The Lazarus Vault

III

Lemmy Maartens knew he had the easiest job in the world. A bank inspector in a tax haven — the toughest part of his day, he liked to joke, was choosing where to have lunch. But right now, the job wasn’t so easy. Right now, he was sweating.

‘You would like more coffee?’

The secretary had reappeared with a cafetière. Lemmy put his cup on the table and pushed it across so she wouldn’t see his hand trembling. The cup was fine china — Villeroy & Boch. Lemmy had checked the underside of the saucer while the secretary was out of the room.

‘The manager will be with you directly.’

All his life, Lemmy had known that the world owed him more than it gave him. His job, rubbing shoulders with the international financial set, oozing wealth and arrogance, only reinforced the grievance. He wanted the expensive German saloons he saw in the car park; the Italian suits that brushed past him in the corridors. And, he believed, he deserved them.

So Lemmy went freelance. In other countries, regulators were bribed to turn a blind eye. In Luxembourg, turning a blind eye was pretty much Lemmy’s official job description. But he was also paid for his discretion — and that was definitely negotiable. Nothing serious, but if you wanted to know whether a rival company was having trouble making its payroll, or if a subsidiary was losing money and ripe for acquisition, Lemmy could find out for you. It earned him a tidy ten thousand euros a month on top of his salary, all carefully hidden where no one would find it. But every time, he sweated for it.

He read the sign on the wall again. Monsalvat Bank SA. Even working for the ministry he’d never heard of them, but that didn’t surprise him. There were more than a hundred and fifty banks in Luxembourg, attracted by the low taxes and regulators like Lemmy who didn’t ask too many questions. Most of the banks didn’t extend to much more than a nameplate and a telephone number.

A woman came out of the inner door. She wore a grey pencil skirt and a white blouse unbuttoned to her collarbone. She must be approaching fifty, but with her fine bones and slim figure she had a commanding beauty that the twice-divorced Lemmy could appreciate.

‘Christine Lafarge.’ She shook his hand. ‘I am the manager of this office. I wasn’t expecting a visit from your department today.’

‘A random inspection,’ Lemmy assured her. ‘A formality. The new climate, you know. We must be seen to be active.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Your director usually telephones to alert us. A courtesy, so we can prepare our files.’

Lemmy spread his hands and hoped she didn’t notice the sweat on his palms. ‘I can only apologise.’

The secretary fetched the printout he needed, a list of accounts. Lemmy scanned it and pretended to choose one at random.

‘This one.’

Mrs Lafarge raised her eyebrows. ‘That is one of our most valuable accounts. If the client knew you were investigating his dealings he would be …’ She thought for the right word. ‘Mortified.’

In the delicate world of Luxembourg banking, it was as clear a warning as she could give. Back off. Any other time, Lemmy would have apologised at once for his obvious mistake and asked to see a different account, perhaps one that Mrs Lafarge herself could suggest. After three hours of scrupulous inactivity, he’d assure her that everything was in order.

But the people who’d sent Lemmy were paying too much for that. He pressed his fingertips together and looked stern. ‘I’m afraid I must insist. Our procedures …’ He raised his eyes to the ceiling, servant to a higher power.

‘Of course,’ was all Mrs Lafarge said. ‘You will have the files directly. I’ll telephone our head office in London to inform them.’

Lemmy smiled his thanks, trying to hide his crooked teeth, and wondered why his mouth felt quite so dry.

Ellie arrived for her first day at work late and exhausted. A blanket of grey clouds was smothering the city, packing in the heat and the damp so that everything became sticky. She’d meant to come down the night before; instead she’d stayed in Oxford, up half the night with Doug going over the same argument they’d had all summer. Eventually she’d locked herself in the bedroom and cried herself to sleep. Minutes later, so it seemed, the alarm clock dragged her back.

It would have been so easy to stay in bed. Even now, climbing the stairs to the bank’s frosted front door, part of Ellie wanted to turn and run. She felt a fraud in her new suit and shoes, overdressed and shabby all at once. She half expected the receptionist to turn her away, explain it had all been a mistake.

You don’t belong there.

Of all the things Doug had said, that was the one that hurt most.

The receptionist rang up to announce her. Ellie didn’t catch the reply.

