As Pawn Dunkeld ushered them inside, Odette could see three strapping men and an equally strapping woman lifting the unconscious Rook out of the other helicopter and onto a waiting stretcher as Marcel supervised.
The party followed Pawn Dunkeld, who appeared to be something like the majordomo of the place, into a large, high-ceilinged foyer. “Your bags have all arrived and been brought to your rooms and unpacked,” he said. “I expect you’ll want a bath and a rest. There will be a light, informal dinner in about an hour, but if any of you are feeling too tired after today’s events, just ring down and the staff can bring up a tray for you.” Odette took this in with delighted incredulity. Judging from Clements’s expression, she too felt like she’d stepped into a period drama. One of the staff, a young blond woman in a maid’s uniform, guided them up the stairs to their room.
“Does the Checquy seriously have parlor maids and footmen?” Odette asked out of the side of her mouth.
“It’s actually a popular posting,” said Clements out of the side of her mouth. “People apply for yearlong secondments to Hill Hall. Everyone here except the head cook and the head groundskeeper has a different, regular job in the Checquy. I gather there’s a long waiting list.”
“Really? People want to be servants?”
“It’s one of those management-training things.” Clements shrugged. “You know, learning humility and working as a team. Gleaning important lessons about leadership by being a scullery maid or footman. Plus, there are a lot of intensive advanced courses you can take here that look good on the résumé. Languages, wilderness survival, strategy and game theory, negotiating, pastry-making.” Odette mulled it over and resolved to let Ernst know about the true nature of the staff. Not that she really thought he’d bother the housemaids, but he had lived in a time when servants weren’t just doing their jobs for the entertainment value.
“But do you actually need a country-house retreat?”
“Probably not anymore,” said the Pawn. “It’s like Chequers — the official country house of the Prime Minister. I’m sure Hill Hall seemed vital at one point, but now it’s handy for entertaining foreign dignitaries and the like. And a nice place to relax. The Court get first pick of the days, of course, but anyone can sign up to use it. I’ve attended a couple of weddings here.”
“Here are your rooms,” said the maid with a decidedly amused smile. It was apparent that she’d heard everything. “You share a sitting room, but you each have your own bathroom.” She opened the door to Odette’s room. “Miss Leliefeld, we’ve unpacked and prepared all your clothes. You didn’t want us to open the two hard leather cases, correct?”
“Yes, thank you, um...” Odette faltered.
“Sarah,” said the girl.
She showed Odette around the large room, which was decorated in warm tones that made it feel like the perfect place to fall asleep. Landscapes were hung on the walls, comfortable furniture was set around the room, and a fire flickered in the fireplace. Odette wandered through it, feeling distinctly déclassé in her tracksuit. Her cream heels (the Checquy shopper at Ascot had not gotten anyone shoes) still had some drops of Rook-blood on them and looked demented on the thick red carpet. I’ve spent my whole life not wearing a tracksuit and ruined heels, and then I come to England, and it’s my default uniform, she mused sourly. A set of squashy brown leather chairs and a sofa seemed to draw back from her in horror. It was not pleasant to be the tackiest thing in the room.
Sarah caught her expression and winked, an action that seemed quite un-housemaidly. “If you need anything, Miss Leliefeld, just dial one on your room’s phone.” She departed, closing the door behind her.
I wonder what she does when she’s not being a housemaid, thought Odette idly. She’ll probably end up being my boss or something. Then she checked on her luggage. Two cases had indeed been left unopened. One contained the numerous medications she took to ensure that her body didn’t realize what had been done to it and go on strike, along with the various chemicals she had to sleep in. The other case contained the set of surgical tools she’d been given for her eighteenth birthday. She didn’t anticipate performing any surgeries that weekend, but then she hadn’t anticipated performing one at the races either.
All right, first thing I’m going to do is shower and get into some better clothes, she resolved, if only so she could meet her own eyes in the mirror.
*
He sat on a bench by the river Thames and pondered. Lionel John Dover, formerly of Northampton, now abruptly of no fixed abode and completely unconcerned by that fact.
Nine hours ago, he had been a family man with a well-paying job as a senior manager at a successful company. True, for the past two years, he had been completely insane, but that had not bothered him as much as he would have expected, nor had it interfered with his life.
And then he met that woman.
She knew, he thought. She knew everything. She knew about the things he’d done, and she’d done something to him, held him pinioned against his will.
So of course he’d had to act, even though it was broad daylight and they were in a crowd.
What was she? Who was she? How could she know about it? About me?
Panicked, he’d hurried away from the racecourse and gone straight to a cash machine. He had taken out as much money as he could, three hundred pounds. That, along with the money in his wallet, gave him four hundred and thirty-seven pounds. Normally he would not have been carrying more than a hundred pounds on him, but he’d been betting and socializing.
He hadn’t dared to go to his car. Instead, his mind whirling, he had gone to the train station and bought a ticket to London. Once he got to the city, he visited the nearest Marks and Spencer and bought a complete change of clothes, paying with cash. Nondescript. Designed to blend in. He stuffed the morning suit into the first rubbish bin he could find and walked away.
He’d also walked away from his life, his family. His wife, Catherine. His children, Harry, Jenny, May, and Rupert. His dogs. His job. Everything. And yet, he found that he didn’t care. They were the trappings of another man’s life, a man who was not impossible and not insane.
Before it all started, he hadn’t been a bad man. A stupendously boring one, perhaps, but not bad. He was not given to flights of fancy or possessed of much imagination. He humdrummed his way through life being respectable and upright. Certainly not the kind of man who would kill people.
The first time it happened, he’d been collecting for the Red Cross, of all things. Community service. Knocking on the door of a house on a quiet street in Daventry, he’d felt a burning in his spine, a heat that built unbearably and set him gasping for breath until a pulse surged out of him. It sent him to his knees, and he’d been instantly drenched with sweat. Then he had a sudden awareness of the inside of the house as crystals erupted from every surface and impaled the two people within. He’d seen the house through a thousand facets. He’d felt the man’s and the boy’s skin, their blood, their muscles and organs, as the blades cut through them.
His mind had fractured then, unable to reconcile the horrific unbelievability of what was happening with the sheer undeniability of its truth.