righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.
Maggie, the café’s eponymous proprietress, refilled Gilbert’s mug of tea. “Eat up, Gil. Your egg’s going cold.”
Gilbert Drake didn’t hear her.
All he heard was his friend Sanjay Patel’s voice begging for vengeance.
CHARLOTTE WHITMAN, THE PRIME MINISTER’S WIFE, rolled over in bed and stroked her husband’s chest. It was four in the morning and Henry was awake, again, staring at the ceiling like a prisoner waiting to face the firing squad.
“What is it, Henry? What’s the matter?”
Henry Whitman covered his wife’s hand with his.
“Nothing. I’m not sleeping too well, that’s all. Sorry if I woke you.”
“You would tell me if there were a problem, wouldn’t you?”
“Darling Charlotte.” He pulled her close. “I’m the prime minister. My life is nothing but problems as far as the eye can see.”
“You know what I mean. I mean a real problem. Something you can’t handle.”
“I’m fine, darling, honestly. Try and go back to sleep.”
Soon Charlotte Whitman was slumbering soundly. Henry watched her, her words ringing in his ears. Something you can’t handle …
Thanks to him, Alexia De Vere’s face was on the front page of every newspaper. Speculation about her appointment was rife, but no one knew anything. No one except Henry Whitman. And he intended to take the secret to his grave.
Was Alexia De Vere a problem that he couldn’t handle? Henry Whitman sincerely hoped not. Either way it was too late now. The appointment was made. The deed was done.
Britain’s new prime minister lay awake until dawn, just as he knew he would.
No rest for the wicked.
KENNEBUNKPORT, MAINE.
1973.
BILLY HAMLIN WATCHED SEVEN LITTLE BOYS in swimming trunks run squealing toward the water, and felt a surge of happiness. The kids weren’t the only ones who loved summer at Camp Williams.
Billy had been lucky to get this job. Most of the camp counselors were Ivy League kids. Tuckers and Mortimers and Sandford-Riley-the-Thirds on a “break” between Harvard College and Harvard Business School. Or the female equivalent, Buffys and Virginias passing the time between graduation and marriage by teaching swim class to the cute sons of the New York elite. Billy Hamlin didn’t fit the mold. His dad was a carpenter who’d built some new cabins at Camp Williams last fall, earning enough goodwill to land his boy a summer job.
“You’ll meet some interesting people up there,” Jeff Hamlin told Billy. “Rich people. People who can help you. You gotta network.”
Billy’s dad was a great believer in networking. Exactly why, or how, he thought a summer spent rubbing shoulders with spoiled bankers’ sons was going to help his charming, unqualified, and utterly unambitious boy get ahead in life remained a mystery. Not that Billy was complaining. By day, he got to hang around on the beach playing the fool with a bunch of sweet little kids. And by night, Camp Williams had more freely available drugs, booze, and what his grandma would have called “fast” women than a New Orleans whorehouse. At nineteen years old, Billy Hamlin didn’t have many skills. But he did know how to party.
“Billy! Billy! Come play pothum in the middle with uth!”
Graydon Hammond, a knock-kneed seven-year-old with a lisp brought on by at least five missing upper teeth, waved for Billy to come into the water. Graydon would grow up to inherit a majority of shares in Hammond Black, a boutique investment bank worth more than most small African countries. Waving people over to do his bidding would be a big part of Graydon’s future. But right now he was so sweet-natured and lovable, he was tough to resist.
“Graydon, leave Billy alone. It’s his afternoon off. I’ll play possum with you.”
Toni Gilletti, unquestionably the sexiest of all the Camp Williams counselors, was supervising Graydon’s group. Watching Toni run into the surf, her Playboy Bunny body barely contained by her white string bikini, Billy was mortified to feel the beginnings of an erection start to stir in his Fred Perry swimming trunks. He had no choice but to dive in himself and use the ocean as a fig leaf.
Like all the other boys at camp, Billy lusted wildly after Toni Gilletti. Unlike the other boys, he also liked her. They’d slept together once, on the very first night at camp, and although Billy had been unable to persuade Toni to repeat the experience, he knew she’d enjoyed it and that she liked him too. Like him, Toni was something of an outsider. She was no workingman’s daughter. Toni’s old man owned a string of thriving electronics outlets along the Eastern Seaboard. But neither was she a prissy freshman from Wellesley or Vassar. Toni Gilletti was a wild child, a thrill-seeking troublemaker with a taste for cocaine and unsuitable lovers that had gotten her in deep shit back home in Connecticut. Rumor had it she’d only avoided a prison sentence for credit-card fraud because her father, Walter Gilletti, paid off the judge and donated a seven-figure sum to pay for a new bar and wet-room at the local country club. Apparently Toni had stolen the gold AmEx from a neighbor to keep her latest dealer boyfriend in the style he’d become accustomed to. The Gillettis had packed their daughter off to Camp Williams as a last resort, no doubt hoping, like Billy’s dad, that Toni might “network” her way to a better future; in her case, marriage to a decent, well-bred white boy—ideally one with a Harvard degree.
Toni had kept half of the bargain, dutifully sleeping with every Harvard grad at camp who wasn’t completely physically repulsive, before settling on Charles Braemar Murphy, the richest, handsomest, and (in Billy’s view) most obnoxious of them all. Charles was out on his parents’ yacht today. The Braemar Murphys had “stopped by” on their way to East Hampton, and Mrs. Kramer, who ran Camp Williams, had given Charles the day off. It was irritating, the way Old Lady Kramer favored the rich kids. But every cloud had a silver lining. Charles’s absence gave Billy his best chance yet to flirt with Toni Gilletti uninterrupted and try to persuade her that a second night of passion with him would be a lot more satisfying than sticking with her stuck-up stiff of a boyfriend.
He already knew he had a chance. Toni was a free spirit with a libido like a wildcat. Only a few days ago she’d come on to Billy outrageously in front of Charles. It was a crass attempt to make her boyfriend jealous, but it worked. Later, Billy had heard Charles Braemar Murphy grilling Cassandra Drayton, another of the girls Billy was known to have slept with, about his appeal.
“What is it about Hamlin that women like so much?” Charles demanded angrily.
Cassandra smiled sweetly. “Do you want the answer in inches or feet?”
“He’s a fucking carpenter, for God’s sake!” spluttered Charles.
“So was Jesus, darling. Don’t be bitter. Anyway, it’s his father who’s the carpenter. Billy just
