by Tom Harper
‘I learned a lot.’ Courtesy of her prospective employers, Ellie had spent eight weeks of July and August at a country house in Dorset, an exclusive summer camp for would-be investment bankers.
‘They send us a report, you know,’ Blanchard admonished her. ‘They said in the final examination you came first in the class.’
Ellie shrugged, blushing. All her life she’d had to work harder than the others to achieve what she wanted. She was good at it. She hadn’t fitted in with the other students, who mostly saw the course as an extension of the boarding schools they’d left not so long before. While they drank and flirted in the bar, she’d sat in her room with her books. The way she’d always done it.
Blanchard gave her a searching look. ‘Perhaps you did not mix so much with the other pupils. Maybe they seemed different to you.’
Ellie stared at him, wondering how he could read her thoughts like that.
‘But you should try. Our work is not about passing exams and knowing the rules. Of course, you must do this also, but it is not enough. You should socialise with these people. Not because you like them, but because one day, when you negotiate, they will be on the other side of the table. And then you will know their weaknesses.’
A coldness seemed to come over him as he spoke, the remorseless focus of a hunter. Ellie remembered what Doug had said. These people are predators. The first sign of weakness, they’ll rip you limb from limb. She’d called him melodramatic.
‘And here we are.’
Blanchard held the door and let her into a small square office. To Ellie, schooled in the Middle Ages, it looked more like a monastic cell. The floor was dark wooden boards, the walls stark white. A scarred desk stood in the middle of the room, with a leather-upholstered chair and a filing cabinet behind it. There was no computer, nor any phone Ellie could see: only a pile of Manila folders spilling papers across the desk.
‘I had my secretary bring the files for some of the major projects we have at the moment. You should familiarise yourself with them before you meet the clients.’
‘When will that be?’
Blanchard shrugged. ‘Maybe tomorrow? Our job is unpredictable. I said before, it is not something you learn in books. For the next six months you will work as my personal assistant. Because of my responsibilities, you will not concentrate on any particular client, but work on different projects as I need you. Some of the tasks I give you will seem mundane, or irrelevant; others will be almost incalculably important. If you succeed, you will gain a rare knowledge.’
He looked as though he might have said more, but at that moment a middle-aged woman poked her head around the door. ‘Mrs Lafarge is on the line.’
Blanchard nodded. ‘If you excuse me, Ellie. Destrier will come in a few minutes to give you your passes, your keys and your equipment. He is our security manager. He is very paranoid, but this is why we pay him. Humour him.’
He paused at the door and fixed her with a look that seemed to turn her to glass. ‘Remember, Ellie, we chose you. This is where you belong.’
When Blanchard had gone, Ellie sat at the desk and stared at the stack of folders. The most modern practices, the most up-to-date thinking, Blanchard had said at her interview. But even the ancient Oxford libraries seemed more modern than this.
She tried the filing cabinet, but it was locked. Her desk had a drawer; she opened it, half expecting to find a quill pen and inkwell. Instead, she saw two rectangular blocks of high-gloss plastic, like jet or polished basalt. One was the size of a pack of cards, the other like a hardback book. In the dusty drawer, they looked like artefacts of an alien civilisation.
There were no markings. Ellie picked up the smaller one to examine it. Her hand brushed the surface: suddenly it started to glow. Red writing hovered behind the mirrored surface.
Enter password.
‘You want to be careful what you touch around here.’
Ellie dropped the box. It thudded onto the desk, glowing like a hot coal. A man stood in the doorway. He was tall and broad: his face might once have been handsome, if it hadn’t been rearranged by a series of violent events. His grey suit shimmered when he moved. One tendril of a tattoo peeked over the edge of his shirt collar, and a gold stud gleamed in his left ear.
He advanced into the room and picked up the lump of plastic where Ellie had dropped it.
‘Destrier,’ he introduced himself. ‘Never seen a mobile phone before?’
‘Mine has buttons.’
