‘Physically you mean?’
‘Physically, logistically. How was it not caught on CCTV for starters? And there must have been a group. And some pretty tall, strong people.’
‘A professional crew,’ Fleet said. ‘They sprayed the cameras in the area. Official line of enquiry is that it’s definitely organised crime. Sharp got tangled up in something and got himself made an example.’
‘An example for what, though?’
Fleet shrugged. ‘Something to do with his valuation work at Sheridan Fisher? Maybe he didn’t follow instructions for some reason, stopped playing ball. Or maybe he did something accidentally. Valued a company poorly that he didn’t know belonged to his benefactors.’
‘What’s the investigation looking like?’
‘Slow,’ Fleet said. ‘Just between us, they’re winding it down. Reason Ian let me take a peek at these. He’s desperate.’
‘But it’s murder.’ Lydia felt like a child for pointing out the obvious. There were a lot of murders in the capital, she knew, but even so.
‘Yeah, but there aren’t any other leads. And he doesn’t have family clamouring for results. Or a high-profile name. MIT are doing their best, but they are squeezed, just like everyone else. Ian’s had half his team pulled onto other tasks already.’
‘Good thing I’m helping out, then,’ Lydia said, joking.
‘You stay out of it,’ Fleet said, not joking at all. ‘If this is organised crime, you do not want to poke around.’
‘I think you’re forgetting who I am,’ Lydia said, surprised at how insulted she felt.
Fleet had gone very still. ‘I haven’t forgotten. And if you got into trouble with some gang, how long before your uncle starts a war?’
Lydia was so used to worrying about the four Families, that she never spared a thought for the normals. Their gangs seemed inconsequential, insubstantial. Looking, again, at the image of Robert Sharp swinging beneath Blackfriars, was a sobering reminder that it wasn’t just the old magical families that had teeth.
* * *
Lydia opened her eyes and confronted the inside of her duvet cover. Her head felt sweaty where she had been buried underneath the covers and she fought her way out, almost panicking. More dreams. Stepping out onto her roof terrace and then being tipped over the railing. The swooping sense in her stomach of falling and Maddie’s voice in her ear, telling her to fly. ‘I can’t fly,’ she had said. Screamed, really. Lydia’s throat clicked as she swallowed and she reached for the glass of water next to her bed. After swigging from it, her head cleared and she frowned. It was unlike her to be organised enough to leave a glass of water next to the bed. Sometimes a diet cola bottle or last night’s whisky dregs. And what was that noise? As the nightmare cleared and Lydia woke up, she realised that there was a dragging sound next door. And then a thump.
‘Jason?’
At once, she remembered. Fleet had been here. They had sunk a few drinks, which accounted for the woolly-feeling in her head and the pounding behind her eyes. Lydia climbed out of bed, relieved to find she was still wearing her jersey shorts and vest top. They hadn’t had drunken sex, then. She was staying strong. Keeping Fleet at arm’s length. Keeping things professional.
She remembered, now. She had been feeling rebellious. Charlie telling her who she could and couldn’t be friends with had made her open a bottle of bourbon after they had finished looking at the crime scene photographs. So, this outrageous hangover was Uncle Charlie’s fault.
Gripping the now-empty glass in one hand, Lydia trailed out of her bedroom and stopped. Fleet was crouching in the corner of her living room-slash-office. He had stacked bricks and planks of wood to make a bookcase and had just opened one of her cardboard boxes of books.
‘What are you doing?’
Fleet looked up. ‘Morning, my exceedingly drunk friend.’
‘I wasn’t drunk,’ Lydia said. She frowned, trying to remember, but it intensified her headache.
‘Right,’ Fleet said. His smile could only be described as a smirk and Lydia didn’t like it.
There was an empty bottle of whisky on the desk and two tumblers. ‘What about you?’
‘I was very restrained,’ Fleet said. ‘I slept on the sofa, though, hope you don’t mind. It was pretty late when you passed out.’
‘You were drinking, too,’ Lydia said. She had a vague memory of playing poker. An image of Fleet singing along to the Beatles, although that didn’t seem likely.
‘It was a great night,’ Fleet said. ‘Until you started raving about flying.’
Oh no.
