God Save the Queen

CHAPTER 15

I BEHELD THE WRETCH – THE MISERABLE MONSTER WHOM I HAD CREATEDI woke up with my hair clotted with blood and the remnants of a nasty gash healing on my scalp – I felt it when I lifted a hand to massage away what I thought was nothing more than a bit of a headache. My fingers came away sticky.

“What the …?” I muttered and opened my eyes. I regretted that move instantly. Someone had positioned a goose-neck lamp over me so that its light glared directly into my face.

“F*cking hell!” I cried, clenching my eyelids shut. Light continued to pulse and dance behind them, even though it was dark inside my head. It hurt – those glowing orbs smashing off the sides of my skull.

“You okay, Xandy?”

I didn’t open my eyes again. “What is this, Dede?”

I heard her come closer – felt her presence hovering nearby. More goblin genes kicking in, I suppose.

Fang me. I was a goblin. They ate children, for Christ’s sake! They were practically animals. And yet they’d been good to me. I had never witnessed a goblin acting like a monster. In fact, aside from Vex, the prince had treated me with more respect and kindness than members of my own family. What did that mean?

“We needed to make sure you wouldn’t fly off the handle when you woke up,” she explained. “The light was my idea.”

“Turn it off.”

“Can’t. Sorry, but you hurt Fee pretty bad.”

Shit. Ophelia. “Is she all right?” The words stuck in my throat.

“She will be. Fang me, Xandy, you could have killed her.”

Instead of making me contrite, the censure in her tone had the opposite effect. “I wanted to kill her.”

“Oh.” Disappointment dripped from her tone. “I guess that’s what goblins do.”

I snorted, pressing a hand over my eyes to create a comforting shade of black beneath my lids. “I’ve always been a goblin, Dee.” My tongue tripped over the words. Admitting it out loud was … difficult. “I’ve never killed anyone before – not with my teeth, at any rate.” I could still taste my half-sister’s blood on my tongue, faint but agonisingly delicious. I should feel sick about it. I didn’t.

Blood was blood. Meat was meat. It was all good, right?

“I’ve never seen you like that before. I’ve never been as afraid of you as I was when I saw your face covered in Ophelia’s blood.”

My stomach turned ever so slightly. I reckoned I felt a little guilty after all. The thought was strangely comforting. “So you smashed me over the head and carried me down to the cells.”

I could almost imagine her frown. “How do you know we’re in the cells?”

“I can smell it, hear it.” Now I knew what I was, it was so much easier to tap into these awakening senses. I’d dampened my hearing and sense of smell a long time ago. It was just a matter of paying attention now. “We’re below ground. It’s the worst place you could have brought a goblin. Anyone would know that.” I’d wager she stiffened at that jibe.

“I reckon it will hold you well enough.”

“Turn off the light, Dede.”

“No.”

I sighed. “My head hurts” – that was almost a lie, as it was healing rapidly – “I’m calm, and I’m sure you have a weapon loaded with lovely silver bullets, so turn off the light.”

“Juliet said …”

As she spoke, I reached up to where I knew the light was, and crushed the bulb with my bare hand. It burned like a bastard, and I caught little bits of hot glass in the face, but at least it was reasonably dark.

Dede gasped. I sat up, pushing the now useless object of torture out of my way. I shook off the splinters of glass before opening my eyes. There was a dim lamp in the far corner, giving off just enough light that I could see perfectly and my eyeballs didn’t feel like they were being skewered.

“What time is it?” I demanded.

My sister sat as far back as she could in a rickety chair, her knees drawn up in front of her like a shield. Protection from me. As though her thin little legs could stop me. She didn’t even have her gun pointed at me. Her fear awakened the goblin in me, but it sickened the part that was still her big sister. “It’s ten o’clock in the evening.”

So I’d been out for a while. “I’m leaving.” Avery would wonder where I was. Vex too. There were probably messages from both on my rotary.

“You can’t leave.” She jumped to her feet, tried to position herself between me and the door as I stood.

I stopped. “Are you telling me I’m a prisoner, Dede? Are you choosing Bedlam over me?”

Her wide jade eyes filled with tears, but she kept her chin up, bless her poor f*cked-up heart. “I don’t want to. Please don’t make me.”

“Move, dearest.” Being locked up in Bedlam was a cut too close to the vein for me. I had to get out of there. Ophelia was going to be all right and I was grateful for that, but I couldn’t stay here after what I’d done, knowing what I was. I had to go home, to my last scrap of normality.

