She looked into his eyes. “You do love me a little bit?” she said. Her tone was playfully pleading but her vulnerability was unmistakeable, as if his answer was very important indeed.

Edward whispered, “I think you’re the most adorable, beautiful girl. I can’t believe that you’re Joseph’s sister. I wish I’d met you as soon as I got back.” There was at least a little sincerity in his sentiment, but he amplified it for her benefit it. The stale words seemed to be enough. She removed her restraining hand.

When it was over and they lay quietly in each other's arms, Edward knew that she was his.

51

BILLY STAVROPOULOS PARKED HIS CAR a little way down the road. He was close enough to observe the comings and goings from the apartment block but not so close so as to be noticed. He looked around critically. Fabian had moved to a posh area, he thought. Wimpole Street was to the north of Oxford Street, and adjacent to Harley Street. It was lined with red-brick Victorian apartment buildings, elegant four and five-storey blocks that sheltered behind the curtillage of the ash trees on either side of the street. Billy had strolled along the road twenty minutes ago, pausing at the steps that led up to the wooden front door of number two-two-one. A glass-fronted panel next to the door announced five apartments, with a neat FABIAN written alongside apartment ‘B’.

He had returned to the car and did not have long to wait. The sun had sunk behind the building when the door opened and Edward Fabian appeared, framed in the light from the lobby behind. He paused at the top of the stairs, holding the door for a second person. Billy squinted through the gloaming. Unbelievable, he thought, shaking his head. He cursed quietly as he recognised Chiara Costello. She linked arms with Fabian and they walked down to the street together. He was wearing a dinner jacket and she was wearing an elegant dress and a fur stole. They were together? Who would have thought it. They were going for an evening out. That was good, Billy thought, putting his jealousy aside. That was perfect. He would have plenty of time. He reached across to the passenger seat and picked up his leather gloves. He put them on and picked up a small jemmy, hiding it inside a folded copy of the morning’s Times. He stepped out of the car, locked the door and strolled towards Fabian’s building.

He trotted up the steps and made to tie his shoelace as he inspected the door. It was not substantial. He checked up and down the street and, satisfied that he was not observed, he inserted the tip of the jemmy into the narrow space between the door and the frame, right below the lock, and gave it a sharp backwards yank. The frame splintered and the door swung open. Billy went inside and quickly made his way up to the second floor. The door to apartment ‘B’ was off the landing. Checking again that he was alone, Billy tried the handle. To his surprise, it had been left unlocked. He opened it and went inside.

The flat was dark. Billy took out a torch and worked quickly from room to room. There was an empty champagne bottle and two flutes in the kitchen. A dress had been neatly folded across the back of one of the dining table chairs. There were two toothbrushes in the bathroom, together with a compact, a bottle of Italian Stradivari cologne, two lipsticks and a blusher. Billy picked up the lipstick and absent-mindedly twisted it, then took the bottle of cologne, held it beneath his nose and sniffed it. He replaced it on the stand and went into the bedroom. The bed was unmade, the sheets ruffled and a pillow dislodged onto the floor. Billy shook his head. Fabian was a good-looking fellow, he supposed, but Chiara Costello was something else, and he’d been having it away with her. Lucky bastard. Another reason to stitch the lying cowson up.

Billy went back to the sitting room and opened the only door that had been left closed. It gave onto a small study: a desk and a single chair, a standard lamp, a gramophone, neat piles of stationery. He turned on the lamp and sat in the chair. He opened the desk drawers, one by one, reading through the papers inside and tossing them behind him when he was done. There was nothing of interest. The final drawer was locked. He took a metal ruler from the desk and inserted it between drawer and pedestal. A solid yank: the lock shattered and the drawer slid open. An unsealed envelope was inside. He took it out. It was fat and heavy. He slipped his fingers inside and withdrew a wad of pound notes, fifty or sixty of them. There was a letter attached to the envelope with a paper clip. Billy unfolded it and read:

Dear Jack,

Your father’s account at the hospital is overdrawn and I do not have the ready funds to meet it. I realise that it was only the other day that you made your last remittance, but there any possibility that you could make another? I would gladly pay myself, but I have paid the money you gave me to the builders so that they can begin work on the restaurant and I am not sure how easy it would be to get it back.

Regards,

Jimmy

And the unsent reply, marked with today’s date.

Dear Jimmy,

I’m afraid this might be the last payment, at least for a little while. I trust it is sufficient to put father’s account back into credit. Things are not going quite as well as I had expected, although I am taking steps to rectify them. In the meantime, I hope that the refurbishment is proceeding to plan. I will be in touch.

Jack

Billy turned took the envelope and turned it over.

It was addressed to the Shangri-La Restaurant, Dean Street, London.

He went through the rest of the drawer. He found three passports and flicked through them with a growing sense of disbelief. The first was for Edward Fabian, the second was for Jack Stern and the third was for Roger Artis. The photograph in each was of Fabian. He found different Registration Cards, different Ration Books and another hundred or so pound notes. Billy laid them all out on the desk.

He had known something was wrong as soon as the man had said Fabian was his brother. The poor fellow had said that he hadn’t seen him for years, since the start of the Blitz, that they had been close up until then and that he just couldn’t understand what had happened so that he had just vanished into thin air. In the end, the family had assumed that he must have been killed in the bombings. But then he had seen the story in the paper and he hadn’t been able to believe it. The picture was of a different person, that was true, but everything else was exactly right: the name, his age, the university at Cambridge, the degree in medicine. Perhaps the picture was a mistake? He had wanted to speak to him and Billy had taken his details and promised to pass them on. He wouldn’t do that, of course, there would be no point. He had known, then, what Fabian must have done and, if he was right, there wouldn’t be much of anything left for the fellow after Billy was finished with him.

He pulled the drawer all the way out and turned it over, shaking everything that was left out onto the floor. A packet of cigarettes. Pens. A stapler. Some paper clips. Scraps of paper. Army documents. When the drawer was finally empty, he traced the toe of his shoe through the debris on the floor. Something glittered back up at him. He knelt down and sorted through the rubbish with his hands until he found it.

A platinum ring. A large oval diamond set in the centre. Smaller pear-shaped stones all the way around.

Billy recognised it at once. He had been there with Joseph when he bought it. Tiffany on New Bond Street. It was the same day that he had asked him to be his best man. The day after he came back from Paris.