Becks takes a bite of pastry. “You can joke all you like?—”
“He’s not joking,” chimes in Henderson.
Becks almost chokes on her pastry. Henderson’s gentle Irish lilt tends to do that to her. Once she’s recovered, she smooths her hair back. “It's a wall.”
Christopher hasn’t finished complaining. “I mean, they’re all up our faces about paying more tax and other pinko propaganda but then when we offer them free money for their dreaded lurgies, all of a sudden they turn their snotty noses up. Bloody ingrates.”
Becks is aghast. “You do realize you sound like Marie Antoinette?”
“Ah, sorry love,” Christopher bats his eyelashes. “Have I put you off yourpain au chocolat?”
Becks glares at him and discards the pastry, swearing under her breath.
“It'll come together,” I say.
“It needs to come together by end of week,” she replies. “Or we lose the community space we've reserved and start from scratch.”
At that moment Ivy appears in the doorway, still in her dressing gown, Alex on her hip. He is patting her face with both hands with focused intensity.
“Meeting started without me,” she says. “Hello, Becks, sunshine of my life. Hello, Christopher. You look terrible.”
“Thank you,” says Christopher, to no one in particular.
Ivy and her best friend hug. Becks looks at Alex with uncertainty. Alex looks back at her with round, solemn eyes. He reaches out one small hand toward her coffee mug.
“No,” says Becks.
Alex continues reaching.
“No,” says Becks.
Alex switches from the coffee mug to her hair, which he grabs with impressive accuracy.
“Ow,” says Becks. “Right. Hello.” She extricates her hair with the careful movements of someone defusing a small bomb, and Alex watches her do it with interest. Something almost imperceptible crosses Rebecca’s face—there and gone—before she turns back to Ivy.
“We've run into a problem with Peckham,” she says. “I need you to look at something.”
While Ivy and Becks go over the paperwork at the kitchen table—Alex now transferred to Brumilde, who has reappeared like a benign ghost, and the warm smell of coffee mixing with the last of the pastries—I pull Henderson to the far end of the island.
“Forty minutes from here,” I say, low. “Eleven o'clock. Just us.”
“I'll arrange the car,” he replies.
From across the kitchen, Ivy looks up, suddenly with the hearing of a hunting dog.
“Where are you going at eleven?” she asks.
“Elena,” I reply. “Henderson and I.”
She visibly pales and sets down her pen. “Alistair.”
“It'll be fine,” I reply.
“Can someone else go?” She pushes back her chair slightly. “She's too clever. Something about this doesn't feel right. She let herself be found.”
“Brodie worked for this address,” I reply. “Four shell companies. A dead Estonian.”
“Or she made it look that way,” says Ivy.