To my surprise, Dede stepped out of my way, and I crossed the worn Morris-print carpet to the door.

There was no handle or knob, just a smooth length of titanium-reinforced steel.

“Told you there was no leaving.”

She sounded a little too smug for my liking. Obviously she thought she was right, but I remembered looking at these cells last time I was here. I stepped back, lifted my leg and sent the door flying with one good kick. The bones in my foot and shin shuddered in pain, but it faded to a dull ebb in half a second.

I shot my stunned sibling a triumphant glance. “You put me in a cage designed to hold halvies, but I’m not a halvie, Dede.” With that perfect bit of melodramatic dialogue delivered, I walked out, carefully stepping over the fallen door. In the corridor I could hear the growing agitation of the halvies kept down here. I had scared them, all these pitiful creatures.

I paused in front of the door of the cell where the girl who had been raped by goblins was kept. Was I just another of “their” halvie experiments? Just who the bloody hell were they? Aristos?

Yes. If ever there was a time for me to wake up and smell the tea brewing, it was this moment. No more excuses or blindfolds. I was a goblin and my father knew it, or at least had suspicions that his child was a mutant, a monstrous birth defect.

But I didn’t look like one. That was why I had been allowed to live as I had. Watched. Studied. Simon had been killed to protect the secret. It would be such a scandal if the truth got out.

I was like Duncan MacLaughlin after all, only I had my father’s rank to protect me. And Churchill. He had kept me close. No need to lock me in a cage when they could just take my blood and watch every move I made.

Dede chased after me, and caught me at the lift. “I really don’t think you should go home right now.”

“Worried I’ll hurt someone else? Relax, I’m in total control of myself.” And I had things to do. People to see, such as Churchill.

“I am worried, but you also have blood all over you.”

I paused. “Fine. I know you have at least one shirt in your cupboard that belongs to me.”

We got into the ancient lift together and rode up to the first floor. There were a few halvies and humans milling about. They all looked at me as though they’d cheerfully slit my throat but were terrified to try. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation, and I felt for the dagger in my corset. It was still there. Thankfully no one had the bollocks to take me on, or perhaps they’d been ordered to give me a wide berth. I didn’t care. I had a reputation as a skilled scrapper before this. That made sense now too. As did the blood the prince had given me. It wasn’t vampire or werewolf – it had been goblin blood. It hadn’t made me sick because it – or a mutated flavour of it – ran through my own veins. I was a goblin, but unlike any other goblins I knew of.

Just what was I capable of?

Gobbing out had put everything in clear, cold perspective. Little things from the past tallied up – my strength, speed, senses … I was a freak who shouldn’t have made it outside of the womb. If I didn’t do something, and word of that got out, someone was going to kill me.

Dede’s room was almost exactly above my mother’s office. She gave me a clean shirt – one of mine, just as I suspected – and I used her loo to clean up. No wonder her insurgent mates had looked at me that way. My hair was a wild tangle of vivid red, and my pale face was covered in the rust of dried blood from the nose down. Similar stains marked the front of my kit.

I removed my corset – which was thankfully reversible – and then ran water in the sink to wash with. Once reasonably clean, I put on the fresh shirt and turned my corset round the other way. I borrowed some of Dede’s make-up and a hairbrush. I exited the toilet to find her sitting on her bed, sending a digigram on her portable logic engine. About me? Unfortunately, goblins couldn’t read minds.

“Ophelia’s going to be fine,” she informed me. “Luckily, you didn’t rip her open when you bit her.”

I swallowed hard at the bitter taste rising in the back of my mouth. I’d attacked my sister and liked it – not hurting her, but the blood. I didn’t want to talk about it. “Good. Look, I’m sorry.”

She arched a brow. If not for that terrible black hair, it would be like looking in a mirror. “Tell that to Ophelia.”

“That’s not what I meant.” I tossed my bloodstained shirt into the rubbish bin by her dressing table. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe it when you told me what happened to your baby. I should have been there for you and I wasn’t. If you choose this place and its people over your family, I don’t blame you.”

Her face fell. Surprise? Anguish? A combination, probably. Now might not have been the best time for me to play the big-sister card, but I didn’t know if I’d get the opportunity later. There was a good chance that I wasn’t long for this world – a risk all Royal Guard and Peerage Protectorate accepted with the job; I just never thought I’d actually find myself facing the prospect of being hunted into an early grave.

