Eventually, I followed Ella out of the room and down the stairs. The torturers weren’t far away. They were waiting to pounce on me on the landing.

‘Finally! There you are!’ Eve was in front of me like a flash. ‘What have you two been talking about in there? Never mind, never mind, I have more interesting questions right now, I can be nosy about Ella later. You have to tell us now! Tell us everything about how the heck you managed to get up on that platform!’

My mind was still on alcohol-induced headaches and back-garden romances. I couldn’t find a single, plausible lie to put forward. Maybe I should just tell them the truth… but no! I couldn’t. Out of my mad visit to a financier’s office some weeks ago had arisen a real chance for me to forge myself a life of independence. I couldn’t risk that by telling Eve. I loved her dearly, but she had the loosest mouth this side of the Thames.

Bloody hell! What can I do?

‘Excuse me?’

We all turned to look. My aunt was standing a few steps below us, an expression on her face that could have been used to pickle cucumbers.

‘Will your friends stay and join us for breakfast?’ she asked me, letting her cool gaze sweep over the group of girls around me. ‘They didn’t say they were coming beforehand, but I’m sure there will be enough boiled potatoes for three more people.’

For the first time in my life, I would have liked to kiss my aunt.

‘Oh no, Mrs Brank,’ Patsy said hurriedly. ‘Don’t exert yourself on our account. I, um… had a very filling dinner yesterday. And we were just leaving, weren’t we, girls?’

‘Oh yes,’ Eve nodded quickly. ‘We were. Most certainly.’

‘What?’ Flora, who was a bit slower on the uptake, asked. ‘But I thought we… ouch!’ She winced as Patsy stepped on her foot. ‘Yes, of course we were. Just leaving, right now.’

‘Come along, girls.’ Like a general gathering her troops, Patsy waved the other two to her flanks, just in case any boiled potatoes or disgusting bowls of gruel would suddenly launch an attack. ‘We’ve got places to be. And as for you-’ At the bottom of the stairs, she turned a final time and gave me a significant look. ‘We'll have a talk with you later.’

Oh dear. It didn’t seem as though I was off the hook. But at least I would have time to think up a convincing cover story. With relief, and with thankfulness for the fact that I and the girls were fast friends again, I watched Patsy and the others depart.

‘Well?’ my aunt snapped. ‘Why are you standing around gawking like that? Come down to breakfast, or do you expect the rest of us to wait for you?’

‘No, Aunt, I do not expect that.’

‘Then come down! The potatoes are already getting cold!’

If they had been served with Leadfield’s usual speed and alacrity, they had probably been cold long before they reached the table. Yet I didn’t say anything, simply followed my aunt down and to the breakfast table.

Everybody was already seated, apart from Uncle Bufford, of course. The head of the table, where he was supposed to sit, remained conspicuously empty, as always. My aunt could have sat there, but she preferred not to, as a demonstration that my uncle was grossly far behind in the performance of his social duties. Sometimes I wondered whether before we had come to his house, he had already had the habit of dining up in his study, or if that habit had developed to avoid an overdose of female company.

‘Sit,’ my aunt told me, as if I were a misbehaving puppy - which, when I came to think about it, probably was exactly how she thought of me. I took my place at the table directly opposite Ella. She didn’t meet my eyes.

Leadfield started limping around the table, doling out potatoes as he went. The potatoes turned out to be still lukewarm, not cold as predicted. Yet this overwhelming culinary advantage didn’t much increase my motivation to dig in. It seemed that, along with the headache, the inability to eat potatoes was another symptom of excessive alcohol consumption.

Maybe it wasn’t just restricted to potatoes, either. I didn’t feel as if I could have eaten much, even had there been a roasted pheasant in front of me. Any pheasant in the room would have been squashed, anyway, by the elephant in the room that was Ella’s and Edmund’s secret plan. She didn’t know that I knew she was going to flee, and I didn’t know when she was going to flee. I only knew something had to be done about it.

