‘Yeah, but everyone knows you’ve been seeing a copper. You were with him, right? We’ve got a right to know what you’ve told him about the Family.’
Lydia was on her feet and around the desk before her mind caught up. She got her face up close to Aiden’s and said, very quietly. ‘Are you questioning my loyalty to my family? Think very carefully before you answer.’
Aiden swallowed. His eyes were flicking around, not meeting her stare. ‘Course not.’
Lydia moved back a fraction. ‘Good.’
‘It’s just... You’ve got to see... I mean, you can see why people are wondering. Crows don’t get arrested. It just doesn’t happen.’
‘That’s right,’ Lydia said. ‘They made a mistake. That’s why I was out so quickly.’
‘But-’
‘Aiden,’ Lydia said, leaning on the edge of her desk and crossing her arms. ‘You’ve got two choices here. Either you decide that Lydia Crow, daughter of Henry Crow and endorsed by his brother, Charlie, head of the Family, is a trustworthy member of the Crows and you fly away now to tell everybody exactly that. Or-’ Lydia waited a beat, watching Aiden squirm. ‘Or you make an enemy.’
Aiden swallowed again, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
‘I’m waiting,’ Lydia produced her coin and flipped it lazily in the air. She could make it spin slowly and with non-Family-members this was enough to put a little bit of ‘push’ behind whatever she was saying. She could make somebody answer a question truthfully or accede to her request. She didn’t know if this was Crow magic or just their old reputation as fixers brought sharply into focus or a mix of the two, but she had never tried it on a fellow Crow before and was curious to see Aiden’s reaction.
‘I meant no offence,’ Aiden said, his voice thin. ‘I’m just passing on concerns. I said I would. And I have.’ He was babbling, nerves overcoming the veneer of youthful cool that he had worn walking into Lydia’s office.
‘Pass on the good news,’ Lydia said, smiling her own version of Charlie’s shark smile. She had practised it in front of the mirror and was pretty proud of it. ‘All is well in the Family. I am working closely with Charlie to ensure our continuing success and I am fully recovered after my wrongful arrest. We’re all squared away with the other families and there is no call for retribution of any kind.’
‘That’s a separate issue,’ Aiden said, rallying. He straightened in his seat. ‘We can’t let it stand-’
‘I’m not letting anything stand,’ Lydia cut across him. ‘But the last thing we need right now is some idiot going off at the wrong person at the wrong time. Delicacy, strategy, negotiation.’ She counted the words off on her fingers. ‘Nobody is to make any kind of move against another Family. I thought I had already made that clear.’
Aiden’s lips compressed into a thin line but he nodded.
‘Good.’ Lydia leaned back in her chair and tilted her head to indicate that the meeting was over. Another Charlie move.
She waited until Aiden was crossing from her office to the hall before adding. ‘Spread the word.’
Chapter Three
It was a cool morning and Lydia had Fleet’s hoodie on over her unicorn-print pyjamas. The pyjamas had been a gift from her mum and they were fleecy and warm which, at this moment in time, trumped the fact that they were messing with her image. Jason was sitting at her desk in the main room, hunched over his laptop and tapping away on the keyboard. He had taken to the background checks like a duck to water and had powered through the backlog overnight. It was incredible. ‘Fair warning,’ he said without looking away from the screen. ‘Your uncle is outside.’
‘Outside?’ Lydia had only just woken up and her synapses still weren’t firing. ‘Outside here?’
Jason nodded his head toward the roof terrace.
‘How long?’
Jason shrugged, engrossed, again.
‘Wait. How did he get in?’ Lydia hadn’t heard her alarm. More importantly, how had Charlie got into the flat and then out to the terrace? The connecting door was in Lydia’s bedroom. She ran over her morning so far and realised that he must have strolled in while she was in the shower. Well that was creepy.
‘Jason,’ Lydia said, more sharply than she intended. She could taste the tang of Crow magic in the air, now, and was annoyed with herself for not picking up on it sooner.
He looked up. ‘Sorry. Can’t stop. I’m speaking to the head of mathematics at Harvard about code theory, he’s only got twenty minutes before his next lecture,’ he looked proud and incredulous. Like he had won the lottery. ‘I bloody love the internet.’
Jason’s face was glowing with pleasure and Lydia felt a rush of happiness for him, obliterating her irritation and fear and misery, just for a moment. It was nice to know that she was still capable. She held up her hands. ‘I’ll leave you two alone.’
Online contact, of course, was the ultimate equaliser. Nobody knew the colour of your skin or whether you were in a wheelchair. She looked at the ghost tapping away, his face lit by the blue light of the screen. Or whether you were even alive.
‘You’re a literal ghost in the machine,’ she said out loud and, understandably, Jason ignored her.
After making a mug of coffee, more to warm her hands and to give her a little more time to gather her wits than any desire to drink it, she went out to the tiny roof terrace which looked out onto the narrow back street and found her uncle sitting and smoking. There was a folded newspaper on the small bistro table and an espresso cup which he must have brought up from the cafe downstairs.
‘I see you’ve made yourself at home,’ Lydia said. ‘How did you get in?’
‘I do own the place,’ Charlie replied. He was wearing a mid-length black coat which looked like it was made of fine wool, maybe even cashmere, and had a grey scarf tucked around his neck. He looked perfectly comfortable while Lydia felt as if the cold had rushed straight through her clothes.
‘I pay rent,’ Lydia said, taking the seat opposite Charlie. The metal was icy against her legs and she twisted them together in an attempt to maintain body heat, hunching her shoulders inside her layers. ‘I get that you’ll have keys for emergencies, but you can’t just let yourself in whenever you feel like it.’
‘Not anymore.’ Charlie clasped his hands.
‘What?’
‘I’m not taking rent payments from you. That’s over.’
Lydia had started paying rent so that she wouldn’t have to do jobs for Charlie. Now, of course, she had told him she would be ‘all in’. That had been the deal in order for him to get her out of the police station where she had been held overnight. In the end, Mr Smith had offered her a deal, too, and she had taken it. The fear of being locked up for another second longer had been overwhelming. Lydia was ashamed of her terror and the way she had been unable to control it, but there was nothing she could do about that now. Except make damn sure she was never put in a cage.
‘About that,’ Lydia began, but Charlie held up a hand to stop her. He stood up and reached for the external light bolted onto the wall, fiddled for a moment, and then sat down again.