‘I’m sorry,’ Paul said, after a while.
She glanced at his profile. ‘What for?’
‘About your cousin. It must be hard.’
She watched his face for a beat longer, but there was no malice in his words. No laughter. ‘It doesn’t feel real. Any of it. I mean, Maddie. I remember her running around and stealing desserts at Uncle John’s birthday and making herself sick. She could be a pain, but a contract killer? An assassin? It makes no sense.’ Another memory surfaced as Lydia spoke. She and Maddie at another family gathering. Bored of the grownups talking, they had escaped to the garden and were playing underneath the fuchsia bush in the far corner. They had found a dead sparrow and given it a burial. Maddie had cried for half an hour after until Lydia had distracted her with a bag of Skittles. How could that child have grown into a murderer?
Paul shrugged. ‘What else does a restless young woman with a flexible moral attitude, an uncanny ability to influence people, move objects with her mind and stop hearts do? If they’re not heir to the Crow Family business,’ he said, waving a hand at Lydia.
‘I am nothing like Maddie,’ Lydia said, although she could taste the lie on her tongue.
Paul turned his head to look into her eyes. He smiled gently. ‘I can tell you what they’re really well suited to, and it’s not secretarial work.’
‘Charlie wanted to use her as a weapon,’ Lydia said. ‘He wanted to do the same with me, but we both refused. In our own ways.’
‘You can say a lot of things about your Uncle Charlie, but he wasn’t a fool.’
Lydia noted Paul’s use of the past tense. He believed Charlie to be dead, then. ‘But why would Maddie let the government do the exact same thing? She left the Crow Family because Charlie tried to use her.’
‘And she hated him for it. I remember,’ Paul said.
‘So, why let them do it?’
‘Maybe they made her a better offer?’
An expression crossed Paul’s face that Lydia didn’t recognise. ‘What?’
‘Just… I just thought of what they might have offered Maddie. And it’s not good.’
Lydia opened her mouth to ask, but Paul was already speaking.
‘Retribution.’
Chapter Seven
Paul had planted the seed of a very unpleasant idea in Lydia’s mind. That Maddie wasn’t back in London by accident or even because Smith had contracted her for a job, but instead for her own personal reasons. The assumption was that the rogue assassin Smith had mentioned and Maddie were one and the same, and that certainly seemed to fit. And if the service had lost control of Maddie, that might mean they would be willing to help Lydia to take her out of the picture. A rogue assassin couldn’t be a good thing for them, either.
She found Jason in his bedroom, sitting on the floor with his legs stretched out and the laptop open. Knowing him, he hadn’t moved all night.
‘Can you look for unexplained deaths from the last two years?’
‘Where?’
‘Worldwide.’
Jason’s eyes widened. ‘Um… That’s…’
‘Too many,’ Lydia said. ‘Feathers. You’re right.’
‘What are you looking for?’ Jason asked.
‘A pattern in Maddie’s work. Or evidence against her for the jobs she’s already done.’
‘To take to the police?’
Lydia ran her hands through her hair. It needed a wash, but it was hard to focus on mundane things when she was walking around with a target on her back. ‘I’m guessing assassins are considered disposable once they’re compromised. Their value lies in the way they move through the population unseen. And Mr Smith, or whoever else has been giving her work, won’t want her in custody alive in case she makes a deal in return for information.’
‘So, they’ll send another assassin to shut her up?’
‘Maybe,’ Lydia said. ‘I really have no idea. But it’s what I would do.’
Jason pulled a face. ‘No you wouldn’t.’
‘Okay. Probably not. But it’s what I would think I ought to do. If I was being smart.’
‘What if I narrowed the search down to unsolved murders?’
‘They’re likely to not all be marked as murder, though. Like that hit and run in Greece. That was recorded as an accident.’ Lydia balled her fists in frustration. She had to do something. Couldn’t just wander around waiting for Maddie to decide to fulfil her contract or for Smith to get tired of waiting and send a new assassin. She had to do something. ‘What about narrowing down by country? Start with the UK or Greece? Her known locations?’