He’s forgotten, she thought. Or changed his mind. She’d have to trudge back to Oxford, to Doug, admit it was all a mistake. Part of her almost wanted it to be true.

‘Ellie.’

Blanchard strode into the reception area. In one fluid movement he shook her hand, clapped her on the shoulder and leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek. ‘Welcome to Monsalvat.’ He took her elbow and steered her towards the lift. ‘I am so glad you have joined us. Your journey was fine?’

‘Fine,’ Ellie echoed. She felt dazed again, swept up in Blanchard’s irresistible aura. It was probably because she was so tired.

Blanchard was apologising for her flat not being ready the night before. ‘An electrician was installing new wiring and he took too long, something like this. A mess. But it is all well now. My driver will take you after work. How was your summer? The course was good?’

‘I learned a lot.’ Courtesy of her prospective employers, Ellie had spent eight weeks of July and August at a country house in Dorset, an exclusive summer camp for would-be investment bankers.

‘They send us a report, you know,’ Blanchard admonished her. ‘They said in the final examination you came first in the class.’

Ellie shrugged, blushing. All her life she’d had to work harder than the others to achieve what she wanted. She was good at it. She hadn’t fitted in with the other students, who mostly saw the course as an extension of the boarding schools they’d left not so long before. While they drank and flirted in the bar, she’d sat in her room with her books. The way she’d always done it.

Blanchard gave her a searching look. ‘Perhaps you did not mix so much with the other pupils. Maybe they seemed different to you.’

Ellie stared at him, wondering how he could read her thoughts like that.

‘But you should try. Our work is not about passing exams and knowing the rules. Of course, you must do this also, but it is not enough. You should socialise with these people. Not because you like them, but because one day, when you negotiate, they will be on the other side of the table. And then you will know their weaknesses.’

A coldness seemed to come over him as he spoke, the remorseless focus of a hunter. Ellie remembered what Doug had said. These people are predators. The first sign of weakness, they’ll rip you limb from limb. She’d called him melodramatic.

‘And here we are.’

Blanchard held the door and let her into a small square office. To Ellie, schooled in the Middle Ages, it looked more like a monastic cell. The floor was dark wooden boards, the walls stark white. A scarred desk stood in the middle of the room, with a leather-upholstered chair and a filing cabinet behind it. There was no computer, nor any phone Ellie could see: only a pile of Manila folders spilling papers across the desk.

‘I had my secretary bring the files for some of the major projects we have at the moment. You should familiarise yourself with them before you meet the clients.’

‘When will that be?’

Blanchard shrugged. ‘Maybe tomorrow? Our job is unpredictable. I said before, it is not something you learn in books. For the next six months you will work as my personal assistant. Because of my responsibilities, you will not concentrate on any particular client, but work on different projects as I need you. Some of the tasks I give you will seem mundane, or irrelevant; others will be almost incalculably important. If you succeed, you will gain a rare knowledge.’

He looked as though he might have said more, but at that moment a middle-aged woman poked her head around the door. ‘Mrs Lafarge is on the line.’

Blanchard nodded. ‘If you excuse me, Ellie. Destrier will come in a few minutes to give you your passes, your keys and your equipment. He is our security manager. He is very paranoid, but this is why we pay him. Humour him.’

He paused at the door and fixed her with a look that seemed to turn her to glass. ‘Remember, Ellie, we chose you. This is where you belong.’

When Blanchard had gone, Ellie sat at the desk and stared at the stack of folders. The most modern practices, the most up-to-date thinking, Blanchard had said at her interview. But even the ancient Oxford libraries seemed more modern than this.

She tried the filing cabinet, but it was locked. Her desk had a drawer; she opened it, half expecting to find a quill pen and inkwell. Instead, she saw two rectangular blocks of high-gloss plastic, like jet or polished basalt. One was the size of a pack of cards, the other like a hardback book. In the dusty drawer, they looked like artefacts of an alien civilisation.

There were no markings. Ellie picked up the smaller one to examine it. Her hand brushed the surface: suddenly it started to glow. Red writing hovered behind the mirrored surface.

‘You want to be careful what you touch around here.’

Ellie dropped the box. It thudded onto the desk, glowing like a hot coal. A man stood in the doorway. He was tall and broad: his face might once have been handsome, if it hadn’t been rearranged by a series of violent events. His grey suit shimmered when he moved. One tendril of a tattoo peeked over the edge of his shirt collar, and a gold stud gleamed in his left ear.