I didn’t want to die, but I’d prefer that to being someone’s lab rat, or ending up like one of the halvies in Bedlam’s basement.

“Thank you,” Dede whispered, wiping at her eyes, mobile forgotten. I went to her, gathered her against my stomach and held her for a moment, stroking her hair as she cried. From this angle, I could see a little root growth, and the true copper of her hair peeked through the dull black. It made me smile for some reason, even though everything was pretty much shit.

“What are you going to do?” she asked me a few moments later. Her voice was thick and nasal.

“Eventually I’ll have to try to make it right with Ophelia.” I might not like her much, but she didn’t deserve what I’d done. “But for now, I’m going home.” It was an outrageous lie, and she believed it.

“Be careful, Xandy.”

“I will,” I lied again, and kissed her on the forehead. “I love you.” I hugged her tightly, and was hugged back. There was a finality to it that unsettled me. It would be a long time before I came back to Bedlam, if ever. My mother might run the place, but I’d proven myself … unstable. And they had proven themselves untrustworthy. They were afraid of me, and that meant they would immediately make arrangements to protect themselves from me. Just in case, of course.

And really, weren’t traitors the last thing I needed right now, what with everything else?

Leaving Dede was difficult, but I did it. She walked me out so no one would attempt retribution for what I’d done to Ophelia. Seemed my big sis was a tad popular in the asylum. In a fair fight I had no doubt that I could take a handful of them, but there were too many to face alone, no matter how tough I might think I was.

I walked past the glares without a sideways glance or flicker of expression. I deserved their hatred and fear. I’d done a horrible thing, and my only consolation was that I hadn’t killed Ophelia. My attack on her hadn’t been provoked; it had been the behavior of an animal.

That was as far as I could think about it. My head was swimming, trying to figure out what to do next. Confront Church? My father? Run to Vex? Go home and hide under my bed?

It was dark when I stepped outside – good and dark. My eyes seemed to prefer that to the brightness of Bedlam. I could see better than before, my sight sharper than a cat’s. It was as though Ophelia’s blood had awakened more of the goblin in me. F*cking brilliant.

The Butler was where I left it, and I climbed on. I pulled on my goggles, turned the key in the ignition and drove towards Mayfair, my mind churning over events with an eerie calm that I knew would eventually dissolve. Shock never lasted as long as you wished it might.

There was rain in the air as I drove. The moisture clung to my face and hair, dampened my clothes. It felt good – soothing. By the time I arrived at the walls of the Mayfair district, I was wet all the way to the skin and my hair hung in damp clumps around my face. The guards at the main gates didn’t even blink at the sight of me. I had to swipe my badge, leaving a computer log of my visit, but that was the very least of my worries. I didn’t even care that they patted me down.

I drove to Down Street and parked in front of the old station. It didn’t feel so foreboding or frightening now. It was almost like coming home. I liked that it was dark, and quiet. Neglected.

How long before people started to avoid me? I wouldn’t be able to keep my … condition a secret for long, would I? If the papers got wind of me attacking someone … well, details like traitors hiding in Bedlam might be omitted without difficulty, especially by a sympathetic human. Who would care about the source when the story involved the daughter of a duke?

I glanced up at the sign above the door. I wasn’t about to abandon all hope, not yet. The heavy door creaked as I pushed it open. I crossed the threshold and let the door slowly obliterate what little light slipped in from outside as it closed. I gave my eyes a second to adjust before jogging down the debris-dusted stairs.

I was home.

There wasn’t any merriment tonight. No one tried to give me fruit. There were no writhing humans. I wished there were. My heart hammered even harder than it had the first time I came down here. It was quiet. Where were the humans? There were miles and mazes of tunnels beneath London. The humans could be anywhere. Had they been killed? Eaten?

Would I be invited to stay for dinner? My stomach rumbled. F*ck, but I was twisted.

As I entered the great hall, I saw rows of furry bodies sitting on the floor in front of the prince’s throne. The sconces filling the room touched its broken pillars and remnants of Roman habitation with a mellow golden glow that didn’t offend sensitive eyes. Fires burned in hearths set into each well. The prince was in his seat of bone, reading to the gathered goblins from an old leatherbound book. I stood very still, listening to his raspy growl of a voice as he read. He read better than he spoke, and Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones was met with eager expressions.

They hadn’t noticed me come in. Or they’d been expecting me. I wasn’t sure which explanation was more – or less – comforting.