‘It would be a start. I can create a program that will comb for certain parameters easily enough, but the problem will be the data generated. There will be a lot.’
‘Yeah, I’m sorry.’ Lydia knew she was being unreasonable. Demanding the impossible. ‘Don’t worry…’
Jason had an unfocused look in his eye and he muttered something that sounded like ‘script’. Lydia decided to shut up and let him think. She went and put some bread in the toaster and poured an orange juice. A few minutes later, Jason wafted into the kitchen. ‘I could ask some of my friends to help. I don’t think they’re likely to tell anybody, but it’s all just screen names. I don’t know who they are.’
‘Could you give them small parts to do? Not give them the big picture, kind of thing?’
Jason hesitated before nodding. ‘That should be safe enough.’
* * *
Leaving Jason to commune with his laptop, Lydia headed to the silver vaults in search of silversmiths. A chatty young man with a passion for the subject, pointed her toward a jewellery company in Mayfair. They had an in-house studio for silver and goldsmithing and they supplied the Gold Cup and the Hunt Cup for Ascot every year, he told her. ‘They’ve got a royal charter and have been around since the seventeenth century.’
‘Early seventeenth, do you know?’ Lydia was thinking about the cup the Silver Family had made when the king gave the lawyers use of the Temple Church.
The man paused. ‘Yes, sixteen ten, I believe.’ His mouth twisted into a smile. ‘Don’t quote me.’
Mayfair was not Lydia’s natural environment. The expensive stores went beyond the flashy gilt promise of lesser brands, and spoke of establishment and permanence. Tiffany and Givenchy and Burberry, all housed in buildings which looked like banks. Or temples, which, Lydia realised, were much the same thing.
White columns carved with intricate patterns led to a recessed portico and the entrance to the shop. A shop so swanky it was called a ‘house’. The silver vaults contained a glittering array of silver, of course, a cascade of fine items with stories of wealth and privilege, as well as desperation and cunning. This place was something different.
Once admitted, Lydia was surrounded by the hush of true wealth. Recessed lighting provided subtle inducement to look here, or there. To admire this exquisite piece or that. The ambience was a cross between a museum and a high-class brothel. Lydia quashed a snort of laughter. That probably wasn’t the vibe they were aiming for, but now that she had thought it she could see it everywhere. The desirables laid out wantonly, batting their expensive gems in the punters’ direction. The way they wouldn’t glitter quite as much when removed from the expert lighting and velvet display case, moulded to show the necklace or whatever to its finest advantage.
Lydia realised she was light-headed. She wasn’t tasting Silver. This was just a vast building filled with ordinary silver and gold. Nothing to trouble her senses. She hadn’t drunk any alcohol the day before, so it wasn’t a hangover, and Jason had made her a bowl of cereal before she had left home, so it wasn’t hunger. She put a hand out to steady herself and felt smooth glass. A subtle gasp to her left indicated that laying fingers on the polished case was a social faux pas. Lydia ignored it and concentrated on sucking in oxygen until the speckles at the edges of her vision receded.
Once she was reasonably sure she wasn’t about to keel over, Lydia was able to focus on the
man standing close by. He was extremely well groomed and had the glowing skin of a good dermatologist and a comfortable life. As a result, Lydia would have guessed his age at somewhere between thirty and fifty. She also wasn’t surprised that he was taking in her general appearance with something close to horror. ‘Are you unwell, madam?’
Madam. Lydia would lay money that she was younger than the man, which meant he was being deliberately insulting. Or, perhaps, it was part of his training. Some weird custom among the British upper class. Well, she was a Camberwell girl and wouldn’t have the first idea about any of that. She smiled widely and deliberately relaxed her stance. She wasn’t going to be subservient in the face of snobbery, but she didn’t want to appear threatening, either. This place would be wired up directly to the police and it would be embarrassing for Fleet if she was the cause of an emergency call out. ‘I wanted to ask about a job that was done here.’
His face closed. ‘We don’t give out details about our clients to the press.’
‘I’m not a journalist,’ Lydia said. ‘I work at the British Museum. Research. Roisin Quin,’ she held out her hand.
