Best Served Cold

“Best move quicker than you did across that rope, then. You might still be climbing in when they open the place tomorrow.” The Northman was still smiling as he slipped over the parapet and back across the cord, swift and sure for all his bulk.

“If there is a God, he has cursed me through my acquaintance.” Morveer gave only the briefest consideration to the notion of cutting the knot while the primitive was halfway across, then crept away down a narrow lead channel between low-pitched slopes of slate towards the centre of the building. The great glass roof glowed ahead of him, faint light glittering through thousands of distorting panes. Friendly squatted beside it, already unwinding a second length of cord from around his waist.

“Ah, the modern age.” Morveer knelt beside Day, pressing his hands gently to the expanse of glass. “What will they think of next?”

“I feel blessed to live in such exciting times.”

“So should we all, my dear.” He carefully peered down into the bank’s interior. “So should we all.” The hallway was barely lit, a single lamp burning at each end, bringing a precious gleam to the gilt frames of the huge paintings but leaving the doorways rich with shadow. “Banks,” he whispered, a ghost of a smile on his face, “always trying to economise.”

He pulled out his glazing tools and began to prise away the lead with pliers, lifting each piece of glass out carefully with blobs of putty. The brilliance of his dexterity was quite undimmed by age, and it took him mere moments to remove nine panes, to snip the lead latticework with pincers and peel it back to leave a diamond-shaped hole ample for his purposes.

“Perfect timing,” he murmured. The light from the guard’s lantern crept up the panelled walls of the hallway, brought a touch of dawn to the dark canvases. His footsteps echoed as he passed by underneath them, giving vent to a booming yawn, his long shadow stretching out over the marble tiles. Morveer applied the slightest blast of air to his blowpipe.

“Gah!” The guard clapped a hand to the top of his head and Morveer ducked away from the window. There were footsteps below, a scuffling, a gurgle, then the loud thump and clatter of a toppling body. On peering back through the aperture the guard was plainly visible, spreadeagled on his back, lit lamp on its side by one outstretched hand.

“Excellent,” breathed Day.

“Naturally.”

“However much we talk about science, it always seems like magic.”

“We are, one might say, the wizards of the modern age. The rope, if you please, Master Friendly.” The convict tossed one end of the silken cord over, the other still knotted around his waist. “You are sure you can take my weight?”

“Yes.” There was indeed a sense of terrible strength about the silent man that lent even Morveer a level of confidence. With the rope secured by a knot of his own devising, he lowered first one soft shoe and then the other into the diamond-shaped opening. He worked his hips through, then his shoulders, and he was inside the bank.

“Lower away.” And down he drifted, as swiftly and smoothly as if lowered by a machine. His shoes touched the tiles and he slipped the knot with a jerk of his wrist, slid silently into a shadowy doorway, loaded blow-gun ready in one hand. He was expecting but the single guard within the building, but one should never become blinded by expectations.

Caution first, always.

His eyes rolled up and down the darkened hallway, his skin tingling with the excitement of the work under way. There was no movement. Only silence so complete it seemed almost a pressure against his prickling ears.

He looked up, saw Day’s face at the gap and beckoned gently to her. She slid through as nimbly as a circus performer and glided down, their equipment folded around her body in a bandolier of black cloth. When her feet touched the ground she slipped free of the rope and crouched there, grinning.

He almost grinned back, then stopped himself. It would not do to let her know the warm admiration for her talents, judgement and character that had developed during their three years together. It would not do to let her even suspect the depth of his regard. It was when he did so that people inevitably betrayed his trust. His time in the orphanage, his apprenticeship, his marriage, his working life-all were scattered with the most poignant betrayals. Truly his heart bore many wounds. He would keep matters entirely professional, and thus protect them both. Him from her, and her from herself.

“Clear?” she hissed.

“As an empty squares board,” he murmured, standing over the stricken guard, “and all according to plan. What do we most despise, after all?”

“Mustard?”

“And?”

“Accidents.”

“Correct. There are no such things as happy ones. Get his boots.”

With considerable effort they manoeuvred him down the hallway to his desk and into his chair. His head flopped back and he began to snore, long moustache fluttering gently around his lips.

“Ahhhhh, he sleeps like a babe. Props, if you please.”