by Sam Blake
God, he, Edward Croxley, was good, but sometimes he was fucking great.
It was so easy and so, so obvious. Now the keys were his, he could search for the box in his own time, going through every floor, every shelf, every drawer if he had to. He’d decide what to do with the shop later – maybe it would be useful as a base for his art sales and the few antiques he dealt in. Although his gut told him that anywhere like this would be a bloody nightmare, things like insurance and actually opening at ten o’clock every morning weighed him down even contemplating them. But maybe he could get Power back in to run it? Now, there was an idea. And he was sure Sergei and his boss, Kaprizov, would be interested in selling some of their stuff through here too … But that was for another day.
Now he needed to find the amulets.
They already had blood on them and would have a lot more if he didn’t find them fast.
It was Sergei’s fault in the first place – he was such a fucking idiot, and this time Sergei’d got it wrong and they both knew it. This time the goods should have gone straight to Kaprizov, not come through the UK at all, but Sergei had been full of how fool-proof their system was and wanted to show off and make sure that everything was totally clean by the time it got to Kaprizov. His idea was that, with the provenance they’d created with the country house sales, Kaprizov could offload the goods on the open market if he wanted to, neatly laundering whatever cash had been used to pay for them in the first place and making a tidy profit at the same time. Not that he was going to do that. These artefacts were meant as gifts.
Which made the whole fucking mess considerably fucking worse.
Croxley had to admit that finding all this stuff in country house auctions was genius in its own way, once he, Edward, did the finding. It created a paper trail that was hard to disprove.
When it worked.
He’d never forget the moment when he’d realised they weren’t there, that instead of a collection of priceless almost seven-thousand-year-old Sumerian gold amulets, all that had been in the box were a few old books and a cigar box. That would look good wrapped up with a gold ribbon for Kaprizov’s nieces.
But now he was here.
And when he found the stuff, he was never going to do this again. There was too much stress involved – he was going to get back to what he was good at: organising parties and selling a few Picassos to make ends meet.
Croxley looked around him, unsure where to start. The auction had only been a week ago, so logically the box had to be near the top of all this crap in one of the rooms. Perhaps he should start on the top floor and work down? Croxley shook his head to himself. If Jack had come in with the box he’d have had a look through it, taken out the best pieces and put it down somewhere – Croxley didn’t reckon he would have lugged it all the way up the stairs.
So he’d start down here.
He turned around and began to take in his surroundings properly. This back room looked like some sort of office, an old desk pushed up against the wall below a barred window. Piles of ledgers covered its surface and leaning against every wall were stacks and stacks of framed prints. Croxley turned, his Nikes silent on the fraying corded carpet.
In the very corner of the room was a huge metal safe painted a sludgy brown. It looked like a remnant from the Wild West.
Now that was interesting. But for another day.
Croxley turned around again, working out where to start. There was an internal door to his left. He’d better have a quick look around first to get a feel for the place – after all, the box he needed could be sitting on the floor staring at him in the next room. He pushed the door wide to find another storage room, this one full of books – ancient spines in muted shades lining the walls. The room smelled of old paper. On the floor, boxes were piled up under every shelf. Croxley took a step inside and leaned over to look in one. More books.
Across the room was another door. It was like a fucking rabbit warren. Striding across he pulled it open.
On the other side was the shop proper.
At the far end, the shutters were down – had been since Jack had pulled them and headed to that infamous card game. One man’s loss was another man’s gain.
Croxley’s eyes began to adjust to the dimness and he headed for the front of the shop, skirting a huge antique globe plonked between the bookshelves and display cases. Heading down past a display table of books, Croxley could see a row of antique brass light switches beside the front door. Exactly what he was looking for.
Triumphantly he switched them on.
Now he was in business.
That box with the amulets had to be here somewhere and he was staying until he found it.
Chapter 11
LILY YAWNED as she hauled her case up the stairs to her attic flat. A short walk down the Euston Road from Granary Square and the stunning warehouse transformation that was Central Saint Martins, the flat was at the top of a tall Georgian house that overlooked a leafy square with tennis courts, the birds loud in summer and squirrels dashing about in the autumn. The building had its own faded elegance, the ornate half-railings outside the sash windows, even this far up, thick with hundreds of years of paint. The rest of the crescent was divided into faded three-star hotels, the pavement constantly busy with bewildered-looking tourists dragging huge suitcases.
Turning up to the last flight, the narrowest of all, Lily stopped for a moment to look out of the landing window. She’d miss this when she was in New York. This building had such a sense of history – she could almost hear the maids’ weary footsteps as they headed up here to their beds under the roof at the end of a long day, their room no doubt boiling in the summer and freezing in the winter.
Lily yawned again. She was desperate for bed but she had some things she needed to do before she could even try to sleep. Arriving on the top landing and opening the front door, she was greeted by the smell of stale, damp clothing and fried food. She groaned inwardly.
‘Hello!’ Lily called out to anyone who was in, to announce her arrival.
There was no response.