Again, I tried to catch her eye. She kept her gaze firmly fixed on her plate of potatoes as though they were the most fascinating work of art she had ever seen. I knew for a fact they were not. She liked going to the museum or to art galleries, and not to look at potatoes.

I hated seeing her like this, anxious and uncertain. I wanted her to be carefree and happy. I wanted him out of her life. And yet… a tiny part of me suspected that having him out of her life would not exactly contribute to her happiness. She cared for him, and he for her, probably. It was the one thing that had prevented me from going to him and threatening him with exposure, or just disclosing his conduct to his parents. They had to be together to be happy. Yet I couldn’t just let them run off together. I knew Ella, knew the value she placed on honour and propriety. The scandal would follow her everywhere, it would ruin her life.

Still, the alternative… her marrying that nincompoop Sir Philip…

I shuddered from head to toe. She would drown in flower bouquets and be forced to look at that silly grin and over-large nose for the rest of her life. What a hideous prospect.

‘It is a beautiful day, today, girls,’ my aunt initiated the conversation with a glance out of the window, her voice cheerful, which probably meant that she had momentarily forgotten both me and the plate of potatoes in front of her. ‘The sun is shining, for a change. Do you have any special plans?’

‘Maria and I planned to go out for a picnic with the Hendersons,’ Anne piped up. She shot a sideways glance at Gertrude. ‘Want to come? Young Master Charles Henderson will be there, and I’m sure he would be enchanted to meet you.’

She giggled, and not in a nice way. I knew it, because I prided myself on having brought the art of nasty giggling to perfection.

‘No, thank you,’ Gertrude replied quietly, not looking up from her plate. ‘He is five years younger than I, if I am correct. And I would much prefer to stay at home and work some more on my needlework.’

‘I’d like to come,’ Lisbeth put in, her eyes shining eagerly.

Anne chose to ignore that.

‘And the rest of you?’ My aunt’s eyes went from the window, through which sunshine streamed into the room, to me. Her expression soured. ‘What do you plan to do, Lillian?’

My hand, in the act of piercing a piece of potato with my fork, froze in mid-air.

Hell’s whiskers!

What did I plan to do? Up until a second ago, I had planned absolutely nothing. But in the back of my mind, I knew what I had to do, whether I planned it or not. It was a weekday. A workday. If I wanted to keep my position as Mr Ambrose’s private secretary, I would have to go to work. I would have to face him, after everything that happened last night.

But… nothing happened last night, right? It was all just my imagination. The more… intimate parts, anyway. Not real. Imagination. Only imagination.

Ha! Really?

‘Lilly?’ For the first time this morning, my aunt didn’t sound like a shark out for blood when talking to me. ‘Lilly, are you all right? You look pale.’

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ella quickly glance up from her meal. She looked down again so fast that I couldn’t read anything in her expression except her concern - concern for me.

She thinks I’m going back to the man who has me in his hold, it shot through my head. And the fact is: I am.

I shook my head. No! Mr Ambrose didn’t have me in his hold. Not in any sense, and certainly not a romantic one! I had chosen to work for him of my own free will. I could quit any time I wished to. I could quit today. I could stay at home and not leave the house, and… and… and never find out if last night had really only been a dream.

Angrily, I speared the potato and shoved it into my mouth.

‘I’m fine,’ I lied gruffly. ‘Perfectly fine. I think I’ll take a walk in the park. As you said, it’s fine weather. There ought to be a lot of potential suitors hiding in the bushes, waiting to pounce on the first likely girl to come along.’

‘Very good, girl, very good indeed. But suitors don't hide in bushes. They ride carriages or horses. The good ones, anyway.’

‘I would never have guessed. What would I do without your wise advice, Aunt.’

‘You would be destitute, of course, child. Don’t ask such silly questions.’

‘Yes, Aunt.’

I was getting quite accomplished at playing obedience. However had that come about?

Oh yes. My practice with the tyrant king of London finance.

I chomped down on my potato a bit too hard. Ruddy hell! Could nothing banish that man from my thoughts?

‘W-will Sir Philip be calling today?’