He shook it automatically. ‘I don’t understand…’
‘We’re talking ancient history,’ Lydia said, smiling again. ‘Sometime in the period from the nineteen forties to around nineteen eighty.’
‘That’s a large stretch of time to check records. Even if we were able to do so. As I say, client confidentiality… It’s simply not information we give out.’
‘I don’t need the client information,’ Lydia said. ‘I need the name of the person who made the item. You have a studio here, I believe? You must keep staff records.’
Now the man looked thoroughly confused. ‘You want the name of the person who made the item? It might be more than one, you know. Pieces are rarely made in isolation. And we don’t keep records of individuals.’
‘You don’t keep staff records? I find that hard to believe.’
The man shifted. ‘I mean to say, we might not be able to pinpoint who worked on a particular piece. Besides, we’re not about to open up private records to just anybody.’
‘Not even for the greater good?’ Lydia had her coin in her hand and she squeezed it lightly. ‘The historical record of our beloved city.’ Well, that was laying it on a bit thick. Lydia was doing her best impression of how an academic historian associated with the museum would speak, trying to emulate Roisin’s verbiage. Surprisingly, it seemed to be working. The man was visibly more at ease.
‘There’s no harm in me taking a peek at your studio, at least?’
The man brightened. Perhaps at the opportunity to offload Lydia onto somebody else. ‘No harm at all,’ he said.
‘Lead the way.’
The studio was in a half basement with a low ceiling, a row of barred windows high up the walls, and wooden desks strewn with chisels, pliers, and other tools. There were tall chests with shallow drawers, spools of wire, tool chests, and a forest of angle-poise lamps.
The air was tinged with the scent of heated metal and something acidic but, Lydia was grateful to note, no Silver tang. The metal she could smell was entirely natural. A woman wearing a heavy work apron and carrying a long metal file looked at Lydia curiously as she took her place back at a desk, but otherwise nobody stopped what they were doing.
‘There’s a research library next door,’ her guide said. ‘But you want to speak to Barbara. Barb. She’s worked here forever.’
Barb turned out to be a sprightly pixie of a woman, and Lydia would guess her age at around three hundred. If her senses hadn’t been telling her otherwise, she would have assumed the woman had Pearl blood. She had some of that ethereal vitality, with eyes that were bright blue and as sharp as a child’s and the complexion of a Mediterranean matriarch. Or a woman who had spent the best part of her life under a tanning bed. While her face was entirely creased by wrinkles, like a shrivelled apple, Lydia had the inescapable feeling that Barb would be able to beat her in a fair fight.
‘Healthiest substance to work with,’ Barb said after the guide had introduced them and told her that Lydia was interested in the silversmithing side. ‘Antibacterial.’
‘Right,’ Lydia said. She had never thought of silver has anything except potentially lethal.
‘I’ve been here since the sixties. Started at fourteen.’
Hell Hawk. That was commitment. ‘Gosh.’
Barb’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re not interested in silversmithing history, girl. And I’ve not got time to waste.’
‘It’s about a replica.’
‘This way,’ Barb led the way out of the studio and in through the next doorway. The library. Which was a smaller room than the word suggested, but lined with shelves and with a small table in the middle and a couple of chairs. Barb sat down and indicated that Lydia should do the same.
‘You’re with the police?’
‘No, I’m with the British Museum.’
‘No you’re not,’ Barb said, her eyes narrowed. ‘But no matter. No skin off my teeth.’
Lydia was finding it difficult to keep her place in the conversation. She decided to take control. She produced her coin and spun it in the air.
Barb’s eyes were drawn to it, as Lydia had known they would be. She felt guilty, using her power when she ought to use normal persuasion, but that was like carrying a sharp axe and trying to cut down a tree with a spoon. ‘A silver cup went missing from the British Museum in the seventies and at least one replica has been made of it. Probably since it went missing, but I can’t discount the possibility that the replica was made before, after the war sometime.’
‘What cup?’ Barb’s voice had the dreamy quality of the hypnotised.
‘The Silver Family cup.’
Barb nodded slowly. ‘Three.’
