‘Tomorrow afternoon, then. I’ll text you a time, I’m not sure when I’ll-’
‘I will text you a time,’ Lydia corrected. ‘Don’t be late.’
Chapter Four
Lydia had gone to bed early, nursing a fresh bottle of whisky and the sweet quiet it afforded. She knew she wasn’t coping brilliantly with her break up with Fleet, but she had no idea what coping well would even look like. She dragged herself out of bed in time for a shower and two strong coffees before it was time to leave for her appointment with Paul Fox.
The sky was clear blue, but there was an icy nip in the air. Autumn was over and winter had arrived so Lydia added a woolly scarf to her leather jacket and jeans and Dr Martens ensemble and stuffed a beanie hat into her pocket. She didn’t pick up her bag, wanting to stay light on her feet if she had to run.
‘I don’t like it,’ Jason said. He was in front of his computer, and hadn’t moved from that position all night, as far as Lydia was aware. Could ghosts suffer from RSI? Lydia added it to the big list of things she didn’t know.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Lydia said, aware they had had this conversation before and that Jason had been proved right too many times for Lydia’s liking.
Jason’s attention was already being dragged back to his screen. ‘Am I interrupting something important?’ She said, a tiny edge to her voice.
‘Sorry,’ Jason said, pulling his gaze back to her. ‘I’ve done those checks you asked for. All the information is in the shared drive.’
‘We have a shared drive?’
‘Yes,’ Jason said. ‘And a password manager. Yours weren’t secure enough.’
‘How do you know my passwords?’ Lydia said.
Jason raised an eyebrow. ‘Please. Anyway, I’ve been practising a few things. Ways of getting into places we’re not usually allowed. Databases. Staff records. Accounts.’
‘That sounds useful,’ Lydia said. ‘And illegal.’
‘Little bit,’ Jason said cheerfully. ‘But if we want to find out more about JRB, we’re gonna need some moves. SkullFace310 has been telling me about rootkits, it’s sick.’
‘It’s what? And who is SkullFace? That doesn’t sound like the sort of person you should be chatting with,’ Lydia stopped speaking, aware that she sounded like somebody’s mother. Jason was a fully grown adult. Ghost. Whatever. And he appeared to have taught himself computer hacking in the time it took most people to work out how to do a mail merge. Besides, she had been investigating the shadowy organisation, JRB, all year without much success. ‘Brilliant,’ she finished. ‘Carry on.’
Jason beamed at her and then turned back to the screen.
It was mid-afternoon when Lydia arrived at Potters Fields. Too late for the lunchtime crowd and too early for the post-work rush. The cool morning had warmed, giving way to a bright winter’s day. A couple of intrepid mothers with their assorted offspring were walking and chatting with takeaway coffees, while their small children ran in and out of the herbaceous borders shrieking. It wasn’t a pleasant sound and Lydia could only imagine how much worse it would be in a confined space like a flat or coffee shop. How people did parenthood without losing their minds was beyond her. Perhaps it was a switch that was flipped when you got broody. A switch which turned down the dial on your hearing and up on your tolerance. Although, having said that, she had witnessed enough terrible parenting to believe the switch had to be faulty in many cases.
Tower Bridge looked especially fine against the blue sky and Lydia took a couple of deep breaths. London air, daylight, and a pleasant park to look at while she waited. She could still taste the panic she had felt when locked up in the cell at the police station, the sense of being trapped and having had her free will stripped away. The big sky was inviting and she felt as if she could rise up into it, the blue stretching all around, full of possibility.
The only thing that could spoil her afternoon was, at this moment, slinking into the park by the entrance nearest the Thames. Paul Fox looked gratifyingly tired, at least. There were lines of tension around his mouth and shadows under his eyes. Lydia had been sitting on a bench and she stood before he spotted her, wanting to be ready to move. Ready to run. Her hand slipped into her pocket and closed around her coin. She gripped it tightly and felt her spine straighten.
‘Little Bird,’ Paul said. He looked happy to see her and was radiating a relief which looked genuine. She didn’t trust him, though. Not anymore. She had been so stupid to do so in the first place and that burned all the way down her throat and into her stomach.
She lifted her chin. ‘Say your piece.’
‘Can we walk?’ Paul said, ‘I’ve been travelling for the past twenty-four hours and need to stretch out.’
Lydia didn’t answer, but they fell into step, walking along the path which led past a group of silver birches, their slender white trunks contrasting with some purple ground cover that Lydia couldn’t name, and along to the more formal planting with low box hedges and a riot of autumnal reds and oranges, that was still clinging on even this late in the season. Global warming or possibly just the weird climate of the city.
‘There has been a change,’ Paul said. ‘I know you don’t trust me and won’t believe anything I say, but I wanted you to hear it from me.’
‘We’re done,’ Lydia said, ‘you don’t owe me anything and all I want is to keep far away from you and your siblings.’
‘I understand,’ Paul said, squinting at the sky. ‘But we don’t always get what we want and the word is that you are the new head of the Crow Family.’
‘Not the head,’ Lydia said. ‘That’s an exaggeration.’
‘You have a significant role,’ Paul said. ‘You are Henry Crow’s daughter.’
Lydia ignored that. She didn’t know what she could say which wouldn’t sound like she was protesting too much.
‘You know we don’t have a leader?’ Paul continued.
‘So you say,’ Lydia said. ‘But your dad-’
‘I’m the new one.’
Lydia stopped walking. Paul took a couple of steps before he realised and then he stopped, too, and turned to face her.
‘What do you mean?’ There were bands around Lydia’s chest stopping her from taking a proper breath.
‘I told you I would find who was responsible for what happened to you. I told you I would make them pay.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘My father,’ Paul said simply. ‘He told the family that you needed to be protected from Maria Silver, as per my wishes, but that a little bit of rough-housing would be a good idea. To demonstrate, conclusively, that we were not allied.’
The little bit of rough-housing had been a moderate kicking, administered in broad daylight after Maria Silver had attempted to abduct Lydia. It had been the lesser of two evils, but still frightening and painful. Worse, though, had been the thought that Paul had actually been working to set her up on a murder charge.
As if reading her mind, Paul continued. ‘And then there’s the other matter. I had a frank conversation and he explained that setting you up for Marty’s death had simply been an opportunity too good to miss.’