I was on the fifth fruitless phone call to the editors on Bianca’s list before I struck gold, and that was by pure chance.
‘Definitely not someone on my radar.’
I drew a line through his name and sighed. ‘No one else I’ve spoken to knows anything either.’
‘Who else have you called?’
I read through my list.
‘Where did you get this list from?’ I recognised the sharpened professional interest in his voice.
‘Another journalist, a friend of Paige Hargreaves.’
‘I can’t think why they’ve left Adelia Munroe out. She’s the obvious place to start.’
I wondered if Bianca had left her off the list in the hope that I wouldn’t know enough to ask her. She had seemed helpful, but I didn’t altogether trust her to tell me everything she knew. A good journalist would go a long way for a good story and from what Paige had hinted, this was a good story. I suspected Bianca wouldn’t want me blundering into the middle of it if she could help it. An innocent explanation, yet it still bothered me that she might have left a key detail out deliberately. Sometimes the things people didn’t tell you were as important as the things they said. I drew a box around Bianca’s name in my notebook and shaded in the edges. ‘I’m afraid she wasn’t obvious to me.’
The editor chuckled. ‘No. But you do know who Adelia is, don’t you?’
I did, in fact, because Adelia had edited Insight magazine throughout its twenty-year history and was a regular on television and radio. I knew enough about her to be intimidated at the thought of asking her questions.
‘I do.’
‘Give her a call. She’s not as scary as she seems,’ he added, and I thanked him. Not scary if you were another editor, maybe, but quite terrifying for me. I tried to sound confident as I called her office and after a short time I found myself speaking to Adelia herself.
‘Oh yes, I spoke to Paige Hargreaves about a story. It wasn’t for us, unfortunately, but I was intrigued by it.’ The voice on the other end of the line was cultured and had the measured quality of someone who is used to being listened to. I could imagine her disapproving expression; her hawk-like features were familiar from frequent appearances on television as a forthright talking head.
‘What was the story?’
‘I spoke to her some months ago. Let me try to recall the exact details of what we discussed.’ She fell silent for a few moments, long enough that I started to fidget at my desk. ‘Yes. That was it. She wanted to investigate the Chiron Club. C-H-I-R-O-N.’ She pronounced it Ky-ron.
‘What’s the Chiron Club? I’ve never heard of it,’ I confessed as I wrote down the name. It was better to admit ignorance than bluff.
She chuckled. ‘You wouldn’t have. It’s not for the likes of us. Strictly boys only, and by invitation. It’s a social club, or at least that’s what it pretends to be. They have fundraising events for charity – balls, dinners, boxing matches. That’s the only time they look for publicity, and that’s all most people know about them.’
‘If it’s not just a social club, what is it?’
‘Well might you ask. There’s a culture of silence about them and no one has ever succeeded in breaking it. The membership is small and extremely wealthy. These men are politicians, businessmen, bankers, judges – the elite. They are powerful men, and they largely recruit their new members from the children and grandchildren of previous members. It’s all deeply secret and a little bit silly, if you ask me, but Paige was convinced there was something sinister going on there.’
‘Sinister,’ I repeated. ‘Such as?’
‘She wasn’t prepared to say unless I commissioned her, and as I said, I didn’t feel it was for us. There was something grubby about the story.’ Adelia paused. ‘You know, the members are powerful men. I had to weigh the importance of getting the story against what we might lose in access to these people. I have spent a long time building up the reputation of this magazine. I didn’t want to lose that over a story that might be more suitable for a tabloid newspaper’s exposé.’
Ouch. ‘Did you say this to Paige?’
‘I was kind to her about it. She had potential as a writer. I wanted her to take her time and develop her work instead of starting out by bringing down the establishment, or whatever she was planning to do.’ A pause. ‘Is it possible this story had something to do with her death?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ I said. ‘But it’s somewhere to start.’
After I got off the phone, I looked up the Chiron Club on the internet and got a handful of news stories about fundraising events, as Adelia had predicted. They had a website, which surprised me given their apparent obsession with secrecy, but when I clicked through to it I found it was blandly uninformative. The landing page was a black screen with a login window for members. There was no further information – not even an email address for enquiries. You were in the gang or you weren’t welcome, I gathered. A further dive into Google earned me an address, at least.
‘What’s that?’ Liv leaned over my shoulder to look at the street-view I’d called up of the ornate, heavily pillared frontage of the club’s home. ‘Amazing building.’
