5

Julian

I stare over at my View of the Sea at Scheveningen. The Van Gogh Museum says they recovered this one. They are lying. We planted the fake. The real one hangs strategically in my office on a wall where that bloody nosy copper won’t see it when he pokes his fucking head in to perv on my sister.

My office is pretty sick, though . . . pieces of art I’ve “accumulated” over the years.

I’ve got an Edvard Munch, a Kandinsky, two from Franz Marc, an Egon Schiele and the Van Gogh. The circumstances surrounding the acquisitions of the aforementioned pieces might be of precarious legality, but who’s gonna stop me?

Dais hates expressionism, so my office is the only place I can keep them.

Impressionism, Fauvism and expressionism—me.

Renaissance, rococo and romanticism—all her.

I’m sitting at my desk, Dais is playing darts. Kind of with Declan, kind of not—if they’re playing, she’s creaming him. If they’re not playing, she’s still creaming him.

It’s no secret around here that he’s into her—besotted with her, always has been. They dated once, briefly. Not long after her and Rome—bit of a rebound, if you ask me—but they’re all rebounds for her, I think. Decks was at university too, not studying medicine. Law, I think.

Slept with her. Took her on a date. Had no idea she was seventeen to his twenty-four till I showed up.

Hardly his fault, though. How many seventeen-year-olds are at university? The whole thing was pretty fun. Made a few threats, threw my weight around. Kind of liked him by the end of it, brought him into the fold not long after that. A happy by-product of that was, and remains, that Daisy becomes acutely uninterested in men if they work for me. She dropped him pretty quick, but he never really got past her.

A bit painful to watch him around her, and I reckon she does her conscionable best not to feed into it, but then Daisy’s been the centre of everyone’s focus since the day she was born.

‘A flower among thorns,” my dad would say. And then Mum would say that daisies are a common flower, and every time I think of that I feel a weird sense of relief that I don’t have to navigate that shit anymore. Not that you ever want your parents dead—I don’t—but Mum with Daisy was a fucking lot. Probably why Daisy doesn’t know how to interact with other women—though I suppose that’s partially my fault. Not a lot of matriarchal influences out on the London crime scene, just Delina Bambrilla (who is undoubtedly all of our saving grace). Rebecca Barnes too, Jo’s mum—a good woman—but at the time we could’ve used her she was heavily distracted by the death of her own daughter. Wasn’t a great year around these parts, really. Remy Hemmes and then our parents not too far apart.

All of that feeds into my sister’s pathology—why she is who she is, why she can’t seem to make a friend who’s a girl, why she gravitates to men how she does. Didn’t mean to do it, but I guess I just raised her that way.

Daisy hits the bullseye again, like she does almost every throw, and tosses Decks a smug look over her shoulder, but it’s unnecessary because every man and his dog knows Declan thinks she strung up the stars.

My office door swings open and in saunters my sister’s best friend from school. He falls back into the armchair by my desk.

“Is that celebrity stylist Jack Giles?” I grin over at him as my sister bounds over and plants herself in his lap.

A good man, that Jack Giles—been dealt a bit of a shit hand, but he’s made the most of it. Made a name for himself despite everything. And he’s a fucking looker. Turns heads everywhere he goes, breaks hearts left and right, but I reckon his heart’s pretty fucked up at the minute all on it’s own.

“Ey.” I nod my chin at him. “How’s it going with you and Hot John?”

Giles looks over and grimaces.

“He still fucking you around?” Decks asks from the other side of the room, folding his arms.

“Always.” Daisy rolls her eyes, pushing some hair behind Jack’s ears. “But Jacky did go on a date with a certain gay celebrity the other night—”

“It wasn’t a date.” Jack rolls his eyes.

“He asked you out after you styled him!”

He tosses her a look. “To say thank you!”

“Who was it?” I lean in, interested.

“We shan’t be saying,” Daisy announces, brat nose in the air. “But rest assured it was regrettably not Anderson Cooper, but we’ll get there eventually.”

There’s a knock at the front door.

Dad bought out an entire cul-de-sac in the middle of Knightsbridge in the eighties. The Compound. Looks like a bit of a palace. You wouldn’t know what goes on in here other than the stuff of legends. You can’t tell from the outside that it’s so much more than just a fucking big house. Indoor pool, basketball court, gym, rooftop bar, rooms for my boys, couple of panic rooms and a biosecurity safe where we keep a bunch of shit I’m not going to tell you about. It just looks like every other bougie house around here. The heightened security might get a couple of extra looks, but for all anyone knows around here we could just be royalty.

“You get it,” I tell my sister, nodding towards the knock. Whoever it is has already been vetted by security. Besides, I know who it is.

Dais rolls her eyes at me, trots over to the door.

I get up after a second, walk to the doorframe, watching as though I don’t know, like I’d ever let her open a door if I didn’t.

It’s him.

It’s 9 p.m. on a Wednesday night.

It’s always him.

And he’s a sucker for her.

“Tiller, we have to stop meeting like this!” She beams up at him, batting her eyes.

Killian Tiller, a detective with the NCA who’s been jonesing for my sister since the second his American arse laid eyes on her. As if I didn’t have enough on my fucking plate, now I’ve gotta keep an eye on a fed who’s trying to get into my sister’s pants.

Trouble is, I reckon she’d let him. She’s always been a sucker for boys who look like the blonde one from Fast & Furious, and that’s this lad to a tee.

“What?” He gives her a look. “Me turning up at your house because your family’s under criminal investigation? I agree.”

“Perfect.” She smiles at him coyly. “So Friday? Dinner at eight?”

She’s too fucking good at this. Makes me feel a bit nauseous.

He snorts a laugh. “What are you, sixteen now?”

