Sebastian didn’t make it back to his flat until well after midnight. He woke a scant few hours later, the light of dawn streaming through his bedroom window, and groaned.
A quick glance at his phone, sitting on the bedside table, confirmed his alarm hadn’t gone off. He’d had the good sense to deactivate it last night before he went to bed. It was possible he’d awakened naturally; he liked to get an early start in the mornings, putting in a few hours at the gym before he sat down to handle phone calls and emails with his clients.
With no intention of doing anything of the sort today, Sebastian rolled over and tugged the covers over his head.
There was a knock at his front door. A second knock, Sebastian quickly realised—the first had been what woke him.
Instinct jolted him to full awareness, while years of military training had him reaching for the knife he’d stashed beneath the mattress—a nine-inch Bowie knife which was fantastically illegal to carry on the streets and therefore had to be kept in the house. Creeping silently through the flat to his front door, knife tucked close to his forearm in a reverse grip, he put his eye to the peephole.
Jay Moriarty stood on the pavement outside his flat, bouncing impatiently on his heels.
With a confused groan, Sebastian set the knife on the console table in the entry hall and opened the door.
Jay barged past him into the flat, apparently oblivious to both the hour and the fact that Sebastian was wearing only the boxers he’d gone to sleep in. Without any preamble, he said, “Four million.”
Sebastian quickly shut the door—best not to scandalise the neighbours—and said, “Four million what?”
“The cinema was insured for four million pounds.” Jay was speaking quickly, buzzing with manic energy. He blinked at Sebastian and added, “You’re naked,” more confused than embarrassed.
Sebastian rubbed both hands over his face. The adrenaline was wearing off fast, and he was nowhere near awake enough for this conversation. He shouldered past Jay down the hall, to the kitchen at the rear of the flat.
Jay followed at his heels. As Sebastian wrestled with the coffee machine, Jay paced around the room, apparently engrossed in a study of Sebastian’s home. Sebastian lived in a two-bedroom flat on a terraced row in Chelsea that he’d spent far too much money to buy once consulting proved infinitely more lucrative than the army. It was less spacious than Jay’s sterile converted warehouse in Camden, and the decor could most politely be described as “eclectic”: most of the furniture was antique, inherited from his grandfather, and surrounded by various bits and pieces Sebastian had picked up while deployed abroad as well as an array of creature comforts he’d embraced since transitioning to civilian life. The overall effect was cluttered, but cosy.
“Have you had breakfast?” Sebastian called over his shoulder, once the coffee was on.
“No,” Jay replied absently; he was running his fingers rather obsessively over a carved gourd vase that Sebastian had bought in Kenya, which now served as a centrepiece on his dining table.
Harbouring certain suspicions, Sebastian’s follow-up question was, “Have you slept at all?”
Jay shrugged and made a non-committal noise.
Sebastian sighed and pulled a frying pan down off its hook. “Do you eat eggs?”
“Sometimes.”
Sebastian worked quietly for the next minute or so, bringing the pan up to heat before cracking the eggs in. As they sizzled, Sebastian said, “So your theory is that Derek Chapman burned down his own cinema.”
Jay had lost interest in the vase and was pacing again, back and forth on the other side of the kitchen island. “Nobody else benefits.”
“Can you prove it, though?”
“I’m trying.” Jay slumped over the island and buried his face in his crossed arms. “There’s no direct link between the money I was paid and Chapman’s accounts. I checked.”
The eggs were done; Sebastian killed the heat and slid them onto a plate, which he deposited in front of Jay. “Forks are in the drawer next to you.”
“Must be some way to tie him to the fire,” Jay was mumbling, slightly muffled. “Maybe if we got into his house—”
“Are we doing this?” Sebastian interrupted.
Lifting his head, Jay peered blearily at him. “‘This’?”
“This, again,” Sebastian clarified. “You plan. I break into places. Some rich bastard gets what’s coming to him.”
With uncertain hope, Jay said, “Do you want to?”
Sebastian’s anger still sat low and smouldering at the hollow of his throat, and Jay had earned his fair share of it. But this was, quite possibly, the only real apology he was capable of. “Yes.”
A relieved sigh escaped Jay’s lips, and he reached into his pocket for his phone. “I can get you Chapman’s home address.”
Sebastian pointed firmly at Jay’s plate with the spatula. “Eat your eggs, first.”
Derek Chapman lived on the Bishops Avenue.
It was easily the most expensive neighbourhood in London, and in the running for most expensive in the world. All the mansions along the row were set far back from the tree-lined street, behind high walls and locked gates, and Chapman’s house was no exception.
Jay had acquired a car for Sebastian through a car-share startup that had yet to discover a severe security flaw in its booking system. Sebastian parked it across the street from Chapman’s mansion, for once unconcerned whether he looked suspicious; many of the houses along the row had been purchased as assets rather than homes, and as a result the neighbourhood was more or less a ghost town.
