Chapter 138
Curzon Street, on the outskirts of the old city, was a neighborhood where people had long since stopped coming and going. Back when Isaac was still in the Special Affairs Battalion, he and his comrades would often visit a shabby tavern on Curzon Street whenever they had time to kill. Robert, who had wanted to someday receive a fine post like Isaac’s, heard those stories and would deliberately stop by in the hope that he might run into him.
After failing several times, Robert finally encountered the idol he had so admired in this place. He met them near the wall outside the tavern; Isaac had come out to sober up, getting some air while smoking a cigarette.
The moment Robert spotted him, he could not contain his delight and dared to call his name. Before he could even feel embarrassed, Isaac had grabbed him by the collar. Looking Robert up and down, Isaac asked what unit he belonged to.
In Isaac’s eyes, Robert was short and slight, and if he was from some intelligence bureau, then even his approach had been too clumsy for Isaac to get a proper read on him. This was before Isaac had earned the queen’s commendation, when he was simply carrying out each mission he was given in silence and solidifying his position. It was a time when he was not only unaware of the fame beginning to creep up around him, but would have found it unpleasant if he had known.
Robert’s face flushed at once. He felt humiliated that Isaac did not naturally treat him as one of his own kind, but soon he smiled awkwardly and introduced himself, saying that he worked in the administrative wing.
Like Isaac had back then, Robert took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. The tavern where that encounter, which had thrilled Robert so much, had taken place had long since shut its doors. For lack of anything better, Robert sat on the remains of a signboard that had fallen to the ground, using it as a chair as he tried smoking. Then he looked up at the sky.
The overcast days had continued without end. Robert counted the dates on his fingers. The young duke—Jeffrey Grayson, who had appeared with bruises not only around his swollen eyes but all over his face, his lip split open—had told Robert it would not take very long. Yes. And today was the day the young duke had promised him.
“That wench’s trial is today. There’s no need to drag it out. We’ll have her thrown in right away.”
The young duke had said this to Robert. Robert merely nodded as he stared at the corner of Jeffrey’s mouth, where blood had burst and was streaming down.
Jeffrey noticed Robert’s blatant gaze at once.
“Then should we release the lawyer as soon as the trial is over?”
“No. Wait until orders come down. Keep holding him.”
Robert nodded to show he understood, but presumptuously continued to look over the floor. A bloodstained cane lay rolling on the ground. Robert recalled the back of Jeffrey’s father, the duke, who had just come out of that room and gone down to the first floor.
It was then. Jeffrey called out to Robert, who had been about to turn and leave.
“What are you so curious about, you bastard? Do you want to know what just happened in here? Do you want to know why I ended up like this?”
His eyes had always seemed deranged in many ways, but Jeffrey at that moment was even more gone than usual. Without warning, Jeffrey picked up the cane his father had left behind. Then he struck Robert across the face with it.
Recalling that moment, Robert stubbed out his cigarette and rubbed the scabbed-over wound at his temple. The humiliation and rage he had felt then were still of a level incomparable to what he had felt with Isaac. Yet, ironically, more than toward Jeffrey, who had beaten him, his anger was greater toward Cedric, who had looked at him when he returned in that state as if to say, See, wasn’t I right?—and toward Isaac and that woman, who were entangled with someone even more enormous than he had expected.
He knew himself that it was a cowardly, deflected anger.
“Don’t even think about pulling out now. Don’t think about throwing this aside at this point, either. If this goes wrong, not only I, but all of you will be dragged in too.”
But with his path of retreat already cut off, there was nothing that could be called a choice. At first, he had acted out of pure greed for money; then, unable to swallow the humiliation, he had acted out of vengeance. And now, he found himself in a position where someone even worse than him had him by the throat.
“Robert.”
Robert passed the closed tavern and entered a dark alley. The cold air of dawn brushed gently across his cheeks as it passed. Morning would come soon. Had that woman’s trial been in the morning, or in the afternoon? As he was trying to gauge that, the man standing guard at the entrance he was just passing spoke to him.
“The lawyer won’t eat, let alone drink any water.”
“Leave him.”
“It’s been almost two days. Are you sure there won’t be any trouble from this, Robert? What if that lawyer reports us later?”
At Robert’s response, as if it were someone else’s problem, the man’s expression changed, and he approached Robert with a threatening face.
“Is that really such an important man? The plan was to quietly catch and kill one woman in the first place, so why suddenly kidnapping and confinement? What a pain.”
