“Ah.” He was not smiling at all, now. It was certainly more than that, but still. “That sounds about right.”
They looked at each other, and Grahame Coats calculated, furiously. He needed to buy time. That was what he needed. “What if,” he said, “what if I were to repay it, in full, in cash, now. With interest. Let’s say, fifty percent of the amount in question.”
“You’re offering me four and a half million pounds? In cash?”
Grahame Coats smiled at her in exactly the same way that striking cobras tend not to. “Absatively. If you go to the police, then I will deny everything, and hire excellent lawyers. In a worst-case scenario, after an extremely lengthy trial, during which I shall be forced to blacken Morris’s good name in every way I possibly can, I will be sentenced at most to ten to twelve years in prison. I might actually serve five years, with good behavior—and I should be a model prisoner. Given the general overcrowding of the prison services, I’d serve most of my sentence in an open prison, or even on day release. I don’t see this as being too problematic. On the flip side, I can guarantee that if you go to the police, you will never get a penny of Morris’s money. The alternative is to keep your mouth shut, get all the money you need and more, while I buy myself a little time to…to do the decent thing. If you see what I mean.”
Maeve thought about it. “I would like to see you rot in prison,” she said. And then she sighed, and nodded. “All right,” she said. “I take the money. I never have to see or deal with you again. All future royalty checks come directly to me.”
“Absatively. The safe is over here,” he told her.
There was a bookcase on the far wall, on which were uniform leatherbound editions of Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, and Austen, all unread. He fumbled with a book, and the bookcase slipped to one side, revealing a door behind it, painted to match the wall.
Maeve wondered if it would have a combination, but no, there was just a small keyhole, which Grahame Coats unlocked with a large brass key. The door swung open.
He reached in and turned on the light. It was a narrow room, lined with rather amateurishly fixed shelves. At the far end was a small, fireproof filing cabinet.
“You can take it in cash, or in jewelery, or in a combination of the two,” he said, bluntly. “I’d advise the latter. Lots of nice antique gold back there. Very portable.”
He unlocked several strongboxes and displayed the contents. Rings and chains and lockets glittered and gleamed and shone.
Maeve’s mouth opened. “Take a look,” he told her, and she squeezed past him. It was a treasure cave.
She pulled out a golden locket on a chain, held it up, stared at it in wonder. “This is gorgeous,” she said. “It must be worth—” and she broke off. In the polished gold of the locket she saw something moving behind her, and she turned, which meant that the hammer did not hit her squarely on the back of the head, as Grahame Coats had intended, but instead glanced off the side of her cheek.
“You little shit!” she said, and she kicked him. Maeve had good legs and a powerful kick, but she and her attacker were at close quarters.
Maeve’s foot connected with his shin, and she reached for the hammer he was holding. Grahame Coats smashed out with it; this time it connected, and Maeve stumbled to one side. Her eyes seemed to unfocus. He hit her again, squarely on the top of the head, and again, and again, and she went down.
Grahame Coats wished that he had a gun. A nice, sensible handgun. With a silencer, like in the films. Honestly, if it had ever occurred to him that he would need to kill someone in his office he would have been much better prepared for it. He might even have laid in a supply of poison. That would have been wise. No need for any of this nonsense.
There was blood and blonde hair adhering to the end of the hammer. He put it down with distaste and, stepping around the woman on the floor, grabbed the safe-deposit boxes containing the jewelery. He tipped them out onto his desk and returned them to the safe, where he removed an attaché case containing bundles of hundred-dollar bills and of five-hundred euro notes, and a small black velvet bag half full of unset diamonds. He removed some files from the filing cabinet. And, last but—as he would have pointed out—by no means least, he took out from the secret room the small leather vanity case containing two wallets and two passports.
Then he pushed the heavy door closed, and locked it, and swung the bookcase back into position.