(You can directly jump to chapter 3 because that's where they actually come in contact with one another. Chapter 1 and 2 are just fillers)
South of Ireland, 2016
"Pickings," Bobby Horan said with immense satisfaction. "And very rich pickings by the look of it."
Stifling a sigh, Niall put down the toast he was buttering, and followed his father's gaze to the new yacht that had appeared overnight in the bay below the Hotel St. Vermin.
It was certainly large and extremely opulent, effortlessly diminishing the lesser craft anchored nearby. A floating palace, he thought, of gleaming white paint and chrome. Very swish. And suddenly there. Out of nowhere.
"A wealthy sheikh, perhaps," Bobby continued his musings aloud. "Or even foreign royalty."
'Or merely someone sheltering from last night's storm," Niall suggested more practically. He paused. "And, speaking of storms, the manager stopped me last night and asked when our bill would be settled. And he wasn't smiling."
"Infernal bloody cheek," Bobby snorted. "Nicholas Johnson is becoming obsessive about cash. If he's not careful, the whole place will become insufferable bourgeois."
"Just because he wants to be paid?" Niall asked mildly. "I thought making money was our sole reason for being here, too." He gave Bobby a level look. "And the fact that we haven't been doing so well lately must have been reported back to the office."
"I'm still ahead of the game," Bobby said sharply. "All I need is one good night." His eyes strayed back to the yacht. "And one wealthy idiot who thinks he can play poker."
"And maybe sir Nicholas is concerned about his job," Niall continued reflectively. "People are saying openly that the entire Vermin chain is being sold off. He won't want any bad debts on his books when the new owners take over."
"Well I'm sure he doesn't need your concern," Bobby looked him over. "I think you should visit the hotel boutique, my pet. Buy a new dress as a demonstration of good faith." He nodded. "Something short and not too sweet to show off your tan."
"Dad, I have plenty of clothes," Niall spoke with a touch of weariness. "Besides, we have no money to waste on empty gestures."
"No waste darling. Investment. And please keep your voice down when you call me --that," he added irritably. "Someone might hear."
"And draw the correct conclusion that I'm actually your son instead of your supposed nephew?" Niall shook his head."How long can we keep this farce going?"
And, in particular, how long before you grow up? he wondered in unhappy silence as his father's mouth tightened petulantly. Before you acknowledge that you haven't been forty for some time. That your hair is only brunette because it's tinted and you're not wrinkled because you've had expensive fact-lift.
"It's working very well. For one thing, it explains the same surname on our passports," Bobby retorted. "And, as I told you at the outset, it doesn't suit my image to have a son who's nearly nineteen."
And it doesn't suit me at all, Niall thought bitterly. How long will it be before I can have a real life - the life I once planned?
Teaching languages had been his aim. He'd been studying for his A levels prior to university when his mother had been taken suddenly ill, and diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Two months later she was dead, and Niall's relatively stable existence up to that point ended, too.
Bobby, summoned home from London as soon as his wife's condition became known, had been genuinely grief-stricken. It had been his inability to settle rather than any lack of caring that had kept them apart for so much of their married life. Maura Horan wanted a permanent home for her only child. Bobby needed to gamble as much as he needed to draw breath.
However, he was generous if erratic provider, and, to Niall, he had seemed an almost god-like being, suntanned and handsome, whenever he returned to Ireland. A dispenser of laughter and largesse, he thought, his cases stuffed with scent, dress and other exotic gifts as well as the elegant clothes he had made for him in Far East.
"If he ever gets stopped at Customs, he'll end up in jail," his older brother Matthew had muttered.
Yet, somehow, it had never happened. And perhaps Uncle Matthew had been right when he also said Bobby had the devil's own luck. But lately that luck had not been much in evidence. He'd sustained some heavy losses, and his recoveries had not been as positive as they needed to be.
He was invariably cagey about the exact state of their finances and Niall's attempts to discover how they stood had never been successful.
"Everything's fine, my pet," was his usual airy reply. "Stop worrying your pretty head and smile."
A response that had Niall grinding his teeth. As so much did these days.
At the beginning, of course, it had all seemed like a great adventure. The last thing he'd expected was to be taken out of school and whisked off abroad to share his father's peripatetic lifestyle, travelling from one gambling center to another as the mood took him.
Uncle Matthew and Aunt Jennifer had protested vociferously, saying that he could make a home with them while he finished his education, but Bobby had been adamant.
"He's all I have left," he'd repeated over and over again. "All that remains of his mother. Can't you understand that I need Niall with me?" he'd added. "Besides, a change of scene will do good for him. Get him way from all these painful memories of my lovely Maura."
With hindsight, Niall wondered rather sadly if he'd have been so set on his company if he'd still been the quiet, shy child with braces on his teeth. Instead, he'd soared into slender, long-legged adulthood, his blonde hair falling in a silken swathe across his forehead, and blue eyes that seemed to ask what the world had to offer.
Which, at first, seemed to be a great deal. The travelling, the hotel suites, the super-charged atmosphere of the casinos had been immensely exciting for an almost eighteen year old.
Even the shock when he learned that Bobby wasn't prepared to acknowledge their real relationship hadn't detracted too much from the appeal of their nomadic existence. Or not immediately.
He'd realized quite soon that women of all ages found his father attractive, and tried, without much success, not to let it bother him. But while Bobby was charming, flattering and grateful, he was determined to make it clear that it would go no further than that.
