A brief trip back to Kenya, chaps.

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‘He doesn’t mean to be dangerous.’

It was a sentence that Kenya found ridiculous. Eldred was a hired killer, he had worked that out quite early on in his surveillance career. For Cassandra to stand there and proclaim how the man didn’t mean to be dangerous, he couldn’t quite see the truth in that. As far as he was concerned the man was incredibly dangerous.

‘Now I know you’re mad.’ Kenya said. ‘He caught one of my guys following him once, shouldn’t have happened but the guy was drunk. Ordinarily I don’t hire drunks, but I was pressed for time. It was pretty helpful though, Eldred’s reaction helped me piece together a little bit more of his past.’

Cassandra’s reaction was only noticeable for the briefest of time. She knew where this story was going, but she didn’t want Kenya to know. That was good, he was gaining the advantage.

‘He followed him you know, Eldred followed my guy. He didn’t even try stealth, he just walked up behind him on the street and kept on walking, step for step. They got back to my guy’s house, then things get a little sketchy. We found my guy strung up by his ankles the next morning, both arms broken and wrapped around his neck like a scarf.’

She blinked, plain as day. Kenya was winning. Sure, he was tied to a chair with a tazer attached to his chest but he was in control of the situation now. Kidnapping wasn’t his thing, he was more of a numbers man, but it wasn’t too hard to deal with. When you break it down, people and personalities are just like numbers. Kenya could do anything with numbers.

Right now he was working wonders on Cassandra. The woman was quite clearly unhinged. Most people would say that antagonising crazy people can only lead to trouble, but that was not technically true. It certainly could lead to trouble, but it seemed to Kenya that so long as you were careful as to when you applied it, pressure was more likely to give you the advantage. If you believed you were stronger than you opponent then you were.

Cassandra was on edge now. She was doing a very good job at hiding it, but Kenya could see it on her neck. He had picked this up by watching his dad, people who are trying to maintain a perfectly neutral expression tend to push their feelings down to their neck. Cassandra was better than his dad had been, but not by much. She was teetering on the edge, a little push could send her over the edge and give him the victory.

‘The man’s an animal, Cassandra. I was going to take all my findings to the police after you were done with them.’ he said.

Cassandra’s eye twitched. Now he would see whether he had applied the pressure correctly.

‘He… is not… DANGEROUS!’

She was still holding the book. Kenya had forgotten about it until she clumsily flipped it open again. Suddenly, Kenya had a terrible image of what those stuck together pages contained, an image that was proved to be true when the woman pulled out a gun.

Kenya had forgotten what it felt like to be wrong.