The hesitant voice was Ella's. And it answered my question. Yes, something could banish Mr Ambrose from my mind, if only temporarily: my concern for my little sister.

‘I do not think so,’ my aunt sighed.

Good.

‘But,’ she added, brightening, ‘we’ll all see him at the ball tonight, of course.’

Oh. Bad. Very bad.

‘Ball?’ What little colour there was in Ella’s face disappeared.

‘Oh yes. Didn’t I mention it? Another invitation arrived a few days ago. We are all to go to another ball at Lady Metcalf's, and Sir Philip has kindly agreed to accompany us.’ She winked at Ella in so suggestive a way that a blind possum couldn’t have failed to notice the message.

Ella went from white to translucent.

‘How… nice of him.’

I stabbed my fork into the next potato, imagining it to be Sir Philip’s head.

‘We are all invited?’ I asked. ‘Me, too?’

My aunt looked at me in surprise. ‘Yes, of course, but… do you want to come? I thought I would have to drag you there as usual.’

‘Trust me, madam,’ I told her, and bit down on my potato, severing it in the middle. ‘I want to come.’

*~*~**~*~*

The mist sparkled in the early morning sunlight in all the streets of London. It parted before me as the ocean before the bow of a battleship as I marched towards Leadenhall Street. In my mind I was going over things I could do to Sir Philip Wilkins if he didn’t leave my little sister alone. Boiling alive was quite high up on the list.

This ball might be my last chance. Things were coming to a head, I could feel it! Considering all Wilkins had said to me the last time we had met, it wouldn’t surprise me if he intended to propose to Ella tonight. That could never happen, I knew. She would not have the courage to refuse him.

Sweet, mad, little creature! She had the courage to offer to face down a drunken rake for my sake, but not the courage to stand up for the wishes of her own heart. If only Wilkins had fallen in love with me, instead! He would be in Inverness by now, on his way to charter a ship to the polar regions, in the hope of getting as far away from my wrath as possible.

I thought I would never be able to stop fretting about Ella. Yet the closer I drew to Leadenhall Street, the more thoughts of her and Wilkins were replaced by thoughts of another. Someone beside whom they seemed to pale into insignificance. Someone made of granite, iron and money. Soon I could do nothing but obsess over one question:

What the dickens am I supposed to say to him? How should I react to him after what has happened?

But no, I reminded myself. Nothing had happened. Nothing at all. Especially nothing that involved lips touching. It had all just been in my imagination. So I wouldn’t need to say anything.

But…

What if he said something?

What if he started to talk about last night, and it turned out that all I remembered hadn’t been some insane, alcohol-induced dream but, in fact, reality?

The world about me seemed to shiver and shimmer like a mirage. All of a sudden, I felt as if reality were a dream and dreams reality. What if… just hypothetically speaking of course… Mr Ambrose really did… want me in some way? What would I do if he indicated his intentions?

I really did not know. I had no idea what I would do.

And that was disturbing.

In the past I had always known what to do with a man who had declared his intentions and wanted to make me his. In most cases, a lecture on suffragism or a good, long dance during which I used his feet for target practice with my heels was sufficient to send the gentleman running. In tougher cases, a few good whacks with the parasol usually solved the problem. For some reason, though, I didn’t think this would work as well on Mr Ambrose. Nor, I discovered to my horror, would I be likely to try.

What was wrong with me?

I didn’t… it wasn’t possible that I… no! I could never feel anything like that. Never, ever. Not for any man, especially not this one.

And besides, I didn’t have time for anything like that. I was completely focused on forging an independent life for myself. Yes, I was totally concentrated and not in the least bit distracted.

Suddenly, the mist parted, and in front of me loomed the giant facade of Empire House.

Hell’s Whiskers! How did I get here?

Confused, I looked around and saw the familiar houses of Leadenhall Street. Had I walked all this way without noticing?

But I was much too focused for that, surely.

Ha, ha, ha. You are?

Quickly, I made my way up to the front door and past Sallow-face in the entrance hall. He still gave me suspicious looks whenever I passed by, and I didn’t like to subject myself to his scrutiny for too long, particularly when I was not at my best, performance-wise.