‘Sorry?’
‘We made three here. Expensive job. Especially for that sort of client.’
‘What sort of client?’ Lydia asked, expecting her to say something disparaging about magic folk or the rumours surrounding the Families.
Barb gave her an imperious look. ‘Not royalty.’
‘Right.’
‘Did you work on the cup yourself?’
‘I did,’ Barb said. ‘Well. I saw it. I was sweeping up shavings from the floor and not much else back then. I was an apprentice, but it was a slow start. I was a girl, after all.’
‘But you remember this being made?’ Lydia couldn’t believe her luck. ‘Do you remember if they worked from the original or from photographs?’
‘Photographs and drawings, I believe,’ Barb said. ‘But better than that, we had the original moulds for the body and the handles. There was detail work to be added, of course, but the moulds were key.’
‘How was that possible? The original was made over three hundred years earlier. And the British Museum have no records of any such item.’
‘There was a man. He didn’t work here, but he came in for that job. That’s one of the reasons I remember it so well. That has never happened since. Not once. The boss here is very particular about who is allowed in the workshop and especially not to touch anything. It’s to do with our reputation. And he doesn’t want anybody stealing design ideas, either.’
Lydia felt a tingling. ‘And the man brought the mould for the cup?’
‘That’s right,’ Barb said. ‘And he supervised.’
‘Can you remember his name?’
Barb shook her head. ‘Sorry. No.’
Lydia could see she was telling the truth, even without the Crow whammy. She pocketed her coin and made to leave. Finding out where the replica cup had been made wasn’t exactly helpful to its current whereabouts, but at least she now knew there were three replicas floating about.
‘He had a funny name,’ Barb said.
‘Sorry?’ Lydia turned back to the small woman.
‘Foreign, like. French, I think it was.’ She smiled dreamily. ‘Ooh la la.’
Chapter Eight
Ly
dia knew she was dreaming, but the fear was real. She was on the roof and Maddie was smiling like it was Christmas and her birthday rolled into one. She could see her bright lipstick and the hectic light in her eyes, but she couldn’t hear anything except the wind rushing in her ears. Lydia knew it was bad. She knew that something awful was about to happen, but her fear was tinged with excitement. The wind was whipping Maddie’s hair around her face, giving it a life of its own. Then they were high in a clear blue sky, flying together and she could feel her wings beating and her muscles working in exactly the way they were made to work and there was nothing but pure exhilaration. Freedom.
‘It’s time,’ Maddie said in her ear and they were back on the roof.
Fleet was kneeling in front of her. She couldn’t see his face but knew the back of his head, his shoulders, his suit.
‘Do it,’ Maddie said.
Lydia had a knife and she stepped forward, reaching to draw it across Fleet’s neck. His body tumbled forward and she woke up, heart racing and drenched in sweat.
* * *
Once she was up and caffeinated, Lydia knocked on Jason’s door. ‘Sorry if I disturbed you last night.’
Jason was sitting on the bed with his laptop open. He looked at her over the screen. ‘You were shouting in your sleep. Bad dreams?’
Lydia nodded. ‘Nothing I can’t handle. I’m heading out.’
‘Okay,’ Jason frowned. Lydia didn’t usually inform him of her movements.
She hesitated. ‘If I’m not back in a couple of hours, could you… I don’t know. Call Fleet? Or message him?’
‘What are you doing?’
Lydia gave in. ‘Looking for Maddie. I can’t just sit around waiting to see what she decides to do.’
‘Is there any point in me pointing out this is a bad idea?’
‘None at all,’ Lydia said, smiling as cheerfully as she could manage. She headed for the door before Jason could talk her out of it. She had to act.
When Maddie had disappeared from her parents’ home and Lydia had been charged by Uncle Charlie to bring her back, she had found her hiding out on a canal boat in Little Venice. That had been courtesy of Paul Fox, but when he said he hadn’t seen her, she believed him. At least, she thought she did. Lydia couldn’t tell if she was just tired of second-guessing everybody or whether it was some Crow-level gut feeling.
The Shadow Wing Page 6
