Chapter 1: Prologue
Chapter Text
She sees Jack first.
It’s a cruise she’s on, supposedly a way of bringing her and Shifty closer together after she found out about yet another one of his affairs, and Jack is what passes for the entertainment in the evening.
Jack Of All Trades, he styles himself, despite being only capable of one trick: a mediocre mentalism act that Martina, cynic that she is, immediately susses out as fake. He predicts a random audience member’s occupation, age and the fact that he’s cheating on his wife (plant; both he and the wife are clearly actors) and Martina is so unimpressed she abandons the rest of the show in favour of a cocktail on deck.
She has never believed in magic.
In one hour, a theatre full of people is stunned into silence. In the ten minutes that follow, the curators of four different renowned art galleries stand dumbfounded, and then hasten to contact the police.
In another ten, the Great White Whales are known by everybody in the world.
Aveline the Sparkling is as daft as her name. Anyone who can’t even think up a good title for themselves hasn’t the brains or creativity to put on a decent show. Martina has never been a fan of restaurants that offer entertainment while you eat—less so when a trip to one such place is clearly Shifty’s guilt at his affair manifesting in an extravagant gesture. Her husband is too predictable. And she’s far from overjoyed to find out while she’s downing her below-average meal that the pre-show entertainment is a magic act.
Aveline the Sparkling, whose costume ensures she at least aesthetically lives up to her name, seems to spend more time waving, blowing kisses, strutting around showing off her outfit and generally enjoying the spotlight than actually performing any tricks. When she finally does get around to her party piece—escaping from a tank of water; it’s been done—making such a hash of it that when she does emerge, hair dry (yes, don’t even try to be authentic, Martina thinks dryly, don’t even bother to make it look like you were in the water at all) Martina is so unimpressed she yawns loudly, not caring that people stare.
Not that it would have been all that much better if Aveline the Spectacular Failure had done the trick right.
Martina has never believed in magic.
It’s astounding, really, that a troupe with as daft a name as ‘The Great White Whales in the Sea of Society’ could be so…well, brilliant.
But the evidence speaks for itself.
Billy performs sleight of hand on the street, wonkily bends a few spoons, and apprehends Martina hoping for some money to buy himself food or a shelter for the night.
He’s useless.
There’s nothing more to say about that.
She gives him a pound out of pity, but he’ll never convince Martina to believe in magic.
The most brilliant part?
There is no evidence.
That’s what’s driving Martina mad.
‘I bet I can impress you in ten seconds. Less than.’
‘If that’s a chat-up line,’ Martina says, annoyed to be at yet another party where she’s come as Shifty’s plus-one only to find the man himself has blown it off and she’s left alone with strangers, ‘then you might wanna think about a life of celibacy. Because that is never gonna work on anyone.’
Joey grins at her. ‘Ah. But you have not even seen me impress you yet.’
She folds her arms. ‘Try me.’ Ten seconds. Hah. Even Shifty takes longer than that in bed. Only by about two seconds, but still.
And then there is a fan of red and white plastic in front of her face, and Martina groans as she realises how he intends to impress her.
‘I can’t stand magic tricks.’
‘Oh? Is this a sceptic I see before me?’
‘Sceptic isn’t a strong enough word, Mister…’
‘I told you. It’s Joey. Pick a card.’ He winks at her. ‘You know you want to.’
Martina rolls her eyes, plucks out an ace of spades and puts it back.
‘There’s one up yer sleeve,’ she says as Joey performs an ostentatious shuffle of the deck.
‘Sorry, sweetheart. No cigar for you.’
‘Isn’t the expression close but no cigar?’
‘Aha,’ Joey clicks his tongue and winks again. ‘But for me to use that expression, sunshine, you’d have had to be close.’
Another shuffle. The cards make an obnoxious flicking noise and Martina wishes she could put her forefinger and thumb together and flick him right between the eyes.
‘They’re all the same card.’
Joey momentarily turns the pack around so she can see they’re not.
‘You’re lookin’ too closely at what’s in front of you, lovely lady,’ he says, and if he uses one more disgustingly smarmy pet name, Martina decides she’ll smack him.
‘You see, when you think the trick is happening,’ she expects him to pull her card out with a flourish, but instead the cards have disappeared, his hands are on her shoulders and he’s guiding her towards the window, ‘it’s already been done.’
And voila. A huge flag bearing an ace of spades is hanging from the bridge directly across from their building. A battered flag, to be precise, crumpled from at least a hundred uses.
‘Very clever,’ Martina says, even though it’s not, ‘but I’m not impressed. I don’t believe in magic.’
The events which take place in the following year will make Martina rethink that statement.
Chapter 2: Part I: A Belief in Unbelief
Notes:
Just a side note for this one: a few Bread characters will appear in different roles. I'm also slightly bending canon (in spite of this being an AU) to suggest Shifty is not connected to the Boswells at all.
Chapter Text
1990
Another day, another pile of bothersome fraud cases. No, Martina never expected a glittering career (a tiresome slog up the ladder, perhaps, sounded more realistic), but instead she feels as if she’s continually moving sideways, swimming against a tide that brings wave upon wave of dull fraud case, dull fraud cases, and…yes, more dull fraud cases. The title detective seems a farce, too fancy a job description for wading through repetitive paperwork, always coming up against the same four characters in different incarnations.
Embezzled money from job. Funnelled money from ex-spouse’s account. Benefit and/or welfare fraud (ninety per cent of her workload). Income tax fraud.
Dull fraud cases, coming home to Shifty and his new stolen accoutrements and his blatant lack of interest in her—the treadmill goes round and round, no deviation from the routine. Dull and repetitive.
Until it isn’t.
‘Did you hear about them magicians?’ Carmen leans into her cubicle one day. She sips her coffee, leaving a lipstick mark around her mug.
‘Hmm,’ Martina murmurs, as non-committal as she can be in the hope her colleague will leave her alone to her work. She doesn’t associate much with Carmen, as a rule. Getting friendly with Carmen means endless gossip about their co-workers and lengthy monologues about her seemingly endless parade of new boyfriends, and the strange locations they, as Carmen so tactfully puts it, did it the night before.
‘Stole them valuable paintings,’ Carmen persists.
‘I know, yeah,’ Martina rolls her eyes.
‘Robbed the National Gallery and everything. The paintings disappeared and appeared on stage. I saw it on telly. It was wicked brilliant.’
‘Really.’
She’s not hiding the boredom, letting it drip from her voice. It’s been all over the news, this mystery of the magicians who supposedly committed major theft in the middle of a live performance, in front of a packed auditorium—and Martina couldn’t care less. The higher-ups deal with such things. The big shot detectives with genuine criminal cases, outranking her in pay, title and work assignments.
Magicians. Martina has little respect for such people, even when they can, as is claimed, pull off the theft of the world’s most valuable paintings in front of everyone’s noses. Having a catchy gimmick makes them no less thieves.
Carmen sighs theatrically. ‘Shame they’re in hot water now. That big dark one—the mentalist—he’s ever so attractive. He’s got a nice face. Bet he’s got a nice body and all. And there’s summat about a magician.’
She’s got a lascivious look in her eye now that doesn’t bode well for ending this conversation any time soon. ‘You can tell a man’s profession by what he’s like in bed, you know. Bet magicians have a trick or two up their sleeves.’
In spite of her general irritation with Carmen, that puts a smirk on Martina’s face. ‘You mean a lot of false bravado and showmanship?’
‘Whatever you wanna call it, bet it’s wonderful. They’re dead clever, you know. I ‘eard the fellas who interrogated ‘em were spewin’ blood, ‘cause they had to let ‘em go. Not enough evidence to convict ‘em. They sat there, bold as brass, and insisted the whole thing was magic—and nobody could find any different. They walked out of ‘ere with their heads held high.’
Carmen has a dreamy look on her face, as if this pathetic display of rogueishness has got her motor running (not that it takes much to achieve that. The bloke who’d fixed her desk phone had apparently earned a spin on the sexual roundabout—and all he’d done was plug it back in).
Martina, on the other hand, is not impressed. The only reason no evidence was uncovered was nobody was looking in the right places. She digs long enough for fraud cases to know it’s a matter of thinking outside the square. Of looking where people don’t think to look. Of picking up on a small detail, like a docket sticking out of a pocket, a surreptitious mobile phone concealed on a person, a slogan painted on the side of a van that’s supposedly ‘borrowed’, and she’s got a lead that ends in an undeclared source of income.
Martina could have found evidence. The criminal detectives—they have a certain way of doing things. They are treating this as a theft, when perhaps the answer is to treat it as fraud.
Not that anyone would care what she has to say on the matter. She shakes her head at Carmen, sips her coffee, prepares to return herself to her own case load, when the office secretary appears, hovering awkwardly in front of her desk.
‘Martina Jones?’
It’s been two years and that dolly bird still doesn’t know which one she is. Martina blinks slowly, huffs out a breath. ‘Yes, love?’
‘You’re wanted in Detective Bowford’s office.’
‘Me?’ Martina wrinkles her nose. Plebs that they are, the fraud squad rarely see their own head of department, let alone those in charge of the proper serious cases. And Martina’s lack of recognition, even after five years in this office, in spite of her stellar record, doesn’t inspire confidence in her that she’s about to be acknowledged in any way. More likely a redundancy coming her way.
She sighs, smooths down her blazer and skirt, follows the idiot secretary, unaware this is the beginning of everything.
If Martina had known that conversation with Carmen was the beginning of everything, that it would change her life, she may have approached it differently.
Or perhaps she wouldn’t have.
Even in the face of something wondrous, Martina’s skepticism is not so easily shifted.
When Martina hears she is not only a) being promoted, but b) being assigned to a proper criminal case (with a touch of c) extra money), her first reaction is to almost fall out of her chair.
Her second is to wonder what prank Bowford is trying to pull.
Her third is to let out an uncharacteristic laugh of exhilaration.
And her fourth, upon a bit of calming down, a bit of genuine reflection and a cursory glance at the magician case file lying on the desk in front of her, is a quizzical, and genuinely baffled, why me?
‘Don’t think your work hasn’t gone unnoticed, Detective Jones. By all accounts, you’re the best the fraud squad has.’
‘Could’ve fooled me,’ Martina mutters under her breath. It’d be the first time she’s ever been acknowledged for any work…well, ever.
‘I heard that. Don’t—apologise; save your breath,’ Bowford says, as Martina opens her mouth to protest. ‘You came to us from council, didn’t you?’
She grumbles her assent. She’d rather not dwell on the years she’d frittered away behind the counters at the Social Security. They’d been invaluable to the way she approaches her job now, but they’d also been a nightmare of titanic proportions from which she was glad to wake up.
‘And your fresh take on fraud detection may help us. Our usual team are baffled—thievery in broad daylight in public is a gutsy move, but it’s one that pays off. The harder it is for them to hide anything, the easier it is to make the gullible public believe it’s magic.’
‘I can’t stand magic tricks. It still astounds the darkest reaches of me mind that anyone could believe in all that.’
‘Just why we wanted you, Martina. Just why we wanted you. Far too many people have been lured in by these con artists. They’re impressed, you see, and that makes them turn a blind eye to the criminal deeds because they want a good show. At least you’ll see through all that.’
Martina hums to herself. She’d been thinking the same thing not ten minutes ago. She’s not sure what the catch is, but there has to be one. The difficulty of the job, perhaps. Reading between the lines, the usual investigators for these cases are desperate to throw in the towel, discard this one into the too hard pile. Still, it’s her big chance.
‘All right, then. Where do we go from here?’
‘As you may be aware, the Great White Whales were taken in and questioned, but we couldn’t find any evidence—which means, unfortunately for us, we had to release them. We know it’s there, though. We’ve got warrants ready to go just as soon as we can pin them down on something concrete. One shred of proof connecting them to the theft—or one more crime in front of a proper witness—and we’re taking ‘em down.’
Her new manager pushes the file closer to her, flicks the manila folder open and begins to fan papers out across the desk.
‘Get familiar with yer four new best friends. Find out all there is to know about them. Suss out their weaknesses, their history, anyone who knows them. Anything that can get us that proof we need.’
He pulls out the mug shots from the Great White Whales’ arrest (if you can call them that, when it appears every one of them is grinning at the camera).
‘Joseph Boswell—illusionist.’
Oh, God. It’s that smarmy bastard she encountered at the party last year. All smooth words, overused clichés, pathetic tricks—and yet he seems the sort of person who’d dare pull off a crime in front of a crowd of people. He oozed overconfidence, arrogance.
‘Commonly goes by Joey, best known for card tricks and making objects levitate. He appears to be the ringleader—does most of the talking on stage. Fancies himself quite the ladies’ man, from what I’ve ‘eard.’
‘Aren’t I lucky?’ Martina says dryly. ‘Next?’
‘Jack Duvall, mentalist. Claims to know what you’re thinking before you do.’
Oh, she doesn’t believe this. The thug who’d ‘entertained’ her on the cruise ship. Is every second-rate (if not third-rate) magician she’s ever had the misfortune to meet going to come out of the woodwork?
‘Aveline Carter, escape artist.’
Apparently so. She doesn’t even need to look at the photograph. Aveline the Sparkling has shed her ridiculous title but clearly not her pathetic ambition.
Then again, The Great White Whales in the Sea of Society is still a pretty daft name for a magic act, so perhaps she takes that back.
