He didn’t shake my hand.
“If you would like to step inside, we have a brief procedure we’re required to follow. I’m sure that you appreciate the need.”
It wasn’t the usual Tennessee twang. I asked him, “Boston?”
“This way, please, sir.”
The entrance hall was cool and shady, and the sweat that had been oozing from me this last half hour immediately congealed and started rolling down my back in beads.
Captain Ghirelli donned a pair of blue surgical gloves.
“How, um, thorough is this going to be?”
“Just a pat-down. And it’s Baltimore. Not really very close at all, sir.”
I let him pat me down. He looked to Eddie-boy.
“Two cell phones, sir.”
He held them up. Eddie was smart. He looked them over.
“One of them’s a reader.” He circled his finger, pointed. “That one,” he said.
Fifty per cent chance, I thought.
He got it right, though.
There was no point in protesting. I’d wanted the phone to stay in touch with Angel; I’d wanted the reader for some sneaky measurements of any hot-spots in the place, preferably when no one else was looking.
No luck.
“Would you like a receipt, sir?”
“You know, I think I would.” I smiled sweetly. “Company property, and all. You understand?”
We waited while he went to fetch his receipt book.
“Come on, Chris. I thought you’d be looking round. You don’t often get to see a place like this, I bet.”
“You’d be surprised the things I get to see.”
Ghirelli came back with the receipt book. He wrote out my tab, signed it, and dropped my gear into a Ziploc baggie.
“I’ll put them somewhere safe, sir.”
“Yes,” I said. “You do that.”
Chapter 42
The Elder Ballington
Like many British kids, I spent a fair part of my childhood trudging around stately homes. This was partly because my parents’ idea of a good time was to cover as much of the National Trust Guidebook as their two weeks’ summer break allowed each year. What they missed, school made up for, with a host of trips designed to foster the idea of “English heritage.” And it was no use pointing out that these gigantic mansions had precisely zero bearing on my heritage, nor that, if my ancestors had even come in sniffing distance of them, it would certainly have been via the tradesman’s entrance. This, it seemed, was what my homeland was about—big houses, castles, and posh chairs roped off so you couldn’t sit on them.
The Great House on the Ballington Estate was more than that, of course. This was the Hollywood version, built on a scale almost unimaginable, and with a budget that would cripple several countries’ national economy. Here, there were no poky little doorways, meant for people half my size, no cramped back stairs and corridors where even as a kid I’d had to duck my head under the beams. The hallways stretched out, cavernous and echoing, given the sort of warm, shadowy lighting you’d expect in the bedroom of a declining invalid. There was a smell of wood polish and disinfectant, a whirr of ceiling fans.
The walls were lined with animal heads.
“Leopard,” said Eddie. “Wolf. Elk. Lion. Wildebeest. Or maybe buffalo. Brown bear . . .”
“Looks like he wants his claw back.”
“No, that guy was bigger. ’Way bigger. He’s in the East Wing.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “But you know the rush, doncha? The thrill of the hunt?”
“Maybe.”
“Feel it—way down here.” He clutched his groin. “Fight or flight, and flight’s not an option. Yeah?”
“Well, not if you’re paying two grand for the privilege. I suppose not.”
We had passed entirely through the south wing now, one side of the building to the other. Eddie threw open an outside door. The sunlight didn’t so much sweep down as barge in like a drunken lout. I blinked, I put a hand up to my eyes. The landscape here was different. No tourists, no gardens, no lush parklands. I saw a wide yard floored with pinkish gravel, some wooden fencing, then fields of an intense, almost acidic green. There were horses in the middle distance, proud, elegant beasts. A tractor dragging bales of hay, a little further back. But the real feature of interest was a very angry-looking man in tennis whites, striding towards us across the gravel. His face was red, emphasized by the whiteness of his clothes and the mop of orange hair that hung over his brow. His movements had the quick abruptness of a figure in a bad video game.
Eddie said, “Uh-oh. Mood.” Out loud, he called, “Dad-o!” and grinned absurdly. You’d have thought he hadn’t seen the guy for years.
Dad-o, whom I at once thought of as Edward the Elder, marched right up to me and planted himself about six inches away. His carrot-colored hair was level with my nose.
That cannot be real, I thought.
He was very broad, and he stood with his feet apart. His center of gravity was low. He looked solid, like a boxer. Sweat shone on his brow, and there was moisture in the creases round his eyes, clinging to the trimmed hairs of his upper lip. There were dark patches beneath his arms.