Perhaps everyone was out. But where was Jack? She glanced at the screen on her phone. The battery was low but there was no sign of a missed call or a message. She’d told him not to leave the apartment. But he was an adult now, could make his own decisions. He’d probably gone out for milk.
Lily dumped her bags in the hall and dipped into the kitchen. Checking the kettle was filled with water, she flicked it on and then headed for her room. Pushing open her bedroom door, she stopped abruptly, taking in the transformation and shaking her head. A sad smile crept out. Jack was such a dope, like fixing her room could fix the shop.
But he was trying.
Totally uncharacteristically, he had tidied up, straightening the bed and the patchwork blanket she’d knitted while she was revising for her A levels. It was a riot of colour, the squares all perfectly aligned, and he’d pulled it so the edges of the squares lined up with the edges of the bed. She might be slightly chaotic in some things, but balance and symmetry were very important to Lily and Jack knew it. On the dressing table he’d left a note leaning against the antique teapot he’d given her a week or so ago. She’d wiped it down when he presented it to her, delighted. It was designed for one, a pretty addition to her collection despite a hairline crack, but with the interview and everything, cleaning it up had slipped her mind. It was still stuffed with tissue paper and needed a proper wash, but No. 42 had sent her her flight details before she’d had time to look at it properly and date it. Looking at it now, would she really be able to take it with her? Packing up sounded easy, but was it?
In the back of Lily’s mind, a voice wondered if she’d be able to go to New York at all, but she’d said she would – she had a month and now she had Vittoria.
Dumping her case beside the dressing table, Lily picked up the note Jack had left: ‘Back at 6, will bring dinner. Hope you had fab trip.’
In the kitchen she heard the kettle boil. Before she d
id anything she needed a cup of tea.
*
Back in her bedroom, sipping her tea, Lily adjusted her glasses and worked out what she needed to do first. After her lunch with Vittoria, so much was swirling around in her mind.
She needed to unpack, but more importantly she needed to get things rolling on another idea. She picked up her phone and checked the time – it was still only two o’clock, although it felt like about six in the evening. She had enough time to send a few emails and have a nap before dinner – emails that included a particularly important message to an old school friend.
Unravelling her phone cable from the contents of her satchel, book, make-up bag and the TransGlobal business-class menu (she was putting that on her notice board), Lily plugged her phone in at the back of her dressing table and grabbed her MacBook. She’d unpack her case before she crashed out, but first … She pulled her pillows from under the duvet and stacked them against the wrought-iron bed head, sat down and opened her computer, powering it up.
She and Vittoria had agreed they would only correspond if absolutely necessary by letter, mailed in the ordinary post, a message disguised as an invitation of some sort. There was to be no digital fingerprint, no digital trail.
Their goals were the same: payback; but, as they had quickly realised in both cases, it wasn’t a matter of pointing the gun and firing it. They didn’t need to do that. With both the men who were causing difficulties in their lives, they only needed to make sure that it was loaded and left within sight. With a bit of planning, Vittoria’s husband, Marcus Devine, and that foul creature Edward Croxley – Lily could hardly bear to even think his name – could be relied upon to become the agents of their own downfall: it was just a matter of creating the circumstances.
As Lily opened her email there was a scratching at the window and she looked up to see George, her grandpa’s ginger cat, glaring at her with his one eye. He pawed at the window again impatiently. Putting her MacBook down and kneeling on the bed, Lily slid up the stiff sash and he slipped inside, jumping off the sill, his coat almost the same colour as the polished boards. Lily closed the window and went back to the computer, conscious of him sitting regally in the middle of the floor as if waiting for an explanation of her absence.
A message from Marianne Omotoso pinged straight into Lily’s inbox. Serendipity indeed. Lily clicked on it and, as if he’d realised she was doing something interesting, George jumped back up onto the bed beside her and took a look at her screen. She reached out to stroke his soft head.
‘George, I’ve got some news for you. I’ve been offered a job.’ She raised her eyebrows as she spoke and looked at him. He regarded her stoically. ‘I’m going to need to move. I think you’re going to have to stay with Jack.’ George twitched his whiskers. ‘But first we’ve got some jobs to do. There’s this guy called Marcus Devine who is trying to get rid of his very lovely and successful wife because he has a beautiful and needy mistress.’
George looked at her, unimpressed. It sounded like a fairy tale or a bad romance novel when she put it like that, and for Vittoria that’s probably exactly how it felt. Lily remembered the pain in Vittoria’s face as she’d explained everything. And a big part of the hurt was that Marcus was so barefaced about everything – even Lily had been surprised at that. Marcus Devine was so confident that no one was watching him in London, he didn’t even try to hide his tracks.
Lily had googled Marcus’s mistress, Stephanie Carson, from a terminal in the airport, careful to pepper her search history with other cast members from Lies. Even to the most suspicious of analysts she’d just look like a fan. Beautiful and young, Stephanie was a talented Shakespearean actress who was now the lead in a hit TV crime series. Getting to the airport early had given Lily time to look up some of the other names Vittoria had given her as well – the other women her husband had been linked to over the past few years.
Marcus Devine had certainly been busy.
