The Marriage Act(97)

The silence engulfing the rest of the house was a different matter. It was uncomfortable. As he made his way out into the kitchen, he missed the excited squawks coming from the playroom as Matthew participated in virtual reality games with his friends in their 3D metaverse. He longed to hear the sizzle of oils in pans as Jada brought recipes from around the world into their kitchen. He craved the laughter of friends and family around the garden dining table on balmy summer nights. An absence of sound created by those he loved most rendered the house soulless.

He opened the fridge to remove a cold bottle of beer and finished it with the door still ajar. He did the same with a second. But no amount of alcohol could smooth out the rough edges. Anthony missed his family more than he ever thought possible.

A notification appeared on the wall-mounted digital calendar. There was apparently a takeaway delivery waiting outside on the doormat. Suspicious because he hadn’t ordered it, a quick check of the family organizer revealed Jada, still in Florida, was responsible for arranging it. A full monthly shop was to arrive tomorrow. She must have been remotely monitoring the contents of the fridge and cupboards through their sensors and saw that he was eating poorly. After all he had put her through, she was still caring for him, even halfway across the world.

On the doorstep, he unattached the food box from the drone’s pincers and pressed the recall button to return it to the Thai restaurant. Back in the kitchen, he habitually removed three sets of knives and forks from the drawer before realizing his mistake and replacing two of them. Then he returned to his office to eat alone.

Many times, he had clutched his phone ready to videocall his family, only to hold back. By seeing their faces, and hearing their voices, he might lose his focus and that would only prolong his work on the Young Citizen Camp project and being reunited with his loved ones. His plan was to condense three months of work into one. The sooner this was over, the sooner he could leave his job and put the camps and Hyde behind him. So he and Jada only communicated by concise, matter-of-fact emails. He hoped the emotional distance between them was not as wide as the oceans separating them.

Back in his locked office, Anthony ate as he scanned the screens on the wall and the volume of work he and his team had accomplished in such a short space of time.

By the morning, he had completed his workload for that week and logged out of the system. And, for a moment, he surrendered to his irrational but niggling fear that Hyde’s people had somehow snuck into his hideout and planted new listening devices while he was elsewhere in the house. He swept the room again until he was sure he was safe. Then he removed an outmoded laptop from under his desk and switched it on. He had already detached its wifi, Bluetooth, 7G internet and tracking capabilities, making it impossible for anyone to know that he was using an unmonitored, nonapproved device. Then he plugged in a digital memory stick to continue working on a side project of his own. One that Hyde and his team were oblivious to.





82


Jeffrey




Jeffrey’s chest tightened at the sound of Luca’s voice.

Luca remained on the bed, his eyelids only partially open, and his irises straining to regain focus. He fanned out his fingers and bent them at the knuckles, trying to pull his way up towards the pillow. He was too weak to continue.

‘What happened?’ Luca slurred again. ‘My head is killing me.’

Jeffrey froze. ‘You’re not well,’ he said. ‘Stay where you are.’

But, before Jeffrey could move Noah any further from view, Luca tilted his head in the direction of his husband, face down and spread out across the floor.

‘Noah?’ he asked slowly. ‘Is that you?’ He turned to Jeffrey. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘There’s . . . there’s been an accident. He fell and hurt himself.’

‘Is he bleeding?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, Jesus, have you called an ambulance?’

‘Not yet. I was about to.’

‘You need to help him.’

‘It’s too late, Luca. I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘He’s dead, Luca. Noah is dead.’

The blood drained from Luca’s face as he processed Jeffrey’s words. He tried again to move, slowly inching himself across the bed and towards Noah. The closer he came, the more his arms weakened and he lost his balance, falling off the bed and onto the floor. A reanimated Jeffrey dropped Noah and helped to prop Luca up against the side of a wardrobe. He watched carefully as Luca attempted to pair what Jeffrey was telling him with his husband’s bloody body.

This wasn’t how Jeffrey had envisaged his evening to end. Earlier, Luca hadn’t needed to verbalize his feelings for Jeffrey to understand how he felt. His body language and non-verbal communication had revealed an unequivocal romantic interest. Jeffrey had no choice but to act quickly and seize the moment. That meant rendering Luca immobile so that he could bring about a swift end to his client’s marriage. Short-term pain for a long-term gain, he’d told himself.

‘Noah, wake up,’ Luca pleaded. ‘Please, babe. Tell Jeffrey he’s wrong.’

‘It was an accident,’ Jeffrey continued. ‘But it will be okay.

I promise to make sure you don’t get the blame.’

‘Why? What did I do?’