There was a camera mounted above Chapman’s front door, pointed directly at the only gate that offered access to the property. Said gate was also well within view of multiple other cameras on neighbouring properties, all of which would be actively monitored—the owners didn’t want squatters occupying their entirely unused houses, after all.
“I think one of my mother’s friends lives around here,” Sebastian said.
“I’m shocked,” came Jay’s dry response through the wireless headset Sebastian wore. Jay had brought a laptop from his own flat and was now set up in Sebastian’s, for reasons Sebastian hadn’t yet deciphered. “Can you get into Chapman’s house or not?”
“Not from here.” Sebastian pulled up a map of the area on his phone. Both sides of the street backed onto golf clubs, and the one behind Chapman’s house was listed as “temporarily closed.”
Starting up the car, Sebastian drove down to the end of the row and circled around the southern perimeter of the golf course.
“What have you got on Chapman?” he asked.
“Property developer,” Jay replied, in the absent tone that meant he was doing something else while he talked. “Mostly buys up old council housing, tears it down, then builds luxury flats instead.”
“Yes, I also read his Wikipedia article.” Sebastian reached the turning for the golf club and parked just beyond it, climbing out of the car. “I was hoping for some personal background.”
Jay made an annoyed noise and, as Sebastian walked down the access road to the golf club, reported: “He’s not terrifically online. His parents haven’t figured out their privacy settings, though. Father’s a retired bank manager. Mother is a housewife—and involved in a few pyramid schemes, from the looks of it.”
A sign by the golf club’s front gate announced that the course was closed while maintenance work was carried out on its drainage system. In the bustle of construction workers coming and going, it was easy for Sebastian to bluff his way through.
He circled the edge of the empty rolling lawn, backtracking toward the rear of Chapman’s house. “Comfortable background, but not wealthy. Where’d his money come from, then?”
“Usual story: dead relative, inheritance. Bought a house, broke it up into flats, then sold them off individually. Repeat as necessary to build an empire.”
The wall that divided the back of Chapman’s property from the golf course was tall, but not insurmountably so. The real problem was the security camera atop it.
“Are you still up on my phone?” Sebastian asked.
“How do you think I found you last night?”
“I reserve the right to be cross about that later.” Sebastian pulled out his phone and switched the Wi-Fi on. “I’ve got a camera, here.”
“Give me a minute.” A moment passed, then: “There. It’s down.”
With a running start, Sebastian hauled himself up over the wall. He landed at the edge of an unused tennis court, which took up easily a third of the house’s enormous back garden. The rest was just lawn, well overdue for a trim.
He made his way to the kitchen door, picked it open, and strolled inside.
The trick to getting away with burglary was not to look like a burglar. Someone in black clothes and a balaclava creeping around in the dead of night raised alarm the moment they were spotted, but a casually-dressed man meandering around in broad daylight was obviously a house guest—or, failing that, a confused neighbour.
The interior of the house was as opulent as Sebastian had expected, at least on the architectural front: gleaming hardwood floors, cathedral ceilings, intricate moulding on every conceivable surface. There was, however, a bizarre lack of furniture—or any kind of personal touch at all.
As Sebastian moved from room to room, searching for the home office Chapman most likely kept, he said, “Looks like your flat in here.”
“What?”
“It’s empty,” Sebastian clarified. “Are you sure Chapman lives here?”
“There’s no other home address on file.”
Chapman’s office turned out to be on the second floor, at the front of the house; a wide bay window overlooked the front drive. Here, at least, was some evidence there were human beings in residence: the desk was an ornate, mahogany beast of a thing, upon which Chapman’s overpriced all-in-one desktop computer took up a pitiful amount of space. The filing cabinet up against the wall had a cheap cylinder lock that opened easily under Sebastian’s picks.
Inside the cabinet were an assortment of files and papers. Sebastian spotted Chapman’s ledger and opened it, flipping through.
“No big cash withdrawals,” he noted. “Probably hid the money he paid you in other expenses.”
“Fuck.”
Further snooping in the file cabinet turned up some financial papers on the Marigold Cinema. It seemed the place had, shortly after its purchase, turned into a money pit; far more had gone into the maintenance of the building than it was actually worth, eating up what little equity the property had managed to accrue.
There wasn’t much else of interest in the cabinet. Sebastian turned his attention to the desk, and a flash of gold leaf caught his eye: an engraved invitation to a dinner party, celebrating the sixteenth birthday of one Felicity Morris-Clarke.
“Remember that friend of my mother’s?”
“The one who lives here?”
“Chapman has an invitation to his granddaughter’s birthday party.” The invitation sat propped up against Chapman’s desk tidy, as if he were determined not to lose sight of it. Thinking carefully, Sebastian said, “Chapman is only a double-digit millionaire.”
“‘Only’?”
“Bishops Avenue is called ‘Billionaires’ Row’ for a reason. This house is well out of his price range.” Sebastian glanced around the office. “No wonder the place is empty.”