‘I don’t rave,’ Lydia said in her most-withering tone.
‘Eat,’ Fleet pointed to the kitchen. ‘And there’s coffee.’
‘Coffee?’ Lydia headed into the tiny kitchenette. A pile of neatly rinsed and squashed beer cans were next to the sink and Lydia had a flashback to chugging an entire can just to prove that she could. She cringed. On the side there was a bakery box filled with croissants, pain au chocolat and a custard-filled pastry, and a large cafetiere. Lydia poured a mugful and ate a pain au chocolat in three large bites. She found paracetamol in the end cupboard and swallowed two with half a glass of water. Carrying another pain au chocolat and her coffee, Lydia felt strong enough to face Fleet.
‘Thank you for breakfast,’ she said. ‘What is this,’ she gestured to the shelves.
Fleet was lining books up and he didn’t look around. ‘I saw you hadn’t unpacked these and figured you needed a bookcase. This is just a temporary measure. I know it’s a bit low-end. It’s easy to move, though, and you can replace it with proper furniture whenever you want.’
‘I like it,’ Lydia said. ‘Where did you get the wood?’
‘I had some left over from when I did mine.’ Fleet glanced at her, then. ‘I know you’ll probably need more. I can fill the whole wall, if you want.’
‘And you just had this with you?’
‘I brought it round last night in the car. Then we got distracted.’
The man had brought her bookshelves. And pastries. And coffee. Lydia felt slightly stunned. ‘Thank you,’ she said, sitting on the sofa. At least they had been distracted by extreme drinking and not anything more complicated. As a solution to their mutual attraction, it had merit. Although her hangover said otherwise.
‘I’m not filing these,’ he said, still placing books. ‘You’ll have to alphabetise them yourself.’
‘Or not,’ Lydia said, around a mouthful of buttery, chocolately flakes.
‘Or not,’ he agreed. ‘If you prefer the element of surprise, I suppose. The unexpected serendipity of reaching for a Terry Pratchett and ending up with a Nigella cookbook.’
Lydia took another sip of coffee. ‘You organise yours, then.’
‘Oh, yes. I’m a great believer in the Dewey Decimal system. And I lied about the Nigella. The only cookbook I have is a Madhur Jaffrey.’
Lydia couldn’t imagine owning a cookbook. ‘We are very different, you and me.’
‘Opposites attract,’ Fleet said, standing up. Once he had finished filling the last shelves, he turned his attention to the empty boxes. ‘You want these flattened for the recycling?’
‘I might keep them,’ Lydia said. ‘Just in case.’
‘Thinking about moving?’
Lydia drained her coffee. ‘You never know what’s around the corner.’
‘That’s true.’
Lydia stood up and began un-taping the boxes, flattening them. She caught Fleet smiling at her and said, defensively. ‘They’re just easier to store like this. I’m still keeping them.’
‘Shall I put them in your spare bedroom?’
‘No, that’s all right,’ Lydia said, thinking about Jason. Then a thought hit her. ‘You slept on the sofa?’
‘Passed out is more accurate, but yeah.’
Happy that it hadn’t just been her in a state, Lydia was still confused. ‘Why didn’t you use the spare bed?’
Fleet frowned. ‘I d
on’t know...’ Then he shook his head. ‘That’s right. I tried. Couldn’t get the door open.’
‘You were drunk,’ Lydia said lightly. ‘It’s not got a lock.’ She would have to speak to Jason about stopping people from going into his room. It was his room, but still. Fleet might get suspicious about randomly-impossible-to-open doors. Mind you, the sight of a load of mathematical equations all over the walls would have taken some explaining, too. And this kind of trickiness was just one of the many reasons she couldn’t start anything more intimate with Fleet.
Chapter Ten
After Fleet had left, Lydia tried to distract herself from her impossible love life with a bit of work. She had a call scheduled with Dr Lee. She read over the report she had sent through, reminding herself of the details of a case which felt as if it had happened a lifetime ago. She needed to be on the ball, couldn’t afford a bad review at this stage. Sadly, she needed plenty more cheating spouses to keep her in whisky and crisps. What she really wanted was to build up enough capital so that she could pay a deposit on a flat and have six months’ rent as a buffer, just in case she ever had to leave The Fork. Free rent from Uncle Charlie was very useful, but it made keeping her business separate from Charlie’s world immensely difficult. She hated to admit it, but her parents had been right.