‘Let me guess,’ she says, before her superior can show her the final photograph. ‘This last member of the troupe—he wouldn’t be Billy, would he?’
She was sort of expecting a response in the negative, though she doesn’t know why. And yet her boss gives a nod and slides the picture over to her.
‘William Jefferson, street magician, known to his friends as Billy. Claims his specialty is sleight of hand.’
‘There’s lovely,’ Martina rolls her eyes. ‘A ragtag bunch of pathetic performers who couldn’t make enough from their daft acts to make ends meet, so they turned to crime instead.’
Her boss holds a floppy disk aloft.
‘Here’s what we’ve got so far. All the notes. I’ll play yer back the tape of their interrogation as well. That should be enough to get yer started. Perhaps you’d have done better in this interview than our men on the ground. See what you think.’
She sits back in her chair as he pops in the tape, and finds herself growing redder and redder with indignation at what she’s shown.
‘How did you get into the galleries?’
‘Magic.’ (Jack Duvall, looking grinningly gormless).
‘Did you have an accomplice?’
‘We told yer— it was magic!’ (Billy Jefferson).
‘Was there a two way radio hidden up that ridiculous gown of yours?’
‘I regard that as an impertinent question—I’m a performer, aren’t I? I have to look me best!’ (Aveline Carter, with a huffy flip of her hair).
And so it continues, the three of them answering almost stupidly, until the ringleader steps up with all his cunning on display, and starts fielding the questions in the most obnoxious manner possible.
‘You can’t possibly have teleported that audience member into the National Gallery and back out, along with the painting. So I’m going to ask you again, how did you do it?’
‘The thing about magic is, to understand how it’s done, you need one thing.’
‘And what’s that, then?’
‘Always be the smartest person in the room.’
Martina fancies she can hear the interviewer growl.
‘Where are the paintings now?’
‘In the sky. Far above the lead-laden air and the nesting Liver Birds. Above it all—just as we are above the average theft. Now, that may be a clue. Or it may not. I’ll let you decide.’
‘Are you trying to drive me round the friggin’ pipe?
‘If I wanted to do that, I could have you in knots before you know it. The lesser-known cousin to the sawing a woman in half trick, you know, twisting a bloke around a pipe. Next minute your foot’s above your ‘ead and…’
Another growl, this one less muffled.
‘Shut it, okay, just SHUT IT! This is a police investigation, in case you haven’t noticed it. There are charges laid at you door. This is not the time to be playing the smartarse!’
‘Oh, I agree with yer,’ Joey says, tilting backwards in his chair and plonking his feet on the table with a jaw-dropping arrogance. ‘And I sympathise with your frustration. It must be difficult, pitting what little wits and smarts you’ve got against clever bastards like me.’
And he looks directly at the security camera and gives an infuriating grin.
The next clip she’s shown is of the four Great Big Bastards striding out of the police station free men and women, unable to be charged without evidence, aware of it and wearing the smuggest, most self-satisfying smirks Martina has ever seen.
And at that moment, she’s snatching her new contract and signing, determined that, inexperienced though she may be, she’s going to get them. Because she may not care about magic, but her background in investigating benefit fraud has instilled in her a strong hatred of cocky bastards. They may have committed a very large crime, they may have a gimmick, but deep down they’re nothing more than the same characters who tried to talk her out of reporting them day after day, thinking they deserve the world, filled with self importance and arrogance.
And arrogance like that cannot be allowed to stand.
She tries to float a few theories by Shifty that night in bed, but of course, as always, there’s no point. Shifty barely listens, playing instead with a pocket watch she’s sure he nicked from the man next door. He smells like another woman’s perfume. His eyes have that glazed look—the one that denotes he’s utterly absorbed in thinking of something which isn’t her, that suggests he hasn’t heard a word she’s said. Perhaps hasn’t even noticed her speaking at all.
Martina sighs, rolling her eyes in his direction.
She saw something in him, once.
The devil-may-care attitude, the flattery, the winsomely charming smile, those icy blue eyes twinkling out from beneath a shock of black hair—he’d been an attractive package on the outside, and it had been far too easy for Young Martina, she of the early twenties immaturity, to fall for him almost straight away. To believe his empty words and promises. To convince herself the smiles and charm were for her and her alone. To say yes when he asked her out, and ignore the obvious signs of what was to come.
Even if he had been trying to pick her pocket when he met her.
Martina has shaken her head so many times at her past stupidity, but it doesn’t stop her doing it again now.
Sod it. She’s not getting any help here—and with so many thoughts bouncing around her head, she’s not getting any sleep, either. Might as well do what she often does—head back to work, settle down in the records archive and do a bit of research. She slips out of bed.
Unsurprisingly, Shifty doesn’t even notice her dressing. She’s not even worth a where are ye off to, these days.
Martina clears her throat. Shifty continues to be absorbed in his stolen pocket watch. Martina coughs again, then when all that gets her is a muttered get a cough drop, Martina, she barks his name.
‘What, what? Can a man get no peace, then? No peace?!’
‘I’m not interested in whatever you’ve pinched now. I’m off out, that’s what.’
Again, no questioning it, even though it’s eleven at night. Shifty simply shrugs nonchalantly.
‘Could ye fetch us another cocoa, then, before you go? There’s a good lass.’ He’s offering that winsome smile again, the one he knows gets him whatever he wants, while holding out an empty mug.
Martina rolls her eyes and takes it.
‘Whatever you want, love,’ she mutters, knowing full well he’ll be asleep by the time she returns, and will have forgotten all about it. She takes the cup in resignation, plonking it in the kitchen before she slips on her coat and heads out the door.
When Martina had started in this job, she’d found the police archives invaluable. Having access to any official records, any news articles she wants has come in handy on numerous occasions. When she’s got a difficult case to crack, she’s always come here, sat herself down with a cup of tea and scoured every record she can find, looking for dots to connect. They maybe obscure, but they’re always there, and she’s hunted down evidence of fraud and found it in the least likely of places. From obituaries (can be traced to new inheritances) to marriage records (not declaring a spouse’s income), she’s found it all. Her colleagues have always been impressed by her research skills.
And there’s nothing she likes better than ensconcing herself in here, where it’s dark and quiet and private, where a world of information is at her fingertips, and thumbing through index cards or inputting commands into the force’s computer and seeing what she can find.
She runs through the floppy disk of information her superior had given her this morning, getting acquainted with the particulars of the case, before moving on to the archives and beginning to dig into the details of their lives. Of Joseph Boswell and his former illegal number plate business (she’s surprised he was never flagged in her old department), Billy Jefferson and his numerous traffic offences, most of which took place around his teen years and involved driving a vehicle so banged up it wasn’t actually supposed to be on the road at all. Of Aveline Carter’s high profile (at least in church bulletin circles) marriage to Reverend Oswald Carter of St Mary’s parish, and their endless involvement in church events and white elephant sales and bring and buys up to a point (this one surprises her—Aveline the Sparkling doesn’t strike her as one to be satisfied with the frumpy life of a vicar’s wife).
Of the heist, in front of a packed auditorium.
Strangely enough, there seems to be a gap between 1987 and this year, where all four of them had simply vanished off the face of the earth. No records of them doing anything, either in their dull, ordinary lives before their stint as magicians, nor in the criminal world. Martina pauses, ponders.
She’d encountered all four of them in the past two years, performing a magic act of some sort, and yet there doesn’t seem to be a link yet between how they went from their old existences to dabbling in pathetic tricks, or how they went from that to joining up and making a name for themselves.
From nothing to infamy—the Great White Whales would seem an enigma, had Martina not been so cynical. There’s always an explanation. Much as magic tricks are always far less astounding when you realise there’s something up the performer’s sleeves, some way of showing how the trick was done, the gap in the Great White Whales’ past doesn’t mystify her in any way. Keeping themselves under the radar doesn’t mean they were off it entirely. She just has to dig deeper.
Discovering how they came to meet, to team up, seems a logical first step. And so she cracks her knuckles and types in a few search commands, summoning up any information she can on the magic troupe from the last twelve months.
FIND [/V] [/I] [/N] [/C] "search-string" [GREAT WHITE WHALES IN THE SEA OF SOCIETY]
The screen flickers momentarily. Bloody thing. Never works the way it’s supposed to.
Martina poises her fingers again, ready to give it another go, when her command disappears, replaced by a glowing green line of text.
I WOULDN’T DO THAT IF I WERE YOU SUNSHINE
Martina blinks and the words are gone, replaced with everything the library of records has to offer.
She skims everything that comes up—mostly records that only date as far back as the last couple of weeks or so, news stories about the Great White Whales and the mysterious way they took paintings from the Louvre and the National Gallery right under everyone’s noses. Some of the more sensationalist papers have put out follow ups to keep the public’s interest. Supposed ‘sources’ with intel on how the Great White Whales might have done their tricks, theories on where they might be now. Sightings of Jack Duvall wading around in the shallows of Loch Ness. As if. The media will clutch onto any straw they can, when there’s a story to be sold.
She rolls her eyes, tries another approach. They have to have got together somehow.
[JOSEPH BOSWELL, JACK DUVALL, WILLIAM JEFFERSON, AVELINE CARTER]
She’s been searching for a while, feeling like she’s getting nowhere, when something strange catches her eye. An obituary for a man who died last year.
William Thomas Duvall.
Martina frowns, types another command. It’s a long shot, probably a coincidence, but….
FIND [/V] [/I] [/N] [/C] "search-string" [WILLIAM THOMAS DUVALL]
His official record isn’t hard to find.
[PRINT]
She scans over her findings.
William Duvall was born in 1913, which dampens her hope immediately, but she reads through his official records anyway, just in case. One daughter, Penelope (Nellie) Duvall born 1939, married 1956 to…
Martina’s heart stops.
Frederick Boswell.
This just got interesting.
[PENELOPE DUVALL, FREDERICK BOSWELL]
Another strange message flashes up.
CLEVER GIRL AREN’T YOU?
‘Is this some sort of joke?’ she says aloud, though nobody is around to hear her. No doubt some prat she works with has done this, set it up to flash strange messages every now and then as a daft prank. Connie from maintenance does love a good practical joke, after all. She shakes her head, goes on with her search now the computer has gone back to normal.
She finds a marriage announcement for Nellie and Freddie Boswell, and after it, a few more pieces of information come up. Birth announcements. She reads them all, pieces suddenly falling into place.
Five children—Joseph, Jack, Jimmy, Aveline and William, all born between 1957 and 1969.
She can’t quite believe it, but there it is in front of her in plain sight. A smile curves across Martina’s face.
Gotcha.
‘They’re all one family.’
Martina’s superior looks up in surprise at her declaration.
‘What?’
‘The Great White Whales,’ Martina clarifies, slapping her case folder on his desk. ‘I did some digging last night—only Joey’s using his real name. The others are all Boswells as well.’
He frowns. ‘I’m not following you.’
‘They’re brothers and sisters,’ she doesn’t know how much clearer she can make it. ‘All born to the same parents. They are one family. Jack uses Duvall because it’s their mother’s maiden name. Aveline goes by Carter because she married Reverend Oswald Carter a few years ago—they separated in ’89. I don’t know why Billy goes by Jefferson, but his real name is Boswell too. He’s their youngest brother. They’re just a family of thieving bastards who thought they’d do better if they teamed up.’
Once she’d worked that out, the information had seemingly poured forth. She’s got an entire manila folder, reams and reams of computer paper with information on each of them, scribbles of notes where she’s worked out how they all link to one another.
‘Fascinating as their genealogy is,’ her boss couldn’t sound less interested, much to her surprise, ‘how does this get us any closer to finding evidence of what they’ve done?’
‘Because,’ Martina was anticipating this question, plays her ace now, ‘there’s another brother. Jimmy Boswell. We find him, put a bit of pressure on ‘im, he leads us to the others.’
‘And where do we find him, then?’
Martina rolls her eyes. ‘I’m workin’ on it. Give me a couple of days, I’ll find him for yer. I’ll track down Oswald Carter and all. He might know something.’
‘And before you go gallivanting off looking for these leads,’ her boss says, ‘there’s something more immediate you can do. The Great White Whales littered the street last night with posters advertising their next performance. People are already queueing up to buy tickets. The press are gonna be there, video cameras and all.’
Well, isn’t that marvellous. After all the work she’s done, those bastards have gone and made her look an idiot. Wrapped up in her research as she was, she has barely noticed anything going on outside.
He pushes a poster over to her. The venue is only streets away.
‘You’re going to be in the audience. Try and catch them after the show—or go backstage or something. Get close enough to bring us some hard evidence.’
Martina makes a face. ‘And you think they’ll just carry evidence around with them? To their public shows?’
‘They didn’t have any issue with publically robbing museums in front of hundreds of witnesses,’ her boss sounds annoyed now. ‘The only thing we don’t know is how they did it—but chances are, whenever they strike, they must be pulling strings to make these things happen. Giving signals to accomplices, transmitting messages—something along those lines. While they’re on stage, who’ve they got actually pulling off the crimes? How are they communicating with them? That’s what I want you to find out.’
‘All right,’ Martina’s not confident this is a good idea, but she nods all the same, staring down at the poster she’s been given, the words The Disappearing Lady Act boldly emblazoned across the top. ‘I’ll try and find out.’
And that’s how she finds herself in the front row at the Great White Whales’ performance, strategically positioned right in front of the stage, her ears buzzing from the cheering crowd around her. They haven’t even bloody got here yet and these fools around her are going wild with excitement.
