The Lazarus Vault Part 2

Enter pa.s.sword.

'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 b.u.t.tons.'

'Bin it.' His voice was soft, the accent hard to place. 'This is your new best friend. Your pa.s.sword 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 clamsh.e.l.l 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 pa.s.senger'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 b.u.t.tonless 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. n.o.body 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 gla.s.s.'

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, a.s.suming 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 gla.s.s. 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 b.u.t.tons on her thin cotton blouse. He guided her towards the bed.

'Maybe you were right,' he whispered. 'Maybe this isn't so bad.'

IV.

ile de Peche, 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 coa.r.s.e wool of the ca.s.sock 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 priest. 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 G.o.d 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 gla.s.s doors with their frosted-gla.s.s 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.

She nodded good morning to the receptionist and crossed to the lift. And stopped.

There were no b.u.t.tons.

'You have to use your card.'

A suited sleeve with gleaming gold cufflinks reached past her and slid a card into a discreet recess beside the lift. Ellie half turned.

'Are you the new girl?'

'Ellie.'

'Delamere.'

She'd already noticed that n.o.body used first names at Monsalvat though Delamere looked too young to have picked up the habit. He had sallow skin and dark eyes, with a mouth that tended naturally towards a certain hangdog grin, as if he was embarra.s.sed about something. His dark hair was flecked with grey at the sides, though he couldn't be much older than Ellie.

'Do you work in Mr Blanchard's department?'

He gave a conspiratorial laugh. 'Everyone here works for Blanchard. I'm on the legal side. Very boring.'

They got into the lift together. Delamere pressed the b.u.t.ton for the second floor and then, unprompted, the fifth floor for Ellie. She looked at the b.u.t.ton above and remembered what Destrier had said. Stay away from the sixth floor. It's off limits.

'Who works on the sixth floor?' she asked, trying to be casual.

Delamere seemed to flinch slightly. He fiddled with his tie. 'Monsalvat's a very devolved sort of place. Half the time you've no idea who's doing what, even the man next to you. Drives us mad, but Blanchard insists. Says it's good for security.'

The lift chimed its arrival. He swiped his card again to open the lift doors.

'Security seems to be a big thing here,' Ellie said. 'Are they scared of bank robbers?'

'Blanchard likes to say you can steal more from a bank than its money. An old place like this has plenty worth hiding. Plenty of secrets.' The door was closing. He stuck his arm out to hold it and looked at her, with a strange sadness behind his involuntary grin.

'You don't seem like the sort of girl they usually go for.'

The words. .h.i.t Ellie like a punch. She felt tears p.r.i.c.king around her eyes, and prayed she wouldn't start crying. That would really finish her. Delamere seemed to realise he'd said something wrong.

'I'm sure you'll do fine,' he said. 'Fine,' he repeated. 'Just be careful.'

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but the closing doors cut him off. He didn't try to stop them this time.

By the time the lift reached the fifth floor, Ellie had recovered enough composure to believe she wouldn't start sobbing at the first colleague she saw. Idiot, she told herself. Of course you're not like them.