Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
T he sound of the road changed and Luke could hear crunching. They were driving over small stones. A driveway? The crunching went on for a long time.
Then the van stopped. He heard movement, the front doors opening. The smell of petrol seemed to get stronger and Luke had a moment of pure panic, his mind spinning with the possibilities. Were they planning to set fire to the van with Luke inside? He rubbed the scars on his chest, his body suddenly on fire with the remembered sensation of being hexed. Then blinding light as the doors were flung open.
He blinked rapidly and climbed out of the van. His legs felt a bit wobbly, which was unsettling. The house that rose before him was enormous and old. Victorian, maybe, but Luke would be the first to admit he was no expert. There was a sweeping gravel driveway and large, well-trimmed shrubs and hedges. He couldn’t see any other houses or hear road noise. They may as well be in the middle of the countryside.
Four stone steps led to a solid front door, flanked by wooden panels, a keypad and cameras. Luke wondered if those panels had contained stained glass at one point and whether the glass was boarded over for security. He caught sight of the edge of the door as he passed through. Metal core.
A woman in a black dress with a white collar was crossing the polished parquet hallway, carrying a tray. She swerved around their little group without acknowledging them.
He followed his chauffeurs into a living room that looked like something from a National Trust property. Floor to ceiling oak panelling, dark red curtains with swathes of material across the top of the windows, the name of which Luke had no clue, leather chairs, and lots of dark wood furniture. The window panes were criss-crossed with black leading, dividing the view of a flagstone terrace with a fountain and stone benches.
Sitting on a brown leather sofa, expensive shoes on a Persian carpet, was the man Luke assumed was Dean Fisher. He was stocky and sun-tanned with dark hair, greying at the temples.
‘Have a seat,’ he said. A broad Yorkshire accent at odds with everything else. It was an accent that Luke associated with bread adverts and honesty, not crime bosses and transit vans. He sat in the chair Fisher indicated. The two men from the van left the room, presumably to listen at the door in case their boss required anything.
‘Drink?’
‘No, thanks,’ Luke said. ‘Nice house.’
Dean shrugged. ‘It’s quiet. Missus wanted it and you know how that goes.’
Luke didn’t reply.
‘So. You’re the good little brother.’ He openly appraised Luke.
‘We’re twins.’
‘Lewis said he was first out the chute.’ Dean smiled without warmth. He was either trying to rile Luke or to establish dominance. Either was fine with Luke. His father had taught him many things, and one of the main lessons was how to wait and listen. He could still feel the fear coursing through his body, but he had spent his time in the van regulating his breathing and he was in better shape than he would have expected. Besides, if Dean Fisher was planning to put him in the ground, why had he brought him to his home?
The thought occurred that maybe he didn’t mind Luke seeing his home because he was planning on burying him later, but he pushed that into a room of his mind and locked the door.
‘I have a problem,’ Fisher said after a short silence. ‘It’s why we’re having this conversation.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Yeah, thanks,’ Fisher replied, as if Luke had been speaking in earnest. He leaned back and stretched his arm across the back of the sofa, crossed one leg over the other. He was wearing a neatly pressed shirt that probably cost more than Luke’s entire wardrobe, but the skin around his eyes was heavily wrinkled and had a yellow-ish tinge. Smoking or sunshine or spending too much time peering at his bank balance. Who knew?
‘I no longer have access to your brother.’
Luke’s heart squeezed. Did he mean he was dead? Was this the moment he found out, for sure, that his twin was gone forever? Was Dean Fisher about to show him a picture of his brother’s broken body? ‘Access?’ was all he managed to say.
Dean’s mouth turned down at the corners, just a little. ‘An old friend wanted him, so I let him go.’
‘You had Lewis…’ Luke wanted to say ‘captive’ but he found his voice wasn’t working very well and he realised that his steady breathing was shot to shit. He focused on counting his inhales and exhales.
Fisher waved a hand. ‘Old news. Had to teach him a lesson. He was very naughty, your brother. Bit of a pain in the arse, all being said.’
‘What about the men you sent? The debt collectors.’
