Page 5 of Deader than Dead

“Tonight.”

I winced. “I can’t tonight. I’m having dinner with my sister.”

“I’ll tell them that, shall I?” There was no mistaking the edge in Baker’s voice, which told me that these weren’t the type of people you messed around. That alone should have been reason enough to have nothing to do with them. I walked over to the mirror and stared at my reflection, searching for something in my face. I wasn’t sure what. Fortitude maybe. Willpower? Greed? Probably all of them.

“Bellamy?”

I watched myself sigh in the mirror. “Fine. Tell them I’ll do it, but not for a penny less than the figure they gave you. And then I’m taking that time off. I’ll be going on holiday and I won’t be reachable.” I’d probably need to take Vicki somewhere expensive before she’d even talk to me again once I’d let her down in her hour of need.

I was halfway through breakfast when my phone rang again. It was a strange call, the man on the other end introducing himself as O’Reilly and coming across as almost apologetic as he took me through where I needed to go, and what he wanted me to do. I was shaking my head by the time I hung up. What had Baker been so concerned about? The impression I’d gotten was of some spoilt rich guy with more money than sense, who, rather than asking Daddy for what he’d described as “sentimental junk,” had decided to take it. Well, if he was prepared to pay through the nose just to avoid an awkward conversation, I was happy to lighten his wallet.

I stood stock still in the darkness of the town house in Belgravia, listening out for any sounds. As simple jobs went, this had been one of the simplest so far. The lock on the front door had only taken minutes to pick, the street remaining blessedly empty of pedestrians at this late hour while I did so. Once I’d gained access, I’d found the burglar alarm not set. The only downside was it signified the home-owner most likely being home, and awake, hence me standing and listening.

During the hour I’d spent watching the house before approaching it, there’d been no lights on at the front of it, so wherever they were was most likely at the back. It didn’t matter. Not when this was a straight in and out job, where the only requirement, assuming O’Reilly had known what he was talking about, was to find the basement and what lay within it.

I took a careful step along the corridor, the floor blessing me with no creaks. With one hand braced on the wall, I felt my way along it. Light would have been useful, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Not in the main part of the house, anyway. I came to a door, my gloved hand curling around the handle to ease it open.

The dark outline of a couch. What looked like a piano in the corner? No stairs leading downwards. I eased it shut again as silently as I could. I was dressed in the traditional way of a thief: all in black. Black T-shirt. Black leather jacket. Black jeans. Black boots. Black gloves. Some thieves liked to cover their faces, but I preferred not getting caught in the first place, and so far, I had a hundred percent success rate on that front. Not that I took anything for granted.

Another door. This one opened into a large lounge, moonlight spilling in through the open curtains. A table full of knick-knacks caught my eye, one object looking suspiciously like a Faberge egg. I wasn’t your common garden thief, though, so it didn’t interest me except in passing. I only stole what someone had hired me to steal, the object or objects that they’d generously reimburse me for.

Did my parents and my sister know what I did for a living? Not a chance. They believed I dealt in antiques, that my apparent wealth was from some careful wheeling and dealing, and being in the right place at the right time. Well, they were partially right with the last bit. And I certainly couldn’t complain. Not when my line of work took me all over the world from New York to Milan. Museums. Art galleries. Private residences. I’d seen them all, and I’d gained access to them as well. Some took weeks of planning. While others, like this one, got carried out on the spur of the moment.

The next door I tried had stone stairs leading downwards, at the bottom of which was another door. I eased the one I’d just come through shut before pulling a thin torch out of my pocket and flicking it on. The narrow stream of light made the stairs simple to traverse, my steps slow and careful. Expecting to use my lock picks again, I was surprised when the door swung open at nothing more than a push. Too easy. I shushed the voice in my head. Of course it was easy. I wasn’t stealing anything worthwhile. I was doing a job for some rich prick who’d fallen out with his father and wanted something he’d left here without the hassle of having to see him and speak to him. If anything, I should pray for more jobs like this.

I shone the torch into the corners of the basement, frowning as I found it completely empty. No boxes. No old paintings. No rolled up rugs. No wine cellar. Nothing. Just bare stone floor. What the… Wait! It wasn’t completely empty, even though I could have sworn I’d already shone the torch in that area and found nothing.

There was a trunk, an old wooden one, just like the man on the phone had said there would be. This was what I’d come here for, which should have filled me full of elation, my six-figure fee riding on leaving the house with it. But it didn’t, a shiver of something that felt like foreboding working its way down my spine and freezing me in place. It would be easy to turn around, to make my way back up the stairs and leave. I could say it hadn’t been here, that someone must have cleared out the basement. I could say it just hadn’t been viable, that I’d heard noises, that I’d feared being discovered. There were a hundred different reasons I could give why the job had never been completed that no one could ever prove wasn’t true. What was O’Reilly going to do—call me a liar?