They’re bloody criminals, she wants to reprimand them all. You shouldn’t be encouraging them for the sake of entertainment!
How the Boswells (it feels good to give them that name, rather than the daft one they picked) got to be this popular she’ll never know. She’s seen them all perform at one time or another. They were all hopeless.
She hasn’t much time to reflect on this, though. She hears dramatic music, and then a flash of light and they’ve appeared from nowhere.
‘GREETINGS!’ Joey hollers dramatically, to a thunder of applause. He takes an affected bow, clearly lapping up the spotlight. ‘And welcome to the matinee of our most spectacular performance to date!’
Pretentious, Martina snorts to herself. It had been odd they were doing a daytime show, now she suspects it’s just so Joey can use the word matinee.
Joey works the audience into a frenzy again, somehow making his jacket glow and dazzle, before turning to introduce his accomplices.
His brothers and sister, Martina thinks snidely as he gives Jack and Billy a buildup, embellishing their so-called mentalism and sleight of hand talents.
‘And last but not least, she’s sexy, she’s stylish, she’s a master at escaping from a tricky situation…AVELINE!’
How on earth Aveline Carter could ever have been a vicar’s wife is just beyond Martina. She’s the embodiment of the term dolly bird (and Martina, in general, hates that term and its sexist undertones).She shakes her head, slouches back in her seat and watches Aveline parade herself about and blow kisses before the proper performance kicks off.
The show, as it goes, seems fairly generic. Joey makes things levitate, walks on the ceiling, seemingly teleports himself in the middle of the audience, guesses people’s cards. Jack pretends to predict events which are then shown on the news (supposedly live). Billy destroys audience members’ possessions and pulls them intact from his sleeve. Aveline swans about, and then gets herself out of a cage in two minutes flat.
She’s here on a mission, but Martina can’t help rolling her eyes, distracted by her own annoyance. Magic acts grate on her, and this one isn’t even all that good.
Yes, they’ve improved since she saw them individually (Aveline, for one thing, doesn’t give her trick away like last time), but they’re nothing to write home about. All these tricks have been done. Clearly, the criminal activity is their one true gimmick, otherwise they’d be no more than third rate turns playing to a third rate audience in some small hall somewhere.
‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, we’re gonna let you in on a little secret.’ Joey lowers his voice dramatically, and the audience responds in kind, with a pantomime-esque oohhh that has Martina all but retching. ‘As you are all aware, we are no ordinary magicians. As we speak, Vincent Van Gogh’s sunflowers are sittin’ above our dining table.’
An ordinary slide projector clicks on, with an image of the aforementioned painting, hung on an ordinary looking wall. The audience don’t seem to know whether to laugh or cheer, a mix of both ringing out.
‘And the Vermeer has a lovely new home in our Billy’s room.’
The next slide shows Girl with a Pearl Earring above a bed with a teddy on it. The audience know what to do now; he’s clearly playing this for laughs.
‘A great improvement from that stuffy old museum wall, wouldn’t you say?’
Cheers. Martina has never been more tempted to boo and hiss, only it would surely be drowned out.
‘And I thought to meself, well…what can we do now to top that? Well, now—we have just the thing. My colleagues and I are about to pull off an even more daring feat—but before we get to that, we’re going to dazzle you with one of the oldest and most popular magic tricks. You guessed it—the Disappearing Lady Act.’
More cheers.
‘Prepare,’ Joey says, his voice even more dramatic still as he gestures to the large black cabinet Jack and Billy are wheeling out, ‘to be amazed as we make a beautiful woman disappear.’
She can’t help herself. Watching his obnoxious act has been grating, and a small idea is hatching in her mind—a way to get closer to him, catch him out while giving him a much-needed, well deserved heckling.
‘Behind the box,’ Martina says, just loud enough that he can hear. She knows his ego can’t leave bait like that.
‘Care to repeat that, sweetheart?’ he comes to the edge of the stage, leans over her. There’s a strange, knowing look in his eyes.
‘Behind the box,’ Martina repeats more boldly, and her voice echoes through the room, though she’s not sure how. He must have another microphone somewhere on his person.
‘Ah! We have a cynic in our midst!’ Joey winks at her, and she knows he recognises her now. Both as the woman he failed to impress at that party last year and as the woman hired to bring him down. And he’s eyeing her like she’s a challenge to conquer.
Well, hard luck for him. Because Martina only needs to find one shred of evidence and her colleagues have warrants for all their arrests ready to go. And his arrogance may just help her get that shred.
‘Don’t suppose you fancy volunteerin’ to help us then, do you, sweetheart?’
The audience cheers hysterically. Oh, God, the general public are a pathetic lot, Martina thinks with a roll of her eyes, but she lets Joey pull her onto the stage. She’d known he’d volunteer her. His ego couldn’t get a better boost than using his number one enemy to make him look better. And she’s ready to play her part, if it’ll get her closer to what she wants.
‘We’ll change her mind, eh, won’t we?!’ Joey shouts into his microphone and the crowd goes wild again. He’s hamming it up for his live performance—but she’s got to grudgingly admit, he’s got his stage personality down. Lively, over-the-top, charming and handsome; they love him. He’s a born performer.
‘Now, as you can see, we put our lovely volunteer here into this box…’ he guides her, and she lets him. Martina casts around, taking stock of what else is inside—nothing. No wires, no microphones…there’s got to be something…
‘You see her one moment,’ she hears Joey announce to the roaring crowd, and a curtain is pulled across, leaving her in blackness, ‘and then…’
And then, out of nowhere, Martina finds herself on the floor in a plush flat she’s never seen in her life.
She jumps, startled.
How…where…what…
This is ridiculous. She must be hallucinating; he must have drugged her; she is inside a box in that auditorium, she has not been transported somewhere else.
She moves to sit up, only to find her wrists are handcuffed together. Martina freezes. These weren’t here before. She doesn’t know how they’ve done it, but they’ve bloody restrained her, and she starts to panic.
‘Oh, God,’ Martina wrestles with the cuffs to no avail. They won’t budge; they’re bloody tight, cutting into her skin the more she tries to mess with them. In desperation, she tries to use her teeth.
‘Er…’
Martina jumps again. She hadn’t realised she wasn’t alone until the scrawny, curly-haired cravatted man on the sofa makes a noise.
‘Who are you?!’ she demands.
The man quakes and shifts away from her a little.
‘Er, Joey?’ he says into an earpiece. ‘We’ve got her. You’ve done it. Hurry up and get home now; she’s staring at me—and my conscience is hangin’ by a thread.’
Chapter 3: Part II: When you think the trick is happening...
Chapter Text
It’s as if time and space have been turned on their heads. Martina was in an auditorium, on stage being embroiled in one of the Great White Whales’ ‘magic tricks’…and now she isn’t. She was alone in a dark box, listening to Joey’s boisterous voice wooing the crowd…and now she’s handcuffed on a faux fur rug in God knows where, a timid-looking man she’s never laid eyes on before appraising her with a look that’s one part curiosity, two parts fear.
Martina glowers at him. ‘I said, who are you?!’
The man swallows, a lump visibly moving down his throat, but he doesn’t answer.
‘Where am I?’ she insists, trying to retain a semblance of outward calm. She suspects it isn’t working; panic is churning in her stomach, rising through her chest and throat. This is not normal, it’s not right, and she hopes to God this is the Boswells’ idea of an illusion, that she’s been given some sort of hallucinogenic, that in a few seconds she’ll see the stage around her once more and those bastard magicians will be insisting she confirm they hypnotised her.
Because the alternative…
…well, the alternative is that this is real, that somehow, without her noticing, she’s been abducted, secreted away to this place. And if the alternative is true…Martina doesn’t even want to think about what that means. That’s the kind of horror story that ends up in a documentary twenty years after the fact, too horrendous to even contemplate.
‘I, er…’ the cravatted man stutters, about to work himself up to answering when the doors are flung open dramatically, and the Great White Whales troop in en masse, loud and boastful in their triumph.
‘A good show,’ Joey is saying, his leather jacket slung over his shoulder, ‘a good show indeed.’
‘Aw, hey, Joey, I ‘ate that cage,’ comes a whine from Aveline, who is fiddling with her coif. ‘Can’t I escape from something with a bit higher ceiling next time? That low top keeps trappin’ me hair! I need to look unblemished, not like a caged rat—‘cause I’m—’
‘—a performer, aren’t aiiiii?’ Billy mimics her drawl, smirking and dodging as she lunges for a cushion on the sofa and chucks it at him. ‘ All this performer stuff is doin’ my head in! It’s just like when you were a model—only instead of your apricot body scrub, now the whole ‘ouse is filled with your glitter face paint!’
‘Well done, kid,’ Jack lumbers in and claps the cravatted man on the shoulder. In return, the man, for some reason, thrusts his hand out to shake. ‘That lightin’ you had done while my trick was on was genius. Really added summat else.’
This whole thing is surreal. Martina is sitting cuffed on the floor of the Great White Whales’ hideout, and they’re bloody teasing each other, congratulating each other and boasting about their tatty act.
She clears her throat.
‘Ah!’ Joey glances in her direction and grins. ‘Our guest of honour! Greetings!’
She feels a hand at her elbow, and next thing she knows Joey has helped her to her feet, before gesturing grandly at the flat around them.
‘And welcome, little detective lady, to our humble home.’
Humble her foot. It’s the most tackily extravagant flat she’s seen in her life—something straight out of a mobster film. Gold statues, leopard print throws and blankets draped about the place, leather settees, pictures in gilt frames…it has the lot.
All it needs is an unswervingly loyal housekeeper to be their person on the outside.
As if on cue, a pretty young European woman emerges from behind one of the flat’s numerous doors and descends on the gang, grabbing jackets and straightening ties. She lunges for Joey’s coat, now hanging off the arm not currently holding Martina up.
‘I clean, Joey,’ she insists, her Italian accent lyrical and soft in spite of her annoyance. ‘You give.’
‘It’s all right, Magdalena,’ Joey murmurs, winking. ‘No sweat. All in good time.’
‘What good time? All day, all of you, rush here, rush there! When I can do?’
Joey shakes his head, clearly amused at her impatience, and hands his jacket over.
‘Dinner is six o’clock,’ Magdalena says. ‘All of you no come eat, I throw.’
‘I know, I know.’
‘And open the light, Joey. No-one see you from here.’ And she bustles out, with what Martina could swear is a little hip wiggle in the curly-haired man’s direction. He smiles almost shyly, notices Martina scrutinising him and hastily clears his throat.
‘Ah! I see you’ve met our Adrian,’ Joey beams from one to the other. ‘The fifth member of our little fam-i-ly. Of course, you won’t recognise him from our performances—but he’s important nonetheless. He just prefers to operate from behind the scenes. Mustn’t let him miss out on the credit, now, must we?’
‘Adrian?’ She doesn’t remember an Adrian from her research.
‘Well, he’s too intellectual for the name Jimmy, you see,’ Joey teases, and the man Martina now recognises as the fifth Boswell glares up at him. ‘Bein’ as how he is the mastermind behind most of our successes.’
‘Oh, he is, is he?’ Martina’s anger rises. She shrugs Joey’s hand off her arm to round on them. ‘And I suppose this was your brilliant idea, was it?’ She thrusts her cuffed hands at him furiously, rattling them. Adrian quakes.
‘I resent the insinuation that I am not above premeditated blackmail and abduction!’ he insists nonetheless, a hint of pomposity cutting through his obvious discomfort with her. ‘I come from real estate, you know!’
The whole moment is surreal, Martina is aware she is in severe danger, but even so, this outrageously irrelevant statement gives her pause.
‘What’s that got to do with—’
‘All right, cool it, son,’ Joey steps in, giving Adrian’s arm a reassuring squeeze. ‘We all know this stuff isn’t what you’d prefer to be doin’, but needs must when it comes to survival, all right? And once she turned up in the front row of our performance, our need, unpleasant as it was, was to remove this lovely lady from active service in order to preserve our current state of being.’
‘Oh, God—you make it sound like we’re protecting endangered wildlife! Never mind how my nerves might go to pieces knowing I’ve just helped you kidnap somebody! You do realise, Joey, that my integrity is hangin’ by a thread! Hangin’ by a thread!’
‘I might have known,’ Martina cuts off their argument, ‘you’ve got me out the way because I was about to thwart whatever little plan you had up your sleeves.’
‘Oh, you thwarted nothing, sweetheart, don’t you fret,’ Joey flops into a leather armchair, somehow making the act graceful. ‘Everything went exactly to plan. Well—it was you we wanted all along, wasn’t it? And from what we’ve seen of you, cynical lady, we knew you couldn’t resist a bit of bait like that.’
Martina’s mouth falls open.
‘You…you are…’
A bastard is the phrase that immediately springs to mind, but that’s not going to get her anywhere. And before hysteria overtakes the small part of her brain that’s still being logical, Martina needs to try and get herself out of this mess.
‘I am merely,’ Joey interrupts her, his emphasis on the word merely irksome in the extreme, ‘doing my job, giving the public a good show and puttin’ a stop to little detective ladies sticking their noses in.’
‘What are you gonna do with me?!’ she demands.
‘Nothing,’ Joey says lazily. ‘At this stage.’
That at this stage doesn’t bode well, even if she didn’t trust the nothing. People don’t get kidnapped for no reason.
‘You are gonna regret this, Joey Boswell—mark my words.’