Pushing her MacBook to one side, Lily leaned over the side of the bed and, careful not to disturb George, who had started purring and kneading her patchwork blanket, she reached for her satchel and Vittoria’s file. Pulling out the handwritten sheets, she laid them side by side on the bed. Marcus Devine’s email address was at the top, his mobile phone number, mother’s maiden name, car registration numbers, his flying schedule for the next few weeks. And Stephanie Carson’s home address. The only thing Lily seemed to be missing was Marcus Devine’s passport number. They didn’t know what information she’d need, so Vittoria had literally given her everything.
Lily leaned over George, picking up her tea from the bedside locker to take a sip. The afternoon was rolling on. But she’d given a lot of thought to her first move while she’d been on the plane, this time able to enjoy every moment of business class. She’d missed having someone to chat to, though. On this leg of the trip the man in the corresponding pod to hers had raised the partition between them before the seat-belt signs had even gone off. Not that she would have wanted to talk to him anyway, but it had given her hours to come up with a plan.
And it hadn’t been that difficult.
Marcus Devine obviously had a very strong sense of his own self-worth; to him, his reputation was everything. You could see it in the way he posed for photographs, in how much he enjoyed the limelight. Being seen with beautiful women was all part of that.
So that was the place Lily needed to start.
And with a bit of help from her school friend Emma, who was desperate to break into celebrity features but was currently doing the horoscopes in the Sunday Inquirer and the Daily Inquirer, they’d be off.
Lily was sure Emma had said that the gossip columnist could file copy up to teatime on a Saturday for the next day’s papers. They’d met for a coffee and a catch-up a few months ago and Lily had been marvelling about how fast a story could circulate. Emma had been full of how the different columnists worked, of who came into the office and who worked from home, how they found stories. It really was a world where anything was prey, but that didn’t stop Em loving it. And she had her sights firmly set on the next rung on the ladder. Actually, any rung that got her writing properly instead of trying to make sense of the mystic ramblings of their astrologer and get her ideas condensed into fifty words.
Lily picked up a pen from her bedside cabinet and chewed the end. The trick was to make her email sound plausible but not create anything that could be litigious or get Emma into trouble. She smiled: this one was all about smoke and mirrors. She opened a fresh email. It took her a few attempts to compose it, flicking to her browser search page to be sure she had the right information. She read it over:
Hi E, I overheard something when I was coming through passport control in Heathrow that I thought might be one for you …
She finished the email and hit Send.
George regarded her suspiciously.
As well he might.
Chapter 12
DUBLIN’S ST STEPHEN’S Green was busy even at this time on a Sunday morning, buses, taxis and the famous horse drawn jarveys vying for space as they headed around Europe’s largest garden square, a chill breeze rustling the remaining leaves of the towering trees. Despite the breeze, late autumn sunshine bathed the period entrance to one of Dublin’s most famous hotels, brasses on the central rotating door polished to a mirrored shine.
Inside, the hotel’s restaurant was busy too, a jazz quartet already warming up against the chink of china and whoosh of the coffee machines.
‘Ciao, darling, how was New York?’
Smiling at his terrible Italian accent, Vittoria put down her phone and stood up to greet Aidan with an air kiss on the cheek, before he slipped off his jacket and slung it around the back of the chair. He looked good, his designer stubble a little out of control, a baseball cap pulled down over his military-style buzz-cut. He’d ditched his white coat for a casual T-shirt and hoodie, was obviously making the most of his weekend off.
‘It was great, although jet lag leav
es me so groggy, my brain seems to grind to a halt. I should have stayed in bed this morning.’
Aidan smiled. ‘You know what Marcus is like – he likes an audience. He was only delighted when he texted me this morning.’
Vittoria rolled her eyes. ‘I’m sure he can have his audience without me having to join him.’
‘But he’s not mentioned in a full-page spread, is he? You are. It’s your photo in the paper. No one will know he’s gloating unless you’re here for people to recognise.’
Vittoria winced and passed Aidan the menu. She’d had a feeling that this article was a bad idea from the moment the journalist had called. But the Russian ballet didn’t come to Dublin often, and the prima ballerina hailing a Dublin clinic for saving her from anorexia was a once in a lifetime story. Although, when they’d caught up on the phone, Yana had been worried that it stank of PR, was too obviously a way to raise the profile of the European tour. Vittoria had calmed her. She was sure, ultimately, it would be good for both of them. A dark-haired waitress arrived, interrupting Vittoria’s thoughts, but Aidan was already waving the menu away.
‘I’ll have my usual.’ He grinned at the girl, who responded with a faint blush.
Vittoria smiled inwardly; Aidan had no idea of his effect on women. He had an endless stream of girlfriends, each one thinking they’d be able to tie him down, but he never seemed to settle. It worried Vittoria – he was utterly adorable but he flitted inexplicably from relationship to relationship. And each time he introduced her to a new one, she wondered how long it would last. She took the menu herself.
‘Thank you, and jasmine tea would be lovely,’ she said, then, turning to Aidan, she shook her head. ‘Honestly, you’re worse than Marcus – don’t you ever feel like branching out, trying something new?’