‘Bin it.’ His voice was soft, the accent hard to place. ‘This is your new best friend. Your password is in a text message on the phone. Remember it, never write it down. If you forget, or you think it’s been compromised, you come to me.’
He typed a number into the keypad which had appeared under the fascia. More symbols glowed into life around it.
‘Green to call, red to hang up. It can do other things, which we’ll show you later. The company pays for unlimited usage, so make as many personal calls as you like. It works out cheaper for us than trying to work out who said what to who. Same with the computer.’ He picked up the other box and tapped in the number again. Ellie heard a click. A clamshell lid swung up on invisible hinges, revealing a keyboard and screen.
‘It’s a laptop,’ she said. Destrier’s look made her wilt.
‘There’s also your cards.’ He pulled a cardboard wallet out of his suit and laid it on the desk. ‘Company credit card. There’s no maximum, but we do check what you spend. No unlimited personal usage on that one. And this is your card for the building. Swipe it wherever you go. If you’re not supposed to go somewhere, it won’t let you through. In particular, stay away from the sixth floor. It’s off limits.’
He sat on the desk and leaned over her. Ellie pushed her chair back.
‘We take security very seriously here. We reserve the option to monitor your computer activity, your e-mails and websites, your phone calls, your comings and goings.’
‘Of course,’ said Ellie, wondering what they thought she might do.
‘All our machines carry software to make sure you don’t compromise our security. Even by accident.’ He slid a piece of paper across the desk. ‘Sign this to say you that you’ve understood and agree.’
Ellie stared at the paper long enough to look like she’d taken it seriously, then signed.
Luxembourg
By quarter to five, Lemmy had found out what his client wanted to know. He’d sweated so much his bedraggled shirt was like a dishrag. His hair was a mess from where he tugged it when he was thinking, and he could feel a spot swelling on the bridge of his nose. But for what he’d earned that day, it was worth it.
He worked another half an hour, just for good measure, then packed up his briefcase and left. He found his car in the underground parking at Place des Martyrs and his spirits lifted. A silver Audi, his one indulgence. Not a top-of-the-range model, nothing to arouse the envy or suspicion of his colleagues, but fitted with just about every option in the catalogue. Lemmy thought of it as the down payment on his future, a promise of good things to come.
He turned on the engine and let the air conditioning play over his clammy face. He found the hip flask he kept in the glove compartment and swallowed a mouthful of fifteen-year-old Scotch – another indulgence. He leaned his head against the leather headrest, closed his eyes and let ten speakers-worth of music wash over him. He wouldn’t do this again for months, he promised himself. It wasn’t worth the stress. And for what this customer was paying him, he wouldn’t need to.
A tap at the window undid most of the whisky’s effect. His eyes snapped open in terror, then confusion as he saw it was Christine Lafarge.
He fumbled for a switch and lowered the electric window, sliding the hip flask into the door pocket. A blossom of perfume blew in.
‘Did I forget something?’ Try to be calm.
She smiled a straight-toothed smile. ‘I wanted to apologise. For being abrupt with you this morning.’ She’d bent close to the window. �
�I was surprised. We are under so much pressure at the moment.’
‘It is the curse of the modern world,’ Lemmy agreed.
‘I know you were only doing your job.’ Her hands rested on the windowsill; her fingertips dangled inside the car, brushing his sleeve. Lemmy began to see the possibility of an unexpected bonus to this job.
‘Perhaps I can buy you a drink?’
She gave a throaty laugh. ‘I could use one.’
She opened the door and slid into the passenger’s seat, smoothing her skirt over her legs so that Lemmy would notice them. She could smell the alcohol on his breath.
She fastened her seatbelt and sank back in the seat. She caught Lemmy sneaking a glance at her cleavage and smiled.
This was going to be easy.
London
Ellie’s phone rang at five o’clock. She fumbled to find the right place to press the buttonless plastic to answer it.
‘Mr Blanchard’s car is waiting for you,’ the receptionist told her.