I climbed up the stairs.

They were very long stairs. I had noticed that already the first time I had climbed up to the higher realms of Empire House, but it impressed itself more particularly on my mind today. There were a lot of steps. And with every step, the question repeated itself:

What is he going to say?

What is he going to say?

What the bloody hell is he going to say?

By the time I had reached the upper landing, my head was ringing with the question. I hardly mumbled a ‘Good morning’ at Mr Stone in passing before I sneaked into my office and fled behind my desk. I wouldn’t go to him. If he wanted to say anything, he would have to come to me. And I wanted some solid protection between us when, or rather if, he did.

I didn’t have to wait long.

After only a few moments, I heard movement on the other side of the wall and tensed. My eyes snapped to the door that separated my office from that of Mr Ambrose.

I heard footsteps approach it from beyond. Sharp, hard footsteps. Footsteps with which I was, by now, very familiar.

Although I didn’t want it to, although I screamed at it to behave normally, screamed that there was nothing to be excited about, the beat of my heart picked up. The footsteps came closer and closer, finally stopping right in front of the separating door.

There was a moment of silence, then a faint jingling as of coins or keys - then the footsteps turned and retreated back to where they had come from. A chair scraped across the door in the neighbouring room.

What’s this? What is he doing, damn him?

He didn’t leave me a lot of time for wondering, or for damning. Two minutes later, a small metal container shot out of the pneumatic tube and landed with a plink next to me on the desk. I jumped and grabbed the thing, pulling out the message. It read:

Mr Linton,

You are three minutes late. This will be deducted from your wages at the end of the month.

Bring me file 38XI301.

Rikkard Ambrose

All right. So, at a guess I’d say he wasn’t pining with passionate love for me.

So he didn’t want me.

Ergo: the kiss never happened.

Well, so much the better. I wasn’t even a tiny bit disappointed. No, I wasn’t. After all, the fact that last night’s more… intimate occurrences had just been a dream had been what I had been trying to convince myself all the time. Now that I knew it was true, I ought to feel nothing but deep satisfaction.

Ought to, yes, but…

Hurriedly, I stood up and marched to the shelves of files. In no time at all, I had discovered the required document and transported it to the door. I reached for the doorknob, turned it - and almost ran headlong into a closed door. A very unladylike word escaped my lips as I stumbled back, the file clutched to my chest.

What the…!

I tried the door again. I hadn’t been mistaken. It was firmly and utterly locked.

‘Hey!’ With my free hand, I pounded against the heavy wood. ‘What’s the matter? Why is the door locked?’

Silence.

‘Didn’t you hear me? I said why is the door lock-’

A soft plink interrupted me. Turning my head, I saw that another metal cylinder had arrived on my desk. Mystified and annoyed, I stomped over to the desk and grabbed it. Now what would he have to say?

Because I locked it.

Rikkard Ambrose

I took a deep, cleansing breath, trying to calm my stormy temper. It didn’t work.

Crossing out the original with maybe a little bit more force than strictly necessary, I wrote under his message:

Dear Mr Ambrose,

And why did you do that?

Yours faithfully

Lilly Linton

Ha! I wondered what he was going to say now. Was he going to claim you could work more efficiently with all the doors locked? I wouldn’t put it past him, the stingy, stony old…!

Plink.

Ah!

Mr Linton,

It is a measure to further your abstinence and thereby the efficiency of your work. There is a liquor store only two streets away and a sweetshop selling solid chocolate right beside it. From your behaviour at the tavern, I deduced that keeping you locked up is the only way to prevent you from succumbing to irresistible urges.

Rikkard Ambrose

How on earth did he know I liked chocolate? Wait… irresistible urges? My eyes sparked!

I’ll give him irresistible urges!

Not alcoholic ones, though - the ones I was feeling right now tended more towards homicidal!

Still… there might be other kinds of irresistible urges, too. I blushed as, unbidden, memories flooded into my mind… soft skin pressing against my lips, moving, caressing…

Dreams! Hallucinations! The whole lot of them! Things like that would never happen in real life. In real life, Mr Ambrose didn’t go around kissing people. He went around bossing people around and locking them up.

