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Eazee Life Part 3

Chapter 1

Benedict. Early Monday morning

 

‘We must do something about that doorbell.’ Benedict strode to the front door and spied through the peephole, grateful that it wasn’t the delectable Briony Whitworth-Smythe or worse, her charming father, on his doorstep. His mother stood at the top of the stairs, hanging over the bannisters.

         ‘Who is it? Good? Bad? Or ugly?’

         Benedict waved up at her. ‘Good, I hope, so no need for the AK-47’s to be broken out. I think this must be the last of them.’ Pulling the door open, he stared at the group huddled and quiet out the front. They had to be Macchia. So far, seventy-eight operatives had stumbled through their door, sweating and shaking, but somehow still holding it together. Smiler had said there would be between eighty and a hundred, so there couldn’t be that many more. Dressed in workmen’s clothes and boots, this last lot piled in, men and women, clutching paint pots and brushes on handles, dust sheets, basically anything to make them look like they were here to decorate. Searching their faces, he was relieved to see Smiler at the back, although he was shaken at how different he looked without the prosthetic scar. Different or did he mean normal?

         ‘Come in, quickly.’ He noted the drivers still appeared interested in what was going on. Craning their necks to peer inside the house. He’d tried to use different drivers each time, so there would be less suspicion, but they must gossip. There were seven men and women with Smiler. So the total was now eighty-six who had come into House Blackwood and zero had come out. Would anyone care? Would anyone talk?

         Closing the door, he held out his hand to Smiler. ‘It’s good to see you, Smiler. I presume this is the last of them?’

         Smiler gripped his hand and shook it warmly. ‘Yes. We can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done so far, Benedict…’ Glancing up he froze.

         Benedict swivelled to see his mum walking down the stairs. ‘This is my mother, Mrs Blackwood. She knows everything, so there’s no need to be careful around her.’

         ‘I see things have changed since we last spoke.’ Smiler nodded at Mrs Blackwood, who fluttered a graceful hand. His face remailed emotionless, blank.

         ‘We have a lot to catch up on.’ Benedict held out his own hand, ‘but first, you must all be hungry. We shall make something to eat and then we can settle you in rooms upstairs, so you can get some rest before the journey to London.’

         ‘That sounds like Heaven. And if you can spare a bit of water for washing? I don’t think we smell that good.’

         ‘As we are richly decadent, you can all have baths.’ Benedict heard an inhalation of breath. He knew the lives these people had lived in Outside Four, where every drop of water was measured and revered. Was that insensitive of him? Probably.

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