I stood at the back of the room, letting the heat from a nearby fire warm my damp skin and the prince’s voice push reality away for a few moments. When he was done reading, his audience clapped – the leathery slapping of paws – and when he lifted his head to look at me, every goblin in that hall turned to do the same.

I was a rabbit staring down a pack of drooling dingos. They tipped back their heads and sniffed the air, muzzles open, tasting my scent.

My mouth was dry, and I licked my lips – it was like dragging carpet over pressboard for all the moisture it dispersed.

The prince rose from his throne with that shark smile and came towards me with his bizarre gait that seemed both graceful and awkward at the same time. He didn’t look as though he should be able to walk on two feet, but he did it very well. I had no doubt that he could move just as easily, if not better, on all fours.

“Lady,” he greeted me. “You honour the plague.”

“I haven’t any tribute, Prince. I apologise.”

He tilted his head to one side, amber eye watching me closely. “No need for tribute, lady. No need.”

He was being so cordial – more than usual. My stomach dropped several inches. “You know. What I am, you know.”

The prince tapped the ragged leather patch over his right eye. “Since lady first met the prince. We have waited years for truth to find the pretty.”

I appreciated that he hadn’t denied it, or outright lied. Every one of these goblins had to know what I was. Didn’t they? When Avery accused me of smelling like wet goblin, was she smelling the den, or me? “Do I smell?” I asked, unable to stop myself.

“Like plague?” He seemed surprised that I asked. When I nodded, he added, “Little. Unique. Wild. Smell like … hope.”

What the bloody hell did hope smell like? It was a nice sentiment, but utterly useless in this situation. Still, I didn’t say anything. Better not to anger him. I wasn’t sure just how my being a goblin changed our relationship, but he might see me as a subject now rather than an equal. Who was I kidding? As far as gobs went, he had no equal – that was why he was the prince. I might be a goblin, but I didn’t fit in here any more than I did cobbleside.

“Now your scent is blood.” His gaze brightened. “You’ve fed.”

Fang me. Heat rushed to my cheeks while my stomach revolted. “Yes. I’m not proud of it, Prince. I could have killed her – my own sister.”

He patted my shoulder. The pads of his palm – paw? – were rough enough that I could hear them scratch the fabric of my coat. “That happened not, did it? All is well.”

“All is well?” I echoed, anger seeping into my tone. “I’m a bloody freak. That is not well!”

He scowled, and for a second my heart literally stopped, I was certain of it. “Not freak. Pure blood.” As he spoke, he swept his arm wide to encompass the hall and all its occupants, who had now risen and stood watching the two of us as raptly as they’d listened to the prince read.

“The Xandra lady is plague’s hope,” he went on. “Hope to one day see sun. To bring plague cobbleside. One day all plague will be as pretty as you.”

Good Lord, they saw me as some sort of Chosen One! I was not going to mate with goblins. I didn’t care if I was one. That would break me for sure. Just the thought of it was enough to make me borderline hysterical.

“I’m not your saviour.”

The prince smiled – without teeth – and did not argue. I didn’t quite trust him. “One of us. Gave you dead friend as proof of plague loyalty. Now I tell you ’twas the Churchill’s scent on the dead friend.”

I stared at him. “Churchill killed Simon? Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Xandra lady would not have believed.”

He was right – I wouldn’t have. I wasn’t altogether sure I believed it now. I always had a tendency to believe what I wanted, and despite the bullets and this admission, I wanted to think the best of Church.

“The plague has proof,” the prince continued. “Surveillance of the Churchill leaving the halvie in the tunnels. Not the first he’s left.”

I didn’t want to know that. Ophelia had said Church was involved in experiments on halvies. I just couldn’t believe it, yet I’d seen the results in the dungeon at Bedlam. Goblins had been involved too …

I lifted my chin. “Did you know about the experiments?”

He shook his shaggy head. “Heard. Lost brethren to bastards. Never found where. One thing the plague does not know.”

So halvies weren’t the only targets. The people behind those atrocities better hope the goblins never found them, if the expression on the prince’s face was any indication.

They would keep records of their experiments, right? In case one happened to yield favourable results.

Like me.

I needed proof, or no one would ever believe me. The entire world thought my mother went hatters, my sister too. They’d believe it of me in a heartbeat. But if I could prove that these things were happening, then I just might survive this.

I’d start with Church. If he was involved – and I had to face the fact that he was – then he might have copies. There must be something linking him, surely?

