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Outside, a queue has built up—it’s probably time for everyone’s post-dinner coke top-up. It’s so blatantly obvious everyone looking at me knows what’s just happened that I don’t even try to cling on to dignity.
I stop by a woman my age with a deep blue dress and a knowing smirk and present her with my back.
“Lace me up, babe, would you?”
She laughs incredulously but obliges me, and I even manage to bum a cigarette off her before I make my escape, leaving Luca behind to bear the brunt of the judgement once he’s finally fixed himself up.
Instead of following the crowd into the ballroom where everyone is heading to dance, I head away from the music and bustle and straight to the nearest exit.
Outside, the garden is illuminated with ornate lanterns and braziers. The topiaries in the wavering firelight look like waiting monsters, but I’d rather take my chances with monsters than the rich fuckers inside the manor.
I head down the gravel path to the enormous centrepiece fountain, where naked angels intertwine in swathes of floaty fabric. Sitting on the edge of the fountain, I prop my cigarette between my lips and reach into my bag for my lighters. A voice stops me in my tracks.
“Miss Lynch. A moment of your time, please.”
My hand automatically wraps around the handle of the fancy letter opener I stole from Luca and hid in my purse before leaving for the gala.
A figure emerges from amongst the topiary. It’s a middle-aged man—and isn’t it always. He has a slightly crumpled tux and a pudgy, sad sort of appearance. His eyes, behind the metal framesof his glasses, are bright and intelligent, and the skin around them is crinkled with laugh lines.
My shoulders relax, but my hands stay on the letter opener. “Who are you?”
He approaches slowly, hands slightly raised, as if he doesn’t want to spook me. “My name is David Mitchell. I’ve wanted to talk to you for a while, Miss Lynch.”
I narrow my eyes. “You’re Luca’s journalist.”
“I’m not anybody’s journalist,” he says.
I release the letter opener, grab my lighter and light my cigarette. “Well, now. Something tells me you’re not supposed to be here, are you?”
He doesn’t bother trying to lie, which is a good sign he’s not going to waste my time too much.
“No,” he says. “I don’t belong here.” He smiles, the skin around his eyes crinkling densely. “I suppose we have that in common.”
“You and I have nothing in common.” I stand as he draws closer to the fountain, and he immediately stops moving. “Before you carry on, let me tell you something,Dave. I don’t fuck with your kind. I don’ttrustyour kind. Your institution is as corrupt as any other in this country. So don’t try this thing on me, thislet’s be poor people fighting the fight togetherthing. If you want to work me, find a different angle.”
“I don’t want to work you,” David Mitchell says.
“Then spit it out already. What do you want?”
“I’m working on a piece about Luca Fletcher-Lowe and his clubs. The long and short of it is this: I have all the information I need but no evidence. I know you’re living with him at the moment. I have no idea why you’re there, I have no idea how much you know or how much you care. I’m offering you a flat fee, one hundred thousand, in exchange for getting me any evidence I can use in the article. That’s all.”
“What stops me from telling him you approached me?”
“You may.” David Mitchell gives a little sigh. “He already knows I’m after evidence. I have none, and nobody will talk. Even if Mr Fletcher-Lowe found out I approached you, it would make very little difference to me.” He smiles in that self-deprecating way men smile when they want you to think they are harmless. “I hope you won’t tell him. I hope you’ll consider my offer.”
He reaches into his pocket and passes me a card.
“You have my number now. My article must go to print before the end of the year. Plenty of time to think it through.”
He turns around without waiting for me to say anything else, and I don’t. I don’t have anything to say to him anyhow. The payout is decent, and I wouldn’t have to blackmail rich perverts or outrun a psychotic rich kid to make the money. But even if I wanted to give David Mitchell what he wants, accessing Luca’s office isn’t exactly the easiest feat—lord knows I’ve tried—and I’d still be trapped by the contract.
I throw the card in my purse with a sigh. This would definitely be an easier dilemma to consider if I couldn’t currently feel Luca Fletcher-Lowe’s cum dripping from me and taste his blood on my tongue.
“Shit,” I mutter.
After all this, I don’t enjoy even a single drag of my cigarette. I give up and head back inside.
Mr Fletcher-Lowe resembles hisson in looks but little else. Where Luca is an uptight control freak, his father projects a sort of artificial warmth, like the heat from a fake fire, allLED lights but no real heat. I observe him from a corner of the crowded ballroom, the way he moves from person to person, glass in hand, eyes crinkled up in his smile.
