Chapter 36 Lucinda

Chapter 36

?Lucinda

Lucinda watches Nina through the glass of the mirror.

She thinks of the day she went to visit Nina's father.

He had known, she was certain of it. He must have. He was brilliant. And yet…

Lucinda recalls it now. How she sat in her town car on John Hepworth's street in Highgate and watched Nina breezily leave the house, a tote bag of books and papers over her shoulder. She'd watched her slip into her own beat-up Ford Fiesta and drive off. Back to the university where she was scheduled to lecture twice that afternoon.

Lucinda had all the information at her fingertips.

In her hand she carried a copy of John Hepworth's lesser-known and only work of fiction, Vauxhall Bridge in the Rain, a postwar Graham Greene–style doomed-romance novella. A work his publisher had clearly felt obligated to print given his otherwise brilliant nonfiction output.

It wasn't that it was bad, Lucinda reasoned—having read all 156 pages of it that morning after the courier had dropped it off—it was that it was too studied. There was no heart in it, as if the author had been too shy of showing any.

Lucinda grasped the book tight, told the driver to give her an hour, perhaps two, and slipped from the car, her well-chosen floral dress clinging to her, a cardigan covering her still-cable-tie-damaged wrists, makeup over her bruised temple.

Lucinda looked soft and kind as she headed toward the front door of John Stanley Hepworth, she looked friendly and easy to talk to and not dissimilar to his long-dead wife. Lucinda was good at this, which was why they paid her so incredibly well.

She knocked on the glossy red front door, catching sight of her medical alert band and hastily covering it. It was good to feel safe after what had happened, though Lucinda knew why she had really been chosen for her job—why she was the finder, why they actually paid her so much: because she had no one either. If she failed, there would be no loose ends. And she too was a very impressive young woman—she could very easily end up in that house.

Lucinda pushed the thought away as the door briskly opened in front of her and a spritely, kind-eyed old man gave her a surprised smile.

"Ah, I thought you might be my daughter—forgetting something. But clearly not," he said, taking her in, his surprise morphing into a mild confusion. "Now, do I know you? Are you a student? Have I done something awful that demands reprisal?" He chuckled.

His laugh caught her off guard. "No, God no," she said, smiling, a feeling like dread seeping into her bones at how personable this man was—at how lovely his daughter must be—but she pushed the thought away.

"No, sorry. My name is Lucinda and I heard that you lived on this street and I'm being incredibly cheeky but I was wondering if you could sign my book? I'm a big fan. I would love it if you could."

John's eyebrows rose. He was an intelligent man, Lucinda knew that, that was sort of the point in all this, and he wasn't buying this for a second. And yet he considered the outstretched book for a moment before fully pulling open the door.

"Well now, I was about to make a fresh pot of tea. How does that sound to you, Lucinda? Do you have time to come in for tea?"

Lucinda felt a smile spread across her face. She knew who he was. He had designed the house. The original rooms. And she had reconfigured them. They were a good match—his ailing health only just allowing her to even enter the same arena.

She could tell he didn't buy it for a second but he was interested. And that was enough to get her in the house—which was more than she had bargained for.

The keys jangled in the front door as he closed it behind her and gestured for her to head into the kitchen.

It was warm and cozy and had the feel of a Cotswold cottage but in the heart of London. Books covered most surfaces. A battered armchair sat beside the Aga, and the scent of hot buttered toast seemed to pervade the house.

"Toasted crumpet? Biscuits?" he asked, gesturing for her to take a seat.

"Biscuits would be lovely," she answered as she perched on a straight-backed kitchen chair and watched him make the tea.

As the kettle simmered and popped, she asked, "So the daughter you mentioned. What does she do? Is she an academic too?"

John swiveled to take Lucinda in, still trying to make sense of the odd proposition that she was: a young woman not quite telling the truth in his kitchen. But he was willing to find out the old-fashioned way.

"She is, but far more competent than I. You see, that's the problem with trying a bit of everything—you never get the whole way through anything. She gets to the bottom of things, though. The dregs." As the kettle roared to boiling John asked Lucinda what she did. She found, had always found, that sticking as close to the truth as possible was the safest option.

"I'm a headhunter. For private investment clients," she told him.

He nodded, and several cogs clicked into place in his mind.

"And how are the super-rich these days?" he asked with a sly smile.

"As strange and hard to please as ever, I imagine," she answered.

"Yes, as it ever was. Well, rather you than me, I know that much."

He must have known who bought the house from the man he'd originally designed it for. He must have wondered.

Teapot steaming on a tray, biscuits arranged higgledy-piggledy on a bone china plate, John beckoned her to follow him into the sitting room.

They sat opposite each other, morning light filtering through soft linen curtains into the high-ceilinged Victorian sitting room, and they talked.

She asked him questions about his books, his life, and he answered. He told her about his youth, his lost wife, his daughter, his fears and hopes.

He must not have known what the house had become. He must not have realized.

She sailed as close to the wind of truth as she could get away with, because she knew he would sense a lie if it was offered.

He suggested another pot and she accepted. He rose to fetch it and told her to stay, to take a look at his books, to make herself at home. He turned to leave and then turned back to Lucinda.

"I suppose you're wondering why I'm telling you all this?" he said pointedly, then just as suddenly slipped into a world of his own thoughts. "You see, I've recently had a bit of bad news. Now, you're not far off my daughter's age, and I think I'd like your advice. She's a bit of a lone wolf as they say, an introvert; always has been. But we'll get to that. If you've got time for a few more biscuits?"

