‘I heard him speaking to your dad. Complaining that you weren’t being as helpful as he would hope.’
Lydia smiled knowing that, at least, her mother would be thrilled about this. She had cautioned Lydia against living above The Fork and getting dragged into the Family business.
‘I think it’s a mistake.’
‘What?’
The waiter appeared and asked if they wanted to taste the wine. ‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ Lydia said. ‘Fill ‘em up.’
‘Cheers,’ her mother said, holding her glass out.
‘Cheers,’ Lydia echoed and they clinked. The wine was delicious. Rich and spicy and full of tasty tannins which Lydia knew she would pay for with a heavy head and a black tongue.
Susan was studying the menu. ‘I definitely want fried artichokes and the salted cod. Shall we get patatas bravas and some bread and olives, too?’
Lydia’s mouth started watering. She had skipped breakfast on account of being asleep and not wanting to be late to meet her mother and her stomach joined in the party with a loud gurgle. Susan began to recount an article from New Scientist about AI and Lydia tamped down her impatience.
Once the table was crowded with little pottery dishes of intensely-flavoured Mediterranean food and they were both half a glass of wine down, Lydia looked around to check the distance to the next table and leaned forward, lowering her voice. ‘Why is it a mistake?’
Susan blinked. She looked as immaculately turned out as always, lipstick expertly applied and not a hair in her shiny blonde bob out of place, but there was tension around her eyes. Dark shadows which make-up couldn’t quite disguise. She looked tired. Or, Lydia realised with a start, she was just looking older. Mortality was a kicker.
‘This is delicious,’ Susan said, tearing a piece of bread and dipping it into a dish of seasoned olive oil.
‘Mum,’ Lydia said. ‘I thought you didn’t want me to get involved?’
‘I didn’t,’ Susan said. She put the crust down onto her plate and picked up her wine glass. ‘I don’t. I warned you not to live at The Fork, but you went ahead.’ She pulled a face. ‘Which is your right. You are an adult. You get to make your own decisions.’
‘I’m not joining the business,’ Lydia said, trying to reassure her. ‘I’m doing my own thing. I’m staying safe.’
‘You’re Henry Crow’s daughter. That makes you next in line to lead the Family.’
It was Lydia’s turn to fall silent. Her mother wasn’t a Crow, and rarely referred to the Family with a capital ‘F’ directly. She was Susan Sykes, with a PhD in chemistry, who’d had aspirations to work in research. She had fallen in love with Henry Crow and, loving her right back, Henry had followed her wishes and abdicated his position as head of the Family, moved out to the suburbs and raised their daughter away from that life. Susan had taken a substantial career break to be home with Lydia, spending days baking, crafting, playing games and taking her to swimming lessons and, eventually, to and from school each day, making her feel loved and secure. And then, once Lydia moved on from primary school, Susan had returned to academia. Not easy after such a break, but she was smart and determined and she had clawed her way to a research position at Imperial College London. For a few years, at least.
‘Your father made a deal, you know that. Charlie took his position as head of the Family and I got to bring you up in normality. No responsibility, no training, no business. I wanted to keep you safe and I wanted you to have a choice about what you did with your life. I didn’t want it mapped out. I didn’t want some old system to have chosen for you.’
‘And I’m grateful,’ Lydia said. Her true feelings were more complex, but she had always recognised the love and care which had gone into her mother’s decree and she was thankful for that. Always. ‘And you don’t have to worry. I’m not working for Charlie. I’m doing my own thing.’
Susan’s smile was very small and very sad. ‘You can’t.’
‘What?’
‘You chose. You might not have meant to, but you moved to Camberwell. You’re literally roosting with the Family. You did a job for Charlie.’
‘That was nothing. I just told him the Family of one person,’ Lydia caught herself. ‘Two people. That’s it.’
‘And how did you do that?’
Lydia had told the truth without thinking. This was her mother. She was the safest space that Lydia knew, but they didn’t usually talk about this side of life. Her dad had never spoken about Crow stuff to Lydia when her mother was around, but that didn’t mean they didn’t talk privately. ‘I can just tell. I don’t know how.’