A smile. Real, this time. ‘I told Lewis I would pursue the money he owed me. His debt passed to you, as his family.’
‘That was settled.’ Luke knew that Hammer had convinced the debt collectors to write off Lewis’s debt, but he didn’t know what they would have told their boss.
‘Your friend paid up, it’s true. And he agreed to keep an eye on you for me, just in case I needed you. Good thing, too, as it happens.’
If Fisher had hoped this to be a shock, he was disappointed. Luke knew that Hammer had agreed to watch Luke on behalf of Dean Fisher. It had seemed like a good way to ensure there weren’t other teams dispatched to the island. ‘You don’t have Lewis anymore?’
‘Keep up, son. No. I don’t.’ Fisher looked irritated by that fact. ‘A Crow turned up early doors and took him off my hands. Wouldn’t leave without him, which landed me with a bit of a situation. Until I remembered you, that is. A lookalike waiting in the wings—’
‘Where is he?’
Fisher looked surprised at being interrupted, and then his expression went blank. ‘Wherever the Crow Family want him to be.’
‘The Crow Family?’ Luke knew it made him sound stupid, but the question was already out. It hung in the air.
‘Want some friendly advice?’ Fisher asked.
‘Not really.’
‘Put up a nice gravestone for your brother. Have a service, all that. He’s as good as gone.’
Luke couldn’t believe that he had found the man who had been keeping Lewis, that he was sitting in the same room as him. Maybe he was even in the same house that Lewis had been kept, but that his brother had been moved on. Taken by another gang for whatever reason. It didn’t sound like Fisher had wanted to let him go, and certainly not today, but maybe he had needed to use Lewis as payment or leverage. Like a bag of money being put from one criminal’s boot into another.
‘So.’ Fisher clapped his hands together loudly. ‘That’s enough chitchat.’
Luke tensed.
‘I need a little favour.’
‘Why would I—’
‘Don’t finish that thought, son. Just nod and ask me how you can help.’
‘I don’t want to work for you,’ Luke said. ‘No offence.’
‘I can understand your feelings.’ Fisher nodded. ‘But I’m not looking for a new employee. Just one job. One little favour and you’re all done. Thing is, it’s not just about the money. Your brother broke my trust. He stole from me. You understand why I had to punish him?’
Luke stayed quiet.
‘And that punishment has been finished early. By my calculations, that means he still owes me a debt.’
Luke wanted to argue that the Crow Family taking Lewis early wasn’t his fault. Or Lewis’s. But he didn’t think it would make the slightest bit of difference to Fisher, so he kept his mouth closed.
‘And, as a show of goodwill, I’ll consider your brother’s debt paid to me, too. Done and dusted.’
Bee hadn’t been home long after the meeting at the pub when she received a caller. Lydia Crow was standing on her front step, a wing of black hair visible beneath a warm hat and her cheeks pink from the cold. Bee didn’t know how the woman had known which was her home, but she wasn’t about to cede power by asking.
‘You’re late,’ Bee said. If the woman had arrived earlier, perhaps their Book Keeper wouldn’t have gone haring off to the mainland.
‘I promised to come when you called,’ Lydia said. ‘Not to be on time. Besides, I brought a gift.’
Bee didn’t let herself frown. ‘I didn’t ask you for anything.’
‘I’ll take him away then, shall I?’
A pause. ‘The boy?’
‘In the flesh. Undamaged. You’re welcome.’
‘He’s here?’ Bee couldn’t stop herself from glancing over Lydia’s shoulder, as if expecting to see Luke Taylor’s twin looming out of the fog.
‘In my car, sleeping like a baby. They were keeping him drugged up. Docile. He’s not in any state to move right now, but give it a couple of hours and I’ll bring him along to you. Right to your door.’
‘I didn’t ask you to do that,’ Bee said.
Lydia smiled. ‘I over-deliver. It’s a curse.’
Bee waited, knowing there was more to come.
‘Which means you owe me a favour, now.’
‘I didn’t ask you to bring the boy here, just to find him.’ Bee crossed her arms.
‘But you did ask me for a favour. You opened the door.’