A noise echoed up from the front drive: the distinct sound of a car door closing. Sebastian ducked and crept to the window, peeking outside.
The man who’d approached Chapman at the premiere was on his way into the house. A set of keys dangled from his fingers.
Best to make an exit, and quickly. Sebastian paused at the desk just long enough to plug a flash drive into Chapman’s computer before making his way out through the back door.
“Chapman logged into his computer a few minutes ago,” Jay called from the living room, as Sebastian walked through the front door of his flat. “I’m scraping his files now.”
Sebastian kicked his boots off, walked down the hall to the living room, and paused in the doorway.
At some point during the afternoon Jay had dragged Sebastian’s modem out of the TV cabinet and, evidently finding it unsatisfactory, replaced it with an entirely new unit before running a hard line from its new location on the floor to his laptop, which rested on the carved antique coffee table. The table in question had been pulled closer to Sebastian’s upholstered rosewood sofa so Jay could sit there while he worked, and the sofa itself had also been moved to the opposite corner of the room, closer to the power outlets. Various other bits of cabling and equipment were scattered around, leaving the impression that a freak tornado had passed through a back-alley computer repair shop on its way to the inside of Sebastian’s flat.
“Made yourself at home,” Sebastian observed.
Jay made a wordless, distracted noise and didn’t look up from his laptop.
Sebastian leaned over the back of the sofa to peer at Jay’s screen as he paged through the files he was pulling off Chapman’s computer.
Jay gave him a sidelong glance. “Haven’t found anything that ties Chapman to the fire, yet.”
“Any shady figures in his contacts?”
“Just the one.” Jay pulled up a page from Chapman’s address book: a single mobile number, listed under the name “Toby Wright.” A little more digging on Jay’s part had turned up a photo—specifically, a mugshot—that Sebastian recognised immediately.
“He was at the premiere,” Sebastian observed. “And the house.”
“Near as I can tell,” Jay said, “he handles any work Chapman can’t have his own name tied to. Probably hired the fixer that hired me.”
Sebastian recalled the quick exchange of words between Chapman and Wright at the premiere, and the speed with which they both departed afterwards. “He set the fire at the cinema.”
“He’s got next to no digital footprint.” Jay groaned and leaned back into the couch cushions. “I bet he arranged the whole thing with burner phones and dead drops, like a medieval peasant.”
“I’m not sure you’ve got an accurate picture of the middle ages,” Sebastian remarked. “Anything else?”
“Some past due notices from the bank. He’s falling behind on the mortgage.” Jay squinted at the screen. “No, that can’t be right.”
“Must be what he needed the insurance payout for.”
Jay twisted around to regard Sebastian with an incredulous expression. “He’s a millionaire. How can he be skint?”
“It’s how the rich do things,” Sebastian explained. “They put all their money into assets, then borrow against those assets whenever they need cash.”
“That’s utterly deranged.”
Sebastian shrugged. “It works, until it doesn’t—for example, once you owe more on an asset than it’s actually worth. At which point, if you’re Chapman, you burn the place down, take the insurance payout, and write off the loss.” He propped his elbows on the back of the couch, suddenly exhausted. “He’ll sell the Marigold off cheap, and whoever buys it will tear down what’s left.”
Jay’s fingers tapped restlessly against the edges of the laptop. “Wright’s a dead end. We still can’t tie Chapman to the fire.”
Sebastian sighed, long and low, slumping over the back of the sofa.
“But,” Jay went on, “we can take that insurance payout instead.”
Sebastian lifted his head. Jay was looking at him with a sly expression, one that boded very ill for Derek Chapman.
“You have an idea,” Sebastian said.
“We have to offer him something else to spend the money on.” Jay was thinking aloud. “Something he wants. Something he needs.”
“He lives in a house he can’t afford,” Sebastian observed. “He keeps an invitation to a teenager’s birthday party on display like it’s the holy fucking grail. Probably bought the Marigold because it made him look like a patron of the arts.”
“So he doesn’t just want money. He wants class. Access to high society.” Jay shuffled around on the sofa to face Sebastian. “This friend of your mother’s …”
“Freddie Clarke,” Sebastian said. “He’s a theatre producer. Finances half the West End.”
“And Chapman wants his attention.” Jay chewed his lower lip, eyes focused somewhere past Sebastian. “We’ll give him a chance to buy it. Sell him something Clarke wants.”
“Clarke doesn’t want for much,” Sebastian pointed out. “The man bought a zebra, for fuck’s sake.”
Jay stared at him. “Why?”
“No idea. Maybe it was on sale.”
“Where do you even keep a zebra?”
“He’s got a house out in the country, with a pasture.”
“That’s—never mind.” Jay shook his head. “All right. For an exotic animal collector, what’s the one thing they all want but can’t have?”
Fortunately, Sebastian had spent multiple weeks of his life listening to Anika complain about these exact people. “A tiger. Only three in the whole country, apparently.”
A slow, malevolent smile crept across Jay’s face. “Perfect.”
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