Susan nodded. ‘How did Charlie react?’
‘I think he already knew,’ Lydia said. ‘About me, I mean. I didn’t reveal anything he didn’t already know. Did you know?’
Susan nodded. ‘Of course. Your dad was watching out for your abilities since the day you were born. I didn’t want to hear about it, but he kept me updated every step of the way. We don’t keep secrets from each other. Never have. He never shut me out, never made me feel less for not being part of a Family.’
That punched Lydia in the gut. She didn’t mean to make Fleet feel ‘less’, but was that exactly what she was doing? She was so busy trying to stay loyal to the Family and to make sure she never gave away Family secrets, that she had let it become her default position in all matters. Whether it was her own work, Emma or Crow stuff, she gave away as little as humanly possible. She had always thought she was being smart and careful and a good Crow. Maybe she was just being a horrible girlfriend.
‘And now you’re in it, you’re in danger. You can’t stay like this, one foot in the pool.’
‘I’ll get out,’ Lydia said automatically, wanting to erase the expression of pain and worry on her mother’s face. ‘I’ll move back to Scotland. Or I’ll come and live with you and Dad. You need help, anyway. With Dad.’
‘No,’ Susan shook her head. ‘You’re always welcome, you know that. It will always be your home. But you moved back to London for a reason.’
‘I had to get away from a work thing. I didn’t choose-’
‘Lydia,’ Susan said gently. ‘You could have gone anywhere.’
She opened her mouth to argue but closed it again, knowing her mother was right. She had been offered free rent above The Fork and was cash-strapped so it seemed like the perfect solution, but she had known it was risky. She could have borrowed money and gone to Europe for a few weeks, instead. She had been curious. She had felt the pull of Camberwell. Feathers, she had been curious. That was supposed to be fatal for felines, not Crows.
‘It’s all right,’ her mother said, now. ‘I wanted you to have the choice and you did. Now you have to be smart. Charlie is getting older. Who is going to take over when he is no longer strong enough?’
‘I’m not,’ Lydia said, properly shocked. ‘I don’t want that.’
‘Does everybody know that? Does everybody believe that? Who might see you as a threat to their own ambition?’
‘You’re saying I need to worry about Family? I thought loyalty was the number one thing? No Crow would hurt another.’
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ Susan shook her head. ‘You grew up hearing your Dad’s stories. But he got out pretty young, really. And the further you get from something, the simpler and more idealised your stories get. It’s only natural. It’s how nostalgia happens. You’re living in the present, now, though. I have no idea if a Crow would hurt another. I have no idea if anyone is looking to usurp Charlie or is viewing you as a threat. I just think it’s sensible to consider every logical possibility. Don’t you?’
Lydia thought of the range of human behaviour she witnessed in her P.I. work and nodded. People could surprise you.
‘And that’s before you’ve considered the more likely threat.’ Susan took a sip of wine before continuing. ‘The other Families. Again, they will assume you are in training to take over from Charlie. When is the best time to take out a threat? While it’s growing or when it
reaches its full power and potential?’
‘But there’s the truce.’
‘I’m a realist,’ Susan said. ‘I was brought up in the normal world by normal parents. I wasn’t filled with tales of magical Families and ancient truces. And in the normal world, truces get broken and wars happen. I’m not saying it’s going to happen in your lifetime, I just think you should consider it a very real possibility.’
Lydia’s head was spinning. Not just from her mother’s words, but from the fact that it was her mother, Susan Sykes, saying them. ‘What do you know?’ Lydia said. ‘What’s happened? I know Charlie was trying to train Maddie. That went wrong, obviously, which is why he’s so focused on me, I think.’ She looked around to make sure there weren’t any other diners close enough to overhear, leaning over the table and lowering her voice just to be sure. ‘I know the Silvers have got their Family cup from the British Museum and they have a statue which is imbued with magic. Something strong enough to send people with no power insane. What else should I know?’
‘Eat,’ Susan said, pushing a dish of fried potato across the table. ‘You’re too thin.’
‘Mum. What’s brought this on? What do you know?’