"I need you to be my shield- keeping my admirers at a distance," he'd told Niall seriously. His tone had become wheedling. "Treat it as part of the game, darling. Mummy always told me how good you were in your school plays. Now's your chance to show me how well you can really act."
But why were you never there to see for yourself? Niall wanted to ask, but didn't, because his father was continuing.
"All you have to do, my pet, is stick close to me, smile and say as little as possible."
On the whole, Niall thought he'd managed pretty well, even when the leering looks and muttered remarks from many of the men he encountered made him want to run away and hide.
The mother of Jackie, his best friend in high school, had become involved in the LGBT community's movements, and held consciousness raising sessions at her house. The iniquity of gays, bisexuals, lesbians and transgenders being bullied and disrespected, had been among the favorite themes of those meetings, and while Niall and Jackie had giggled about it afterwards, he now thought ruefully that Mrs. Henderson might have had a point.
Eventually, it had all ceased to be a game, and he'd begun to see his new life for the tawdry sham it really was, and be troubled by it. Realizing the same time that there was no feasible way out. That, for the time being, he was trapped.
Bobby was speaking again, his voice excited. "I'm going to start making inquiries. Find out who the new arrival is, and if he's likely to visit the Casino." He gave him a minatory nod. "I'll see you back here after lunch."
Here we go again, Niall thought with a sigh as he heard the suite door close behind him. Looking for a non-existent pot of gold at the end of a dodgy rainbow.
"All I need is one big win." He had lost count of how many times his father had said this over the past months.
And he sent up a silent prayer to the god of gamblers that the unknown owner would stay safely aboard his yacht for the duration. Although that, of course, would not help with the looming threat of the hotel bill.
He stayed on the balcony for a while, drinking another cup of coffee and enjoying the sunlit freshness of the morning after the unexpected heavy rain with thunder, lightning and squally winds of the previous night. But he was still unable to fully relax, not while the question of how long they could go on living like this continued to haunt him.
"You're my little mascot," Bobby had told him jubilantly in the early days, but he hadn't brought him much luck recently.
I shall have to start avoiding the front desk and use the staff entrance in the daytime, too, instead of just the evenings, he thought wryly as he pushed back his chair and went through the sliding glass doors into the sitting room.
The cleaners were due soon , and he had to make sure that all signs of his nightly occupation of the sofa were removed from their eagle eyed scrutiny.
It seemed a long time since their budget had been able to run to a suite with two bedrooms, and while he didn't begrudge his father his comfortable night's sleep, quite understanding that he needed to wake up completely refreshed in order to keep his wits sharp, nevertheless he missed the peace and privacy which the sitting room could not provide.
When he was sure all was as it should be, he packed sun oil, his purse and a paperback book into his raffia bag together with two leftover rolls from breakfast wrapped in tissues to provide him with a makeshift lunch.
He pinned his extensions clad hair up into a loose knot, covering it with a wide-brimmed straw hat, then pulled a white cheesecloth tunic over his black sling tank top with booty shorts to go, donned his sunglasses and picked up his towel. Thus camouflaged, he set off down to the swimming pool.
Few people, if any, recognized him in daytime. Wearing espadrilles instead of the platform-soled high heels that Bobby insisted on took at least a couple of inches from his height, and with his hair hidden, his face scrubbed clean of its evening make-up, and wearing modest clothing, he attracted little attention even from the men who'd been sending him openly amorous looks the night before.
The St. Vermin charged a hefty number of Euros for the hire of its loungers on the paved sun terraces, so Niall invariably chose instead to spread his towel on one of the lawns encircling the pool, a practice not forbidden, but muttered at by the man who came to collect the money from the paying guests.
Ignore him, Niall thought to himself, rubbing oil into his exposed skin already tanned a judicious golden brown. And try to pretend the grass isn't damp while you're about it.
He turned onto his stomach, and retrieved the book he'd found in a second hand store just before they'd left for south of Ireland, a former prize winning detective story by a British author called P.L.R James, which had attracted Niall because of its title, An Unsuitable Job For A Male Cross-dresser, seemed to sum up his current situation.
Maybe I could become a private investigator, he mused, finding his place in the story. Except I don't have someone likely to die and leave me a detective agency.
A more likely scenario, if things went badly wrong this time, was a swift return to Uncle Matthew and a job for Bobby in Uncle Matthew's light engineering works. It had been offered before, prompted, Niall suspected by her uncle's very real concern for his future. Although, he'd had plenty of troubles of his own in the past few years with the imposition of the three day week, strikes and constant power cuts to contend with.
But Niall's father had replied, as always, that it would kill him to be tied to a desk, and he had to be a free spirit, although Niall could see no freedom in having bills you were unable to pay. One day, he thought, he might have to bite on the bullet and accept Uncle Matthew's offer.
And for me, a secretarial course, I suppose, he mused resignedly. But I'd settle for that, if it meant a normal life . And not being lonely any more. I'm just not the adventurous type, and I only wish I'd realized that much sooner.
It wasn't really possible to make friends when they were so often on the move, but other girls and boys tended to steer clear anyway. And apart from the one occasion in Australia, which he'd tried hard to forget, he'd been left severely alone by young men, too.
He stopped himself on the point of another sigh. Forget the self pity, he adjured himself, and find out how private investigator Leo Win is going to solve his first solo case.
AN/ Kinda long and boring but I swear it gets interesting soon. I have changed the name of all the characters and places which is probably why they sound so shitty and fake. Excuse me please, I'm not very good in coming up with English names.
NEXT UPDATE WHEN THIS CHAPTER GETS 20+ VOTES AND 10+ COMMENTS!