‘There’s nothing you can do.’ Joey reclines in his armchair, unmoved. ‘You’re here for the duration, I’m afraid. Might as well relax, sweetheart. Sit down. Put your feet up.’
‘My husband will come after you,’ she tries to make this sound menacing. ‘He’ll break yer skulls if you don’t let me go.’
‘Your ‘usband,’ Jack drawls lazily from the sofa, ‘is right this minute singin’ drunkenly in an Irish pub with a bird on each arm.’
Martina feels herself shaking with anger. Jack has to be making this up. He might claim to be a mentalist, but there’s no way he’d really know. Trouble is, it sounds all too familiar. She knows the pub—he frequents it. She’d wager she’d recognise the girls. Jack may be lying (Martina doesn’t believe in magic, after all), but he’s done his homework. He’s probably pretty well on the mark, and she knows it. Shifty likely doesn’t know she’s gone, won’t work it out til she pops up on the news, the victim of the Great White Whales’ latest criminal triumph. And apart from potentially winning some sympathy for this, he won’t care. It means more nookie without having to grovel and ask her forgiveness afterwards.
And then reality hits hard, and that anger gives way to the fear she’s been trying to suppress. Shifty won’t notice she’s gone—or even care. A new promotion she may have, but she’s not daft enough to believe she’s not expendable at work—and though surface promises may be made to get her back, her colleagues will be more focussed on cracking the case and arresting the Great White Whales than ensuring her safety. Nobody knows where she is, nobody cares—and she is completely at the mercy of the Boswells, and whatever they plan to do to her.
So, naturally, her attempts to convince her captors otherwise become desperate.
‘You do realise my colleagues will be gettin’ here any minute—you didn’t think they’d trace me, did yer? But they have their ways—and you’ll be in prison where you belong by the end of the day.’
Joey rolls his eyes, clearly aware she’s lying.
‘Listen, little detective lady. We’re gettin’ a bit bored of this now—so belt up, okay?’
‘Here’s how this is going to work,’ she says, trying to keep her voice level this time, but she’s aware she’s coming off as a bit hysterical, ‘you release me now, and you’ll end up with a little bit less prison time when I’ve told me superiors what you’ve done. If you insist on holdin’ me here, I’ll throw every book at you I can get me ‘ands on—and you’ll never see the light of day again, I’m warning—’
‘No, here’s how this is going to work,’ Joey cuts her off. ‘Be civil to us, and you can sit out here with us. Keep on shriekin’ like a child and makin’ a lot of unholy fuss, sunshine, and you can go in your room until you’ve settled down.’
‘You kidnapped me,’ Martina says, ‘and you dare lecture me about civility? If you don’t let me go this minute, Joey Boswell, I will ensure there is for a place for you in the filthiest, darkest, most brutal prison in this country! I’ll—’
‘Last chance. One.’ Joey sounds infuriatingly like a parent chastising a small child. It drives Martina’s ire to another level entirely.
‘You are skating on very thin ice, you know! There are warrants out for your arrest, you know,’ she shouts, ‘for all your arrests—and when they find out what you’ve done to me, it’s going to be a hundred times worse, so—’
‘Two,’ Joey says calmly, fiddling with a gold ring on his right hand.
‘You can’t do this!’ she’s shrill now, any attempt to be her normal austere self lost in her panic, in her utter disbelief at the situation she’s found herself in.
‘I think you’ll find we have,’ Joey smiles cheerily, though there’s an undercurrent of annoyance on his face. ‘And that’s three. You can come back out when you’ve had some time to cool it.’
And before she really registers it, Billy and Jack have her by the arms and have propelled her into another room.
‘Oh, no you don’t,’ Martina begins, but they’ve shut the door behind her before she can so much as turn around, and a resounding series of clicks indicates she’s trapped.
It’s a nice room. Probably bigger on its own than the entire downstairs of her house with Shifty. Comfortable big bed, plush trimmings, en suite, the works. Martina doesn’t much care how nice it is, though, if she’s being held hostage in it. A fancy prison cell is still a prison cell.
‘Let me out! I’m warning you!’ Martina bangs on the door until her fists hurt, her wrists even sorer from attempting the feat in handcuffs. She switches to kicking it instead, in the hope of kicking it down, but it’s a sturdy piece of wood and she’s wearing heels which soon snap and a pencil skirt which makes moving in this manner quite difficult. The locks hold fast, and from the looks of it, they’re ignoring her.
She gives up, sits down on the bed, suddenly exhausted. Her wrists are killing her. She’s got a headache now as well; her foot is still throbbing from slamming it against the door. She’s still not sure how she wound up here, how the bloody Boswells managed to pull off abducting her in front of a crowd of people. It’s doing her head in even trying to work it out. The most realistic explanation is drugs, that she was unconscious while they transported her here and cuffed her…but she doesn’t feel hazy or woozy even in the slightest. She was pretty alert when she was in that box, and she was pretty alert when she somehow found herself on the carpet in the Boswells’ hideout.
Oh, God, this is some sort of nightmare. Working on dull fraud cases may have got her threatened from time to time, it may have got her insulted in the street by the frumpy wife of some middle-aged bloke who’d been done for tax evasion, but that was about as dangerous as it got. It never occurred to her that taking a promotion, finally working with a genuine criminal case, would almost immediately get her abducted. It’s surreal to think she’s in the lair of the most wanted criminals in the world, completely at their mercy. She shudders to think what they might have in store for her, what they might do to her now.
And though she’s not particularly fond of him anymore, she finds herself thinking of Shifty. At home, where she should be, going about his normal life. Sitting by their fire, going to sleep in their bed, in their normal, safe little home—devoid of any real love, but a comfortable nest all the same. Her comfortable nest. To which might never return again, because she’ll probably end up murdered, raped repeatedly, held hostage at the scene of some even worse crime—she doesn’t know. Even seeing Shifty’s daft face, filled with unconvincing remorse at his latest petty theft or sneaky tryst, would be welcome right now. And though she normally likes to try and be impenetrable, pretend she’s not bothered by the countless miseries life throws at her, there’s not much point pretending any more. She lays back on the bed and cries. Sobs in a way she hasn’t since she was twenty-five and realised she was trapped in a shell of a marriage, having just lost her one and only chance at a child. She’d thought there was no chance her life could get even more pathetic and meaningless than it had felt then.
She’s sunk to an even lower low now.
She doesn’t believe in magic, but oh, God… if this isn’t a curse, she doesn’t know what is.
Hours later, the door creaks open. Judging by the light outside her window, and her somewhat demanding stomach, acutely aware it hasn’t been fed today, it’s probably evening.
‘Greetings.’
Martina stares resolutely away from Joey, shuffling away from him when he comes and sits down beside her on the bed.
He narrows his eyes in concern at her, and she realises, much to her humiliation, that he’s probably aware she’s been crying. Her eye makeup’s likely tracked all over her face.
‘You okay?’
As if he cares. People with genuine empathy don’t hold others for ransom.
‘You can keep me ‘ere,’ she mutters, ‘but you can’t make me talk to yer.’
‘Except you just did.’
She huffs.
‘What d’you want from me? You’ve got me out yer way, I can’t investigate you while I’m trapped ‘ere… why not just do me in and get it over with? Only I can promise you, love, there’s a lot more where I came from—and not just from Merseyside either. Scotland Yard, MI5…you’ve got everyone in this country with any authority after yer. And that’s not to mention Interpol. Someone’ll find you and bring you down.’
She’s got to hope so, anyway. She’s trying to sound threatening, but it’s not particularly working.
Joey chuckles.
‘Look, we’ve got no gripe with you personally. You’re just necessary for our plan, that’s all. No need for you to suffer. If you can accept you are gonna be the recipient of our hospitality for a while—if you can stop tryin’ to kick your way free and threaten us, there’s no reason your sojourn here has to be uncomfortable. We’re not brutal, you know. We’ll take care of yer. You won’t want for anything.’
Martina looks up at him warily.
‘Now, if you’ll be a good girl and promise not to make a run for it,’ Joey reaches over, takes her hands in his, runs his finger over the handcuffs, ‘I’ll take these off.’
‘And where would I be supposed to go?’ She’s pretty sure, though she hasn’t confirmed it, that this is a penthouse in a high-rise building and it would be quite hard to escape from the window, given the fall would likely be fatal. There’s no other way out, as far as she can see, bar the door the Boswells entered through—and that appeared to have a code box and alarm system on it.
‘And no alerting the authorities, either,’ Joey says, his voice parental.
‘On what phone?’ she shoots back.
‘No snooping…’
‘I’m not interested in lookin’ up yer sleeves,’ Martina is aware she’s not exactly pulling the tease off. He’s got all the power in this situation, and she none. They’re both aware of this.
Joey’s eyes meet hers. ‘D’you want them off or not?’
I’m not negotiating with you springs to her mind, though she can’t bring herself to actually say it. Her wrists are sore. Her arms too, from not being able to stretch them properly. Freedom of movement, pathetic as it is, seems like a joyous luxury right now, even if it comes at a price.
She nods. ‘Please.’
He doesn’t produce a key, but somehow they’ve disappeared. The relief is overwhelming—as is the pain now they’re gone. Her wrists have almost rubbed raw from her attempts to pull the cuffs off herself. They smart when the cold air comes into contact with her bleeding skin. Martina winces, no longer caring how pathetic she looks, and presses one to her mouth.
Joey shakes his head at her. ‘C’mere.’
He’s got a jar in his hands, seemingly out of nowhere, and is running his finger through the ashamedly inviting-looking ointment within.
He holds out his other hand to her. Martina wants to fold her arms, tell him she’s not interested in his pretend kindness, but her raw skin begs to differ. She rests her hand in his, lets him rub it on her wrist.
A hiss escapes her teeth as the substance comes into contact with her skin. Contrary to her expectations, it doesn’t soothe, it stings. She snatches her arm back.
‘I think the torture is hardly necessary,’ she snaps.
Joey shakes his head.
‘Antiseptic, sweetheart. Don’t fancy havin’ to call a doctor in because you’ve gone and got yourself an infection. It’d give the game away a bit, wouldn’t you say?’
He has a point. Makes sense, she supposes. Serve him right if she did, and she’s almost tempted to let it happen just to spite him, only she doesn’t have a high enough pain tolerance to see it through. She thrusts her wrists indignantly at him, lets him apply the ointment, glaring at him the entire time, trying not to whimper lest she appear even more pathetic than she already does.
‘You know, little detective lady,’ Joey says, rubbing his thumb gently over a sore spot, ‘er—what’s your name? Only I can’t call you little detective lady forever.’
He grins. ‘Takes too long to say.’
She suspects he knows her name; is trying to get her to offer it to him. She can’t think why, though. If this is some ridiculous attempt to gain her trust or her allegiance, he’s wasting his time. Holding somebody captive is not exactly the best way to get on their good side.
‘Detective Jones,’ she says stubbornly. Joey cocks his head to one side, gives her a look.
‘Give over, sweetheart. You can be our hostage, or you can be our guest. Choice is yours.’
Feels very much like a Hobson’s choice to her, but she suspects Joey might be offering her a lot more freedom in exchange for a few more pleasantries. And though she doesn’t particularly fancy cosying up to the Boswells, this could be an opportunity to get the intel she needs, so when she is released (if indeed this does happen) she can go to her superiors with what she’s learned. She might as well play nice—with reservations, of course.
She sighs. ‘Martina.’
‘Mar-tina,’ he chirps. ‘Pleased to meet you, lovely lady.’
‘I believe we’ve already ‘ad the pleasure,’ she replies dryly. ‘Joey Boswell.’
‘Ah, yes. At Sally Boscoe’s party last year.’
She was referring to her kidnapping, but Martina smirks anyway.
‘Ten seconds, you said at the time. It’s been over a year and I’m yet to be impressed by you.’
‘Oh, you will be, sweetheart, by the time we’re finished with you. You’ll be screamin’ in amazement just like the rest of our audience.’
‘Don’t hold yer breath, love.’
Joey snickers, puts the jar of ointment aside, where it hovers in mid-air while he checks over her wrists with both hands.
‘Magnet,’ Martina says immediately.
‘Sorry to disappoint you, sweetheart,’ Joey says absently, still looking over her wrists, ‘no cigar.’
He releases her. ‘There. Should be okay now. Put some more on before you go to bed just in case. Oh—and use your freedom wisely, sunshine. Have a wash, get changed…we’re eatin’ in about an hour and you are welcome to join us, if you so desire.’
And he gets up and leaves the room, shutting the door behind him, though Martina suspects it isn’t locked. She stretches her arms above her head, the relief at being able to move them properly overwhelming. Now she can use her hands again, she inspects her quarters a bit more thoroughly. The wardrobe is filled with expensive looking clothes, in what appear to be her size (that confirms, she supposes, that it was her they wanted. It also makes her wonder how long they’ve been planning to take her). The drawers reveal silky-looking sleepwear and rather nice-smelling toiletries. The jar of antiseptic ointment is still floating; she takes it, tries to look for whatever was holding it up, but finds nothing. Lets go of it and it falls to the floor. Hmm.
She washes up in the en suite (the warm water is wonderful and she stays in a bit longer than necessary), dresses herself in their fancy clothes (well, she supposes, there are worse ways to be a prisoner than having luxuries at her disposal) and then braces herself to head out into the Boswells’ penthouse.
