Nel-M smiled back, but his charcoal eyes fixed steadily on Truelle showed no hint of warmth; as always, icy and bottomless, as if they were independent monitors searching for weak points to signal what his next move should be. They cut Truelle to the core, ran a shiver up his spine.

This drink now was part of a ritual, every Tuesday and Friday night when he left work. One glass of Jim Beam slowly and reverently sipped — then home. Before when he’d been on the wagon, he’d always felt in danger that if he had just one drink, he wouldn’t be able to stop. And on a couple of occasions, that was exactly how he’d started again. This was his way of proving that he was in control, could stop at just one drink — but he was damned if he was going to share his innermost secrets with Nelson Malley. He could feel Nel-M’s eyes still on him as he looked down thoughtfully at his glass, and shrugged to ease his discomfort.

‘Look, if you wanted something, why didn’t you come by my office — like most normal people?’

‘Normal people?’ Nel-M raised one eyebrow and smiled slyly. ‘Bit of a contradiction in terms in your line of work, isn’t it? I wouldn’t want to rob any of your patients of their precious fifty minutes or, God forbid, get seen walking in and confused with all those crazies. I got a reputation to uphold.’ The smile broadened, then died just as quickly. ‘But you’ve probably guessed the reason I’m here now. No doubt you’ve seen or read the news: Durrant’s execution has been set. Only forty-seven days left now, and counting.’

‘Yeah, I know. I’ve read it.’ Truelle kept his eyes on his tumbler, didn’t want to risk what Malley might see in them.

‘And, well, we just wanted to make sure that you were still cool about everything. No last minute stabs of conscience.’

Truelle smiled drolly. ‘ We— as in you and Addy Roche?’

‘As in.’

‘Yeah, I’m cool.’ Truelle nodded, still staring at his glass. ‘Resigned to’ or ‘numbed by’ would probably have been more accurate expressions. He’d shed so many tears of conscience over Durrant that now there was nothing left. ‘I got rid of all my demons years ago.’

Though looking at the tumbler now, he could almost still picture it being refilled time and time again, until he’d stagger from the bar in a daze. If he’d had a problem before Durrant, the aftermath was without doubt the main event. He’d drunk half the state dry before resorting to more AA meetings and colleague’s couches than he dared remember. But the problem was that he could never tell them what lay at the root of what was troubling him. Never.

‘You’re sure now that you’re cool about it?’ Nel-M pressed, laying his hand back on Truelle’s. ‘No recriminations?’

Truelle shook his head and looked back at Nel-M. ‘I’m sure. No recriminations. Not any more.’

But Nel-M kept his hand there, squeezing bit by bit harder as he stared into Truelle’s eyes, searching for doubt. He stopped short of a complete crush, and although he couldn’t discern anything from Truelle’s eyes — too lifeless, dulled by the years of drink — he could feel the tell-tale trembling back in his hand.

‘Though nice to know you still have feelings for me,’ Nel-M said, giving the hand one last pat before he lifted his away and, in the same motion — before Truelle could object — waved towards the barman.

‘And another of the same for my friend here.’

Nel-M slapped some money on the counter and slapped Truelle on the shoulder. ‘Remember — stay cool.’ Then, with one last taunting smile, he headed out.

Truelle hardly acknowledged him, his eyes fixed on the second drink as if it was poison. He could feel the trembling in his hands reverberating now through his entire body. Of all the times he could do with a second drink, it was now. But he was damned if he was going to fall off of the wagon just for Nel-M. And the fact that Nel-M had bought the drink made it all the worse — it would be like supping with the devil.

He knocked back the last of his first drink, closing his eyes again as he felt it trickle down. In control. Still in control. Then, bringing the tumbler down with a firm slam on the bar counter, he walked out.

4 days later

‘So, how was our good friend Truelle?’

‘Not bad, not bad,’ Nel-M said. ‘After he got over the shock of seeing me.’

‘So, no signs of him falling apart?’

‘None that I could see, beyond the normal PMT — post-Malley tension.’ Nel-M chuckled briefly. ‘He claims that he exorcised the demons over Durrant years ago. And apparently he’s also kicked the demon drink. Truelle was reluctant to tell me himself — but I checked back with the barman after he left: it appears he goes in there only twice a week and has just a single Jim Beam each time. And he left the extra drink I bought him.’

‘Impressive. And the gambling?’

‘Unless he’s using a bookie or is into some private games we just don’t know about — looks like he’s clean there too.’

‘Sound almost too good to be true. Twovices overcome.’

The voice at the other end was punctuated by laboured breathing from years of emphysema and, as a chortle was attempted, it lapsed into a small coughing fit.

Adelay Roche, Louisiana’s second richest man, twenty-ninth nationally. He’d earned his main money in petro-chemicals and refining, and his detractors claimed that his emphysema was God’s punishment for poisoning the lungs of millions of others; whereas his supporters said that it was brought on by the death of his beautiful young wife twelve years ago. As many years ago now as the age-gap between them.

VR, Vader-Raider, he was unaffectionately nick-named, homage to his breathing problems and his fierce reputation for corporate raiding. On occasion, he’d ask people what the VR stood for, and, not wishing to upset him, they’d either claim that they didn’t know or, with a tight smile, ‘Perhaps “Very Rich”.’ Roche would nod knowingly. ‘That’s nice.’ He’d long ago heard what the initials stood for, but couldn’t resist watching them shuffle awkwardly around the issue.

‘And what about Raoul Ferrer?’ Roche enquired.

‘I haven’t caught up with him yet. I thought I should speak to you again first.’

‘Yeah, I know. He could be more of a worry. Two money demands now. No knowing when we might get another.’

‘True.’ Nel-M didn’t say any more, just let the steady cadence of Roche’s breathing get there on its own.

‘If that’s going to be an ongoing situation, then we might have to nip it in the bud. Let me know how you read it once you’ve met with him.’

‘Will do.’ As much of a green light as he was going to get from Roche. He might have to nudge that situation along himself.

‘Oh, and there’s a new lawyer been handed Durrant’s final plea at Payne, Beaton amp; Sawyer. Name of Jac McElroy. Doesn’t have too much experience, from what I hear — so looks like end-of-the-line throwing-in-the-towel time. Otherwise they’d have given it to someone with a bit more weight. But warrants watching all the same.’

A small shudder would run through Jac’s body at times; a small electrical surge buzzing through him for no reason, often in the dead of night and just when he was on the verge of sleep, snapping him back awake again.

The same chilling shudder that had run through him when his mother’s voice had lifted from her weary, trembling body into the silent, expectant rooms of the sprawling Rochefort farmhouse they’d called home for the past nineteen years, to tell him that his father was dead. That had been daytime, hot and sunny, though the large house had never felt colder when that news, even though half-expected, dreaded for so long, finally came from the hospital.

And he’d felt that same shudder even more in the following months: at his father’s funeral, when the bank foreclosed and the bailiffs came, with his mother’s muffled sobbing through walls or half-closed doors, or after his father had appeared in a dream, smiling warmly, telling him everything was okay. Lived before I died. Or sometimes for no reason that he could fathom, as if telling him there was something he might have missed. Stay awake for another hour staring at the ceiling and you might just work out what it was. Some magical way of getting your family out of this mess. After all, you’re the man of the house now.