Things didn’t get any less depressing with her client phone call. Dr Lee was very upset and it took Lydia’s most soothing voice and lots of leading questions to get him to explain the issue. Not her strong suit.
‘She doesn’t have fancy nails,’ he said, finally. ‘They are plain. Cut straight across with scissors. She doesn’t like long nails, says they get in the way when she is typing. At work.’
‘Right,’ Lydia said.
‘You said it was nails, that she was having them done,’ his voice was halfway between anger and tears.
‘It was a possibility,’ Lydia said. ‘Would you like me to resume the investigation?’
‘Of course,’ Dr Lee said. ‘It’s not finished.’
‘I just thought you might have changed your mind…’ Lydia always liked to give clients an out. It probably wasn’t great for her bottom line, financially, but there was so much stirred up in these cases. The past sediment of long-term relationships which, once whipped into the present, clouded the whole river.
‘I need to know,’ Dr Lee said.
‘Okay, I’ll be in touch.’ Lydia finished the call and made her second coffee of the day. She ignored her unusable roof terrace and leaned back in her office chair, staring at the ceiling and trying to keep her mind on the Lee case. Dr Lee was a paying client and she ought to be thinking about her next steps in tailing his wife. Instead, she couldn’t stop seeing the figure of Robert Sharp suspended beneath the ironwork of Blackfriars bridge.
She closed her eyes and gave in. Robert Sharp had a fifteen-grand silver statue and priority treatment at a premier law firm and, if Lydia’s hunch was correct, a sweet deal on the rent of a fancy flat in Canary Wharf. All in all, it added up to a tidy package. He was clearly very valuable to somebody. Lydia filled a glass of water and drank it while she stared out of the window, thinking. The sounds from the street, ever-present, were particularly loud as the heatwave continued. A group of teenage boys were shouting and laughing and Lydia leaned forward to see what was happening. They were in mismatched football kit and clearly heading home after a friendly kickabout. One boy poured a bottle of water over his head without breaking stride and another shoved his friend playfully in the shoulder, causing him to step out into the road.
Of course, Mr Sharp might be valuable to a whole group of somebodies. A family, for example. Lydia didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but the fact that a Silver-run law firm was involved was suspicious. Lydia called Charlie, acting before she could talk herself out of it.
He picked up instantly. ‘All right, Lyds?’
‘Yeah, fine,’ Lydia ignored the tug in her stomach. Charlie had sounded so like her dad for a moment. ‘What do you know about the Silvers?’
A slight hesitation. ‘Lots. What are you after?’
‘Would they represent an organisation of flexible morality?’
‘In a heartbeat. Why?’
‘Do you know JRB? It’s a registered company and the website uses words like ‘consulting’ so you haven’t a bloody clue what they’re about.’
‘Doesn’t ring a bell,’ Charlie said. ‘Not exactly memorable, though. Sounds like a hundred other things.’
A car horn blared, followed by a flurry of clearly enunciated swear words. Lydia closed her eyes and tried to organise her thoughts. ‘There’s this guy. He’s a nobody. Mid-level analyst in the City. But someone is looking out for him like he’s important, like he knows something.’
‘You think he’s into blackmail?’
Lydia opened her eyes. ‘You know what? He could be.’ Lydia had been focusing on Sharp as a victim. The way he had been killed had been so horrible and so public and his possessions in the flat had seemed so meagre, it had painted a certain image in Lydia’s mind. ‘He could have exhorted favours and money.’
‘And it doesn’t have to be related to his job. It could be personal. He might have stumbled across some information or have a personal vendetta against someone, some kind of relationship connection. Or he might have set things up. Could have gone looking for dirt on someone with a lot of cash and a reputation they don’t want tarnished.’
Lydia was frustrated. If Fleet could get her a list of Sharp’s known associates, she could see if anybody fitted the description. Of course, the police had no doubt already thought of the angle. She was being slow. Had been too distracted by the anachronism of the silver knight. That could just have been a payment for blackmail in lieu of a traceable bank transfer.
‘Is this guy dead by any chance?’
