Fendi Selleria looked out of place in Heathrow Terminal Two, Florence decided as the designer bag swivelled to meet her. She had bought it on a whim in Rome with her latest stipend from Beijing; with each success her retainer had increased and she was now a wealthy young lady. Earning more than her father, in fact. She watched without emotion as one of her team rushed to the carousel to pick it up. It was nice to have nice things. But money was no longer her motivation.
Beijing didn’t know Florence had kept back part of each inscription. The most vital verses – they acted as a spark, igniting the rest of the incantation – these she had hoarded like Croesus. Florence didn’t want some nobody back in Beijing piggybacking off her work, setting themselves up as a rival fulguriator.
That was her destiny, hers alone.
Again she felt that curious prickle of energy at the thought of what she was becoming. It branched out through her nervous system like … Florence frowned. The feeling was like forked lightning itself: fingers of energy crackling from her core to the extremities of her body.
She wanted more.
After the breakthrough in Ethiopia, Florence had felt herself on the cusp of greatness. Then the heavens called her to Italy. And there was no doubt that the Pian di Civita once held something of great power: Florence felt that same energy thrumming from the hilltops. But there had been a hitch. The tomb had been empty, and since then her powers were rolling back, like a tide drawing out to sea. Without the incantation to dii superiores she knew the All-Seeing Eye would remain occluded, as if suffering from glaucoma.
After the failure at Pian di Civita she had camped for a week on the hills of Lazio, much of it spent in a trance. Jake’s route – historical detective work – was not for her. Instead each night she sent perverted litanies up to the stars, while her agents huddled together and whispered about spirits and ghosts. But the skies remained sullen.
Just when Florence feared it had forsaken her, the sign came.
They were at breakfast in a hotel restaurant, CNN blaring in the background. A glance was enough. Strange that it hadn’t revealed itself to her naked eye – yet she knew it was the calling. By then Florence had learned to let the crackle of her second soul guide her, as a migrating bird is pulled across continents by a call it cannot understand. The finger was pointing the way once more.
And there was a circuitous feel to this journey, pleasingly so. She was summoned to London.
*
“Quickly,” Florence snapped, glancing at her watch. It was gone 2p.m. and she was in no mood to wait – not now she was so close to that thing which had occupied her every waking moment these last three years. The agents were burdened with luggage, but they quickened their pace. Florence’s star was rising in Beijing; her displeasure at the calibre of her previous team had been acted upon and their replacements were hot stuff, subordinate to her every whim.
They were good, but not good enough to register the smartly-dressed man lingering at arrivals with a copy of the Telegraph, one brogue tapping on the pavement. He looked too pampered to be a threat, too obviously soft.
That man had murder on his mind.
*
Charlie Waits watched Florence’s team head for the motorway in two Mercedes saloons. Moments later the gunmetal BMW swept up with Davis at the wheel; Parr sat alongside him. Nobody spoke as the car purred down the M4. Davis left half a dozen cars between them and their quarry, changing lanes often while Waits ensured they didn’t have a tail of their own. He was rather enjoying all this. Soon the spires of west London’s business district came into view: GlaxoSmithKline, Sega, an office of glass that resembled Noah’s Ark. They skirted Kensington and hit the Paddington flyover, soaring over the West End.
“They’re aiming for the Chinese Embassy,” observed Parr. “Must be – we’re heading straight to Portland Place.”
“Shall I bring them to a halt?” said Davis, whose hands gripped and released the steering wheel repeatedly.
“Not yet,” said Waits. “We’ll make our move once they turn off the main road. Brace yourselves – I fancy this might get a bit hairy, ladies and gentlemen.”
But the Chinese delegation weren’t heading for the embassy. Instead the Mercedes cut through the City of London before nosing onto the Embankment, where Britton had been struck dead a few weeks previously. The car only slowed when Tower Bridge poked into view – that, and the Norman fort in its shadow. Once the very name could chill the bones of a Londoner, for tragedy seeped through every murder hole.
The Tower.