1
SEV
Poking the dead body of the Battersea double-agent with my toe, I hope it’ll help. I used to get a buzz out of this sort of thing.
I wait.
Nope. Nothing.
I am just not as bloodthirsty as I was.
Perhaps turning thirty-nine stole all the joy out of life. I’m so old.
“Clean up,” I direct my second-in-command and stride out of the basement interrogation room—it’s whimsically called the executive exercise suite—and shove my hands in my pockets. I’m tempted by the stairs, but there are twenty floors in this building and that’s enough for even me to break into a sweat.
How is it possible for a mafia boss to be bored? I punch the button to call the elevator.
Making obscene amounts of money? Most people’s idea of a good time.
Being respected and revered? I believe people aspire to this.
Death. That’s supposed to be exciting, or at least distressing, but I find it rather dull now.
I even have family and friends. One of my triplet brothers lives here in London, and I’ve been thinking about how to drag the other back from Milan to have the three of us together, and Wes Matthews, the kingpin of Mitcham, counts as a friend.
Avoiding my own gaze in the mirrored little box, I consider going to the penthouse to pretend to relax.
But I cannot shake the feeling of loneliness, and being at the top of a tower won’t help that.
I need a fucking hobby.
Or perhaps just to reconnect with the legit part of my business? Maybe that will provide a challenge of some sort. On impulse, I punch the ground floor button. When the elevator slides to a halt, I prowl out.
The huge entrance hall is empty, as it should be, just a receptionist at his post, a security guard, and that idiot stray cat, who trots up to me like we’re best friends. But it’s not tranquil. There’s the sound of laughter and chat coming from one of the main conference rooms, and I narrow my eyes as I reach down to scratch between the ears of the ginger tom cat who has adopted Morden Company as his home. What’s going on?
My feet thud on the marble floor as I stride towards the noise, leaving the cat behind.
Throwing open the double doors, my jaw clenches as the room falls silent.
“What the fuck is going on here?” I say into the horrified hush.
There are balloons. In Morden Company. We build skyscrapers and bury bodies.
Fuckingballoons.
One man is mid-way through a dance move that he borrowed from the seventies, a woman has a microphone, another is holding a pottedplant, and there’s music playing. There are snacks on tables.
“Mr Blackwood.” A woman I recognise as the head of HR and the bane of my life hustles up to me. She’s in her fifties and wearing a sensible navy dress. “This is the welcome and getting-to-know-you party for the new recruits.”
A welcome party? They getsalaries. What do they need a party for?
“Who signed off on this?” I snarl.
“I believe that was you, sir.”
“No, I told you to stop hiring idiots who quit.” There is a dead man in the basement, but here my staff are hanging out like it’s a school disco for eleven-year-olds.
“That’s right, Mr Blackwood. These are the best and brightest!”