He advanced into the room and picked up the lump of plastic where Ellie had dropped it.

‘Destrier,’ he introduced himself. ‘Never seen a mobile phone before?’

‘Mine has buttons.’

‘Bin it.’ His voice was soft, the accent hard to place. ‘This is your new best friend. Your password is in a text message on the phone. Remember it, never write it down. If you forget, or you think it’s been compromised, you come to me.’

He typed a number into the keypad which had appeared under the fascia. More symbols glowed into life around it.

‘Green to call, red to hang up. It can do other things, which we’ll show you later. The company pays for unlimited usage, so make as many personal calls as you like. It works out cheaper for us than trying to work out who said what to who. Same with the computer.’ He picked up the other box and tapped in the number again. Ellie heard a click. A clamshell lid swung up on invisible hinges, revealing a keyboard and screen.

‘It’s a laptop,’ she said. Destrier’s look made her wilt.

‘There’s also your cards.’ He pulled a cardboard wallet out of his suit and laid it on the desk. ‘Company credit card. There’s no maximum, but we do check what you spend. No unlimited personal usage on that one. And this is your card for the building. Swipe it wherever you go. If you’re not supposed to go somewhere, it won’t let you through. In particular, stay away from the sixth floor. It’s off limits.’

He sat on the desk and leaned over her. Ellie pushed her chair back.

‘We take security very seriously here. We reserve the option to monitor your computer activity, your e-mails and websites, your phone calls, your comings and goings.’

‘Of course,’ said Ellie, wondering what they thought she might do.

‘All our machines carry software to make sure you don’t compromise our security. Even by accident.’ He slid a piece of paper across the desk. ‘Sign this to say you that you’ve understood and agree.’

Ellie stared at the paper long enough to look like she’d taken it seriously, then signed.

By quarter to five, Lemmy had found out what his client wanted to know. He’d sweated so much his bedraggled shirt was like a dishrag. His hair was a mess from where he tugged it when he was thinking, and he could feel a spot swelling on the bridge of his nose. But for what he’d earned that day, it was worth it.

He worked another half an hour, just for good measure, then packed up his briefcase and left. He found his car in the underground parking at Place des Martyrs and his spirits lifted. A silver Audi, his one indulgence. Not a top-of-the-range model, nothing to arouse the envy or suspicion of his colleagues, but fitted with just about every option in the catalogue. Lemmy thought of it as the down payment on his future, a promise of good things to come.

He turned on the engine and let the air conditioning play over his clammy face. He found the hip flask he kept in the glove compartment and swallowed a mouthful of fifteen-year-old Scotch — another indulgence. He leaned his head against the leather headrest, closed his eyes and let ten speakers-worth of music wash over him. He wouldn’t do this again for months, he promised himself. It wasn’t worth the stress. And for what this customer was paying him, he wouldn’t need to.

A tap at the window undid most of the whisky’s effect. His eyes snapped open in terror, then confusion as he saw it was Christine Lafarge.

He fumbled for a switch and lowered the electric window, sliding the hip flask into the door pocket. A blossom of perfume blew in.

‘Did I forget something?’ Try to be calm.

She smiled a straight-toothed smile. ‘I wanted to apologise. For being abrupt with you this morning.’ She’d bent close to the window. ‘I was surprised. We are under so much pressure at the moment.’

‘It is the curse of the modern world,’ Lemmy agreed.

‘I know you were only doing your job.’ Her hands rested on the windowsill; her fingertips dangled inside the car, brushing his sleeve. Lemmy began to see the possibility of an unexpected bonus to this job.

‘Perhaps I can buy you a drink?’

She gave a throaty laugh. ‘I could use one.’

She opened the door and slid into the passenger’s seat, smoothing her skirt over her legs so that Lemmy would notice them. She could smell the alcohol on his breath.

She fastened her seatbelt and sank back in the seat. She caught Lemmy sneaking a glance at her cleavage and smiled.

This was going to be easy.

Ellie’s phone rang at five o’clock. She fumbled to find the right place to press the buttonless plastic to answer it.

‘Mr Blanchard’s car is waiting for you,’ the receptionist told her.

