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laced with red blood vessels, the irises nearly black. Fox had seen eyes like that many a time at parties on people who were stoned out of their minds. He was sure Maputwa was on drugs. The man came across as a real fucking nut.
    “A great man,” he said. “No, I am not related to him.” With a sharp clap of his hands Mr. Maputwa thrust the laptop from him and took a cup of tea. “The hard drive is wiped, though all we needed was on the memory sticks. Let him have it if he wants it.”
    “I can get thirty quid for it from a girl at college,” Fox said quietly.
    “Very enterprising.” Mr. Maputwa shoved several biscuits in quick succession into his large mouth and slurped his tea. With hasty movements, Fox refilled his cup.
    “I’d better go and check on the twins.” He looked at his father, not daring to move.
    “Go on, then, and you can sell that thing if you want,” Baillie said.
    Flooded with relief at being allowed to escape the two men whom he found equally terrifying, Fox grabbed the equipment. At the door he paused very briefly to watch the Ugandan man hand a briefcase to his father. William Baillie opened it and pulled out a wad of cash, and with his other hand he took out another. Quietly Fox closed the door.
    After stowing the laptop in his backpack and putting it in his bedroom for later, he grabbed the twins’ trainers and joined them in the garden. “Come on, you two. Get your trainers on. We’ll go over to the park for a while, and you can go on the swings.” Without a word, Alder and Arden obeyed. Holding Fox’s hands, they walked out through the gate in the garden fence and made their way down the sweeping driveway toward the road. Waiting behind his father’s silver-gray Lexus was a long black car with tinted windows. A uniformed driver sat in the front seat smoking a cigarette with the doors wide open.
    What was on Eddie’s computer that a rich man from Uganda wanted so much that he was willing to pay for it with a briefcase full of cash? And who the hell was that doctor?

Chapter Five
    Despondent, disgruntled, dejected. Any of those adjectives could describe Edward’s mood as he opened his front door and stopped to check for letters. The post was always left sitting in a mess on top of the hall radiator. Sorting through it, he thought of the evening ahead. Maybe he should take Friday off after all and drive to Mitton early. What was the point in hanging around the flat alone? Only yesterday he had texted Nik to tell her he had seen the young man again, and perhaps it was actually a relationship after all, as opposed to just a one-nighter. Now it was all in shreds.
    Two envelopes that looked like birthday cards rested precariously on the radiator, and another had fallen down the back. Edward fished it out and shook off the dust before trudging upstairs. Birthday cards and a family birthday dinner to remind him that at thirty years old he had never had a relationship, never been sent a valentine card, and never been loved by another adult who was not related to him. Add depressing to the list of adjectives describing his life.
    “Sorry, mate.”
    At the top of the stairs he stopped and stared. Sitting on the floor outside his door with Edward’s laptop on the bare wood floor beside him was Fox.
    “I shouldn’t have taken it, Eddie. I’m really sorry.”
    The strangest flip-flop sensation clutched Edward in the gut. He couldn’t decide if it was the return of his laptop that did it or the sight of Fox sitting cross-legged, dressed in black as always, his eyes heavily rimmed with dark eyeliner. Edward had fancied many a bloke in the past, but he had never before got an erection at the sight of one as he did now. “How did you get in?”
    “That woman downstairs was leaving just as I got here. You know, the one in the hijab. She let me in. She must have thought I didn’t look like a lying thief. Which I am.”
    Rising quickly to his feet, Fox slipped his arms around Edward’s neck.