Just as I was thinking of opening a few doors and having a little nosy around, a hunched goblin of a butler directed me into the drawing room, where I was rather hoping to partake of some upper-class funeral fare but found myself alone in the big, still room.
The distant clang of someone banging out the Moonlight Sonata on a piano clunked uneasily around the ornate ceiling as I ran my fingers over the crusted gold brocade couch. Then I picked up a bronze sculpture of a naked Greek, heavy in my fist like a lethal weapon. The opulence of the room was dazzling, with the floor-length blue silk drapes, the majestic portraits of repulsive forebears, the porcelain statues, the antiquity, the inequity.
I couldn’t help thinking that if I had that sort of cash I’d do a much better job, cheery the place up a bit. It smelled like death, as old as the dead men on the walls, as fusty as the eyes of the disembodied deer watching from the oak-paneled wall, the settle of dust and ashes. I was reminded of the last war, the Great War, when all the money in the world couldn’t buy an escape from mortality. It was the one great leveler. Funny how things went back to normal again so quick—the rich in charge, us struggling below.
I pulled out my packet of fags and lit one, the sinewy smoke meandering into the drapes, making itself at home.
A gruff voice came from behind. “May I have a word?” A hand grasped my elbow, and before I knew it I was being pulled to a door at the back of the room. I turned to see the Brigadier, purple veins livid on his temples—he must have been at the Scotch late last night. He shoved me into a study, thick with male undercurrent, lots of leather chairs and piles of papers and files. The tang of cigars mingled unpleasantly with the dead-dog smell of rank breath.
As he twisted the key in the lock behind him, I knew this was going to mean money.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, surveying the surroundings, trying to cover up any trepidation. The Brigadier’s a bigwig, an overpowering presence, officious and rude and unlikable, yet powerful and ruthless. He’s one of the old types, the ones who think the upper class can still bluster their way through everything. The ones who think they can boss the rest of us around and act like they own the country.
“I knew you’d come,” he muttered in an irritated way, his voice slurring from drink. “Which is why I had Proggett put you in the back drawing room. I have a service for you to perform. Time is of the essence.” He sat down behind his vast desk, all businesslike, leaving me standing on the other side, the servant awaiting instruction. I considered pulling over a chair, but fancied this act of rebellion might lose me a few bob, so I just plonked my black bag on the floor and waited.
“Before I begin, I must know I have your full confidence,” he said, narrowing his eyes as if this were an official war deal, when I knew outright it was going to be nothing of the sort.
“Of course you have it, like you always do,” I lied, glowering at him for even doubting my integrity. He didn’t scare me with his upper-class military ways. “I’m a professional, Brigadier. If that’s what you mean? I’m never surprised by what is asked of me. And I always keep my mouth shut.”
“I need a job done,” he said brusquely. “I’ve heard you’re willing to go beyond the usual services?”
“That depends on what the service in question is,” I said. “And how much I’ll be paid.”
A gleam came to his eye, and he sat up. I was speaking the language he wanted to hear—more interested in the money than the nature of the deed. “A lot of money could be yours.”
“What exactly do you have in mind?”
By now I’d guessed he was about to come out with something big, something that would line my pockets well and good. My bet would have been another affair gone wrong (perhaps a high-profile woman involved, maybe someone from the village), so shocked doesn’t describe how I felt when he came out with it.
“Our baby must be a boy.”
There was a pause as I wondered what he meant. He took in my reaction, his eyes scrutinizing me, debating whether I had the requisite bravery, deceit, greed.
“Ours is not the only birth to happen in the village this spring,” he continued, acting like he was giving complex orders on the front line. “And ours must be a boy. If there were a way to ensure that this might be the case—”
The penny dropped. It was outrageous. He wanted me to swap his baby with a baby boy from the village, if his was a girl. I sucked in my lips, working hard to keep the ruddy great smile off my face. I’d take him to the bank for this! But I had to keep calm. Play it for all it was worth.
“I think it would be a tremendous risk, as well as an immense personal compromise,” I clipped.
He leaned forward, dropping his fa?ade for a moment, his eyeballs shooting out, bloody and globular. “But could it be done?”