“Don’t tease, you know I’m twenty.” She scowls at him.

“Do you want a prize? Or are you all set with the one that comes with your Happy Meal?”

She frowns at him. “I don’t know why you’re speaking about Happy Meals in a disparaging way. They’re perfectly portioned and completely delicious.” Cocks an eyebrow at him. “You know they’re my favourite . . .”

“Do I?” he asks, smirking down at her.

She nods at the folder snug under his arm. “You can stop pretending that file isn’t just a million photos you took of me, you big old perv.”

He bites back a laugh. “Ah, you got me.”

“I look quite fresh in that navy lingerie, don’t I?” she says, nose in the air.

Fuck. I want to die. Persevere with my spying anyway.

Tiller tilts his head, looking down on her more affectionately than a man investigating her family should. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Okay,” she tells him, using air quotes and finally he cracks a proper laugh, face lighting up.

Fuck me, I haven’t even asked her to work this guy, she’s just doing it herself.

He shakes his head, drawing himself back to something approaching serious. “Where was your brother two nights ago?”

She gives him a tight smile and a shrug.

I shift a little, make sure he can’t see me.

“Know anything about some missing art?”

“No.” She shakes her head emphatically. “But that sounds very serious . . .”

“A Fernand Léger painting worth a hundred and fifty thousand pounds went missing that night.”

She inspects her nails. “I don’t like him, do you?”

“Your brother?”

“Léger.” She glares. “Not a big fan of pop art nor abstract.”

“Who was your brother with two nights ago?”

“Where were you two nights ago, Tils?” She bites down on her bottom lip and he rolls his eyes. “Every time you point a finger, there’s three pointing back at you!” she tells him merrily. He rolls his eyes again, exasperated.

“You’ll strain those if you keep doing that.” She nods at him.

“Well.” He gives her a look. “It’s hard to control around you.”

“You can’t control yourself around me?” She flutters her eyelashes at him and I shake my head, trying not to laugh. “So adorable.” She sighs.

The copper gives my sister an amused look and she nudges his arm playfully. “So where did we land with Friday?”

Tiller squints at her. “I don’t date criminals.”

She leans her head against the doorframe and sighs. “I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

He sniffs a smile, shakes his head, then walks down my front stairs.

“I don’t either, by the way . . .” she calls after him.

He looks back. “What?”

“I don’t date criminals.”

“Just fuck them, do you?” His eyes are sharp and his tone is daring.

Her lips round out in surprise—she’s enjoying the attention too much, like she’s starved for it.

“My, my!” She squashes a smile. “That is a comprehensive little folder you’ve got there. If you know that, then you really do know how good I look in navy lingerie.”

He stops and squints for a second, then shrugs. “I liked you better in the white.”

Her jaw drops and she lets out a single laugh, but I want his fucking head on a platter for that one.

I walk back over to my desk, sit on it like I wasn’t eavesdropping on them, and she meanders back into my office.

“Who was that?” I ask, pretending I don’t know.

“Tiller.”

I roll my eyes. “What’d he want this time? Besides a date with you.”

“Unfortunately,” she sighs, “as is ever the story of my life, I fear it’s not me he wants a date with.”

“Is Inspector Tiller gay?” Declan asks from the other side of the room, his eyes wide with earnestness. “Giles, have a crack, mate!”

“A court date, genius.” She rolls her eyes.

“Wait—are you talking about the Sexy Policeman?” Jack asks, sitting up.

“We are.” Dais nods.

“I mean . . .” I frown a bit. “I wouldn’t call him sexy.” I shrug.

Daisy gives me a look like I’m an idiot. “Then I would call you blind.”

“He is stupid hot.” Jack nods, not looking up from his phone. “Should have been a model. What’s he being a policeman for? Making me disrespect the badge for a peek.”

Feel myself frown a bit, try to cover it because I don’t want another lecture from my sister about how I have to be the most attractive person in the room or else I apparently shit a brick. Not true. Besides, I’ve never been in a room where I wasn’t the best-looking.

“Anyway.” Daisy plants herself in front of me, arms folded over her chest. “Did you steal some art this week, Julian?” She squints at me.

Yep.

I did. Well, not me personally.

Some of the footmen.

She’d rather not know about the comings and goings of our family business, and I’d rather keep her out of it as much as possible. Safer that way.

“I don’t steal, Face.” I give her a look. “I acquire.”

“That sounds like ‘educated thief’ for ‘steal’.” She gives me a curt smile.

I match it. “Right, and what’s ‘nosy sister’ for ‘fuck off’?”

“Casse-toi.”

I smile. “Nup—” Shake my head at her. “That’s what it is for ‘pretentious sister’. . .”

10:26

Magnolia

Morning champ

Hi

How are we feeling

We’ve felt better

We can imagine

What happened

You know what happened

Remind me

He slept with Taura

brought her to your mum’s launch.

Pricky

You got shitfaced.

And then . . .

And then nothing.

Henry was on pupil watch and I got the always fun task of sloshing you home.

Was I very sloshy

Yes

Sorry

It’s all good.

What are you doing? Me and Hen are gonna go to Annabel’s for lunch

Beej and I are on New Bond St. We’ll call you in a bit xx

02:02

Jack

Cutie update please

I don’t know a cutie, sorry.

Angelic-faced gang lord, impeccable arse.

Not a gang lord . . .

Because that’s what counts.

Arse is impeccable though

Worthy of poetry, I’d say.

Impeccable Arse is fine. Blew me off.

Is that a sex thing?

Don’t answer that.

Hilarious.

Why’d he blow you off?

Because he’s an impeccable arse.

Way to really bring that home. 10/10

I think we’re going to get drinks tomorrow night.

Sexy

Fingers crossed.