Prologue
Eleven Minutes Early
The car was parked under a jacaranda tree. Purple petals fell on the roof, one at a time. In the back seat, a man was putting on his gloves, one finger at a time.
"Say that again," he said.
"The real Mr. Ashby's plane landed at 9:09," said the voice in his ear. It was Ravi Menon, who always sounded sorry even when it wasn't his fault. "It was due at 9:20. Eleven minutes early. There was a tailwind. Nobody told me."
"Eleven minutes is nothing."
"He was through passport control before our driver finished parking. He had only hand luggage. Anselm's man tried to meet him at the kerb. Mr. Ashby said, and I'm quoting, 'I have been robbed in four countries and I do not get into cars.'"
In the front seat, Anselm Boateng closed his eyes and said nothing.
"That's reasonable," said the man in the back. "I like him."
"David, he'll be at the palace gate in forty minutes. The Commander has a hundred and forty cameras in that building, and nine of them have your face on them. Your Ashby face. If the real one gets there first, it's over. The ledger, the diamond, everything. We have a plan for the building. We don't have a plan for him."
A second voice cut in. It was older, flat and calm, with a Yorkshire accent. It belonged to Nell Whitcombe, who had spent thirty-one years telling people on the phone to please hold. "Mr. Morgan, I can hear you doing the thing."
"What thing?"
"The thing where your voice goes quiet when it's going badly."
He didn't answer. He finished the left glove and looked at his face in the dark window. The black hat sat on the seat beside him. The face was not his. It was mild and tired and fifty-three years old, the face of a man who ironed his own shirts. Camille had worked on it for nine hours.
Then he smiled.
Nell had known him eleven years and never trusted that smile. It only came when something was going wonderfully, completely wrong.
"Ravi," he said. "How early did he land?"
"Eleven minutes."
"Then he's arriving exactly where I need him." He opened the door. Petals slid off the roof onto his shoulders. "Nell, call the Commander. Tell him Mr. Ashby has stepped out for some air and wants a quiet word at the garden door. Anselm, don't wait for me."
"Where will you be?"
"Inside."
"David," Ravi said quietly. "Who are you? I've worked with you four years. Camille says you're from Marseille. Anselm says Vienna. Nell says you told her you were born in a tent."
"I did say that."
"Were you?"
David stood on the pavement in a stranger's face and a stranger's grey suit. Up the hill, the palace of Santa Aldonza shone like a ship. Three hundred guests moved behind its tall windows. Somewhere in the north wing, behind a lock the size of a man's palm, lay a book that a government minister had told nobody existed.
"Nobody has ever asked me that and got the same answer twice," said David Morgan. "I think that's the best thing I have."
He shut the car door. The hat stayed on the seat.
It was the first time in nine years he had left it behind. In the van, Nell put down her cards.