‘It’s the headquarters of a secret club, believe it or not.’ I rotated the view. ‘It’s beside Blackfriars Bridge overlooking the river.’
‘I knew I recognised it. I love that building. I never knew what it was.’
‘They keep it quiet. No sign outside.’
‘The Chiron Club,’ Liv read off my notes. ‘Are you planning to join?’
‘Not eligible.’ I explained to her why I was looking at it and saw her interest kick up a gear.
‘Do you want me to have a nose around and see what I can find out?’
‘That would be brilliant. I want to try to speak to someone there about Paige. The more I know beforehand the better.’
‘Consider it done,’ Liv said, and disappeared to her own desk. She had a background in financial investigation and I knew she had contacts who would speak to her off the record about the Chiron Club and its members. I turned my attention to Paige, double-checking the information I’d got from Bianca about her family and background. It was boring but necessary work – necessary, because in spite of Bianca’s deep and sincere grief for her friend, I didn’t trust her fully. I’d learned that lesson the hard way.
I flicked through my notebook to the interview with Mila and read the notes I’d taken again, wondering about the fake police officer. I looked at Mila’s website, as crisp and uninformative as she was in person. I even searched for Harry Parr, as if he might be relevant. At the start of any investigation, it was impossible to tell what mattered and what didn’t. Hunting down the details was what I did best, I assured myself, and it wasn’t just human curiosity about what attracted Harry (a silver fox if ever I’d seen one, as well as being actually famous for his sculptures) to Mila. A colour magazine profile (that included a picture of him in his studio, all blue eyes and muscled arms) told me that he’d moved to Kent for the sake of his health after he suffered a life-threatening auto-immune disease that he linked to the house in London. That explained why they lived apart, although I thought I’d have been more likely to become allergic to Mila herself. The pictures of his low bungalow by the sea in Kent made me want to give up living in London. I was in the middle of a thoroughly enjoyable daydream about it when the door to the office swung open and banged against the wall: Josh Derwent, making an entrance. The top button of his collar was undone and his tie was askew, as if he’d loosened it in a hurry. He was pale and his hair was ruffled but his eyes were bright.
‘Who’s coming for a drink?’ He scanned the room, squinting a little. With a sinking feeling I recognised that look as exhaustion. He was running on adrenalin and not much more. ‘Come on. Georgia’s in. Chris?’
Pettifer nodded. ‘Give me five minutes.’
‘Five minutes is all you’re getting. Who else? Liv?’
‘I would kill for a glass of red wine.’ She smiled at him. ‘I’ll settle for sparkling water.’
His eyes tracked around to me. ‘Kerrigan. Drink?’
‘What’s the occasion?’
‘We made an arrest in the Poplar case.’ Georgia had come in behind Derwent. She put a file on her desk, moving slowly as if she was completely drained of energy. ‘The dad’s been charged with murder and remanded to prison. His girlfriend is giving evidence against him.’
‘Worth celebrating, isn’t it?’ Derwent had wandered over to my desk so he could pick up and examine everything on it. ‘Good news all round. Except that the baby’s dead and the mum’s heartbroken. But still definitely worth a drink.’
I took my favourite pen out of his hands gently and put it back in the pot where it lived. ‘Leave my stuff alone.’
‘Come for a drink.’ He dropped the swagger as he met my eyes, and when he spoke again his voice was so quiet only I would have heard him. ‘Please.’
He couldn’t go home yet, I recognised. He couldn’t take that dark, boiling anger and frustration home to his girlfriend and her son. He couldn’t risk letting it spill over unless he was with the people who understood how he felt without having to ask.
‘Why not.’ I stood up and pulled my jacket on. ‘I wasn’t doing anything else.’
As usual, it took considerably longer than five minutes to round up everyone who was going. It was more like half an hour before we were all ready. I found myself standing by the lift with Georgia as we waited for the others to gather their things.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yeah.’ She shivered. ‘You were right.’
‘I wasn’t going to say that.’
‘He handled it really well.’ The two of us looked back into the office where Derwent was spinning around on a chair, saying something that made Pete Belcott redden and the other members of the team laugh. ‘He was so good with the mum. I didn’t know he had it in him.’
‘Now you do,’ I said simply. ‘He’s better at this than people know. But it takes its toll.’
She nodded and blinked furiously, clawing for composure.
‘Make sure you talk to someone about how you’re feeling.’
‘That’s what Josh said.’
