Charlotte and Bridget were already out of their car and had walked ahead. Bridget’s assistant stayed in the car, working on a laptop. She glanced at Diana but didn’t smile. Charlotte and Bridget stood at the edge of the site, with their backs to the water. Charlotte was pointing to something. Their shoulders were almost touching, and Diana wondered how deep the connection between them went. Charlotte was so good at fostering these relationships. Behind them, the river coursed toward the Thames Barrier.
As Diana approached, Charlotte and Bridget moved on, but she was content to stay behind and let them talk. Bridget was Charlotte’s contact, and she would want to lead this. There was a reason she had chosen to travel with Bridget, not with Diana, and it was wise to be sensitive to her wishes.
Diana followed at a distance as they walked the perimeter of the site. Seagulls squabbled over something on the pebbly shore. It would be dark soon.
A black cab pulled up beside the two sleek town cars. Diana watched as a woman got out. She carried a large messenger bag. Diana waved to her, and she waved back. It must be the architect.
She looked to see where Bridget and Charlotte had got to. They were quite far ahead now and had reached a corner of the site that bordered a set of unused railway arches, old structures built from red brick, probably Victorian.
Diana waited for the architect to join her. It would be nice to get a moment alone with her to hear about her vision for their building. As she approached, Diana saw she was surprisingly tall. Her blond hair was cut into a shaggy bob. She wore black boots, tailored black trousers, and a coat whose silhouette seemed sculpted. Her glasses had thick black frames. Diana smiled. This was exactly the uniform she’d expect a young architect to wear, but so long as this woman could design a building worthy of the Foundation, it didn’t matter if her clothing was a cliché.
They shook hands and introduced themselves.
The architect’s name was Naomi Lee and her palms were clammy, suggesting nerves lay beneath her poise. She must want this very badly, Diana thought, which was a good thing, and not surprising. A project on this scale was a huge opportunity for her and she could be a very good fit for the Larks’ ethos. Launching the career of a young female architect was just the sort of work the Larks were dedicated to.
They set off to join Charlotte and Bridget, who were standingoutside the railway arches. The space beneath each arch was closed off with a pair of large wooden doors. They’d been neglected. Chipped paint and rotten planks, their edges nibbled by decay. Diana wondered if the architect would want to preserve some of these features or raze it all.
“What else have you worked on?” she asked the architect.
“Until recently I’ve been working with a practice in the UAE. Some very exciting things happening out there.”
“There’s a lot of money washing around, I suppose.”
“Yes, and a hunger for buildings that innovate.”
She would probably raze the arches, then. But Diana didn’t have a problem with that. Sometimes you needed to destroy to create.
Ahead, Bridget wrenched open one of the big doors. Charlotte followed her inside.
“Now I’m trying to start my own practice in London,” the architect said. “I’ve done a couple of private homes, but I want to work on bigger projects. Something like this would be the dream.”
I’ll bet it would, Diana thought. The architect would have to earn her place on this, but Diana liked her confidence already. It was women like her who would inherit the benefits of what Diana was working for and build on that. Amazing how a short conversation and a bit of good news from Magnus could kindle hope and inject energy into a crappy day.
They arrived at the arches. Diana gestured for the architect to enter the space first. The door swung shut behind them.
Charlotte and Bridget were standing beneath a lightbulb that hung from the tall arched ceiling. The bulb cast a desultory glow, illuminating the exposed brick on the underside of the arch. Water dripped from it. In a corner two pigeons huddled on a ledge near a hole in the wall that opened to daylight. The acoustics were strange, distorting and amplifying their cooing and scratching, magnifying the sound of dripping water.
Introductions over, the architect said, “So, there’s a viewpointon the top of the arches that we can access from here. You can see the whole site from there. It might be a good place to explain some of my preliminary concepts.”
“Great,” Bridget said.
“Great,” the architect echoed back. Everyone was smiling. “It’s a bit of a dodgy climb, so watch your step. Maybe best to use phone lights. I promise it’s worth it!”
Bridget led and Charlotte followed.
The architect said, “We probably shouldn’t have more than two people on the stairs at once. I don’t know how much weight they’ll bear.”
Diana waited as Charlotte and Bridget climbed. The stairs were made from metal that was rusted in places. It wasn’t clear how firmly they were attached to the wall. Light from Charlotte’s and Bridget’s phones bounced off the surfaces, then they disappeared through the door at the top of the stairs. Their voices suddenly sounded quite far away.
“After you,” the architect said.
Diana stepped toward the staircase and directed the light from her phone onto the first few treads.
She didn’t immediately sense danger when she felt the barrel of a gun nestle in the pocket at the base of her skull. The sensation was cold and strangely simple. She hadn’t processed what it was or what it meant before the architect pulled the trigger a millisecond later.
The sound of the shot was a dull thud, the silencer doing its work.
Diana’s body fell backward. The architect stepped neatly out of its way, and it landed hard on the damp floor. A halo of blood emerged from the wound in Diana’s head as the architect watched. It was viscous and berry red.
