“I’m very afraid, but I take precautions.”

  He tried to process what he was hearing. “Did you leave the note for me at the computer science department?” he asked.

  “No, and I don’t know who did, but I’d love to find out. Can I show you something?” She opened her laptop and angled it so he could see the screen.

  “This is a screenshot of a D&D chat. Do you see the user called ScotchEgg? That’s Paul Fields, the husband of Anya’s new colleague, Giulia Orlando. Have you met her?”

  “I’ve met them both,” Sid said. “You’re watching him online?”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Are you watching me, too?”

  “I tried. You cover your tracks too well.”

  Sid smiled.

  “Look what Paul’s saying.” Mel pointed to the screen.

  ScotchEgg: Does anyone know how to find out if police located someone who went missing?

  “He deleted the question later. This is a screenshot,” Mel said.

  “Did anyone reply?”

  “They did, but they didn’t take him seriously.”

  “Do you think he means Minxu?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but quite possibly.”

  “Have you talked to him?”

  “No, because I don’t know what his motives are for posting this.”

  “Is he doing it because of or in spite of Giulia, you mean?” Sid said.

  “Exactly that.”

  “Do you think it was Paul who left the note for me?” Sid asked, then, thinking aloud, “But how would he have known I was going to the computer science department?”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  He shook his head. “But Anya could have mentioned it to Giulia.”

  “Or he made an educated guess. Does he know much about you?”

  Sid thought back to their night out, the chat over some whiskey shots. “The basics, so yeah, he might have guessed, but why not talk to me? Or slip a note through the cottage door?”

  “I don’t know. Not a lot about this makes sense, but what I know for sure is that the Institute has lied about Min, and lying about a young woman’s disappearance is a very serious thing to do, so you’ve got to wonder why.”

  “Do you have theories?”

  “They must be hiding something; I just don’t know what. Have you tried searching online for any of the women who work there? You won’t find much. That’s a red flag to me.”

  Sid remembered Anya saying the same when the Institute first approached her, but he hadn’t given it much thought at the time, busy as he was with his PhD. After they’d been dazzled by the offer, it wasn’t something either of them had considered. We should have, he thought. I should have.

  “Somebody’s done a very good job of keeping information about them out of the public domain,” she said.

  “Min could easily have done it if she has a background like mine. She’s almost invisible online, too. Could the Institute be secretive because of something they’re working on?”

  “They claim to work on manuscripts. If that’s true, what’s there to hide?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I have a theory that Min could have been investing money for the Institute, possibly even laundering or day-trading. She told her brother she was using her experience in the trading world. He’d pressed her on it, because he couldn’t understand why someone like her ended up working here.”

  “But Anya is just a historian. She really is here to study manuscripts. Why would she be in danger?”

  “She might not be, but if I were Anya, at the very least I’d want to know who my employers really are, because the Institute is not what it seems.”

  Chapter Eight

  Anya

  The man held my arm tightly as he marched me around the corner to where the car was waiting on a quiet street. There was nothing I could do. He was built like an ox. And when I saw Magnus in the car, I realized he was my father’s driver.

  I tried to thump Magnus. I wasn’t a violent person, but I was scared enough that the impulse to lash out overtook me. He caught my arms easily, and it made me feel weak.

  “You tried to run me over,” I said, and my voice shook with the accusation.

  “No. That was a mistake. Another car, a different driver. I’m very sorry. There were a few of us looking for you. Diana said you’d run off and were very distressed. Do you understand? We were looking for you for your own good. Frightening you was a mistake.”

  “You nearly killed me.”

  “No. Not me. And he didn’t. He just frightened you.”

  His grip on my wrists was strong and tightening.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  He dropped them. “I’m sorry.”

  I lunged for the door handle and yanked it, but the door was locked. I yanked again and again until Magnus said, “That won’t work,” and I slumped into the corner where the seat met the door.

  A woman sat in the front passenger seat. She had an earpiece in. “Did you come into the shop looking for me?” I asked her. “Lying about me?” I added, but she didn’t answer. Nobody did. The indicator light ticked and the driver pulled the car out smoothly into the moving traffic.

  “How did you find me?” I asked. I poked her shoulder. “I’m talking to you!”

  “Bloody footprints,” Magnus said. “You left a trail of them. We knew you were in the shop. It was a matter of waiting for you to come out. I was worried about you.”

  He made it sound so normal, to wait for someone and snatch them off the street. I could imagine him telling the police the same thing and imagine them believing he was a concerned parent. A good man.

  Your father is not the saint people think he is.

  Magnus said, “Can I take you somewhere so we can talk? We could get lunch. My club is near here.”

  I looked at the backs of the man and woman in the front of the car. How much of what they were hearing did they know already? Were they paid enough to see nothing and hear nothing, whatever went on around them?

  “We can talk here. You have five minutes, then you let me out.”

  He said, “Diana betrayed us both this morning. Please believe me when I say I genuinely believed that you wanted to reconcile with me, and the idea of it had brought me so much joy. Since the day you were born, your absence has been a gaping hole in my life. A chasm.”