They’re congregated around a dining table, Magdelana dishing up something that smells, she has to admit, pretty bloody wonderful. Jack pulls her chair out, Billy pours her some wine, and as if this whole situation weren’t horrifically strange enough, she finds herself having dinner with her captors, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to be doing.
Except it’s not. She has to remember that. She’s a prisoner; these people are crooks. They’re not going to magically turn into decent people just because they’re sharing a few pleasantries with her. She’s never believed in magic, and she’s not going to start now.
She’s lying in her enormous plush bed, inside her enormous plush cell, trying to put herself to sleep and forget her predicament, when her door opens.
‘It’s only nine,’ Joey says. ‘What are you doin’ in bed?’
‘Hoping,’ Martina says, pulling the duvet higher around her neck, ‘that when I wake up this’ll all have been a horrific nightmare.’
‘You can do that later,’ Joey chides, coming over and ripping the blankets off her. ‘Something good’s happening.’
She eyes him suspiciously. ‘What?’
‘The news. Come ‘ed,’ he grins. ‘Thought you might like to watch this.’
Martina isn’t sure she likes the tone of Joey’s voice, but she gets up, follows him out into the living room anyway and beholds herself on television.
‘Oh, God.’ She’s witnessing her own abduction—and she hates to admit it, but it doesn’t half look grand. She and Joey are surrounded by an excited crowd, vaster than she’d realised it was. Aveline and Billy, she notices, are exchanging knowing looks as Joey ushers her into the disappearing cabinet.
Joey flops onto the sofa, pats the space beside him.
‘You might want to sit down for this.’
She can’t be bothered to resist him at the moment. He might sling her back in her room, and she sort of does want to see this. She sits down next to him, ignores the patronising rub he gives her shoulder before leaving his arm around it.
‘You see her one moment,’ television-Joey says, sliding the curtain across. Martina remembers this bit from her end—darkness, and then suddenly being here. ‘And then…SHE’S GONE!’
He pulls the curtain back and the crowd erupt into hysterics at the empty cabinet.
If she had ever been impressed by magic, she might have found it impressive.
‘Never fear, our dear little volunteer is quite safe. As you may know, ladies and gentlemen, she is, in fact, none other than Detective Martina Jones from the Merseyside Police—the very same detective hired to bring about our arrest.’
A hush falls over the crowd, and then some of them start muttering.
‘You did know my name,’ Martina says indignantly to Joey.
‘Shh. This is the best bit.’
‘Which, of course, means we had no option but to make her disappear. Can’t have people comin’ after us, impedin’ our tricks, now, can we?’
The audience can’t quite decide whether to cheer or be horrified; she hears a mixture of both factions make some noise. From the corners of the screen, Martina sees a few black shapes make their way closer to the stage.
‘And, master thieves that we are, we thought…why not steal her? Ah, ah, ah,’ television Joey says, shaking his head and gesturing to the shadowy figures, who she realises are police officers approaching the stage. ‘Don’t think about comin’ after us yet. We’ve still got her, you see. Want her back, and you’ll have to wait. Try and arrest us now—and you will never see her again.’
‘Overdosin’ on the clichés a bit there, weren’t yer?’ Martina murmurs. Joey puts his finger against her mouth.
‘Watch.’
Television Joey gestures with his hand behind his back, and one by one, Jack, Aveline and Billy step into the vanishing cabinet and disappear as well, more collective gasps ringing out every time they do it. The police are still getting closer to the stage—Joey is clearly timing his exit to the last split second to maximise dramatic effect.
‘Our dear little volunteer has not quite finished volunteering yet. She will feature prominently in our next performance, in which, should we succeed, we will take something far more significant than fine art. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for your next sighting of us to find out more.’
The police are nearly upon him.
‘We are the Great White Whales in the Sea of Society. Goodnight, Merseyside.’
And Joey leaps into the cabinet and is gone in a blinding flash just as the officers reach him.
‘Overdramatic,’ Martina says.
‘I thought it was a nice touch.’
‘What’s this next performance, anyway? Is that why you forced me to watch this? To warn me I’m about to be embroiled in your devious little scheme?’
‘Our devious large scheme,’ Joey corrects gleefully. ‘And no. I just thought you might like to see our show, particularly as you co-starred in it.’
‘How’d you do it?’ Martina demands. It’s been eating at her all day, in between the fretting about the other particulars of her situation. And though she doesn’t want to encourage him, give him any inkling she cares whatsoever about his daft magic tricks, she can’t help herself. It explodes out of her.
‘I mean…how’d you actually do it? How’d you get me from there to here without anyone noticing?’
Joey taps her nose. ‘Magic.’
Martina is not satisfied with this. ‘Was there a trapdoor at the bottom?’
‘No.’
‘Was there a false back in that box? Was I still in there?’
‘No and no.’
‘Was I drugged? Is that how my only memory is findin’ meself here, and I missed all the bits in between?’
‘No.’ He seems to be enjoying this. ‘You experienced the trick in real time, including your transportation here.’
He smiles naughtily. ‘Which occurred instantaneously.’
‘Rubbish. That’s impossible.’
‘Believe that if you wish.’ He slaps his thighs, stands up. ‘I’m gonna turn in. Long day, you know. Pullin’ off a fantastic performance, stealin’ a beautiful woman and all that. Takes a lot out of you. Goodnight, Martina.’
And he disappears through a door into what must be his own room.
Martina sits there for a while. The news report is going on, the newsreader relaying Martina’s employer’s concerns for her welfare and declaration they will find her, and the fact that they reached out to her husband for comment but have not as yet been able to locate him. Unsurprising. She wonders how long it’ll take before Shifty realises anything has happened at all.
Martina briefly considers exploring the penthouse, trying to locate some of the Boswells’ secrets, or a way out. She looks at the front door, then back at Joey’s bedroom door. Looks at the front door again. It’s got quite a complicated coded lock on it. Alarms as well, she’d wager. There’s not much point in bothering.
She goes back to bed.
Chapter 4: Part III: It's Already Been Done
Chapter Text
‘Right, then,’ Joey says at breakfast the next morning, clanging his fork to the table, and grinning at his siblings. ‘Where shall we be sighted today?’
‘I fancy Wales,’ says Billy.
‘Why Wales?’
‘Dunno. I just fancy it.’
‘You do realise,’ says Adrian crossly, ‘that there has to be a bit more method to this, a bit more strategy other than you fancy it?! We’re trying to be artful, here!’
‘We are artful!’ Billy thrusts a finger at the Van Gogh above the dining table, and Martina suppresses a snicker at his faux pas.
‘Oh, God, that’s not what I meant!’ Adrian slams a fist on the table.
‘Has point,’ Magdelana says, taking his empty plate.
Adrian’s red face slowly returns to its normal colour.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Wales far away,’ she says, smiling. ‘They think you in Wales, they no think you here. Is good.’
‘Yes, well,’ Adrian sounds breathless all of a sudden, shy. ‘P’raps it’s not such a terrible idea, after all…’
Magdelana’s dark eyes twinkle and she disappears from the room with the stack of dishes.
‘She’s clever, isn’t she? I mean…she’s clever.’
The others give him knowing looks Martina doesn’t quite understand.
‘Wales it is, then,’ Joey cracks his knuckles. ‘Any volunteers?’
‘Jack,’ the others say in unison.
‘Eh!’
‘Sorry, son. It’s unanimous.’
‘Now ‘ang on, how come I end up doin’ all the cold places?! I did Scotland last time and I bloody well nearly froze me balls off after gettin’ out that lake! You promised me next time I could do somewhere sunny—like the Bahamas, or Los Angeles, or—’
Joey snaps his fingers, and suddenly Jack is gone.
‘Oh, well. Boring,’ he sing-songs, getting up from the table. ‘He’ll just have to get it done now, won’t he?’
‘Where’d he go?’ Martina demands.
‘Cardiff.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘I mean really. He can’t have just disappeared to Wales just like that.’
‘Just—like—that,’ Joey says facetiously. He scrapes his plate, adds it to Magdelana’s waiting stack and stands up with the same obnoxious grin still plastered to his face. ‘It’ll drive the bastards from the news doolally.’
And with a wink and a click of his tongue, he’s sauntered off into another room. The others slowly start to drift away as well—though Jack, Martina is startled to note, does not reappear—and she’s left alone in the empty dining room.
Martina stands up herself, smooths down her suede skirt. Her suit from yesterday had mysteriously disappeared after she changed out of it last night and it hasn’t been returned to her wardrobe—she suspects the Boswells don’t want her wearing the outfit she disappeared in; she’d be too easily identified in it—and she’d had no choice but to avail herself of the clothes left for her.
She glances around the room, scoffing in spite of herself at the renowned yellow-and-orange flowers on the far wall, a telltale blue Vincent painted across the bottom of the vase. Next to it, a demure girl with a pearl earring seems to be mockingly glancing over her shoulder.
They could be forgeries, of course, but Martina is pretty sure they’re not.
They really did take some of the world’s finest art, the bastards. How, though? It makes no sense.
Magic, an obnoxious voice at the back of her head says. She ignores it.
There’s no such thing.
They more or less abandon her after the meal, and so, without anyone to stop her, Martina finds herself wandering through the flat, trying to work out a) where she is, b) what the Boswells’ plan might be, and c) what they’ve got in here that might be of some use to her, either for escaping or for gathering intel.
She snoops behind a few door, discovering opulently (if tackily) decorated bedrooms—one large one each for the troupe members, one for Adrian and one for Magdelana, plus her own lavish cell, if her eyes aren’t deceiving her, and how big is this flat anyway?—a fairly nondescript kitchen; a locked door leading onto the roof; two or three similar-looking living and dining areas that she could easily confuse for one another and get lost in. One room at the far end of the flat glares ominously at her, a heavy wooden door concealing its contents, and Martina finds herself surreptitiously checking over her shoulder to make sure she isn’t being watched before sidling up to it and scrabbling at the handle.
The door makes a resounding creak when she pushes it open, just her luck—but a quick once-over reveals nobody is around, nobody has noticed, and so she slips inside.
This seems a bit more what she was expecting: beams and rafters, dust wafting through the cracks of sun that creep through the battered shutters—a classic secret storage area for whatever devious tools, weaponry or copies of plans a criminal gang might have lying about.
Problem is, there’s not much actually being stored in here, other than a great big padlocked magician’s trunk—the kind that gets carted about to performances, filled with never-ending hankies and joined rings. She almost groans out loud, but the course of action ahead of her is clear.
Martina has looked everywhere, save actually entering the Boswells’ sleeping quarters (not because she’s worried about invasion of privacy; these bastards deserve none. More because she’s not convinced she won’t get caught). No safes, no scrolled-up plans sprawled across the table; this is the first room with even a modicum of secrecy about it. If she’s going to unearth anything, she has to start somewhere. She’s going to look in the trunk.
She kneels down before the monstrosity, brushes a thick layer of dust from it, and squints at the lock. No key, but there are two combinations on each side, set to a random sequence of numbers each.
Martina almost despairs—trying to guess a combination could take years—but then she considers. Before she was here, the flat was accessible only by family and one trusted housemaid. There was nobody to lock anything away from. And it may be a long shot, but she could try—just attempt—to work on the assumption that the Boswells, in being alone with each other for so long, might get lazy.
Might stop locking the trunk. Might leave it set at the right combination out of convenience.
Martina squares her shoulders and gives the padlock a tentative pull.
She’s sure she heard something give, and yet the lock remains firm. Martina tugs at it again to no avail, so absorbed in struggling with it that a voice from behind her takes her by surprise.
‘Tends to jam, that lock. Might want to squeeze it a bit.’
Martina jumps out of her skin. She leaps to her feet, whirls around to see Joey leaning against the doorframe watching her, one foot crossed over the other and an amused expression on his face.
‘Oh, dearie, dearie me. We discussed not snoopin’, didn’t we?’
‘What are you gonna do? Cuff me again?’
She realises as the words leave her mouth that it mightn’t be such a good idea to tempt fate. Her wrists are still horribly sore.
‘Ah, we needn’t go that far, bein’ as it’s only your first offence. Might just square things with a smack and a reminder not to be so naughty.’
‘You can stop talkin’ to me like that.’
‘Talkin’ to you like what?’
‘Like a bloody child,’ Martina says furiously. ‘Just because you’ve got me prisoner ‘ere doesn’t negate the fact that I am a detective—and you are in for it when I’m free again.’
‘Okay, detective,’ Joey chuckles. ‘If that’s how you wanna play it.’
She’s half expecting him to produce handcuffs, but instead, Joey kneels down and opens the trunk himself, popping the lock off with a resounding click. The top groans open.
Joey gestures dramatically to it. ‘Detect.’
Suspicious something dreadful might befall her but overcome by her own curiosity, Martina gets down on her knees again and reaches into the box.
It’s more or less what one would expect from a magician’s trunk, much to her dismay. There are indeed strings of never-ending hankies and daft joined rings. There’s a battered top hat, of the pulling-a-rabbit out variety (thankfully sans living or dead vermin), about fifty packs of playing cards and a clutter of other equally obnoxious stage magic tricks that have her rolling her eyes.
Well, this was a colossal waste of time. She’d pack in this expedition, only she doesn’t want to give Joey the satisfaction. And so she demands to know what things are and what they do (even if they are clearly just jugs of water with false sides and other inane little toys), scrutinises playing cards and holds them up to the light, puts on a good show of searching for evidence, even though it’s clear there’s none to be found here.