I’d thought he loved me. Cared about me. I respected him more than I respected my own father. Hell, I thought of him as a father. The thought of him betraying me … it made me angry. So f*cking angry. Anger was good. I could work with anger. Anger kept my head out of my arse.

“I have to go,” I told the prince. Then another thought occurred to me. “Is there any way for me to get to Churchill’s without using the streets?” Even without the Butler, I was a familiar sight around these parts. Being spotted in Down Street was one thing, but I didn’t want anyone to remember seeing me around Churchill’s tonight.

The prince nodded. “Your prince will take you.”

“I’m not your responsibility. You don’t have to take me.”

He looked affronted. “Xandra lady is my responsibility. The prince is her servant.”

If he’d turned on me and bitten off my nose I would have been less surprised. “You are the prince of goblins,” I informed him softly. “You serve no one.” No, that wasn’t completely true, since the leader of each race – Vex for wolves, the Prince of Wales for vamps, the Prime Minister for humans, and the goblin prince – technically answered to Queen V, but the goblins had always been a bit of a wild card that way.

Would I still be knighted when Her Majesty learned what I was? Right now, it wasn’t much of a priority.

“Nice words,” the goblin replied in that crackling tone that made him sound like a prepubescent nightmare. “But untrue. Come, lady. Follow your prince.”

“You really are my prince,” I said as we began to walk. “At first I thought you were simply arrogant.”

I walked on the side of his good eye, so I didn’t miss the glance he shot me. “Not arrogant. Certain. Hmm, maybe a little arrogant.”

Was that humour?

“Do you eat all the bodies they toss down here?” I asked as we left the great hall and began to walk deeper into the den. A broken bone – a femur – lay against one wall. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous. I’d be stupid to forget that this was one mass grave.

“Meat is meat,” he replied, as he had the other night at my house. “We cannot hunt far. Must take what is offered.”

“Why not cats and dogs?”

“Would pretty rather eat cat or human?”

“Human,” I replied immediately. Fang me, but I was a monster too. The idea of eating a poor little cat …

He must have read my expression, because he nodded. “Much we consume is carrion, but the plague won’t hunt what cannot fight.”

“You’re goblin. Nothing can fight you.”

He barked low – laughter, I realised. “Now who is arrogant?” He gestured to the leather where his eye had been. “Some things can fight.”

That took the mood down a notch or two. “I’m sorry. He shot you because of me.”

“The Churchill shot because he was afraid for the girl. No apologies for love.”

I snorted. “He shot me too.” Although I still clung to the hope that it had been an accident.

His fingers curled around mine, rough and warm. He squeezed – like a father might, like my mother used to. “Worry not. The plague will protect. Plague is family.”

Right. Not sure how I felt about that, so I kept my mouth shut. I held his hand for a bit, though. It was comforting, strange as that might sound. Creepy, too.

“I’m supposed to be knighted,” I said. I wasn’t sure why I told him this. “I should be celebrating.”

“The lady cannot be knighted.” He said this with such gravity I sighed. His concern for my safety was too overwhelming. I couldn’t even respond.

We walked about a quarter of a mile, perhaps a little more, before the prince pushed on a door concealed in the stone wall. It slid open to reveal another tunnel – an old service route perhaps. Sewer, or waterway. Light from the street above slipped in through the manhole in the roof. The prince squinted at it, but seemed otherwise unaffected. It didn’t bother me, but then I spent most of my time above ground.

I could hear traffic, rather than the deep rumble of trains. There were few motor carriages in Mayfair, though certain aristos did own them. Here, the streets bustled with carts and coaches, and smelled of horse shit and hay.

“Here,” the prince said, pointing to a rusted ladder bolted into the pitted brick wall. “Up to Berkeley Square.”

“Brilliant.” Church lived in Berkeley Square. “Thank you. For everything.” Some part of my brain resisted being grateful, insisting that goblins were the root of all my troubles, but I hadn’t time to feel sorry for myself. Maybe I’d do that later. Right now, I was simply keenly aware that the prince had come through for me every time I needed him, and even when I hadn’t.

He amazed me by bowing over my hand. “Have a care, lady. Pretty blood could start a war if spilled.”

I swallowed. “You would go to war for me?”

“All the plagues in Britain would fight for the lady.”

“I wouldn’t want that.” The idea of it made me sick. A goblin attack would decimate the city. It would be like setting sharks on a tank of seals.

He patted my shoulder. “Then do not die.” This was followed by that terrible grin, only instead of shuddering, I smiled back. Then I climbed the ladder, opened the manhole cover enough to make certain I wasn’t going to get trampled by a team of horses, and exited to the square.