I shone the torch on the trunk again. I’d seen enough valuable items to know it wasn’t one, so O’Reilly’s interest must lie in what it contained. They’d been vague with detailing precisely what it was they were after, describing the trunk and nothing else. There was no lock on the front of it, so it would be easy to satisfy my curiosity. I’d once done a job touted as stealing a precious vase, only to discover that it had been hand grenades and C4, both of which had gone mysteriously missing before they’d found their way to the buyer. I might be a thief, but I had a moral code. It was just grayer than most people’s.

“Bellamy.”

What the fuck! The whisper had me shining the torch into every nook and cranny as my heart crashed against my ribs. Alone. But then I’d already known that. But if I was alone, who or what had said my name? Was I going mad? God, I needed that holiday. I only got it, though, if I delivered the contents of the trunk to O’Reilly. I stepped closer to it, something drawing me in. The torch flickered, and I shook it. “Not now. Don’t cut out on me now.” It revived, and I breathed a sigh of relief. A couple more steps had me standing in front of my target. Open it now or wait? No way was I carrying the entire trunk out of here if I didn’t need to. It hardly made for an inconspicuous getaway.

I curled my fingers around the lid of the trunk, the torch choosing that moment to give up the ghost completely, even though it was only a couple of weeks old. I swore and vowed to buy torches from somewhere better. Somewhere where they worked for longer.

Ears straining against the darkness for the sound of footsteps above or on the stairs, I fumbled in my pocket for my phone. The seconds that passed felt like a lifetime before I got it switched on. Paranoia had me shining it immediately around the basement, the beam brighter than that of the small torch. Still empty. Still just me. I fought the urge to laugh as I turned my attention back to the trunk.

Something within me still said I should walk away, that I shouldn’t open it. I’d never been very good at doing what was right, though. If I was, I’d never have discovered an aptitude for being a thief in the first place, and have settled into the lifestyle so well. Because there was no argument about me being good at what I did. It was what made me so in demand. In demand enough that people offered me ludicrous amounts of money for one trunk, apparently.

I pushed the lid back. It creaked like it hadn’t been opened for some time. Much like the basement itself, I thought it was empty at first, but no, there was a cloth-wrapped object lying at the bottom. I hadn’t ruled out it being a hand grenade yet, although it would be unusual to find such a small cache. I unwrapped the cloth and stared at what I’d uncovered.

A mask. Someone had offered me hundreds of thousands of pounds to retrieve a mask for them. It wasn’t a fancy mask either. There was no jewel-encrusted surface, and it wasn’t made of gold. Instead, it was simple wood. A less awe-inspiring sight would have been hard to imagine. I wrapped it back up before plucking it out of the trunk and tucking it down the front of my jacket.

I closed the lid of the trunk before leaving the basement. If I was lucky, the owner of the house wouldn’t even realize it was missing. If they did, would they even care? No lock on the trunk. No lock on the basement door. They were almost begging for it to be stolen.

“Bellamy.” That whisper again. I spun round, but just like the previous time, there was nothing there. I needed to get out of here. Away from this place where my mind played tricks on me. I made for the stone stairs, turning the flashlight on my phone off before I reached the second door. Beyond the door, it was just as quiet as it had been previously. No sign of anyone at home at all. Where were they? Who were they?

It was quicker to retrace my steps to the front door than it had been to get here, the route already committed to memory. Once there, I slipped out of the door and back onto the London street, passers by just as non-existent as they’d been on my entry. Good. A lack of witnesses was always a bonus. I allowed myself a smile and an imaginary pat on the back for a job well done as I set off down the street.

Chapter Three

Bellamy

The shop tucked away in a corner of Soho looked like your typical pawnshop from the outside, its windows packed with everything from electronic goods to diamond rings. The rings always gave me pause for thought. Rings were such sentimental things. They represented gifts as a token of love, or of being passed down through generations. So how had they ended up in a pawnshop, lost and unloved? Yeah, I might have been a thief, but I was apparently a sentimental one. Would I steal a ring if the job required it? Thankfully, that quandary had never come up, and if I was lucky, it never would.

The bell above the door gave its customary loud jangle as I stepped inside. The sound made the man behind the counter with the five o’clock shadow and the multiple piercings glance up from where he was deep in conversation with a very harried looking middle-aged woman. He caught my eye, but gave no sign he knew me. When a quick inventory showed two other people in the shop besides the woman, I wandered over to a display of retro gear from the seventies, leafing through a box of vinyl records that I had no interest in buying. And even if Led Zeppelin or The Rolling Stones had tickled my fancy, I had no record player to play them on.

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