  I bit my lip. I could hardly bear to look at him. Why hadn’t he approached me since I’d been an adult, then? Mum hadn’t been able to gatekeep me for years.

  He’s a liar.

  But the child in me had always wanted to hear words like these, to know that I’d meant something to him, to believe that in his heart of hearts he’d wanted me then and wanted me now.

  “I treated your mother very badly and hurt her deeply. I’m not surprised Rose turned away from me the way she did. I don’t blame her.”

  “You don’t get to talk about blame,” I shot back. “You lost that right when you told her we weren’t good enough for you.”

  “I know.” He put his hands up. “Sorry! I’m so very sorry that I did that. I feel terrible about it, and I can’t imagine how much it must have hurt you. All I can say is that I did it because I was immature enough to believe my family knew best. They put enormous pressure on me, which was monstrous of them, but I was very young at the time. Your mother and I, we were both just babies, really. I’m not trying to excuse myself for what I did, because it was heinous, but it might help you understand the situation. If you care to.”

  I did care to understand, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he was getting through to me. Not yet. He hadn’t convinced me that his intentions were good. But his words were getting through my emotional armor. I’d spent my life trying to rewrite the stories about him that Mum had told, always hoping for a plausible reason for what he did, one that wasn’t to do with me. Always dreaming of a happier ending. What child abandoned or mistreated by a parent doesn’t wish the same?

  “I see myself in you, Anya,” he said. “I think you’re incredibly smart, so let me say this plainly. If we can put our emotions aside for a moment, consider this: I need someone gifted, whom I can trust absolutely, to work on my manuscripts. Working on my manuscripts could help your career immeasurably. If you can’t forgive me, then I’ll make sure I keep out of your way entirely. But if you’re even a little bit interested in seeing if we can build a relationship, we can do that however you want. I don’t put myself in other people’s hands very often, but I’ll make an exception for you, Anya. You are terribly important to me.”

  “How do you know you can trust me?” I asked. I wanted to turn the tables back on him a little.

  He tries to disempower everyone around him.

  “You’re my flesh and blood. I know you.”

  Boom. I had to hand it to him. He knew all the right things to say. I just had to decide whether I believed him. But it was very tempting to.

  “This is your birthright,” he added.

  “What about your other children?” He had three. They were still school age. I’d stalked them on social media. “Do they know about me?”

  “They do, and they’d like to meet you.”

  It changed the game, knowing that I might gain half siblings, that it wouldn’t just be him. Because he was damaged goods, a page full of corrections, inkblots. Imperfect. But getting to know my half siblings might give me a chance to turn a pristine new page.

  “If I study the manuscripts, the ones that everyone believes were burned, can I publish my work?”

  “Good question. The idea is to reveal that the manuscripts survived the fire at the same time as publishing your work on them. We intend to make a big noise about both. Everybody will be talking about it.”

  He’s never selfless. He always has an agenda.

  The penny dropped. “This is about your library, isn’t it? You’ll do this to coincide with the opening of the library.”

  “That is the plan,” he conceded.

  It was clever. He would be able to open the library with a core of exceptional manuscripts and scholarship already attached to them that would enhance the family name. It would be a terrific PR stunt. I would have bet he was also considering whether he could get a good emotional story out of it, too: Magnus Beaufort, contrite and reconciled with his estranged daughter and her mother.

  “You want me to enhance your vanity project. Your library.”

  Libraries had burnished the reputations of so many men throughout history, and guaranteed them a place in it: Bodley, Beinecke, Ashurbanipal, and all the others who’d dreamed that dream. There was a reason that American presidents founded libraries after leaving office, even if they weren’t readers.

  “My library is a gift to the nation. I believe I have a moral obligation to use my privilege for good, when and where I can.”

  He sounded like a press release. I thought I knew better. “You’re afraid of dying.”

  “I will die, like everyone else.”

  “But your name will forever be attached to the library. That’s as close to immortal as a man can get.”

  “Is it so terrible that a project appeals to a man’s vanity if that is far outweighed by its contribution to society?”

  Was it terrible? Probably not. Wasn’t life a series of compromises? I felt very tired. The throbbing in my foot was insistent.

  “Anya, I badly want you to be part of this because I want this to be our family’s legacy, not just mine. Please consider it.”

  I looked out the window. I had no idea where we were. The streets outside looked smart.

  I thought of Mum, just getting by from one medical appointment to the next, from one health crisis to the next, living in desperate fear of her treatment options running out, or of being unable to access the right drugs, reliant on Viv, who was great, but a huge cost herself.

  I said, “I’ll do this on one condition.”

  “Anything.”

  “My mother has lymphoma. Stage IV. She’s one of the unlucky ones with a poor prognosis. I want you to help her. I want you to get her the best treatment in the world. There’s a trial. In the US. A new drug that’s showing incredible results for her type of the disease, but we have no hope of getting it here. I want you to get her put on the trial.”