A good fifteen or twenty minutes pass this way, trying to work out how magic tricks work, going through everything she can find with a fine tooth comb. And she suspects Joey lets her just because he loves showing off. He’s overdue a good boast, flexing his bragging muscles with some relish as he explains snippets to her, or teases her when she can’t work it out.
Towards the very bottom of the box, only accessible after sifting through larger items, is a gold signet ring with a green stone. Martina plucks it out, interest piqued at the only possibly genuinely noteworthy thing she’s seen all morning. Possibly stolen, possibly an heirloom…
‘Need that pair for that,’ Joey stands up from where he’s been slouching in the doorway, sidling over to the box and ferreting about. ‘Ah! Now the trick works.’
Martina suppresses a groan. Another daft magic trick.
‘Now that’s a great one, that is,’ Joey’s grin cannot possibly get bigger without tearing his face in two. ‘Prepare to be amazed.’
He slips one of the rings onto her finger, dons the other, and Martina prepares to be irritated.
‘This one, you see, little detective lady, is ideal for gettin’ your enemies all disoriented and out yer way.’
He twists the ring on his finger, and Martina feels a sickening lurch as everything seems to blur, her stomach seemingly ripped from her gut from the rapid motion as the room spins. The floor, the box, the rug all seem to be glaring down at her, about to fall on her head, and she blinks, scrabbling to work out what just happened.
And then she realises—she’s standing on the ceiling, looking up (or is it down?) at the floor.
Martina shrieks, terrified. She rips the ring of her finger and the sickening lurch happens again, leaving her back on the floor with Joey.
‘How d’you do that?’ she demands, her voice coming out a squeak, the adrenaline still zapping through her veins, her disorientation slowly fading.
He beams. ‘Magic.’
‘No,’ Martina says through gritted teeth, ‘how d’you do that?!’
‘I told yer!’ Joey chuckles to himself for a few minutes, and then his face turns serious, and he closes the case again. ‘All right, then. I think you’ve had your fun now. Hope it was worth losin’ your freedom.’
‘Eh?!’ Martina has barely uttered her confused exclamation before Joey has her by the arm and is leading her back away from the case and through the flat.
‘Unfortunately, sweetheart, your determination to snoop when asked not to does warrant some consequences. No more privileges for the rest of the day, I’m afraid.’
They’re standing outside the door to her room now. Joey gestures to the doorway.
Martina folds her arms, refuses to budge. ‘You opened the case for me.’
‘Damage was already done, sweetheart. If you were gonna sabotage your liberties that way, I thought you might as well get your money’s worth. Now in you go.’
She glares at him.
‘Unless you’d rather take the smack and be done with it?’
Martina’s lips purse in fury. She storms into her room and slams the door shut behind her.
Aveline comes and lets her out an hour later, but Martina refuses to leave her room in protest. She’s not going to go and kiss Joey’s ring, submit to his bloody patronising and relentless teasing just to remind her she’s powerless, that her authority means nothing here.
She comes out the next day, but does little more than eat silently and then return to her quarters. She wants nothing to do with their pathetic attempts to be friendly to her. Bloody arrogant fake magicians, thinking she’ll forget the circumstances under which she arrived here and be their friend, their ally. She’s their prisoner, and regardless of whether they want to sweep that little fact under the rug, she’s not going to forget it so easily.
She takes a lipstick from one of her drawers and uses it to make a tally on the wall above her bed. Magdelana comes in to turn down her bed, makes a face at it and wipes it off, and Martina defiantly puts it back on after she’s left. Two more days pass this way, until one afternoon, as she’s sitting on her bed sulking, Joey appears in her room unannounced.
‘I’ve got a score to settle with you.’
Martina raises her eyebrows. ‘Oh, yeah? What about?’
‘About you doin’ our Maggie’s head in.’ Joey leans over her, cloth in hand, and destroys her tally again. She stares at him, scandalised.
‘For someone who doesn’t wanna be treated like a child, you are determined to act like one, aren’t you? Scribblin’ on walls…tsk, tsk…most people grow out of that by the time they’re two.’
Joey sits down beside her on the bed.
‘And given you’re a magician,’ she’s impressed by how filthy the word sounds as it leaves her lips, ‘can’t you just magic the wall so it doesn’t mark?’
‘As you wish.’ Joey leans over and drums his fingers against the wall.
Martina rolls her eyes, picks up the lipstick and drags it downwards again.
It leaves no mark. She tries again with the same result. Growling in frustration, she shakes it, tests it on the back of her hand. A red line smudges into her skin.
‘What have you done?’ she demands.
‘I have merely,’ Joey says, grinning, ‘put a stop to your childish graffiti.’
‘How?!’ she demands again. In desperation, she tries one more time to draw on the wall—to no avail. This is ridiculous. He barely even touched it. There’s nothing wrong with the lipstick—not that he touched that, either. She cries out in frustration, tosses the lipstick onto the bed.
‘That’s yer game, then, is it?’ she says acidly. ‘You won’t physically torture me, but you’ll torture me mind until I slowly go insane.’
‘No-one’s gonna torture you,’ Joey laughs wryly. ‘Mentally or otherwise.’
‘You’re doin’ a good impression of it so far.’
‘If you stopped thwartin’ our attempts to be hospitable to you…’
‘I don’t want your pretend hospitality!’ Martina snaps. ‘I…’
She trails off, because she can feel tears coming, though whether they’re born of anger, frustration or despair she can’t be sure.
Joey sits patiently beside her while she composes herself. Try as she might, though, she can’t do it. She crumples again.
‘I want to go home.’ Her voice is small, quiet. It doesn’t matter if Joey sees her like this. She’s been humiliated beyond caring what any of them think.
‘I know.’ Joey’s voice is gentle now, almost sympathetic, even though he’s the one that did this to her in the first place. She feels his hand in her hair, stroking it. The softness of the gesture, the tenderness of it surprises her, even as she’s furious, even as she despises him.
‘You will, sweetheart. I promise. When all this is over, you’ll be back where you belong, safe and sound.’
He tilts her face up to meet his eye. ‘I give you my word.’
In spite of herself, Martina manages a smirk. ‘The word of a criminal magician known to perform exaggerated illusions designed to trick people? Very trustworthy, that is.’
‘All I need you to trust,’ Joey says, ‘is that we won’t do you any harm. And that we will return you safely when the time is right. You don’t have to like what we’re doin’, and once it’s over you can go on trying to hunt us down to your little heart’s content. All I’m askin’ of you is a little bit of civility now, while you are here. We don’t want to keep locking you in, sweetheart. For starters, you’re the first company we’ve ‘ad in over a year. It’d be nice to have someone new around, without them spendin’ the entire time having a go.’
‘And whose fault is that?’ Martina snaps. ‘I should imagine you lot would be aware living a life of crime would mean sacrificing yer social life.’
Joey’s face hardens. ‘You’ve no idea how much we’ve sacrificed.’
‘Can’t make friends so you stole one instead?’ She’s enjoying being venomous now she’s started, their tentative truce dissolving quickly.
‘I’ll leave you to your own thoughts, then.’ Joey gets up, fed up.
‘No, wait!’ And there her gob goes, doing the opposite of what her logical brain wants. For some reason, a part of her wants that truce back, even as the rest of her thinks she should outright reject it.
Joey sighs, sits back down beside her.
‘Answer me this,’ she says, choosing her words carefully. ‘Why did you make those sacrifices in the first place? There are other ways to earn a living, besides being in charge of a criminal gang.’
‘I’m not in charge. I’m just the…’ he cocks his head to one side, searching for the right word.
‘Ringleader?’ Martina supplies.
‘Front man? Titular head? Poster child? Spokesman? Public figure people will pay attention to?’
‘Egotistical eldest brother?’
‘I think mine were closer. There isn’t really a word for someone trying to keep the Eye off his family’s back by whatever means necessary.’
Martina rolls her eyes. The Eye is an old wives’ tale—a secret society of dark magicians wreaking havoc on society. Of course tricksters like the Boswells would claim a connection, think it added to their enigma.
‘The Eye’s not real,’ she shakes her head. ‘It’s a made up story.’
‘Says who?’
Martina hesitates. ‘I do.’
‘This from the woman who doesn’t believe in magic in spite of empirical evidence I have been performing it.’
‘Clever little tricks,’ she raises an eyebrow. ‘But I’ll find out how every single one of ‘em works, Mister Boswell. I’ll find out.’
Joey chuckles. ‘D’you believe in anything you can’t see?’
‘I believe I can’t see the devious little things you get up to behind the scenes,’ she’s smirking now, teasing him, ‘but I will one day.’
‘Didn’t really answer my question though, did you? What about God?’
Martina shrugs. ‘Yeah. That’s different though. You can’t put that in the same category as this.’
‘Fate?’
‘No. People hope things’ll go a certain way, coincidentally they do, and they call that fate.’
‘Love?’
‘Sort of.’
Joey frowns. ‘Sort of?’
‘I’ve seen evidence of other people experiencing it. Suppose that means it must be real, on some level.’
A strange shadow comes over Joey’s face at that comment. Sadness changes his countenance for just a moment, and then he rallies, shooting her his most winning smile.
‘Father Christmas?’
She snorts. ‘Hardly.’
‘Hardly, you say? So just a little bit, then?’
She chucks a pillow at him then, a reflex to his tease that comes surprisingly naturally.
‘Don’t twist me words.’
‘I suppose you’ll be gettin’ coal, then, won’t you?’
She smirks. ‘Suppose so.’
Joey chuckles at his own joke, and then his face becomes more serious behind his smile. He holds out his hand to her.
‘Join us for dinner?’
Martina sighs, takes it. ‘Don’t I always?’
‘I mean your mind as well as your body.’
‘So now bein’ a hostage amounts to taking part in inane dinner conversation with you lot?’
‘Not such an ask, is it?’
Only he could get away from that comment, smiling facetiously as if he weren’t holding her for ransom and then trying to simultaneously befriend her, as if her entire world hadn’t been turned inside out at his doing. And for some reason, the sheer cheek of the man has her smirking back. She’s not sure what’s going on here, why she’s compelled to hesitate, to even entertain the notion of this pretence of civility with him. But it’s happening nonetheless.
‘Go on, then,’ she sighs, rolling her eyes as she lets him pull her to her feet.
She’s reaching to turn off the lamp that night when she notices it.
A red sock, hanging off the handle of one of her bedside drawers.
That wasn’t there before.
Martina frowns, reaches for it. There’s a hard, round object inside it and a note attached in ostentatious-looking handwriting.
Merry Christmas, Cynic!
She tips the contents out into her hand.
A lump of coal.
It’s a pretty pathetic prank, it’s April and therefore not even appropriate, but Martina still winds up laughing to herself as she settles down to sleep.
It’s not terrible. If it weren’t for the fact that she’s a hostage, Martina would find it reasonably nice here, a bit like being a lodger in a happy but dysfunctional family. Now she’s living with them (if that’s the right term for her situation), now she sees them interacting all the time, she wonders how nobody’s noticed they’re siblings. The Boswells bicker non-stop. They tease each other. They have fallings-out and make it up then fall out again several times a day. Someone makes too much mess, they all accuse. Someone else takes too much of the food with his hands then puts it all back in the communal trays (Billy). And then in the midst of all the rows, they come together at mealtimes and say prayers, as if they were a normal family and not a criminal gang. There’s a hen-on-nest dish in the centre of the table they all seem overly attached to, out of place among their mode con décor and gold ornaments and the priceless stolen paintings they have shamelessly hung in their dining room for all to see. Martina puzzles over it, even more so when they throw pennies in it, some strange ritual she doesn’t understand, until Joey makes a comment that sounds like Mam, this is for you, and suddenly she thinks she does. It’s a tenuous connection to their mother, to their old life outside this one, that they’re clinging onto. She sits there eating quietly, feeling empathetically sentimental, until Billy leaps to his feet and starts shouting, the reason for his outburst unfathomable, and it shatters her fragile fondness for them again.
She is a hostage. She has to remember that. Friendly as they attempt to be to her, she’s here to serve some sinister purpose in their petty little attempt at world domination. She’s only playing nice so she can find out some more things, and for Joey…no. Not for Joey. Because Joey asked her to. No, because Joey will lock her in her room if she doesn’t. That’s the one.
Joey’s right; she doesn’t want for anything. She eats well (very well; Magdelana is a fantastic cook, and not just with Italian food, either. Martina thinks she might have to resort to theft herself; Magdelana’s recipe for cauliflower roasted in balsamic vinegar is something she intends to start using herself when she gets out of here). She has seemingly endless supplies of clothes, all of them soft, comfortable and presumably designer judging by the look of them.
She can’t really report on anything she sees them get up to—how, for starters, when she’s trapped and has no communication with the outside world?—but she supposes she should do what she was assigned to do. After all, she’ll be out eventually. And in spite of this front of hospitality, they have still kept her hostage—and for that, alongside the initial crimes she was investigating, they should pay.
Gathering intel has always been her strongest suit. Since she can’t find any concrete evidence yet, save for a few paintings above a dining table, she settles for observing the Boswells; learning how they tick. Working out their behavioural patterns, so at the very least, she may be able to make an educated guess on how to find and arrest them down the track.
She makes a study of them. She’s surprised by her findings.