I’d show him!

Fuming, I grabbed the next best bit of paper.

My very, very, very dear Mr Ambrose,

May I inform you that the strongest urge I feel at the moment has nothing whatsoever to do with alcohol, and everything to do with your disembowelment? OPEN THAT DOOR!

Your affectionate secretary

Lilly Linton

The answer wasn’t long in coming.

Mr Linton,

You may say anything you like as long as it distracts neither you nor me from working. The door stays locked.

Mr Ambrose

The obstinate…! But why was I wasting my time like this, anyway? I was in a superior position.

Dearest Mr Ambrose

You might not recall, but I have the necessary keys in my possession to open the aforementioned door. You gave them to me yourself. Therefore, I shall see you in a minute.

Yours affectionately,

Lilly Linton

I stuffed the message into the tube, pulled the lever and marched off triumphantly towards the door without waiting for an answer. My triumphant march was somewhat impeded, however, when my keys wouldn’t fit in the lock. I tried them again, and again. Still, they didn’t fit. Marching over to the other door, the one to the hallway, I tried to open this one, but discovered that it, too, had been locked, and my keys didn’t fit. By the time I had returned to the desk, another message had arrived.

Mr Linton,

I had the locks changed.

Rikkard Ambrose.

P.S. Affection is not among the services I require of you.

Heat rose to my cheeks on reading the last line. I had reached for the pen before I had started to think.

Dear Mr Ambrose,

I wonder you went to the expense of two new locks, simply for the sake of my abstinence! How wasteful of you.

Yours

Lilly Linton

P.S: If you do not require it, I shall not offer it.

Only half a minute later, his response arrived.

Mr Linton,

They were not new, but second-hand. I am still waiting for file 37VI288. Shove it under the door.

Rikkard Ambrose

I’d like to shove it up his…

Oh no. I didn’t want to have anything to do with his… Well, with that part of him. No matter how juicy it looked. Not even for shoving files up it.

Dear Mr Ambrose,

I demand to be let out immediately!

Yours

Lilly Linton

His reply was short and to the point. Who could have guessed?

Mr Linton,

You work for me, not the other way around. You cannot demand anything. Now bring me file 37VI288.

Rikkard Ambrose

What did I do? Yell? Hammer at the door in protest?

No.

I brought him the file.

I just managed it, all the while chanting in my head ‘Think of the money. Think of the independence it will bring you. Think of what you can do for Ella if all goes horribly wrong. You must have that money. You must.’

My chant was interrupted by the plink of another message arriving.

*~*~**~*~*

‘Mr Linton?’

‘Yes?’

I resurfaced from a mountain of files I was sorting through and looked around. But there was no one there.

‘Mr Linton? The door to your office is locked.’

It was Mr Stone’s voice, coming from the other side of the door leading to the hallway.

‘Yes, um… Mr Ambrose wanted me to lock it.’

‘Oh.’ From Mr Stone’s bewildered tone, I could tell he wanted to ask why but didn’t think it was worth the risk of arousing the wrath of Mr Ambrose. ‘Well, I have his letters here. Sorry for the delay, the postman got here late.’

‘I see. Can you just shove them under the door, please?’

‘Of course. See you later, Mr Linton.’

‘Yes, thank you, Mr Stone.’

Hurrying over to the door I grabbed the pile of letters and began to leaf through it. Business, business, business, charity (waste), charity (waste), more charity (definitely waste!), pink envelope-

My hands froze as I stared at the crest on the pink paper. Not another one of these!

Heat rushed to my cheeks as I stared at the name of the sender. Samantha Genevieve Ambrose. Already once before had I entertained the idea that this might be Mr Ambrose’s wife. The idea had irked me back then. It drove ice through my veins now.

Flashes of last night again appeared in front of my inner eye. His arms around me, his lips on mine - no, no, no! It had all been a hallucination. What did it matter if he was married? He and I hadn’t engaged in amorous c-

Well, we had certainly done nothing that non-married people weren’t supposed to do. All this existed only in my head, it had been a dream.