  “I would love to.” He didn’t sound surprised. He already knew she was ill. That cut me to the bone. “Will she let me help?”

  I’d rather die than beg him for charity. Literally.

  “No. That’s your challenge. Figure out how to help without her knowing.”

  “I think I can do that,” he said.

  “If you can, we have a deal.”

  Diana

  Diana watched London crawl by as she sat in the back of the town car. She wasn’t unhappy to be in traffic; it was a chance to close her eyes for a few minutes, to catch her breath. This was starting to feel like the longest day of her life.

  Charlotte rode ahead, in the same car as Bridget Farley and Bridget’s assistant. They were traveling in convoy from Bridget’s office to the site in South London that the Institute was hoping to lease.

  The visit had been Bridget’s idea, one that had occurred to her during their meeting. “There’s a wonderful young architect I’d like you to meet. She’s up and coming. I think she’s a promising talent and a project like this could make her career. Let me see if she can meet us at the site.”

  Of course, Bridget’s engagement with the project was a good sign, and of course, Diana couldn’t refuse, even though she was itching to check on Anya.

  Diana considered whether to message her but decided against it. She would give her time and space for a little longer. She hadn’t had a chance to discuss Anya with Charlotte yet. Charlotte would doubtless argue that they should scoop Anya up immediately and put pressure on her, possibly threaten her, but Diana thought she knew Anya better. She was confident that she could handle this herself. If this time pressure could be removed, she’d have the whole thing in hand already.

  She yawned, staving off exhaustion. Sometimes, the Larks’ mission felt like a house of cards that she had sole responsibility for.

  She reminded herself again that the Kats had clearly come to the same conclusion about the path to finding The Book of Wonder. If they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble to find the embroidery, and Eleanor Bruton wouldn’t have holed up on a remote Scottish island with it. The Larks just needed to stay at least one step ahead of them, to reach the prize first.

  Her phone vibrated. A notification from Magnus. She read his message—Anya’s on board. She was hugely relieved but also unsettled that he had got to Anya before she did. She had too many plates spinning, she knew, but she supposed Shakespeare was right when he wrote that all’s well that ends well, and this was good news, if Magnus was right. He tended to be a bull in a china shop when it came to negotiations, but with Anya he could pull emotional levers like no one else, and he was undoubtedly manipulative enough to do so.

  So, Anya was a problem solved for now at least, which was excellent. It reminded her that it was important to hold her nerve and not assume that she needed to be the one to put out every fire. Sometimes, she caught a break. Sometimes, just when she thought the center wasn’t going to hold, things went her way.

  The car stopped. “This is it,” the driver said.

  They were in a wasteland, in north Greenwich, a site on the edge of the River Thames almost opposite London City Airport. Diana had seen photographs, but she hadn’t appreciated what an amazing location this was until now. It would be the perfect place for the Fellowship to construct its flagship building for the Lark Foundation. An appropriate setting for them to bring their mission out into the open, with the means and structure to make meaningful improvements to women’s lives.

  Charlotte and Bridget were already out of their car and had walked ahead. Bridget’s assistant stayed in the car, working on a laptop. She glanced at Diana but didn’t smile. Charlotte and Bridget stood at the edge of the site, with their backs to the water. Charlotte was pointing to something. Their shoulders were almost touching, and Diana wondered how deep the connection between them went. Charlotte was so good at fostering these relationships. Behind them, the river coursed toward the Thames Barrier.

  As Diana approached, Charlotte and Bridget moved on, but she was content to stay behind and let them talk. Bridget was Charlotte’s contact, and she would want to lead this. There was a reason she had chosen to travel with Bridget, not with Diana, and it was wise to be sensitive to her wishes.

  Diana followed at a distance as they walked the perimeter of the site. Seagulls squabbled over something on the pebbly shore. It would be dark soon.

  A black cab pulled up beside the two sleek town cars. Diana watched as a woman got out. She carried a large messenger bag. Diana waved to her, and she waved back. It must be the architect.

  She looked to see where Bridget and Charlotte had got to. They were quite far ahead now and had reached a corner of the site that bordered a set of unused railway arches, old structures built from red brick, probably Victorian.

  Diana waited for the architect to join her. It would be nice to get a moment alone with her to hear about her vision for their building. As she approached, Diana saw she was surprisingly tall. Her blond hair was cut into a shaggy bob. She wore black boots, tailored black trousers, and a coat whose silhouette seemed sculpted. Her glasses had thick black frames. Diana smiled. This was exactly the uniform she’d expect a young architect to wear, but so long as this woman could design a building worthy of the Foundation, it didn’t matter if her clothing was a cliché.

  They shook hands and introduced themselves.

  The architect’s name was Naomi Lee and her palms were clammy, suggesting nerves lay beneath her poise. She must want this very badly, Diana thought, which was a good thing, and not surprising. A project on this scale was a huge opportunity for her and she could be a very good fit for the Larks’ ethos. Launching the career of a young female architect was just the sort of work the Larks were dedicated to.

 

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