‘Very,’ Lydia said.
‘Could easily have been into blackmail, then,’ Charlie said. ‘That often goes wrong.’
Lydia decided not to ask exactly how much experience Charlie had in that particular arena. The less she knew, the better. As always.
‘Don’t be a stranger,’ Charlie said as Lydia ended the call.
‘Impossible,’ Lydia said out loud to the empty room.
She looked at her phone screen for a moment and then called Fleet. ‘Have they looked into who was paying rent for Sharp’s flat?’
‘Are you still on this?’
Lydia didn’t bother to answer, just waited for Fleet to carry on.
‘Not on the phone,’ he said. ‘I’ll come round in a bit.’
* * *
Lydia worked while she waited for Fleet. She organised her case notes for the various jobs she was running and updated her accounts. Jason was in his room, sitting on the bed cross-legged and staring into space. Lydia couldn’t tell if he was deep in thought, meditating or powered-down in his version of sleep, but he didn’t react when she knocked and walked in, so she left him to it.
Fleet was in shirt sleeves and he handed a carrier bag to Lydia when he arrived. She opened it and saw a bag of ice cubes. ‘Lovely. Thanks.’
Fleet filled a couple of pint glasses from the tap, ripped open the bag and added cubes to each.
Lydia took the proffered glass and drank gratefully before rolling the cool surface against her cheeks and the base of her neck. ‘When will this bloody heat end?’ It was reflexive, the same words that everybody in the city was saying on repeat. If the old Gods had still existed, it would have been like a prayer.
‘Shall we go outside?’
Lydia thought about her roof terrace and felt an instant stab of visceral fear. ‘Let’s just sit by the window.’ It was wide open and Lydia dragged both office chairs in front of it.
‘So, I spoke to Ian and got a progress report.’ He held up a hand. ‘Don’t get too excited. Suspects are still thin on the ground.’
‘Did they find out who was paying his rent?’
Fleet nodded. He took a notebook out of his pocket and f
lipped it open, reading from his notes. ‘Rent paid by Robert Sharp.’ He held a hand up as if anticipating an interruption and carried on reading. ‘Five weeks before his death, Mr Sharp lived in a house-share up near Hampstead Heath. Modest rent by London standards, Oyster card was one of his biggest outgoings, along with his computer and gaming costs.’
‘Gambling?’
‘Online RPG, elves and wizards sort of thing.’
‘So what happened five weeks ago?’
‘No idea. Ian hasn’t made headway, either. Sharp just upped and left. His housemates weren’t especially close, describe him as ‘quiet, kept to himself, tidy,’ not exactly illuminating, and they have no clue why he gave notice. Apparently he didn’t share his plans with them. In fact, one member of the house,’ Fleet glanced at his notebook, ‘Serena Hapzburg, said that he told her to mind her own business when she asked and she was surprised because he had never been rude like that before. Quiet, but nice.’
‘Were those the words he used? Did she say that he said ‘mind your own business’.’
‘Not exactly,’ Fleet said. ‘Apparently he told her to “fuck off out of his face”.’
‘That’s a bit aggressive.’
‘Under stress, perhaps?’
‘Personality change due to drug use?’
‘Could be,’ Fleet looked thoughtful. ‘MIT hasn’t found any evidence of drugs, but maybe it was one time. If he was slipped something really nasty it could have messed him up. Unusual but not unheard of. The brain is a funny thing and it can react that way for some people, if they’ve got an underlying pathology waiting to be unlocked.’
Lydia remembered a guy at her school who had smoked weed a few times, along with everyone else but, unlike everyone else, had ended up in a psych ward. Of course, it was possible he had been doing a lot more than weed or a lot more weed than most. She was basing her information on the rumour mill of a bunch of teenagers but still, it had always stuck with her that drugs were unpredictable. That what might be a night or two of fun for most, could end the life of the unlucky. Drugs were like magic in that way, at least according to the stories her Dad had sometimes told. Back in the glory days, when power was running through the Crow family like electricity, there had been some unfortunates who pushed too hard and burned out. And some whose minds just couldn’t take the old magic in the new world and their minds had gone soft. Left with pudding brains, dribbling in the corner of a care-home lounge, unable to recall their own names.
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