Quickly, I ran over to my desk and stuffed the pink envelope into the drawer, to keep the others of its kind company. The old saying said ‘out of sight, out of mind’. I slammed the drawer shut and took a deep breath.

And soon I discovered that the old saying was complete poppycock.

*~*~**~*~*

I would like to be able to say I worked like a slave that day, but it wouldn’t be true. Slaves are shouted at, and probably whipped, too. I, for my part, was simply badgered to death with little bits of paper. The latter method turned out to be quite as effective as the former, though. He kept me at it for about three or four hours without one pause or break. And if that wasn’t enough, thoughts of the letter tormented me ceaselessly. And the hallucinatory kiss! And… and… finally it started to feel like it all built up as a physical pressure, growing inside me. It built and built, waiting to be released-

Until I finally realized that it didn’t just feel like a physical pressure. It was physical pressure.

Oops.

‘Mr Ambrose?’ Marching up to the connecting door, I hammered against the wood. ‘Mr Ambrose, I have to use the powder room. Now.’

Silence.

‘If you don't let me use it, I’m going to pee in the waste paper basket,’ I threatened.

That worked. Footsteps approached, and keys jingled in the look. A moment later, the door opened and he stood before me: Mr Rikkard Ambrose in all his cold, stony glory. His eyes were like dark pools of unfathomable deep water. His mouth could have been carved from granite. And his lips…

Luckily, my bladder took my thoughts off that subject fast.

‘Finally!’ I hissed. ‘What the dickens do you mean by locking me up like this? Are you-’

He interrupted me with a curt motion of the hand towards the powder room.

‘Get in.’

I would have liked to stay and argue, but my pressing need was becoming ever more pressing. Oh well, I could always argue afterwards.

Two minutes later I sat on cool ceramic, sighing in contentment - probably the first time ever I had felt contentment within the walls of Empire House, 322 Leadenhall Street.

As my feeling of contentment slowly faded, my thoughts drifted to Mr Ambrose’s behaviour. I couldn’t make head or tail of it. Why would he lock me in like this? To prevent me from drinking and thus being distracted from my work? But that was preposterous! If I were in danger of becoming a drunkard, if I were to run away and succumb to alcohol during my work hours, then he would have the perfect excuse to dismiss me - exactly what he had been waiting for all along. So why should he try to prevent that? To want to keep me from drinking to excess, that wasn’t the act of an employer for whom one employee was like another, easily exchangeable. It sounded more like the act of somebody who cared about my safety…

Who cared about me.

I slammed the door on that thought immediately. I slammed it so hard I almost thought I heard the sound of a door shut with my actual ears.

Then, when I heard Karim’s voice from outside the powder room, I realized I had heard a door shut: the door of Mr Ambrose’s office!

‘Sahib?’

Mr Ambrose’s reply was unintelligible. His cool voice was much quieter than the rumble of the mountainous Mohammedan.

Quickly, I jumped up and pulled up my trousers. This male outfit was pretty nifty. Had I been in a dress and crinoline, it would have taken me a quarter of an hour to get up from the toilet. As it was, I was up and across the room in a few seconds, my ear pressed against the keyhole.

‘…perimeter is watched closely, Sahib. We have been asking questions - it seems, no unusual shipments have gone out.’

‘So it might be that the file is still there?’

My ears grew to the size of bat ears. They were talking about the stolen file!

‘Yes, Sahib.’

Yes! Dalgliesh hadn’t gotten away with it yet, that slimy little… incredibly powerful peer of the British Empire.

‘And what about the house itself? Number 97, East India Dock Road?’

That was it! That was the address I had discovered. I remembered that much from last night and knew that this part had not been a dream.

‘It is better guarded than the Queen’s hulks, Sahib. Men with swords and guns are everywhere, some even professional soldiers. Something is in there, that much is sure.’

‘I see. We will go ahead as planned then.’

Go in? As planned?

