‘This one.’
Mrs Lafarge raised her eyebrows. ‘That is one of our most valuable accounts. If the client knew you were investigating his dealings he would be …’ She thought for the right word. ‘Mortified.’
In the delicate world of Luxembourg banking, it was as clear a warning as she could give. Back off. Any other time, Lemmy would have apologised at once for his obvious mistake and asked to see a different account, perhaps one that Mrs Lafarge herself could suggest. After three hours of scrupulous inactivity, he’d assure her that everything was in order.
But the people who’d sent Lemmy were paying too much for that. He pressed his fingertips together and looked stern. ‘I’m afraid I must insist. Our procedures …’ He raised his eyes to the ceiling, servant to a higher power.
‘Of course,’ was all Mrs Lafarge said. ‘You will have the files directly. I’ll telephone our head office in London to inform them.’
Lemmy smiled his thanks, trying to hide his crooked teeth, and wondered why his mouth felt quite so dry.
Ellie arrived for her first day at work late and exhausted. A blanket of grey clouds was smothering the city, packing in the heat and the damp so that everything became sticky. She’d meant to come down the night before; instead she’d stayed in Oxford, up half the night with Doug going over the same argument they’d had all summer. Eventually she’d locked herself in the bedroom and cried herself to sleep. Minutes later, so it seemed, the alarm clock dragged her back.
It would have been so easy to stay in bed. Even now, climbing the stairs to the bank’s frosted front door, part of Ellie wanted to turn and run. She felt a fraud in her new suit and shoes, overdressed and shabby all at once. She half expected the receptionist to turn her away, explain it had all been a mistake.
You don’t belong there.
Of all the things Doug had said, that was the one that hurt most.
The receptionist rang up to announce her. Ellie didn’t catch the reply.
He’s forgotten, she thought. Or changed his mind. She’d have to trudge back to Oxford, to Doug, admit it was all a mistake. Part of her almost wanted it to be true.
‘Ellie.’
Blanchard strode into the reception area. In one fluid movement he shook her hand, clapped her on the shoulder and leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek. ‘Welcome to Monsalvat.’ He took her elbow and steered her towards the lift. ‘I am so glad you have joined us. Your journey was fine?’
‘Fine,’ Ellie echoed. She felt dazed again, swept up in Blanchard’s irresistible aura. It was probably because she was so tired.
Blanchard was apologising for her flat not being ready the night before. ‘An electrician was installing new wiring and he took too long, something like this. A mess. But it is all well now. My driver will take you after work. How was your summer? The course was good?’
‘I learned a lot.’ Courtesy of her prospective employers, Ellie had spent eight weeks of July and August at a country house in Dorset, an exclusive summer camp for would-be investment bankers.
‘They send us a report, you know,’ Blanchard admonished her. ‘They said in the final examination you came first in the class.’
Ellie shrugged, blushing. All her life she’d had to work harder than the others to achieve what she wanted. She was good at it. She hadn’t fitted in with the other students, who mostly saw the course as an extension of the boarding schools they’d left not so long before. While they drank and flirted in the bar, she’d sat in her room with her books. The way she’d always done it.
Blanchard gave her a searching look. ‘Perhaps you did not mix so much with the other pupils. Maybe they seemed different to you.’
Ellie stared at him, wondering how he could read her thoughts like that.
‘But you should try. Our work is not about passing exams and knowing the rules. Of course, you must do this also, but it is not enough. You should socialise with these people. Not because you like them, but because one day, when you negotiate, they will be on the other side of the table. And then you will know their weaknesses.’
A coldness seemed to come over him as he spoke, the remorseless focus of a hunter. Ellie remembered what Doug had said. These people are predators. The first sign of weakness, they’ll rip you limb from limb. She’d called him melodramatic.
‘And here we are.’
Blanchard held the door and let her into a small square office. To Ellie, schooled in the Middle Ages, it looked more like a monastic cell. The floor was dark wooden boards, the walls stark white. A scarred desk stood in the middle of the room, with a leather-upholstered chair and a filing cabinet behind it. There was no computer, nor any phone Ellie could see: only a pile of Manila folders spilling papers across the desk.
‘I had my secretary bring the files for some of the major projects we have at the moment. You should familiarise yourself with them before you meet the clients.’
‘When will that be?’
Blanchard shrugged. ‘Maybe tomorrow? Our job is unpredictable. I said before, it is not something you learn in books. For the next six months you will work as my personal assistant. Because of my responsibilities, you will not concentrate on any particular client, but work on different projects as I need you. Some of the tasks I give you will seem mundane, or irrelevant; others will be almost incalculably important. If you succeed, you will gain a rare knowledge.’
He looked as though he might have said more, but at that moment a middle-aged woman poked her head around the door. ‘Mrs Lafarge is on the line.’
Blanchard nodded. ‘If you excuse me, Ellie. Destrier will come in a few minutes to give you your passes, your keys and your equipment. He is our security manager. He is very paranoid, but this is why we pay him. Humour him.’
He paused at the door and fixed her with a look that seemed to turn her to glass. ‘Remember, Ellie, we chose you. This is where you belong.’
When Blanchard had gone, Ellie sat at the desk and stared at the stack of folders. The most modern practices, the most up-to-date thinking, Blanchard had said at her interview. But even the ancient Oxford libraries seemed more modern than this.
She tried the filing cabinet, but it was locked. Her desk had a drawer; she opened it, half expecting to find a quill pen and inkwell. Instead, she saw two rectangular blocks of high-gloss plastic, like jet or polished basalt. One was the size of a pack of cards, the other like a hardback book. In the dusty drawer, they looked like artefacts of an alien civilisation.
There were no markings. Ellie picked up the smaller one to examine it. Her hand brushed the surface: suddenly it started to glow. Red writing hovered behind the mirrored surface.
Enter password.
‘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 buttons.’
‘Bin it.’ His voice was soft, the accent hard to place. ‘This is your new best friend. Your password 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.