Artemis did not even glance at the numbers.
‘Money is no object. We can set up a wire transfer right now from my Swiss bank. In five minutes you can have a hundred thousand pounds sitting in your personal account. All I need is a unit for a single night.’
The figure was impressive. Constance thought of all the nips and tucks it would buy. But she was still reluctant…
‘Generally minors are not allowed to commit relatives to our chambers. It’s the law actually.’
Artemis leaned forward.
‘Doctor Lane. Constance. What I’m doing here is not exactly legal, but no one is being hurt either. One night and you’re a rich woman. This time tomorrow and I was never here. No bodies, no complaints.’
The doctor’s hand fingered her jaw line.
‘One night?’
‘Just one. You won’t even know we’re here.’
Constance took a hand mirror from her desk drawer, studying her reflection closely.
‘Call your bank,’ she said.
STONEHENGE, WILTSHIRE
Two LEP chutes emerged in the south of England. One in London itself, but that was closed to the public due to the fact that Chelsea Football Club had built their grounds five hundred metres above the shuttle port.
The other port was in Wiltshire, beside what humans referred to as Stonehenge. Mud People had several theories as to the origins of the structure. These ranged from spaceship landing port to pagan centre of worship. The truth was far less glamorous. Stonehenge had actually been an outlet for a flat-bread-based food. Or, in human terms, a pizza parlour.
A gnome called Bog had realized how many tourists forgot their sandwiches on above-ground jaunts, and so had set up shop beside the terminal. It was a smooth operation. You drove up to one of the windows, named your toppings, and ten minutes later you were stuffing your face. Of course, Bog had to shift his operation below ground once humans began talking in full sentences. And anyway, all that cheese was making the ground soggy. A couple of the service windows had even collapsed.
It was difficult for fairy civilians to get visas to visit Stonehenge because of the constant activity on the surface. Then again, hippies saw fairies every day and it never made the front page. As a police officer, Holly didn’t have a visa problem; one flash of the Recon badge opened a hole right through to the surface.
But being a Recon officer didn’t help if there was no magma flare scheduled. And the Stonehenge chute had been dormant for over three centuries. Not a spark. In the absence of a hotshot to ride, Holly was forced to travel aboard a commercial shuttle.
The first available shuttle was heavily booked, but luckily there was a late cancellation so Holly wasn’t forced to bump a passenger.
The shuttle was a fifty-seater luxury cruiser. It had been commissioned especially by the Brotherhood of Bog to visit their patron’s site. These fairies, mostly gnomes, dedicated their lives to pizza and every year on the anniversary of Bog’s first day in business, they chartered a shuttle and took a picnic above ground. The picnic consisted of pizza, tuber beer and pizza-flavoured ice cream. Needless to say, they did not remove their rubber pizza bonnets for the entire day.
So, for sixty-seven minutes, Holly sat wedged between two beer-swilling gnomes singing the pizza song:
Pizza, pizza,
Fill up your face,
The thicker the pastry,
The better the base!
There were a hundred and fourteen verses. And it didn’t get any better. Holly had never been happier to see the Stonehenge landing lights.
The actual terminal was pretty comprehensive, boasting a three-lane visa clearance booth, entertainment complex and duty-free shopping. The current souvenir craze was a Mud Man hippy doll that said, ‘Peace, man,’ when you pressed its tummy.
Holly badged her way through the customs queue, taking a security elevator to the surface. Stonehenge had become easier to exit recently, because the Mud People had put up fencing. The humans were protecting their heritage, or so they thought. Strange that Mud People seemed more concerned about the past than the present.
Holly strapped on her wings, and once the control booth had given her the go-ahead, she cleared the airlock, soaring to a height of seven thousand feet. There was plenty of cloud cover, but nevertheless she activated her shield. Nothing could spot her now; she was invisible to human and mechanical eyes. Only rats and two species of monkey could see through a fairy shield.
Holly switched on the on-board navigator in the wings’ computer and let the rig do the steering for her. It was nice to be above ground again, and at sunset too. Her favourite time of day. A slow smile spread across her face. In spite of the situation, she was content. This was what she was born to do. Recon. With the wind against her visor and a challenge between her teeth.