could have learned from David. From knowing absolutely nothing about powerboats, Kane would now be able to hold his