Was there something planned? And if so, what? And most importantly, why hadn’t I been told? It had been I who discovered the ruddy place, after all!

‘Be ready in three days. I shall need all the things on list I gave you by then.’

Three days? And then… what? What were they going to do? Just march up to the doorstep and demand that they be given back the file? No, that couldn’t be it. But the only other explanation could be…

A shiver went down my back.

Secret preparations. Scouting. These words sounded familiar. They sounded like something you would do when you were planning something illegal.

‘Sahib… I must once more raise the matter of-’

‘No! Karim, we discussed this.’

‘Still, Sahib, going in there by yourself…’

Violently, I jerked away from the keyhole and stared at it in disbelief. But as soon as they started speaking again, I pressed my ear back against the metal. Surely I could not have heard right!

‘I have always done what needed doing myself.’

He had? Damn and blast the arrogant bastard!

‘Yes, you have, Sahib. In the colonies, when we were dealing with bandits, and gold-diggers and other fools who thought too highly of themselves. This is an operation of Dalgliesh’s, Sahib.’ Karim’s voice hesitated. ‘You know what happened the last time you faced him, Sahib.’

The silence that erupted on the other side of the door could have cut iron.

What? What happened? Lord Dalgliesh and Mr Ambrose have met before? Go on! What happened? I want to know!

Silence.

Speak up, blast you!

Silence.

Then, a voice. But not the one I had been hoping to hear.

‘I… am sorry, Sahib.’

‘I will go alone.’ Mr Ambrose voice was as cutting and cold as his silence had been. ‘Who else can I trust to do it right?’

‘You can trust me, Sahib.’ If I wasn’t very much mistaken, I could hear something like hurt in the bearded mountain’s voice.

‘I know. Which is why I need you to say here to keep an eye on things.’

‘I… Very well. As you wish, Sahib.’

To the dickens with the Sahib’s wishes! Mr Ambrose was not going alone! I was going to stick with him, if it was the last thing I did!

If there had been other men in the room, they might have exchanged a few pleasantries before breaking up the meeting. But I had learned enough about Mr Ambrose by now to know that he wasn’t given to chatter. Karim left the room, and I hastily got up off the powder room floor, dusted off my knees and cracked the door open, peeking out.

Mr Ambrose was sitting behind his desk. When I entered, he looked up from the papers he was studying, meeting my gaze coolly. I had to catch my breath when I looked into his eyes. How come I had never noticed quite how beautiful their deep, dark depths were until this moment?

‘You heard.’ It was a statement, not a question.

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Then forget what you heard.’

‘I cannot do that, Sir.’

‘Oh? I gave you an order.’

‘You can take your order and stick it up your- um, I mean you can take your order and feed it to the ducks in Green Park! I’m coming with you!’

There was no need to say when and where. We both knew what I was referring to.

‘No.’

‘Yes, I am!’

‘No, you are not.’ His eyes glittered with frost. ‘Mr Linton - believe me when I say that if we could recapture the file by excessive consumption of alcohol, you would be in the front lines. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and I therefore decline your request.’

‘It was no request! I can’t let you go in there alone!’

‘You can, and you will.’

Dear God! Had he always been like this? Was this why his wife had left him and was bombarding him with pink letters? Were they living apart? But why would she be sending him letters if they were parted?

Although I had to admit to my shame that, in her place, I might be sending him letters, too, just to have him snap back at me.

In defiance, I shook my head. ‘I won’t let you go alone! I won’t!’

‘Yes, you will.’

‘But…’ For some reason my voice was unsteady. ‘But Karim said… he said armed guards. You could be hurt out there or… or killed.’

Silence.

‘At least tell me what it is,’ I pleaded. ‘Tell me what that damned file is! Tell me what is worth risking your life for!’

The silence stretched between us as we gazed at each other.

He swallowed.

‘You want to know what’s in the file?’ he asked, his voice like a raw winter blizzard. ‘You really want to know?’

‘Yes.’ My voice - small, tense, expectant - was nothing like his.

‘In the file,’ he said, ‘is the centre of the world.’