Lucinda shifted in her seat. John Stanley Hepworth might have worked out why she was here. She would do best not to drink any more tea.

"I can be bought with biscuits," she answered with a smile.

"Oh, I doubt that very much. I'm guessing these private investment clients don't pay you in biscuits, now, do they, Lucinda."

And with that he slipped from the room.

Lucinda stood and headed for his desk. She slipped the small desk clock, and a Montblanc pen, into her handbag. As the kettle flared up again in the kitchen, she gently tugged his central desk drawer open and slid out a thin copy of The Waste Land from its dark interior along with a small Moleskine journal.

The sound of a biscuit tin popping open in the kitchen sent Lucinda onward toward the bookshelves, where a dog-eared copy of the Alexandre Dumas classic The Count of Monte Cristo made it into her bag also alongside a small sterling-silver pig figurine.

Since the house had been repurposed clients no longer paid to experience the house themselves; they paid to watch others experience it. She had become very good at curating backstories to package participants for clients. Nina and her father were a fantastic backstory, on a par with Maria and her formative experiences at the Darién Gap. She would reconfigure the rooms to reflect their father–daughter story.

The rattle of a tray being carried back to her led Lucinda back to her seat, where she set down her laden bag with care.

She had enough already, though if she got his signature for use on documents she would have more than enough to tie this one up. But as he settled back in, more stories flowed. Stories about Nina and their shared past.

It was only as she was leaving that he let the veil slip. As he shook her hand in farewell, he palmed her the number. In case there was a recording, in case there was a camera.

She felt the sharp rasp of paper against her fingers as he held her eye. She understood. He knew who she was. And he was trying to tell her something.

"Take care, Lucinda," he told her, his hand still shaking hers. "If you ever run into my daughter, keep an eye out for her, would you. You seem like a nice girl." He released her with a warm smile and then chuckled lightheartedly. "You've just fallen in with the wrong crowd, I think. But money makes fools of us all. Who am I to judge."

As the door closed on her the wave of guilt threatened to overwhelm her and everything there had ever been.

She thought of Penny back home, of her soft shiny coat and her bouncy greetings and simple energy, and felt another wave of sadness.

But this was her last candidate. After this one she could stop. They had promised.

Back in the car she slowly unballed her fist. On the crumpled paper, a phone number. An escape route.

—

The powers that be had not been as good as their word. They did not create an exit strategy. They simply changed Lucinda's role and dragged her in further. Her responsibilities more profound. And the phone number Nina's father had given her became more and more enticing.

The house is fully automated now, so it requires only maintenance and one project manager on-site. Plus the single gatehouse guard who helped earlier with the local who'd arrived unexpectedly. Three of them in total, Lucinda, Joon-gi, and a carousel of nameless guards.

It's just her and the electrician up at the house when a package is in progress. It limits accountability and any room for human error.

The grounds are covered with more cameras than ever before, and she is under no illusions that they will come if they have to. The guard at the gatehouse will come, and more.

She looks down at the medical alert band on her thin wrist and knows they're watching. But the thing itself, the house, the experience, is now a closed system. She runs it on-site, the old man maintains its hardware.

She knows he's unaware of what exactly they're doing down there, that perhaps a part of him knows something is not quite right but that he needs or rather wants something else more than he cares about the truth. And she helps him with that. She helps keep up the lie.

The new system is working. They tightened everything up since the escape three months ago. It's impossible to exit the locked-down house now without clearance. Nina and whoever comes after will not get as far as Maria had.

Lucinda turns up the volume on her sound system so she can hear Nina's words through the glass; Nina is talking to her, or to the client, in a way, Lucinda supposes. Lucinda has no idea who the clients are, who any of them have been. They auctioned off each package to a few clients only, who then had access to the interactive viewing experience via encrypted servers.

Nina's package was subject to the usual bidding war, though her final fee had interestingly been slightly lower than Maria's; age and backstory, as always, affected that outcome.

"I know you're in there," she hears Nina say. "You made the food."

So she's talking to Lucinda after all. Lucinda preferred not to hear up until now but the way Nina is looking at her through the glass makes it impossible for her not to be at least a little curious.

Nina continues, "I don't know how you knew my father but he wouldn't have wanted this, I know that much. If he told you to do this then you have to tell me because I don't believe he was like this, that he would do this to me. Did he do it to other people? Did he?"

Lucinda thinks of Nina's wonderful father, then of her own parents, vague, disinterested shadows from her past; they visited less and less until she did not really have people anymore.

Nina's father was a truly loving and lovely man, though. He had cared for Nina so very much, and not once had Lucinda felt envy at that idea; only relief that such people existed. And yet, even so, she had done all this. She had continued to do her job. She had brought Nina here to the house.

Lucinda's guilt coils around her insides tightly.

Nina seems to look directly at her through the silent glass, and a wellspring of sadness bubbles up inside her. Lucinda's tears match Nina's.

After a moment between them, one that only Lucinda is aware of, Nina sucks up her emotion and clears her throat.

"Okay, you want me to experience these rooms, okay. And what then? What if I get through every single one of them? What then? You just let me go?"

Lucinda considers the answer to that but she does not like the direction it takes her in. The protocol for house completion is not good. But no one has ever made it past the fifth room.

Lucinda simultaneously hopes Nina does and does not, kicking hope as far down the road as she dares.

Lucinda watches Nina get into the coffin, her attention drawn away suddenly by the sight of an intercom light flashing beside her.

The guard at the gatehouse. The man they took down there to recover must have woken up.