Aveline would have been better as an assistant than a magician, given her love of costumes. She prances up and down the living room every day in some new sequinned number to refrains of you look fantastic, Princess and yeah, great, kid from the others, poses, sits around breathing deeply to show off her figure.
Occasionally, Joey will spring on her out of nowhere and encase her hands in cuffs, shouting ‘time trial, go!’ And Martina watches as Aveline neatly, methodically frees herself in seconds. Perhaps she does have some skill in this, after all. Certainly more than when she’d been Aveline the Sparkling and had made a pathetic escape from a tank of water she was clearly not imprisoned in.
She’s also, Martina discovers, good at locks. Very good at locks. Jack lumbers in one night with a selection of strange locking mechanisms Martina’s never seen before, and Aveline gives them all a lesson on how to get them open (watching Billy somehow get his hand trapped in his adds a good laugh to the evening).
Billy seems as pathetic and immature as when he accosted her on the street. He brings in what appear to be pieces of gates and grates, bending the bars ostensibly by staring at them, grinning at his successes and saying ‘aw, hey, Joey, look!’ but otherwise contributing very little. And yet, occasionally, when the other Boswells aren’t around, Martina spies his face turning serious. He pulls out his wallet, stares at a picture in it, then turns to Magdelana and with a quiet word, passes envelopes to her, murmuring see that she gets ‘em, eh?
Jack predicts what they’re going to say on the news before they say it or speaks along in sync—Martina refuses to believe he’s a mind reader, but it’s very convincing. And every now and then, out of the blue, he’ll come out with something unusual, some comment like they’re on their lunch now, they go offsite at twelve, or changeover’s at three o’clock, and the others all nod as if this is supposed to mean something, as if he’s reading the minds of someone specific.
Adrian, the mastermind, sits and plans things out from behind the scenes. He studies floor plans, points out emergency exits, where security cameras are and how to find their blind spots. He’s got schedules for a whole host of different delivery trucks (what for, Martina’s not sure), and he drills the others on how to transport themselves at just the right moment so they end up inside one as it passes. Martina struggles to get her head around this, because he seems to actually be implying they’re teleporting, and she doesn’t believe that’s possible. She has to admit, though, apart from that daft one, his strategies are quite sound. He’s obviously the reason most of their plans succeed, his careful forethought and planning for a variety of scenarios making an enormous difference. While Joey is ostensibly the leader, coming up with most of the ideas, it’s Adrian who actually puts these ideas into execution, works out the logistics—the true brains behind the operation.
He’s a bit of a genius.
He’s also well aware of this fact. His arrogance about his status as the ‘family intellectual’ knows no bounds.
Magdelana, the cleaning lady, seems far too comfortable with the skulduggery she finds herself surrounded by, and Martina wonders how she hasn’t worked out who they are and told anyone yet, nor how the Boswells are seemingly fine with giving her an access code and letting her come and go as she pleases.
Until she inadvertently comes across Magdelana sitting in Adrian’s lap, apparently trying to hoover his tongue into her mouth, her hand down the front of his trousers.
Magdelana’s loyalty makes a bit more sense after that.
Joey perfects his stage persona watching other films with magicians in and other stage performances he’s somehow got recordings of, ranging from brilliant acts to mediocre gigs in local pubs, and including a great deal of fictional performers as well. Martina watches him take notes, decoding the method to his madness, but finds her observation tickles her more than anything. She supposes he really is a thief at heart, given how much plagiarism features in his act. Joey doesn’t seem quite as impressive or as dangerous after watching his barmy lessons in stage magic, and she enjoys seeing the unlikely titles he finds his best lines from.
Her favourite is Cats—it’s hilarious watching Joey appropriating lines from Magical Mister Mistoffelees, pinching gimmicks from a stage musical he’s somehow had someone film for him, professing himself the world’s finest criminal genius while using a fictional cat as his source material. His favourite line, you see it one moment and then—it’s gone! Seems to have been lifted verbatim from the play, and it amuses Martina further that the second half of the line: but you’ll find it next week lying out on the lawn, is unceremoniously dropped as not being clever enough.
‘Very nice,’ she heckles after he plays with a few more lines, finally perfecting a rendition of he holds all the patent monopolies for performing surprising illusions and creating eccentric confusion without tripping over his own tongue. ‘But—if I could stop you there, you’re missing one thing.’
‘Oh?’ Joey turns to her, eyebrows raised, curious. ‘Of course, any feedback you might provide will be given due consideration. What would I need to make this performance astound you, then, sweetheart?’
She can’t help smirking as she answers him, because he’s set himself up for this, he really has.
‘Whiskers.’
Joey rolls his eyes. ‘Go to your room.’
About a week after her disappearance, Shifty does a live interview.
Much as she was missing him, trapped in here with the Boswells, actually seeing him again, albeit just on television, sends a familiar revulsion rippling through her.
‘You don’t know what it’s like, ye don’t,’ Shifty’s telling the woman interviewing him. ‘To have your heart ripped from your chest, your lover missing…’
Lover? Chance would be a fine thing. They haven’t been lovers, in any sense of the word, for years.
‘ ‘e’s eyein’ up that reporter’s tits,’ says Jack.
‘You do surprise me,’ Martina mutters. She’s noticed that herself, even without Jack’s pretense he’s reading her husband’s mind.
‘The lost soul without his missin’ puzzle piece,’ Shifty goes on, in spite of the fact that he wasn’t asked to. ‘Another tragedy to haunt me. Me mother was a friendly soul, so she was; I had a parade of uncles…never fittin’ in, shunned by society—then to lose one of me own…’
Somewhere, somehow, he’s started talking about himself, with Martina’s disappearance as the catalyst for yet another monologue about his own misfortunes. She rolls her eyes, noticing, with a strange tinge of pleasure, that Joey, also watching (as the whole lot of them are) is doing likewise.
He glances up, makes a face at her, and Martina smirks in spite of herself.
On the screen, the reporter, seemingly keen to wrap up and go back to the studio, is asking if Shifty has any message for his wife.
‘Find ye safe passage back,’ Shifty says dramatically. ‘The concerto is nothing without its violin.’
He squeezes out a couple of crocodile tears that sicken Martina to her stomach.
‘Prick,’ says Billy, and throws a cushion at the television.
She almost likes him for that.
Now it’s almost a week old, the story of the Disappearing Lady, as it’s been dubbed by the media, is starting to die down. Its coverage slows from once a broadcast to once a day, just a throwaway line at the end of a news report that the search is still on for Martina Jones and her mystical kidnappers, making way for more recent stories and sensations.
Life in the Boswells’ penthouse, now the high of their latest triumph is wearing off, slows down as well. Hours of sitting around, bored, seem to ensue. For criminal masterminds, they don’t seem to be doing a great deal of anything, frittering away hours of their time playing cards rather than doing any sort of strategising or planning. More often than not, they invite Martina to join them, and, well. Why not? It’s not like there’s anything else for her to do.
Fed up with the monotony, Billy wanders off the roof one morning and disappears.
This, at least, breaks the dull routine—the others get into a flap, fretting about whether he might have been seen, whether their location was rumbled, what he might have gone off to do. Martina sits back, amused at their sudden transformation into headless chickens, Joey desperately trying to calm the others down while he picks his own brain for what might have happened.
And then, as quickly as he disappeared, Billy reappears, triumphantly holding a sporting trophy.
‘Look what I got!’ he beams, seemingly oblivious to the looks of shock horror on his siblings’ faces.
‘Jesus, Billy!’ Joey cuffs him round the ear. ‘What did I tell yer about drawing attention to yourself?! If you’re gonna act like you’re still in rompers, sunshine, you can at least refrain from doin’ it where anyone might see yer!’
‘I was bored, wasn’t I?’ Billy protests.
‘Oh, God, what have you taken that for?’ Adrian gestures to the trophy in his hand. ‘I mean…what purpose does that serve?
‘It’s gold, isn’t it? Prob’ly Renaissance.’
It’s such a daft statement, said with such sincerity, that Martina has to suppress a snigger.
‘Do you even know what Rennaissance means?!’ this faux pas seems to make Adrian more livid than Billy’s escapade in its entirety. ‘Just because it’s gold—and probably not the genuine type—does not mean it’s an antiquity!’
‘A bit of old scrap is what that is,’ Jack chimes in. Billy rounds on him, defensive now.
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means you took something really stupid.’
‘Eh!’ Billy hollers, and it’s a good thing he’s already standing, as he would, Martina knows, leap to his feet were they sitting round a table (such is his way of operating in their day-to-day life). ‘I’ve got problems, haven’t I, and it’s not just me I gotta support, is it, and –’
Martina’s ears prick up at this—a hint of information she’s not been privy to before, but before she can learn any more, Joey has stepped in, shushing him. She sits back down on the sofa, disappointed.
‘Now, look, son, you have taken something really stupid…’
‘Why’s everyone saying it’s stupid?’ Billy protests.
‘Well,’ Joey, ever the level-headed peacemaker, puts his hands on either of Billy’s shoulders. ‘The thing is, you don’t exactly need it, now, do you? And nickin’ things just for the sake of it is not in keeping with our general theme, now is it? Why’d you take that of all things?’
Billy looks briefly nonplussed, then shrugs. ‘Just to have something. Wouldn’t you take something just to…just have taken something?’
‘No,’ Joey says blithely. ‘I only take things I want.’
And he winks.
Martina could almost swear that wink was in her direction.
Chapter 5: Part IV: Everything Ain't What It Seems
Notes:
Big chapter ahead, but a few crucial things pop up, and a bit of foreshadowing.
Chapter titles from here on out all come from this song, which I feel is quite fitting for this fic and has been on in the background on repeat a lot of the time while I'm writing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raB8z_tXq7AYou may begin to notice, but unlike the Horsemen in the original film, The Great White Whales' act is actually pretty terrible, even after they team up. There is a reason for this, though, that will become clear. The two groups want different things.
Chapter Text
‘Well then,’ Joey says, switching the telly off after a broadcast of the sporting match Billy crashed yesterday, the youngest Boswell livening up a fairly boring game by turning up out of the blue, snatching the cup before it can be presented to the winning team and seemingly vanishing, ‘it was an unplanned sighting, but that’ll keep the papers happy for a few more weeks. And looking pretty far away from where we are to boot. You blundered into it, Billy, but you’ve done well. But no more unauthorised trips away, okay, son?’
Billy, still clutching his trophy, seems unperturbed. ‘Got me trophy now, haven’t I? I’m a Renaissance man.’
Martina can see Adrian’s face redden, can sense a daft argument brewing regarding Billy’s poor grasp of semantics, and excuses herself.
She’s slowly ‘earned’ more freedoms. There’s a door up to the roof; after a week of staying put and not trying anything she’s been permitted to use it and get herself some fresh air, with the caveat that any kind of signalling will bring severe consequences. Not that Martina’s sure how she’s supposed to signal—wave her arms above her head? It’s not as if anyone would necessarily see that. She’s too high up.
It’s lovely up here, feeling the breeze in her hair, watching the city, small beneath her, wondering what’s happening in it. It would be quite breathtaking, living here, except for the fact that she can’t leave. She slouches against the railing for a while, gazing over the edge, observing matchbox-size cars and ant-size people going about their business, unaware of her voyeurism. Unaware a highly-publicised hostage is a good sixty or more feet above them, not right under their noses, but above them.
Footsteps sound in her peripheral hearing.
‘Jesus, if I hear one more word about that bloody trophy, I’ll turf it off the roof.’
It takes her a second to realise Joey is addressing her and not just ranting to himself. She glances across at him, shrugging her shoulders.
‘Honestly, you put together a brilliant heist, look away for a minute or two, and it’s almost been derailed by a baby pack rat with summat to prove.’
Joey leans against the railing, sighing through gritted teeth.
‘Go easy on him, love. Mustn’t spoil his moment of glory. It is Rennaissance, after all.’
His head snaps up. Joey scrutinises her for a moment, eyes widening when he realises she’s teasing.
And then her pursed lips are opening and laugh is escaping, enticing out one from Joey as well. He shakes his head, pats her shoulder.
‘I blame our Adrian, you know. Teachin’ him that word. Him and Magdelana sit there for half the night chattin’ about Da Vinci. And if our Billy can’t fill his gob with things he read somewhere to spill out to us at breakfast, he’s filling his head with things he heard somewhere instead.’
Martina blinks, because she doesn’t really understand that, but Joey doesn’t seem to want to elaborate now he’s vented. He goes back to leaning, gazing, dare she say it brooding, and Martina suspects his annoyance and escape from the others is not just about his younger brother’s daft escapade.
She watches him, studies the furrow of his brow, the hunch of his shoulders. His eyes are a world away, a window into some faraway concern – his criminal deeds? Something of a more personal nature? And, though the apparent self-pity of the man who abducted her and is holding her prisoner should not elicit sympathy, she can’t help but feel some, all the same.
‘Something you were after, sweetheart?’
She jumps— even though she’s staring in his direction, she’d somehow become lost in her thoughts, missing the moment when he returned from his own internal wanderings.
‘No, I just…’ she doesn’t know why she’s covering herself, nor why she gives up, stops suppressing the stirrings within her to reach out to him. ‘You’ve got the world on your face, love.’
The term of endearment makes him startle; Martina feels her own heart skip a beat in surprise at her own gob.
True, their interactions are less acrimonious these days (she supposes living in close quarters will do that to you), but she still reminds him daily of her intent to land him in it once she’s free again. And yet…
‘What’s wrong?’ she repeats softly.