Susan closed her eyes and took an audible deep breath. Then she looked Lydia square in the face. ‘Nothing else. Just that you’re Henry Crow’s daughter. Your Dad isn’t in any state to step back in to help the Family if things get bad. I thought he might get well again. I thought that being a Crow might protect him somehow, but he just gets worse.’
‘Mum-’
She shook her head ‘It’s bad, Lydia. So you need to be strong. For the sake of peace between the Families. For the sake of the Crows, and for your own safety.’
‘Mum-’
‘I know what I always said,’ Susan said. ‘But things change. Besides, you made your choice. That was all I ever wanted. For you to have that chance.’
Chapter Seven
Perhaps it was the wine or perhaps it was the weirdness of the conversation with her mother or some other factor Lydia didn’t care to examine, but she found herself calling Paul Fox and telling him to meet her.
The longer Lydia thought about it, the less likely it seemed that Paul Fox was entrusting an investigation into a member of his family to a Crow. Which meant he was being less honest than he pretended. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, and the fact that it was brought its own sense of alarm. She was letting her guard down, beginning to trust Paul Fox. And that couldn’t lead anywhere good.
Paul answered quickly and agreed to meet. ‘I’m in town, as it happens,’ he said. ‘I’ll come to you.’
Lydia went to the relative quiet of St Paul’s, the actors’ church, behind the bustling piazza and snagged a bench. She watched the pigeons, all of whom kept a respectful distance from her, and enjoyed the autumnal sun on her face.
She had her eyes closed, but caught the scent of Fox as he entered the churchyard. Paul walked down the central path looking like exactly what he was, an expert hunter in a field of prey.
He tiled his chin, not sitting. ‘Walk?’
Lydia stood, hating that she was being obedient, but feeling that she ought to pick her battles. He had come to meet her, after all, like a dog when you whistle. Perhaps this was his way of rebalancing his sense of power.
‘Nice lunch?’
A cold feeling. ‘You were following me?’
He shot her a quizzical look. ‘No. It’s the garlic and wine.’ He tapped his nose. ‘Keen sense of smell.’
Well that was disturbing. ‘Creepy, much?’
He smiled, flashing white teeth and making Lydia’s stomach loop.
Get a hold of yourself, she counselled sternly and silently. It was the Fox magic, nothing else. Nothing she hadn’t dealt with many times before.
They walked up the path toward the back of the church. Lydia stopped at the steps into the entrance, with its list of service times to the side of the door, but Paul kept moving. Lydia followed and found herself in a large open space with peach-coloured walls, white plasterwork and elaborate candelabras. It had a faintly theatrical air, but that might have been the power of suggestion. Lydia knew it was the church adopted by the second oldest profession, and that the ashes of Dame Ellen Terry resided below, not to mention the many memorials to actors like Charlie Chaplin and Vivien Leigh.
Lydia followed Paul as he moved slowly around the outer edge, pausing to look at the memorial plaques to the great and the good of the theatre world. Next to Noel Coward’s plaque, Paul said. ‘I assume you have an update?’
The church was large and almost empty, just a couple of tourists doing the same as they were and nobody was paying them the slightest attention. Still, Paul spoke quietly and that, and the surroundings, gave Lydia an intensified feeling of collusion. Maybe that was his intention? She wouldn’t put anything past Paul, or make the mistake of underestimating his capacity for manipulation.
‘I know I’m missing something,’ Lydia said. ‘And I’m trying to work out what. You expect me to believe that you are worried about someone in your family, but you’re willing to send a Crow to investigate. It doesn’t ring true. So I know you are messing with me, but I haven’t worked out how, yet. I was hoping you would just cut the crap and tell me.’
A tourist coughed loudly and Lydia wondered if her voice had raised a little too much.
Paul took her elbow and steered her to a corner at the back of the church, speaking urgently as they moved. ‘I think you’re good at what you do and, I know you won’t believe this, but I trust you more than some random investigator I might find on Google.’
He was right. Lydia didn’t believe him. She planted her feet and looked him square in the eyes. ‘You must have your own trusted resources. People your family have used before. And you must be able to find out about a missing family member, you must have done already.’
