was veiled in grit. His chest was a dusty birdcage, his heart fluttering weakly like a dying canary. He coughed as he pulled his shirt on, the sound echoing off the bare walls.
The house had seemed so grand the previous night, when he had been hopelessly drunk and it had been dark.
White candles wedged in the neck of old bottles, the light wavering.
Wine, so much of it.
Music, the thump of the bass in the pit of his stomach teaching his heart how to beat.
The tremendous heat, and how it had pressed against every inch of his skin, relentless. The sweat on his back, on his neck. The taste of salt.
The unfamiliar roughness, demanding, determined.
It wasn’t him, he told himself. He had only been doing what he was asked to do.
The throat offered up to his hand, the head tilted back in supplication and abandon, eyes closed, mouth slack. He had never felt so much like a man, so in control, so commanding.
What a joke.
7
I was on the fifth fruitless phone call to the editors on Bianca’s list before I struck gold, and that was by pure chance.
‘Definitely not someone on my radar.’
I drew a line through his name and sighed. ‘No one else I’ve spoken to knows anything either.’
‘Who else have you called?’
I read through my list.
‘Where did you get this list from?’ I recognised the sharpened professional interest in his voice.
‘Another journalist, a friend of Paige Hargreaves.’
‘I can’t think why they’ve left Adelia Munroe out. She’s the obvious place to start.’
I wondered if Bianca had left her off the list in the hope that I wouldn’t know enough to ask her. She had seemed helpful, but I didn’t altogether trust her to tell me everything she knew. A good journalist would go a long way for a good story and from what Paige had hinted, this was a good story. I suspected Bianca wouldn’t want me blundering into the middle of it if she could help it. An innocent explanation, yet it still bothered me that she might have left a key detail out deliberately. Sometimes the things people didn’t tell you were as important as the things they said. I drew a box around Bianca’s name in my notebook and shaded in the edges. ‘I’m afraid she wasn’t obvious to me.’
The editor chuckled. ‘No. But you do know who Adelia is, don’t you?’
I did, in fact, because Adelia had edited Insight magazine throughout its twenty-year history and was a regular on television and radio. I knew enough about her to be intimidated at the thought of asking her questions.
‘I do.’
‘Give her a call. She’s not as scary as she seems,’ he added, and I thanked him. Not scary if you were another editor, maybe, but quite terrifying for me. I tried to sound confident as I called her office and after a short time I found myself speaking to Adelia herself.
‘Oh yes, I spoke to Paige Hargreaves about a story. It wasn’t for us, unfortunately, but I was intrigued by it.’ The voice on the other end of the line was cultured and had the measured quality of someone who is used to being listened to. I could imagine her disapproving expression; her hawk-like features were familiar from frequent appearances on television as a forthright talking head.
‘What was the story?’
‘I spoke to her some months ago. Let me try to recall the exact details of what we discussed.’ She fell silent for a few moments, long enough that I started to fidget at my desk. ‘Yes. That was it. She wanted to investigate the Chiron Club. C-H-I-R-O-N.’ She pronounced it Ky-ron.
‘What’s the Chiron Club? I’ve never heard of it,’ I confessed as I wrote down the name. It was better to admit ignorance than bluff.
She chuckled. ‘You wouldn’t have. It’s not for the likes of us. Strictly boys only, and by invitation. It’s a social club, or at least that’s what it pretends to be. They have fundraising events for charity – balls, dinners, boxing matches. That’s the only time they look for publicity, and that’s all most people know about them.’
‘If it’s not just a social club, what is it?’
‘Well might you ask. There’s a culture of silence about them and no one has ever succeeded in breaking it. The membership is small and extremely wealthy. These men are politicians, businessmen, bankers, judges – the elite. They are powerful men, and they largely recruit their new members from the children and grandchildren of previous members. It’s all