Free November by Gabrielle Lord Page A

my mind. Did Durham want to know something about the Ormond Singularity? Maybe he’d torture me to find out …
    But Rathbone had crossed ‘Toecutter’ off his list.
    The car pulled up in a garage, and the door closed behind us. I was pulled out and escorted along an endless terrace. The lawns of this place were as big as the Botanical Gardens, planted with rows and rows of trees, and dotted with hedges carved into incredible shapes—camels, rearing horses, a T-rex, the Statue of Liberty and a racing car. ‘Topiary’ was the name of this manicured way of shaping trees, I recalled, wondering how I could remember something so useless at a time like this.
    After a lengthy march along the terrace, we finally came to an elaborate marbled entrance. The house looked like a smaller version of Buckingham Palace.
    My captors hauled me through the doors and into what looked like acres of marbled floors, decorated with lavish gold and velvet furniture. On the walls hung enormous old oil paintings and tapestries. In the middle of this acreage, a huge, white fountain splashed water into a circular pool filled with colourful koi fish.
    ‘This way,’ said the Polynesian, keeping a firm hold on my arm as we walked down an endless hallway. The driver of the car had disappeared.
    ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
    ‘Like I said, the boss wants a private chat with you. I’m taking you to him.’
    Finally we paused outside a closed door. The Polynesian knocked on it, surprisingly softly. ‘The boss is not a well man,’ he whispered to me. ‘I’m just warning you.’
    Warning me ?
    From inside I heard a faint voice.
    ‘Who is it?’
    ‘Ezekiel, boss. Got the kid with me.’
    With that, Ezekiel opened the door and pushed me inside.
    I stumbled into the room. I had to blink because I couldn’t see properly. The room was dark—almost as dark as Dr Leporello’s creepy fungi-filled study. Once my eyes adjusted, I could just make out the figure of a man lying in a king-size timber bed, draped in red satin. He heaved himself up, leaning crookedly on his pillows.
    ‘Come over here, kid. Where I can see you.’
    Ezekiel, the big Polynesian, nodded at me, telling me to do as Durham said.
    I stepped up to the end of the bed and started taking in the features of the sick person in front of me. At one point, Murray Durham had been a big man, but I remembered that he’d looked pretty frail and sick at Sligo’s banquet. Now he looked ten times worse. My body was shaking, but I stood tall, hoping that the courage of Piers Ormond would get me through whatever might happen next.
    I could tell from the skin hanging loose on his face that Toecutter had lost a lot of weight, and even in the shadows I could see bruising around his eyes. His skin was grey—like the haggard appearances of my dad and of Great-uncle Bartholomew, just before they died. Magnified in a glass of water by the bed were his false teeth.
    ‘Are you Callum Ormond, son?’ he asked. His voice, although gruff, was weak and almost kind.
    ‘I am,’ I said. There was no point in denying it.
    For a long moment, he stared at me, silently. I shifted uncomfortably until finally he spoke again.
    ‘I’m dying, son.’
    I didn’t know what to say. I just hoped that his last wish wasn’t to rid the world of Callum Ormond.
    ‘What do you have to say about that?’ he urged.
    ‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ I said, awkwardly.
    ‘You needn’t be sorry. It’s something we all have to go through. Death is cruel—so very cruel—but life cannot exist without it. I haven’t lived a good life, son. I’ve done a lot of bad things. Things that were against the law—unspeakable things. People have feared me all my life. Are you afraid of me?’
    I didn’t want to admit that I was. ‘Why did you bring me here?’ I asked, avoiding the question.
    ‘You’re a brave lad, I can tell that. But you don’t have anything to fear from me. Understood ?’
    I didn’t say anything, but he