He shook his head lightly. ‘I don’t know every single member of my Family or where to find them. We don’t have parties all together or run a crime syndicate.’
Lydia ignored the jab at her own Family. ‘I thought Foxes stuck together?’
‘We do,’ Paul said, irritated. ‘But we’re not that organised. It’s not like we keep a spreadsheet.’
‘But what about chain of command? What about protecting the Family as a whole?’ Lydia couldn’t imagine they were as free-wheeling as Paul was suggesting.
‘We’re not like the Crows. We don’t care about all that king of the hill, dick swinging shit. We don’t even have a master.’
‘Somebody should tell your dad. Far as I know, Tristan Fox is the head of the family, same as Charlie is the head of the Crows. Acting like you’re so much better than us, doesn’t make it true.’
‘I didn’t say anything about better,’ Paul said. ‘We’re just different. We’re a quiet family group, not a miniature empire like your uncle is so busy defending.’
‘A quiet family group,’ Lydia laid the sarcasm on thick. ‘That’s not how the stories go.’
‘Yeah, the stories. We’re all sneaking around and tricking people out of their rightful lot and making shady deals. And when we make a deal, even when you think you’ve checked every aspect, every last detail, you know that it’s going to go south because any deal with a Fox goes that way. So you better get in there first. Stab him in the back before he can stab you. That about the size of it? That the measure of the Fox Family?’
Lydia held his gaze.
‘Well I don’t speak for every Fox. Just myself and those closest. That’s two out of my six brothers, in case you were wondering.’
‘You’re saying I should trust you? That the stories aren’t all true and you’re not like your father?’
‘Are you like yours?’
‘Leave him out of this.’
‘He tried to keep you out, didn’t he?’ Paul took a step closer. ‘I remember when we spent time together. You were so angry about that. Lost and confused, but mostly really fucking angry. It was o
ne of the things I liked most about you.’
A couple leaving the church heard the expletive and harrumphed.
‘You didn’t like me,’ Lydia said. ‘You were playing a game, looking to use me for some advantage. Get some dirt that you could use as leverage. Well, congratulations. You’ve finally got what you were after.’
‘I swear I am not your enemy.’
‘Blackmail is a terrible way to convey that.’
‘I wish you no harm.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I know.’ Paul tilted his head slightly, appraising her. He was a less than an arm’s length away, now. Lydia couldn’t take a step back if she wanted to, the wall was directly behind. She concentrated on hiding her alarm at being trapped, but must have failed as Paul frowned. Then he took a step back and turned his palms upward in a gesture of peace.
A very small part of Lydia was curious as to what he had been about to do. Attack her? Kiss her?
‘Why don’t you touch me and see if I’m lying?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Right here,’ he tapped his chest. ‘You’re the strongest Crow I ever met and I’ve spent time with your crazy cousin. I bet if you put your hand right here you’ll know that I’m legit. And we can’t move forward in this endeavour until you know that. If you’re looking over your shoulder, checking I’m not about to stick my claws in you, how are you going to look where you need to be looking?’
This was probably a trap. Or an elaborate scheme to make her look like an idiot. But Lydia took a step forward and placed a hand flat onto Paul’s chest. It was very hard and very warm. Luckily, Lydia had had time to acclimatise to the Fox magnetism, or she might have combusted with instantaneous lust. Instead she breathed slow and steady through her nose and reached out with her extra sense. The one which told her whether a person was Fox, Pearl, Silver or Crow. She closed her eyes as a certainty crept over her. Paul was telling the truth. She had no idea why she felt that certainty or where it had come from, only that it felt as true and as natural as when she sensed a person’s Family power.
She opened her eyes. There was an even chance that this was his Fox mojo confusing her own, making her experience something that was not real. She had never sensed truthfulness before, but then again she had never tried laying hands on people. Either way, something had shifted in her view of Paul that was difficult to deny. ‘All right,’ she said, dropping her hand from his chest. ‘You’re not trying to get me killed.’
The Fox's Curse Page 5