Ellie closed the folder she’d been looking at and grabbed her bag. When she peeked into Blanchard’s office he was on the phone, listening intently. He smiled her a goodbye.
Blanchard’s car was enormous, a midnight-blue beast that filled most of the narrow alley in front of the bank. A suited chauffeur held the door open for her as she slid onto the white leather. She was almost afraid to get in, a child in a shop full of fragile and expensive things. She saw the winged crest emblazoned with the letter B on the steering wheel, and it occurred to her it might stand for Bentley.
‘Just joined us, Ma’am?’ the driver asked. Ellie squirmed. Nobody had ever called her Ma’am before. She nodded.
‘I suppose everybody gets this on the first day.’
She saw his smile in the rear-view mirror. ‘Not many, Ma’am.’
‘Ellie.’
He took the turn at the end of the alley with practised ease, though it looked to Ellie as if the wall must be halfway into the engine block. As they pulled into the traffic, Ellie stared out of the window, watching the crowds of office workers flow up and down King William Street. Most didn’t give the Bentley a second look, or only a grudging glance. Only a boy, about ten, dressed in flannel shorts and a baggy red cap, standing perpendicular to the crowds as he stared with innocent wonder at the powerful car inching past. Ellie waved to him. It seemed somehow inconceivable that children existed in the City. He didn’t wave back.
‘He can’t see you,’ the driver explained from the front. ‘Tinted glass.’
Ellie sat back, feeling foolish.
The car stopped at the foot of a tower – one of three thrusting up out of the concrete fortress of the Barbican, the city’s northern rampart. Ellie scrambled out before the driver could open the door for her, and wondered if it was rude.
‘Looks like someone’s come to meet you,’ he said.
At first Ellie didn’t see him – she was looking for a suit, assuming it must be someone from the bank. She only spotted him when he started moving towards her. A brown corduroy jacket and a tab-collared linen shirt, half untucked; wavy dark hair and a five o’clock shadow on his cheeks.
‘Doug?’
It came out fiercer than she’d meant. Doug was Oxford, her past, her doubts. She didn’t want him there. Not today.
His smile faltered. ‘I called your office – your boss gave me the address. I … I wanted to apologise.’ He gazed at the Bentley and tried to look nonchalant. ‘Nice car. Is that part of the package?’
‘Not yet.’ Ellie reached up and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Apology accepted.’ Behind him, she could see the driver waiting to give her a set of keys.
‘Thirty-eighth floor. You’ll find everything you need up there.’
The lift seemed to take a long time to get to the top. Ellie and Doug stood in opposite corners, last night’s fight still not forgotten.
‘Are you sure you came to apologise?’ Ellie asked warily. ‘Not to rescue me, or steal me back to Oxford?’
Doug held up his hands in innocence. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were OK.’ They stepped out of the lift; Ellie fumbled with the keys she’d been given. ‘And check out the new executive pad, obviously. I – wow.’
The moment Ellie opened the door it was as if someone had conjured the interior of a French chateau into this brutalist tower three hundred feet above London: a symphony of dark woods and heavy fabrics, gilded curlicues and lacquered surfaces. Oil paintings in crazily ornate frames lined the walls like a museum – except one wall, which was all glass. Dusk was falling. The city had begun to prepare for darkness, and a carpet of light stretched as far as Ellie could see. She didn’t know London well enough to pick out all the landmarks, but she thought she recognised the Houses of Parliament, Saint Paul’s Cathedral.
‘Look at this place.’ Doug was examining a gilded ebony side table. ‘I think this is Louis Quatorze. Genuine seventeenth century. And that chair looks like it came from Versailles.’
Ellie wandered through the apartment in a daze. She didn’t dare touch anything. In the bedroom she found a vast bed almost waist high, couched in a walnut frame that might have served as a boat. Swagged fabric hung over the head like a pavilion, while more windows looked out to the east, the turrets of Canary Wharf and the ribbon of the Thames stretching to the dark horizon.