‘What if we were to agree, mutually, to close the door?’
‘We’ll see,’ Lydia said. She looked around the street, at the small houses and the lingering fog, the sky and sea beyond. ‘For now, the Crow Family considers our relationship to be ongoing. Officially speaking.’
‘It’s nice to have friends,’ Bee said, keeping her tone just on the right side of pleasant.
Lydia smiled back. ‘That’s the spirit.’
Matteo was doing the crossword and sipping espresso when the sound of the shop bell made him look up. A woman wearing a leather jacket and blue jeans was browsing the shelves nearest to the door. Matteo wasn’t very good at judging ages, but he would guess late twenties. She was small, but had a vigorous energy about her that suggested unpredictability. If she had been a teenager, he knew he would have laid money on her being a shoplifter. Or, he reassessed as he caught sight of the line of her jaw, the calculation in her eyes, the leader of a gang of shoplifters.
He mentally shook his head, wondering when he had started to have random thoughts about perfectly innocent tourists. Didn’t they say you got more conservative as you got older? More closed in. Was this all it took these days? A leather jacket and heavy boots, and he was ready to brand someone a thief?
He knew that his prepared notes for tourists were stacked neatly on the counter, ready for him to use, along with the laminated map of the island that he used to point out directions. He went back to his crossword. At least he tried to, but there truly was something unsettling about the young woman and he kept finding his gaze drawn to her. Perhaps it was because her dark hair and pale skin reminded him of somebody else, someone he couldn’t quite place at this very moment.
‘Do you have any salt and vinegar?’ Her accent was south London. It threw him back in time, to his old life.
He pointed to the top left section of his crisps display. It was a wire rack with baskets to hold the different flavours.
‘This is an interesting place,’ the Londoner said. ‘Must get mobbed in the summer.’
Matteo smiled politely and held out his hand to make a seesaw ‘so-so’ gesture.
‘Although,’ the Londoner looked away from him and toward the door. Her expression was canny, as if she was looking beyond the door and around the village, the island. Thinking hard. It gave Matteo an unsettled feeling.
‘I’d never heard of it. That’s interesting. I mean, everyone has heard of Lindisfarne, but not this place.’ She left a gap at the end of her sentence, eyes on his.
If she was waiting for him to fill the silence, she would be waiting for a very long time. Matteo smiled politely. After another beat, he pointed to the bag of crisps on the counter and raised his eyebrows. It was his ‘is that everything’ move and people usually understood.
The Londoner, and here he really had the feeling she was being deliberately obtuse, said ‘What?’
He shook his head. He reached for his stack of cards, shuffling them while he waited for a more specific question.
‘You don’t say much, do you?’ The Londoner had placed a hand on the counter as if about to drum her fingers. The cuff of her jacket slid up a little and he saw black ink. He could have sworn he saw it moving.
He had a card for situations like this. Most people didn’t worry about a quiet shop assistant. They wanted to pick up their snacks and carry on with whatever visitors did on the island. Birdwatching. He shuffled until he found it and then placed it on the counter, facing the Londoner.
Her hand moved quickly and touched the back of his while he was placing the card. He pulled his hand away and looked into her eyes in surprise. In there, he saw something that made his stomach drop. Knowledge. She couldn’t know. He had to be mistaken. He didn’t know this woman and she didn’t know him. It wasn’t possible.
She glanced at the card. I’m sorry I cannot speak .
Matteo had laboured over the phrasing on this card. He had wanted to be polite, this was a place of business after all, but he hadn’t wanted to use the word ‘mute’. It used to be used all the time and he hadn’t really minded, perhaps because his lack of speech was a choice, but he knew it was considered offensive in this day and age. ‘Cannot’ wasn’t technically true, but in another sense it was completely accurate. He could not bear the consequences, so he was incapable of speaking out loud.
‘A Silver that can’t speak,’ the Londoner said. She shook her head, expression incredulous. ‘I don’t know if that’s divine punishment or the ultimate irony.’
