Page 24 of Crocodile Tears

Alex glanced at him, momentarily intrigued out of his boredom. “How did you end up indentured to him, Neil?”

Neil looked delighted to be asked. “My mum was an IS at Lytton AV. She died a couple of years ago, and your father was kind enough to allow me to stay on in Lytton Village to finish my schooling – he even appointed a mentor for me, to make sure I was looked after.”

“Good old Dad,” Alex said tightly.

“I knew I couldn’t stay there forever, though. I always studied hard at school, but I needed to get an IS sponsorship so I could go to university. I didn’t want to risk ending up in the Quarterlands.” Neil shuddered. “I must have contacted hundreds of big companies and wealthy individuals but only a handful bothered to reply – and that was just to say no.” He seemed happy Alex was showing an interest in him. “Luckily, your father followed my progress at school and thought of me when he was looking for a companion for you at Oxford.”

“Spy,” Alex corrected him. “Not a companion – a spy.”

“Companion,” Neil repeated doggedly. “I met him for an interview, and he granted me the indenture. I think he was proud of the fact I came from Lytton Village.”

“So, you grew up just down the road?” Alex leaned against the side of the duck and watched six servants trundle their two small cases away. They looked ridiculous.

“Yes. It was lovely in the village – everyone was kind and friendly, and your father used to walk around and wave at us every so often. I, uh, also used to see you riding your motorbike,” Neil added, with a shy smile. “You always looked so cool, like you owned the world and didn’t need to share it with anyone. I wanted to be your friend, even then,” he said wistfully.

Alex threw his cigarette onto the ground and stomped on it with his boot. “Careful, Neil – your inner stalker is showing,” he drawled.

Neil flushed and buttoned up his jacket against a non-existent wind. Suddenly, there was a commotion at the house, and Charles wheeled out onto the driveway. A handful of servants followed, clearly wanting to be useful in some way, but he brushed them aside.

“Alex!” he called, his face alight with joy. Alex ran across the driveway, crouched down in front of the wheelchair, took Charles’s face in his hands, and bestowed a kiss on his forehead. Then he drew back to study him. Charles looked like their mother, with his golden hair, bright blue eyes, and the deep dimples in his cheeks that gave him the appearance of being the happiest person alive.

“Happy birthday, Alex. I can’t believe you’re nineteen. My little brother, all grown up. How are you? How’s Oxford?” Charles asked eagerly. “I want to hear all about it.”

“I’ve only been there a few weeks, so there’s not much to tell. More importantly – how are you? Are you okay?” Alex asked, studying Charles anxiously. It had been a year and two months since the accident; his legs had wasted a little in that time, but his shoulders were still broad and strong, and he looked in good health.

“I’m fine.”

“I worry about you, locked up here with only the old man for company.”

Charles laughed. “We get on well – I’m not always winding him up on purpose, like you do. Besides, I’m busy with stuff – after-dinner speeches, charity events, that kind of thing.” His days as a world-class rower might be over, but Charles was starting to carve out a new niche for himself.

“Aw, still milking that gold medal for all it’s worth, then?” Alex teased. Charles swatted his arm, and he laughed.

“Is that…?” Charles glanced over his shoulder, and Alex sighed as he realised that Neil was hovering. It was bad enough having the indie foisted on him as a flatmate, without having to put up with the guy following him around like a lovesick puppy, too.

“The IS that Daddy dearest sent to spy on me at university? Yes, it is,” Alex said brightly. “Charles – this is Neil Grant. Neil, this is my brother, Charles, the famous Olympic rower. You might have heard of him,” he added dryly.

Charles shot Neil a mega-watt smile, his dimples coming out in full force. Neil melted, and Alex couldn’t blame him. Charles had become a symbol of hope and pride for the new Britain, which had risen proud and strong from the water after losing a quarter of its landmass.

The press had painted Charles’s rowing victory as a sign of a nation paddling itself out of disaster to triumph, against the odds. One news site dubbed himCharles the Great, and the entire nation had instantly adopted him as their new national hero.

Less than a month later, the AV carrying him, Alex, and their mother crashed into a tree a few miles down the road, leaving him a paraplegic. The nation wept for him, but he was assured of his place in history and his country’s undying love – unlike his bad little brother, whose history of teenage rebellion, expulsions from three different schools, and out-of-control croc habit became tabloid fodder.

Alex had spent most of the following year holed up in The Orchard, reading countless articles about how tests had revealed a huge amount of croc in his blood, how his drugged state had caused him to crash the duck, and how unfair it was that his brother and mother had suffered for his sins while he’d walked away with nothing more than a few cuts and bruises.

He’d been banned from driving for three years and given a huge fine, which his father had paid. At seventeen, he was too young to be sentenced to indentured servitude, but the tabloids felt he’d got off far too lightly owing to his family’s wealth and high profile. There were even insinuations that his father had paid off the judge, which anyone remotely acquainted with his father would know wasn’t true; Noah Lytton was strictly a “by the book” kind of man.

The ensuing press witch hunt had kept Alex more or less confined to the house for many months, apart from regular trips to the hospital to visit Charles.

It had taken a long time for it all to blow over, but the notoriety still clung to him like a bad smell. He almost wished hehadreceived a harsher sentence.

Worst of all had been enduring his father’s bottomless disappointment. Charles had always been the good son, and Alex the black sheep – and their father could barely bring himself to look at his youngest after the accident. The silent void of his mother’s funeral, where his father had completely ignored him, still made his heart ache. Having to share the house with his dad while Charles recuperated in hospital had resulted in a kind of truce, but without hisbrother or mother as buffers between them, it was an uneasy one at best.

Alex’s saving grace in his father’s estimation was the sharp intelligence that had won him a place at Oxford. The question was whether he could keep it – which was where Neil came in.

He wandered towards the house and almost bumped into his father coming out.

“Alex… Happy birthday, son. It’s good to see you.”

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