“She’s hot.”
Barnaby barked out a laugh. “I’ll make sure to tell her that at the next family séance.”
A bark from the first floor announced Florence three seconds before she arrived. She came down the stairs at a velocity that Irish Setters should not have been capable of achieving on polished wood, her legs sliding wide on every step, ears streaming behind her. She hit the hallway tiles at a skid and launched herself at Barnaby’s knees.
“Yes, hello. Yes. I know. Settle down.” He crouched and took her face in both hands, and she vibrated against him.
Lex dropped to one knee beside them. “Oh, hello. Who’s this?”
“Florence.”
Lex extended his hand. Florence sniffed it once, and transferred her entire body weight onto Lex’s side. She rolled onto her back and presented her belly with the confidence of an animal who had never, in her pampered life, been denied anything she wanted.
“She’s gorgeous.” Lex rubbed her belly with both hands, and Florence’s back leg kicked in the involuntary spasm that signalled deep satisfaction. “Proper beautiful girl. How old?”
“Four. She’s a pest. She steals socks and buries them in the garden.”
“Course she does. She’s perfect.” Lex scratched behind her ears, and Florence closed her eyes in bliss. “I always wanted a dog. Couldn’t have one growing up. Our flat was too small.”
Florence followed them up the stairs, her claws clicking on the wood. Barnaby nearly tripped over a pair of trainers at the top of the stairs. They were enormous, garish, and abandoned at the precise angle required to send someone to their death on the landing below. A backpack had been dumped against the banister with its zip open, spilling a laptop charger and a half-eaten packet of Haribo.
He picked up the trainers and set them against the wall. “Sorry about the mess. That’s all from my brother, Peregrine. He goes to uni in the City.”
Lex smirked. “Peregrine.”
“Yes.”
“Like the falcon.”
“Like the saint, actually, but yes, everyone thinks he was named after the falcon.”
“What’s he studying?”
There was no dignified way to say it. The words existed in a register so far removed from the Fitznorman-Bicester tradition of Classics, History, and Land Economy that Barnaby had to physically brace himself each time the subject came up. Peregrine, who had their father’s jaw and their mother’s cheerful disregard for convention, had sat the family down at Christmas dinner and announced his chosen degree with the serene confidence of someone with a trust fund fat enough to cushion most of life’s blows.
“Digital Marketing,” Barnaby said. “He…wants to be a social media marketer.” Barnaby heard the tightness in his own voice. He pushed through it. “He wants to build brands online. He’s very good at it, apparently. His tutors say he has a natural instinct for audience.”
“That’s brilliant.”
“It’s a perfectly legitimate career path.”
“I said it’s brilliant, Barns. I wasn’t being sarcastic.”
Barnaby looked at the photograph of Peregrine on the pub steps and felt the familiar tug of affection laced with bewilderment. His brother existed in a world where success was measured in followers and click-through rates, and he navigated it with an ease that Barnaby envied more than he would ever admit. Peregrine would have walked into the Olympic Village and had six friends by the end of the first corridor. Peregrine would have gone to the 7-Eleven without needing to be led.
“He’s a good kid,” Barnaby said. “He just lives on a different planet.”
Lex gave him a look that said he understood exactly which planet Barnaby was referring to, and that it was far closer to Lex’s own than Barnaby’s.
“Come on,” Barnaby urged, moving deeper into the house.
The sitting room was at the back of the house, overlooking the garden. It was the most lived-in room, the one his mother hadn’t got to with her decorator, and it showed. The sofa was deep and soft and covered in a fabric that had faded unevenly where the afternoon light hit it. There were books stacked on the side table, a blanket folded over the arm, and a dent in the far cushion where Florence liked to sleep.
Lex sat down. He looked out of place and entirely at home simultaneously, his muscular frame sinking into the faded cushions, one arm slung across the back of the sofa. Florence settled at his feet and rested her chin on his trainer.
Barnaby sat in the armchair opposite. He crossed one ankle over the other. He pressed his palms flat against his thighs, lifted his chin, and looked directly at Lex. “I’d like to propose an arrangement.”
Lex’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t speak. His body stilled in the way it did between rounds, his attention sharpening to a point.