The man seemed quite dissatisfied with Robert’s change of plans. Paying no attention to that, Robert said, “I’ll check his condition,” and passed the man, approaching the abandoned warehouse.
Mr. Turner the lawyer sat in a chair, staring blankly into the air, regardless of whether Robert opened the door and came in or not. The suit he always wore neatly pressed had long since been torn in places, and after two days of going without food, his appearance had grown gaunt in all sorts of ways.
As if he had expected to be chased from the beginning, the lawyer showed no sign of panic even when he saw the men Robert had hired. Even as he was seized and dragged away, instead of letting out a bewildered scream, he had merely worn a self-mocking expression and muttered things like, “I should have gone somewhere else after all.”
The thugs Robert had hired had found that kind of “hostage” displeasing in many ways. Perhaps that was why he had been hit in several places; the lawyer’s face was bruised here and there.
In a state similar to Jeffrey’s, whom Robert had seen a few days earlier.
The glasses he always wore had rolled far away and shattered to pieces, so Mr. Turner sat quietly, staring into the air with blurred vision.
Then, before long, Robert’s face suddenly entered his field of view, and Robert pried open Mr. Turner’s mouth and forced water into it.
“It’ll be troublesome if your body breaks down. Drink.”
Even though he tried to force his mouth shut, the water poured in almost like torture, so Mr. Turner helplessly moved his throat several times and swallowed, while the rest all spilled out. Only then did Robert throw the water bottle away with a satisfied expression.
What a powerless wretch. The very picture of a man who looked pathetic in a different way from Cedric. Robert thought this as he looked down at the lawyer.
He looks perfect for taking my anger out on.
“……I know what you are.”
Just as Robert muttered that inwardly, the lawyer spoke with a pale face, as if he already knew what was in Robert’s mind.
“You’re a soldier, aren’t you? I don’t know whether you’re active or former. But if you’re active, I truly don’t understand why you’re going this far.”
“…….”
“Only half a year ago, in one city, there was an incident where a soldier like you assaulted a civilian. It was a fight caused by the kind of ordinary quarrel one sees in a tavern. It wasn’t one-sided assault, but mutual assault, yet in any case the punishment was handed down more heavily on the soldier. You, who are likely active—or were active—would know that best.”
Robert looked down at the lawyer with an expressionless face.
“How did you know I was a soldier?”
The lawyer answered while staring at him, his face soaked, but the light in his eyes still clear.
“I can tell by looking. Your posture is straight from training, and judging by the way you use your eyes and your unconscious habits……”
“Really?”
Even after his throat had been forcibly wetted, the stinging inside it remained unchanged, so every time Mr. Turner spoke, he felt as if needles were scraping his throat.
Yet as he forced the words out, Robert’s eyes gleamed at an unexpected point, and he thrust his face closer.
The moment their eyes met from only a breath away, the lawyer thought that this man before him was also far from sane in many ways.
“……No one has ever said that to me before. Truly. I’m short and unimpressive, aren’t I?”
It was not a commonly heard sort of remark, the kind that seemed to say, So hurry up and contradict me, tell me my good points.
Mr. Turner moved his eyes. At the edge of his vision, through the open door, he saw the thug who had spoken with Robert just moments ago slump weakly to the floor, unconscious.
He saw the man who had subdued the thug in an instant lower himself and squeeze through the open doorway. He was a man even larger than Turner had expected, practically the size of a house. Mr. Turner watched as the man quietly muffled his footsteps and approached behind Robert without a sound, then squeezed his eyes tightly shut.
“…Did you perhaps already know who I was? Did someone tell you in advance?”
Robert was glaring fiercely at Turner, having not noticed the presence at all. Since Robert’s only intention was to use it as an excuse to vent his anger on Mr. Turner, he did not notice in the slightest that the surroundings had grown strangely quiet.
“No. That isn’t……”
Mr. Turner looked at the man drawing closer. Fincher. The man whom Sasha had said, despite his appearance, was not merely gentle but hopelessly innocent.
He stared as that man’s blue eyes gleamed, and before he knew it, Fincher had come close enough to stand over the back of Robert’s head.
“Why can’t you answer me properly?”
Mr. Turner squeezed his eyes shut. But before Robert could strike his temple, Isaac seized the back of his neck.
“Argh!” The short scream was quickly buried against the floor. Isaac lifted Robert as he was and pressed him down, crushing his entire face into the ground.