It wasn’t just a drop in his stomach, Matteo now felt vertiginous. Sick. Who was this woman and how the hell did she know he was a Silver? Speechless, and not just in the usual way, it took him a couple of short breaths, his heart hammering, before he was able to move. He picked up his pen and wrote along the top margin of the newspaper. Who are you?
‘Lydia Crow,’ she put out her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
Matteo shook her hand, dropping it as soon as was possible while still making it a polite interaction. His mouth was dry. He didn’t want to give his name, but he knew there was no point in hiding it. She already knew he was a Silver, which meant she probably already knew his name. Perhaps this was a test of his honesty or to find out how deeply he was hiding. That would be leverage. He had to appear unconcerned. Maybe if she didn’t think there was anything to hide, she wouldn’t think there was anything to exploit. He wrote Matteo. His mind was whirling through the possibilities. She must have heard about him from somebody else, which might mean that his Family knew where he was. Or, she had found out another way and was now looking for a hefty payout in return for her silence. But who could have told her? Nobody knew. Nobody from his old life, anyway. He had been using a fake surname for years.
‘You know who I am?’ the woman asked, but it wasn’t really a question. ‘Our Families go way back, but I don’t remember hearing about you. Black sheep? Or a lost lamb?’
While he had left the Family a long time ago and kept his distance in all senses, he still knew the name Lydia Crow. She was the heir to the Crow Family, the beloved daughter of Henry Crow. The last he had heard, Henry had stepped aside and his brother Charlie was running things. Henry had disappeared to the suburbs to have a normal life. He hadn’t wanted little Lydia to be brought up in the Family business or to know anything about it. Rumour was he had wanted her to have the choice about her destiny, not be locked into it from her first breath. It was something Matteo had always admired. And, he supposed, the knowledge that Henry Crow had successfully retired from the Family, managed to move away from Camberwell where the Crows ruled the roost, and make his own life, had been something of an inspiration and a comfort to Matteo. Now little Lydia was a grown woman and it seemed she had made her choice.
Lydia Crow had paid for her crisps and left without further conversation. Matteo wasn’t fooled, however, and was not surprised when she walked back in an hour later. ‘I’ve been asking around the island, but nobody wants to tell tales.’ She sounded approving. ‘So I’m back to the source.’
Matteo knew that nobody would have intentionally given him away, but the problem with keeping secrets secret was that nobody really knew what damage they could do with a careless word. His friends on the island might not be aware that his being a Silver wasn’t information to be shared. Not that it mattered. Lydia Crow had known that fact and he had spent the previous sixty minutes wracking his brain for who might possibly have told her. After his initial panic, Matteo had realised that if his Family had been the source of the information, they would have already turned up to the island to persuade him to come home. Home, for them, meaning the Temple area of London around Chancery Lane. And ‘persuade’ being as easy as the head of the Family, Alejandro, opening his mouth and telling him.
What do you want?
This was another of Matteo’s prepared cards. He had never imagined using it in a situation like this.
‘What do I want?’ Lydia Crow looked around the shop.
Through her eyes, Matteo saw the place anew. Instead of his cosy little kingdom, his neatly ordered shelves and the comforting kaleidoscope of packaging, he saw a sad little bolthole.
‘I’m curious as to what you want. What keeps you in this place, away from the bright lights?’
He straightened up, deliberately ignoring the weight that settled across his shoulders. This was his home. His life. And he would be damned if he was going to allow a blow-in from the mainland make him feel bad. Even if she was the head of the most powerful of the London Families. He shrugged, careful to keep his expression politely neutral.
‘I find this interesting,’ Lydia said. ‘But I’m not looking to make enemies.’
She must have read his thoughts in his expression, because she added. ‘Yeah. You’re right. I have enough of those to be going on with.’
She picked up a chocolate bar from the rack below the counter, seemingly at random, not moving her gaze from Matteo. Then she reached across to the till and propped a business card onto the keys.
Matteo didn’t know if she expected him to accept that as a form of payment. He kept a price list on the counter and he pointed at the appropriate line.
Lydia smiled and turned her hand over. There was a two-pound coin in her palm, and she placed it in the middle of the counter. ‘Keep the change.’