Josh. I hated that Georgia was working with him, but I was determined not to show it. ‘That’s good. Not that he would ever have counselling himself, of course, but you should.’
She nodded, taking it on board. ‘Do you?’
‘Sometimes.’
The rest of the party finally tore themselves away from their desks and we piled into the lift, like a rowdy group of kids let out of school for the day. When we reached the ground floor, Derwent stood inside the lift and counted us out into the lobby. I hung back so I was the last in the group and paused before I stepped out of the lift.
‘Shitty case. Are you all right?’
‘I will be.’ He dropped an arm around my shoulders and I hugged him, leaning into his warmth for a moment before he steered me out of the lift. ‘I’m glad you’re coming out.’
‘No problem.’ Even as I said the words my brain was starting to process the very real problem that was stepping forward, to my total surprise.
‘Seth?’
He was wearing one of his impeccable three-piece suits with a blue silk tie and looked as if he had come straight from work. Everyone in the lobby was staring at him, which he was used to, because he was that sort of handsome. This time, though, not everyone was admiring him.
‘Hey, Maeve. I was about to call you.’
‘Well, this is a nice surprise,’ Derwent drawled. He took his arm away from me, but slowly. ‘Are you coming to the pub too?’
‘I’m taking Maeve out to dinner.’
‘But, Seth, we didn’t have plans.’ Even as I said it, I was wondering if I could have forgotten something. ‘Did we?’
‘No, we didn’t.’ He gave me an uncertain smile. ‘I didn’t know I needed to make an appointment. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.’
‘I texted you to tell you I was going out. Didn’t you get it?’
‘Yeah, but it only came through a minute ago. I was already on my way here when you sent your message. No reception on the Tube.’ He waggled his phone at me apologetically.
‘Oh.’ I looked at Derwent and then at Seth. ‘Well. I said I’d go for a drink with the team.’ I slightly stressed the last two words, as if that would help. The others had moved away, though I knew everyone was watching this little stand-off.
Seth nodded. ‘Right.’
‘I didn’t know about dinner.’
‘No, of course you didn’t.’
‘You could come to the pub with us, Seth,’ Derwent said. I looked at him, wary, noting the glint in his eye that was pure trouble. He was still on edge, and volatile as a result. What he would like more than anything else was a fight, I thought uneasily. But he sounded pleasant enough. ‘If you wanted to join us, that is.’
‘I don’t think so, mate.’
‘Mate?’ Derwent laughed. ‘OK.’
I stepped between them and turned to face Derwent, my temper rising. ‘I know you’ve had a tough day, but don’t take it out on him.’
‘It’s OK, Maeve.’ Seth put his hand on my arm and gave it a quick, reassuring squeeze. ‘If you want to go out with your team, go. You can call me later to let me know you’ve got home.’
‘There you go. You’ve got permission now,’ Derwent said and I caught my breath.
‘I wasn’t waiting for permission and I’m not going anywhere with you. As if I would, after that.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘After what, exactly?’
If he wanted a row, he could have one with me. ‘After you behaved like a complete twat.’
‘Language.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I must say, it’s good to know where your loyalties lie.’
‘Are you really surprised that I’d rather go out for dinner with my boyfriend and have a nice time than go to the pub and listen to you sneering at me for a few hours?’
Derwent shook his head. ‘If you want to make bad choices, I’m not going to stop you.’
‘As if you could.’ I was trembling from sheer rage.
‘I’m not sure I like being called a bad choice,’ Seth said from behind me.
‘I’m not sure there’s a word to describe how little I care about what you like,’ Derwent snapped without breaking my gaze.
Thanks for making this easy for me, I thought, and stepped away from him towards Seth. ‘Dinner would be lovely.’ To Derwent, I said, ‘You lot will have to manage without me.’
He was walking away already, beckoning to the rest of the team as he went, hurt filling the air around him like smoke. ‘Let’s go.’
The lobby seemed very big and very empty after they’d gone. Seth looked at me.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Why should you apologise? It wasn’t your fault.’
‘I shouldn’t have come here.’
‘I’m glad you did.’ I stepped closer to him and he put his arms around me. ‘Let’s just go home.’
‘Sure? What about dinner?’
‘I don’t really feel like it.’
‘We can get a takeaway.’
I was far too upset to eat anything, but I nodded, and smiled, and kissed him. It was so like him to be kind about it, when my anger was choking me. Not for the first time, I had the feeling that he was far too good for me.