A hand reached around. Ellie stiffened, but it was only Doug. She hadn’t heard him on the thick carpet.
He leaned into her neck, nuzzling her. He slid the jacket off her shoulders and reached around, fiddling with the buttons on her thin cotton blouse. He guided her towards the bed.
‘Maybe you were right,’ he whispered. ‘Maybe this isn’t so bad.’
IV
Île de Pêche, 1142
THE COUNT IS still kneeling at the altar, but his head lies several feet away. Tendrils of blood stretch out around him, the body desperate to reclaim its missing flesh. His guards are at the door, but even they seem shocked by what they see. The chapel has become a slaughterhouse.
I think of a boy kneeling before a different altar, a different place very far away. A different world.
How did I come to this?
Wales, 1127
I kneel in front of the bishop. My scalp itches where I had my tonsure shaved this morning; my skin itches from the coarse wool of the cassock they have forced me to wear. The stones on the floor are cold and hard against my knees.
A crowd has come to witness this moment: my brother Ralph and my father, his steward and his vavasours in the front rank, as well as the abbot of Saint David’s, who hopes I will bring a portion of my inheritance to his monastery one day. Behind them stand my mother and my sisters; behind them the servants, serfs, their wives and their children. Fifty or sixty souls, all dependent on my father to settle their disputes, protect their homes and collect their taxes. Not all of them are grateful for it. I can feel their bitter stares like knives at my back as I kneel there. I am their enemy.
I know why this is, though I don’t understand it. They are Welshmen, Britons, and I am a Norman. But I was born here and so was my father. I have never set foot in Normandy. I have heard the stories, of course: how Duke William claimed the crown of England from the usurper Harold; how my great-grandfather Enguerrand fought with him at Hastings and slew seventeen Englishmen; how my grandfather Ralph followed the Earl of Clare into Wales and was rewarded with the lands my father now holds. I love these stories of knights and battles. I am forever pestering Brother Oswald, the monk who teaches me, to repeat them. He prefers stories of saints and Jesus.
At this age, it has not occurred to me that there is another side to these stories. That every time my ancestors’ swords fall or their lances drive home, they land on the ancestors of the men who now stand glaring at the back of the church.
The bishop wears a ring, a thick gold band with a blue stone. The gold presses into my skin as he lays his hand on my forehead. I stare at the stone and try not to cry. I don’t want to become a pr
iest. I want to be a knight, like Ralph. Already, I can spar with a wooden sword and gallop my father’s palfrey across the meadow by the river. But knights are expensive: there are horses to buy and keep fed, arms and tack to keep in good repair, squires and grooms to pay to maintain them. Priests are much cheaper. My father says a knight only turns a profit in time of war; a priest has his living every year.
The bishop leans forward. His breath smells of onions.
‘You are about to take up a holy office. Do you swear these solemn oaths? To reject the snares of this world and turn yourself to Christ?’
I fight back the urge to look over my shoulder. I know Ralph is watching and I hope he is proud.
‘To refrain from shedding blood.’
I ball my hand in a fist to hide the bloodstain. I was out at dawn checking the traps Ralph and I had laid in the forest. We’d caught a woodpigeon; I wrung its neck with my own hands.
‘To be chaste.’
I’m happy to swear that, though I don’t know what it means. I’m eight years old.
‘Peter of Camros, the Church claims you as her own.’
That night, I lie on my mattress between my dog and my brother, and whisper the oaths back to myself. They seem so heavy with meaning. It’s the first time I have been treated as an adult. I do not like the path that has been chosen for me, but I promise God I will honour my vows to Him.
I cannot imagine, then, how utterly I will break every one of them.
V
london
ELLIE SKIPPED UP the steps. The glass doors with their frosted-glass shields parted to let her through, and it occurred to her whimsically that in a bygone age they would have been considered magic doors. She hadn’t got lost this morning, but she was still later than she’d planned. The vast bed in the apartment had proved hard to escape, especially with Doug using all his wiles to sabotage her departure.