Ellie closed the folder she’d been looking at and grabbed her bag. When she peeked into Blanchard’s office he was on the phone, listening intently. He smiled her a goodbye.

Blanchard’s car was enormous, a midnight-blue beast that filled most of the narrow alley in front of the bank. A suited chauffeur held the door open for her as she slid onto the white leather. She was almost afraid to get in, a child in a shop full of fragile and expensive things. She saw the winged crest emblazoned with the letter B on the steering wheel, and it occurred to her it might stand for Bentley.

‘Just joined us, Ma’am?’ the driver asked. Ellie squirmed. Nobody had ever called her Ma’am before. She nodded.

‘I suppose everybody gets this on the first day.’

She saw his smile in the rear-view mirror. ‘Not many, Ma’am.’

‘Ellie.’

He took the turn at the end of the alley with practised ease, though it looked to Ellie as if the wall must be halfway into the engine block. As they pulled into the traffic, Ellie stared out of the window, watching the crowds of office workers flow up and down King William Street. Most didn’t give the Bentley a second look, or only a grudging glance. Only a boy, about ten, dressed in flannel shorts and a baggy red cap, standing perpendicular to the crowds as he stared with innocent wonder at the powerful car inching past. Ellie waved to him. It seemed somehow inconceivable that children existed in the City. He didn’t wave back.

‘He can’t see you,’ the driver explained from the front. ‘Tinted glass.’

Ellie sat back, feeling foolish.

The car stopped at the foot of a tower — one of three thrusting up out of the concrete fortress of the Barbican, the city’s northern rampart. Ellie scrambled out before the driver could open the door for her, and wondered if it was rude.

‘Looks like someone’s come to meet you,’ he said.

At first Ellie didn’t see him — she was looking for a suit, assuming it must be someone from the bank. She only spotted him when he started moving towards her. A brown corduroy jacket and a tab-collared linen shirt, half untucked; wavy dark hair and a five o’clock shadow on his cheeks.

‘Doug?’

It came out fiercer than she’d meant. Doug was Oxford, her past, her doubts. She didn’t want him there. Not today.

His smile faltered. ‘I called your office — your boss gave me the address. I … I wanted to apologise.’ He gazed at the Bentley and tried to look nonchalant. ‘Nice car. Is that part of the package?’

‘Not yet.’ Ellie reached up and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Apology accepted.’ Behind him, she could see the driver waiting to give her a set of keys.

‘Thirty-eighth floor. You’ll find everything you need up there.’

The lift seemed to take a long time to get to the top. Ellie and Doug stood in opposite corners, last night’s fight still not forgotten.

‘Are you sure you came to apologise?’ Ellie asked warily. ‘Not to rescue me, or steal me back to Oxford?’

Doug held up his hands in innocence. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were OK.’ They stepped out of the lift; Ellie fumbled with the keys she’d been given. ‘And check out the new executive pad, obviously. I — wow.’

The moment Ellie opened the door it was as if someone had conjured the interior of a French chateau into this brutalist tower three hundred feet above London: a symphony of dark woods and heavy fabrics, gilded curlicues and lacquered surfaces. Oil paintings in crazily ornate frames lined the walls like a museum — except one wall, which was all glass. Dusk was falling. The city had begun to prepare for darkness, and a carpet of light stretched as far as Ellie could see. She didn’t know London well enough to pick out all the landmarks, but she thought she recognised the Houses of Parliament, Saint Paul’s Cathedral.

‘Look at this place.’ Doug was examining a gilded ebony side table. ‘I think this is Louis Quatorze. Genuine seventeenth century. And that chair looks like it came from Versailles.’

Ellie wandered through the apartment in a daze. She didn’t dare touch anything. In the bedroom she found a vast bed almost waist high, couched in a walnut frame that might have served as a boat. Swagged fabric hung over the head like a pavilion, while more windows looked out to the east, the turrets of Canary Wharf and the ribbon of the Thames stretching to the dark horizon.

A hand reached around. Ellie stiffened, but it was only Doug. She hadn’t heard him on the thick carpet.

He leaned into her neck, nuzzling her. He slid the jacket off her shoulders and reached around, fiddling with the buttons on her thin cotton blouse. He guided her towards the bed.

‘Maybe you were right,’ he whispered. ‘Maybe this isn’t so bad.’