One benefit of working for Rupert was access to specialist services. She’d prudently consulted a very exclusive numismatist that morning. “Hello, darling, it’s me again? Rupert needs an assortment of copper and silver coins dated between 1820 and 1885, with a total face value of one guinea. At least six in shillings and another twelve in sixpence, shillings, and half-crowns; the rest is fine in copper … Really? You can do that? Perfect! Preferably not polished or cleaned up in any way. Oh, and can you courier it over to me at the front desk within the hour? It’s urgent.”
The longer she stared at her printout of the treasure map and considered the starting point—the old family manse—the more worried she became. Jerm, the ambitious little shitweasel, had taken on the job because his eyes were bigger than his stomach and he’d never learned not to attempt to eat anything bigger than his own head. He was out of his depth, and it was her fault. Worse: if he accomplished the mission, Rupert might well take steps to eliminate him because he knew too much. (And because it would further isolate Eve, of course, but that was a given with Rupert.)
After wasting a couple of hours spinning her wheels without achieving anything significant, Eve finally admitted that she could no longer stomach the gnawing sense of dread. By then it was five o’clock. At ground level, in the world outside her hermetically sealed office, the shadows were lengthening towards full dark. She pushed a button on her phone. “Hold all my calls,” she ordered. Then she pushed another button. She had to rack her memory to dredge up her latest Gammon’s name: “Mister Franke, meet me in the front hall in twenty minutes. Close protection, probably until the early hours of the morning, rough company expected. Dress code is white tie and tails.”
Franke was cut from a different cloth to her regular run of Gammons. Eve had gone to great lengths to hire him, some of them extremely questionable. Diverting and editing his resumé so that HR wouldn’t notice his professional pedigree was the least of it. She’d had to intercept and edit his criminal background check, to ensure the war crimes indictments and the Interpol Red Notice didn’t cause any hang-ups. She’d also leaned on Mandy in Payroll to falsify his pay grade, in order to offer him sufficient incentive to sign on. Franke was considerably pricier than the old Gammon: in fact, he was paid about eight times as much as Eve herself. On the other hand, Eve thought, when you pay peanuts you get monkeys. So she’d gone out of her way to hire a silverback gorilla who punched in the same weight class as the Bond.
She hung up, removed her headset, and took the lift up to her bedroom to collect necessities for the expedition. She exchanged her suit for a maxi dress worn under a black woolen coat and broad-brimmed hat, swapped her office heels for a pair of comfortable boots she could run in, and worked her hands into kidskin gloves. Finally she filled her coat pockets: a bag of small glass marbles in one pocket, and a cutthroat razor in the other.
The game’s afoot.
She had little difficulty locating Imp. All cellphones in the vicinity of Rupe’s residence were monitored, their calls intercepted via an IMSI-catcher. When Imp had visited, the security system took a good sniff at his smartphone, then—because Rupe was an unscrupulous shitheel who gave two-thirteenths of a flying fuck about anyone else’s privacy—dropped a tracking bug on it via a corrupt SMS configuration update. Now Eve could stalk Imp on Google Maps, which she used to confirm that right now he was at home.
When she strode into the front hall of Chez Bigge, coat swinging and pocket jingling with thirty pieces of silver from the numismatist, the Gammon was already waiting. “Ma’am.” He was in his penguin suit—when Rupe went posh for an evening’s party, everybody else suffered in livery for his vanity—and he was packing heat, as usual. He looked like an extra from a steampunk remake of The Matrix: his stubby black UMP9 submachine gun was barely concealed by his caped overcoat, and she was fairly sure that was only the most obvious of his weapons.
“You’ll need a top hat as well,” she told him.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll just be a second.” He vanished into the cloakroom then reappeared suitably en-hatted. “Ready ma’am.” His expression was professionally incurious.
“We’re going to visit my brother and his playmates in Kensington. Then I’ll be taking a trip with them. Walking tour, not driving.” She waited impatiently for him to open the front door for her. “Rules of engagement: don’t start trouble, but expect it and be prepared to put an end to it.” She paused. “My brother and his friends are presumed friendly. Anyone else we encounter is a potential hostile.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Franke closed the door and trailed her, imposing in black. The chilly night air was invigorating. Eve fell back a step and took hold of her bodyguard’s left arm. “Practice leading me,” she said through tight lips. “Understand that this is not an invitation to take liberties.”
“Uh, yes, ma’am.” A pause. “May I ask why?”
“We’ll be visiting a rough neighborhood. Unaccompanied women may be seen as fair game there. If we appear to be together, it will reduce
