At 8:05 exactly my phone buzzes. Brodie.
I tap the phone. “You're on speaker,” I say.
“Elena Kuznetsova.” It always catches me off guard, how young Brodie sounds. “Found her here in London. Took some doing. She buried the trail well—four shell companies, two false identities, a property registered to a deceased Estonian national.Took me the better part of thirty-six hours to unpick it.” A pause. “But it's her. Luxury serviced apartment, private complex. She's been there at least three weeks.”
Henderson sets down his coffee.
“Send me everything,” I say.
“Already done.”
I thank Brodie and end the call.
Henderson looks at me. “This morning,” he says.
“This morning,” I agree.
The pastries come out of the oven just as Christopher arrives—slightly too loud, slightly too cheerful, carrying the specific energy of a man who has been awake all night. The smell of warm butter and almond fills the kitchen. Brumilde sets the platter on the island without a word and disappears back upstairs.
“Morning,” says Christopher, stealing my coffee and reaching for a pastry in the same movement. “You both look terrible.”
“You look worse,” replies Henderson.
“Rude,” says Christopher, sitting down. He takes a large bite of pastry, examines it, takes another. “These are extraordinary. Mildew really is a national treasure.” He drums his fingers on the counter. “So. Hypothetically.”
I look at him.
“Hypothetically,” he says again, “if a person—not me, obviously, a completely hypothetical person—had gotten themselves into asmall amount of financial difficulty of a crypto-adjacent nature —”
I inhale deeply and find I’m squeezing the bridge of my nose. “How much?” I reply.
He names a figure.
Henderson makes a sound. I can’t tell if he’s annoyed or impressed.
“Christopher,” I say.
He looks slightly sheepish, but doesn’t feel bad enough to return my coffee. Bastard.
“I'll sort it,” I say. “We'll talk about it later.” There are bigger things to worry about this morning.
Rebecca Bradley arrives at eight-thirty. The front door opens on a gust of cold morning air and she comes through it the way she comes through everything—purposefully, already talking. The dogs are delighted.
“Right,” she says, unwinding her scarf and dropping her bag on the nearest chair. “I need coffee, I need Ivy, and I need someone to tell me how a charitable foundation registered with the Charity Commission, fully compliant, properly funded, can still be blocked from delivering a community health program in Peckham by a wall of bureaucratic nonsense that makes no sense to anyone.” She looks around. “Morning, you lot. All okay? Morning, Christopher. You look terrible.”
“Everyone keeps saying that,” replies Christopher, mussing his hair and looking in the mirror.
“Everyone is correct.” She pours herself a coffee and wraps both hands around the mug. “Where's Ivy?”
“Still upstairs,” I reply.
“Of course she is. Bloody lady of leisure now.” She says it with enormous affection, then spots the pastries. “Oh, thank god.” She takes one and leans against the counter. “So. The Foundation. We cannot get regulatory sign-off without a senior medical authority attached to the application. I've been going around in circles with the Charity Commission for two weeks. No one will touch us because of … well, you know.”
“We don’t know,” says Christopher.
“Because your family name doesn’t exactly spelllegit business.”
Christopher shakes his head. “Peasants are so judgmental.”