Old-fashioned street lights lit the pavements and gardens. They weren’t gas-operated any more, but like most aspects of the past, the aesthetic was kept. The street was lined with mansions – some original, some new, and the rest memorials to those who were long gone. These houses had no entail, their owners being the last of their line, and were never rebuilt. Over the last twenty years or so, a few had been razed. Some foreign and lesser aristos had begun to build homes on the land – all in an architectural style at least a century old. It probably didn’t look much different than it had prior to ’32.

Church’s house was one of these newer dwellings. He had a family house in the country somewhere, but Mayfair was where he spent the majority of his time. His house was a lovely cream stone building that seemed incredibly large for one person to live in, but I supposed he planned on marrying one day.

If anyone would take him. Many aristo women would see it as marrying down to attach themselves to him.

I approached the house from the back. I scaled the stone wall and crept along the top of it until I was in jumping distance of the house. The grounds would be protected by alarms, as would the house itself, but I knew how to get in.

I jumped from the wall and sailed through the damp night to the balcony. I caught the balustrade and hauled myself over. The French doors were unlocked, letting me inside easily. Of course, once I was in, they shut and locked automatically. I had less than thirty seconds to disarm the alarm before an armoured unit of RGs arrived to riddle me full of holes. Quickly I crossed the carpet to the panel near the main door. I punched in 1-9-1-8-5-4 – Church’s mother’s birth date – and breathed a sigh of relief when the tiny red light stopped flashing.

This was Church’s bedroom. It was neat to the point of obsessiveness. I would find nothing pertaining to me here. The old man kept his life in neat little compartments. I would be business, and therefore all information about me would be in his office, where his best security was housed.

I eased open the door to the corridor and peered out. Empty. As far as I knew, he didn’t keep many servants, and that would work in my favour. Chances were that I wouldn’t be seen at all. Slowly, I stepped out and ran down the hall. The thick carpet muffled my haste until I reached the door to his study.

He purposely kept his office on a higher floor so it was more difficult to get to – and so he would stand a better chance of saving things if we ever had another insurrection. I’d laughed at him for being paranoid; now that I knew insurgents were out there, I realised he was only being smart.

There was another alarm panel here on the cream-coloured wallpaper. This one had a keyboard of letters. I punched in LEONARD – Church’s middle name – before using a hairpin to turn the tumblers in the old-fashioned lock. The alarm had to be turned off before the door could be opened. I knew all of this handy information because I’d seen him enter it enough times. I was surprised he hadn’t changed it. I supposed he didn’t see me as a threat. Maybe he thought I was too dumb, or perhaps he thought I’d be afraid.

Or maybe I was doing exactly what he wanted me to.

I opened the door. The lamp on the desk was on, so I didn’t have to switch on the other lights. This was the tricky bit. I might know how to get around his alarms, but I had no idea where he kept his valuable documents.

Then I spotted it. It was a painting he’d purchased in Germany by some insipid painter named Adolf. He liked it because he said it was so very human. I never understood the appeal of a country church scene. It wasn’t as though we lacked for those in England.

I crossed the room to the painting and pulled on the frame. It came away from the wall on hinges, revealing a safe behind it. A little too easy, perhaps, but then this was the one thing I did not have the code for.

I tried Church’s birthday, and his mother’s again. I tried the date of the Great Insurrection. I searched his office for clues and tried any and all combinations I could think of. I wasted half an hour doing this. Had I sneaked in here for nothing? I could not leave empty-handed. I’d sit behind that f*cking desk and wait for him to get home if I had to. I was not leaving without answers.

In a fit of what I supposed was arrogance, or simply futility, I tried my own birthday. The door to the safe swung open.

What the bloody hell? This was too wrong. Fortunate, of course, but so very unsettling. I shook the creep off my skin and removed a ledger and a stack of files from the interior of the safe.

The files had names on them – some I recognised and others I did not. I stopped when I found one that read VARDAN, ALEXANDRA ELIZABETH. It was at least two inches thick, and worn, as though someone had gone through it on a regular basis.

I opened it. A photo of me taken earlier this year for my RG badge was clipped to the inside cover. These were the documents that my hospital files lacked. On top were pages that made very little sense to me, with all their medical jargon, but it was clear that they contained blood-work results. My throat tightened at the sight of the name at the bottom of the results – and the smear of blood across it.

Simon Halstead.