‘You sure you want to know?’
And…well, if she’s being sensible, she shouldn’t. She should end this conversation; it’s heading onto strange, unsteady ground.
Instead, she squares her shoulders.
‘I think I can handle it.’
‘Handle it, eh? You know, if I thought you could handle all this magnificence…’ he gestures up and down his body, a glimpse of his usual swagger and arrogance coming to the surface before his seriousness lunges up and smothers it again. He gives up on the sentiment, and on whatever the rest of his sentence was going to be, dropping the façade once more.
‘Everything, sweetheart. That’s what’s wrong. Expectations. The constant pressure of living on your toes, always havin’ to keep your guard. That knife-in-your-guts feeling when you remember how things used to be before…’
He trails off, and Martina, who has somehow followed this thread, picks it up.
‘Before you became criminal magician masterminds, landed yourselves in trouble with law enforcement globally and went on the run?’
‘Just that old thing,’ Joey laughs ruefully, and she finds herself studying him again.
She knows a little from her research. She knows of his sister’s marriage, of the grandfather who passed away, that out there they have a mother and a father. That they were a pretty ordinary family, once, if their records before The Great White Whales came into being were anything to go on. For whatever reason, the Boswells have turned their backs on that life for one of crime, and yet there is a pang of regret evident in his voice.
‘If things were different,’ Joey says absently, toying with the ring on his right hand, slouching against the rails now, ‘would you be my friend?’
‘No,’ Martina says immediately, though not with as much conviction as she’d have liked. ‘As I said before, we might be playing nice—but kidnapping yourself a friend is not gonna work.’
‘I said if things were different, didn’t I?’
‘They aren’t. So why does it matter?’ she challenges.
‘You were the one askin’ after me wellbeing, weren’t yer?’
‘Don’t push me, Mister Boswell. My generosity only stretches so far.’
There’s an awkward pause, and then Joey straightens up.
‘Better go and see to the others. I look away for five minutes and another one’s probably saggin’ off and drawing attention to themselves. Goodnight, Martina.’
He starts off down the steps back to their flat, hesitating partway.
‘Sweetheart?’
Martina, pauses, turns back to face him.
Joey shrugs, slightly embarrassed. ‘Thanks.’
‘For what?’
‘Allowing me to unburden meself.’
‘Er—I don’t believe you said anything of substance.’
‘All the same.’
‘Just trying to find out how you tick. I’m still out to get you, you know. Even more so, now you’ve been keeping me prisoner.’
‘I did warn you, you know.’
Martina blinks.
‘Not to get involved in all this,’ Joey clarifies.
‘When?’
‘When you were playing detective, doing your research. I tried to warn you.’
Something occurs to her.
‘You mean when you threatened me through me computer?’
‘It wasn’t a threat,’ Joey says quietly. ‘It was a warning.’
‘The difference being?’
‘If you’d listened to it, you wouldn’t be here now.’
‘Oh, so I’ve saved one of me colleagues from bein’ embroiled in your devious little schemes, is that it?’
He shrugs. ‘You could’ve prevented anyone from bein’ here, I suppose. If you hadn’t had your heart set on ruinin’ us, and made up your mind to track us down and set your boys on us. If your lot had left us be, we might not have had to go through with it.’
‘Or, perhaps…oh, I don’t know—you could’ve made up yer mind to give the kidnapping bit a rest. Packed in the criminal deeds for a more honest way of life?’ She can’t help it; her tone is sharp. He can chide her for doing her job all she wants, but she’s not the one in the wrong, and her irritation chases away that glimmer of sympathy she’d had.
Joey looks through her rather than at her.
‘You’re talking like I’ve got a choice.’
She dreams of Joey that night.
The auditorium that was the scene of her abduction has taken on a mystical quality, the edges of the room in her peripheral vision strangely translucent; glowing. Where the audience should sit has blurred; it’s out of focus, dotted with points of light. The stage seems twice its actual height, and the spotlight illuminates Joey as befitting an angel, or perhaps a demigod, haloing him in gold.
He paces the perimeter of the stage, watching her with a look Martina can’t quite name, and she knows she’s here to do something, she just can’t quite work out what. She was on a mission—her superiors sent her to…arrest this man? That’s it.
‘Care to volunteer for my show, sunshine?’ his eyes are still fixed on her. He steps closer slowly, one step, then another, then another.
He’s close enough to catch, if she reaches out—though she realises the thought is daft, futile. How could she hold him? Even if it were logistically, or even physically possible to take him back to her superiors, as her prisoner, something compels her to pause.
‘Tell me, Mister Boswell,’ she cocks an eyebrow, gives him her best interrogation face, ‘what would that entail?’
‘Oh, just something to blow a fuse in your mind and heighten every one of your senses,’ he grins, winks, slows his pace even more, his circle shrinking until he’s moving slowly around her, like a shark. ‘The usual sort of magic you’re accustomed to seeing from me.’
‘I’m yet to see any trick from you that can achieve even one tenth of what you’re promising,’ she retorts. ‘And you didn’t answer my question.’
Two more steps and he’s face to face with her.
‘I’ll make you levitate,’ he grins wolfishly.
‘Is that a euphemism?’
And Joey’s laugh echoes through the empty auditorium. ‘Would you like it to be?’
Martina’s breath catches in her throat, but before she can even begin to process, she’s gasping, sitting up in bed, a surprising and exhilarating rush coursing through her veins.
And then, as reality comes back to her, shame and a small helping of horror. Why she’s having inappropriate dreams about the person who abducted her she can’t say.
Yes, Joey is easy on the eye. Yes, there is a certain charm to him (there has to be, she reminds herself. It’s his trademark; part of his act). Yes, there is clearly more to him than his stage persona, and that piques a certain level of curiosity that departs from her professional responsibility and into her own personal intrigue.
But thoughts like that about her captor, about a criminal rogue who’s admitted to using her in some diabolical plot—even on a subconscious level…
She flops back against the pillow, heart still pounding, surprised and furious at herself for considering Joey in that light, even just in the back of her mind.
And even more furious at herself for, in some tiny way, wanting to.
Oh, God. I’m in serious trouble, aren’t I?
Martina’s investigation takes a surprising turn a couple of weeks later. She’s bored, as she often is in the afternoons, having little to do while the Boswells are in rehearsal for whatever devious scheme they’re passing for an act, when Magdelana bursts through the front door out of the blue. (Or out of the rain might be more apt; she’s drenched).
‘Oh, God!’ Martina gets up and runs to her, barely registering that, for a few seconds, the front door is unlocked and she’d had the most miniscule of chances to make a run for it. She helps Magdelana inside, helps her out of her sodden coat. ‘Are you all right, love?’
‘Joey is home?’ Magdelana gasps. She turns and flicks the lock on the front door, and then stands there, shivering, wringing out her sodden plait.
‘He’s in the dining room,’ Martina says absently, ‘what happened to you?’
‘I have,’ Magdelana says, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a slightly damp envelope. ‘I bring one letter. Need to give.’
‘Here, I’ll give it to him. You go and dry off.’ Martina reaches for it, but the other woman snatches her hand back.
‘Ah, you think you clever,’ there’s a smirk playing about her face. ‘Always you look, look for the information. I give, you take and read.’
It startles Martina to realise that wasn’t her intention at all. Still, the woman has a point. If she can get hold of that, there’s bound to be evidence in it she can use later. She resolves to find out where Joey puts it and try and get hold of it.
Martina is turning to call Joey when the man himself appears, face turning to concern when he takes in the sight of his housemaid.
‘Jesus, Maggie! What’ve you done to yourself, sweetheart? It’s chucking it down out there!’
‘Joey, I have,’ Magdelana says insistently, pushing the letter at him. ‘I have.’
Something comes across Joey’s countenance, as if a part of him has suddenly jumped to attention, an ambivalent mix of emotion flooding across his face. He takes the letter oddly tenderly.
‘Okay,’ he says softly. ‘Thanks, sweetheart. Now you go and get yourself a cup of tea, okay? Our Adrian’s in the kitchen.’
Magdelana goes, and Joey rips open the envelope, unfolds the letter and paces as he reads, his frown sinking deeper and deeper into his face. And then he pauses, shuts his eyes, slowly tilts his head skywards.
‘Oh, God.’
‘Something wrong?’
Joey jumps, whirling around to regard Martina standing there as though he’s only just noticed her presence.
‘Oh, er, nothing, sweetheart, nothing,’ he laughs unconvincingly, stuffing the letter into his jacket pocket.
‘Nothing at all.’
Joey’s mood shades to black for the rest of the day, clearly a result of whatever was in the letter. He’s quiet, tetchy, bites the head off of anyone who says the wrong thing, and Martina’s thoughts wander again and again to those damp pieces of paper, to what he might have heard that has shaken him so.
For investigation purposes, of course. There’s clearly something here that could be used against him, that he’s concerned about, and she needs to find out what it is, that’s all. Nothing to do with concern for him.
That’s what she tells herself, reprimanding the voice in her head that insists that’s not quite true.
Though the Boswells are usually fastidious about keeping any real intel from her, Joey’s preoccupation leads to a slip that, keen observer that Martina is, doesn’t go unnoticed.
And so when Joey, rereading the letter for the umpteenth time, gets distracted by Billy calling out and shoves it in a coffee table drawer, Martina takes a mental note, bides her time and then pounces on it when nobody else is around.
Joey,
I daren’t write to all of you. Not least because five letters might be more easily intercepted than one, but if I stop to think about each one of you in turn, about your little foibles and the things I miss about you, I fear my heart might burst. I safeguard my thoughts with you; my first born. I know you are taking care of the others, Joey. You always have.
I expect by now you’ve heard about your Dad; how they found him and questioned him. Blatantly romping about the allotments with that TART, not a care in the world that someone might notice his whereabouts—he might as well have been wearing a neon sign.
No sense, that Freddie Boswell. Of course he’d end up in gaol—mind you, Joey, I think he might have had a chance of getting away, when they came for him…had the string holding his trousers up not broken. Oh, the shame of it, Joey. My husband—your father—marched off to the police station with his trousers down. In spite of that, he did you all proud, love. Didn’t utter a word. I suppose that’s something to be said of him, even after all he’s put us through over the years.
But a word of warning, Joey—stay safe. They’re after you, and they’re throwing everything they’ve got at the hunt. You provoked them, taking that policewoman. Which reminds me—I’m sure you know what you’re doing; you always do, Joey; but be careful. Not just because you’ve got someone with you who’s got contacts on the outside, and could bring about your ruin, but because beneath it all, that’s a human person you’re playing with in this bigger game. Take care of her, love. Everyone tangled in this web suffers, don’t they? Now you’ve entangled her as well, be gentle. Tread carefully.
Don’t worry about me, love. It’s lovely out here. Safe and far from any investigations. A lovely sort of life, if you like the fresh air and little hamlets where everybody greets you by name and the most dramatic thing to happen is a miniscule village fair at Easter. I miss the noise of the city, and our little family home behind our Georgian front door—though not the constant fear of being caught and interrogated about your whereabouts.
Derek and I go for walks along the seaside with his little dog, and at the end of the day we go home to our little house where there’s peace and quiet, and a table that I like to imagine one day we’ll all sit round, like we used to back at home, when things were different, before all this Eye business. There’s not a day goes by when something I see doesn’t remind me of my children—yesterday, I watched a little crab scuttling along the shore, on its merry way to elsewhere, and I remembered our Jack finding one, when you were all little, and the lot of you bursting from excitement. Sometimes I stop by the little church on the hill on the way back, and I light a candle and say a prayer for you all. May our Dear Father watch over you, going after the Eye the way you are. I’m sure it was sent from Hell itself, and it’s a noble mission you’re on, but oh, Joey, I wish it wasn’t my own flesh and blood that were forced to do it, and make those sacrifices.
I should close now, Joey. The hour grows late. My love to you all, and may God protect you.
—Mam
It’s a lot to take in, and Martina sits back, leaning against the coffee table, breathing slowly and trying to catalogue it all. The Boswells’ mother appears to be in hiding. Their father was arrested—likely the news that had sent Joey into his slump. Some rubbish about the Eye, and she wonders what they’ve told Nellie Boswell, the lies they’ve spun to keep their mother thinking well of them and justifying their criminal acts. She puzzles and ponders it for a moment, and is rising to put the letter back in the drawer when a rough hand grabs her arm and pulls her to her feet.
‘You,’ Joey says crossly, ‘little detective lady, need to learn to keep your nose out.’
‘Need to be a bit more careful with your hiding places, then, don’t you?’ She looks up at him with intent to glare, surprised to see Joey’s face doesn’t match his words; he’s not as furious at her misdemeanour as he would have her think.
‘Watch it, sweetheart, or I’ll shut yer back in your room again.’
‘I’m shaking in me boots, Mister Boswell,’ she says dryly. His voice is as empty as his threat.
‘Come ‘ed. Seeing as I can’t let you out of me sight, I’ll ‘ave to babysit yer through the rest of this strategy meeting. But any funny business, sunshine, and you’ll regret it.’
He steers her towards the door, and Martina can’t decide whether she’s reeling from the fact that he’s invited (or rather forced) her into one of their dastardly meetings, or whether Joey’s behaviour betrays something far different to the annoyance he’s trying to project at her snooping.
Hiding that letter conspicuously, not stopping her til she’d read it…somehow she gets the feeling he wanted her to see it.
‘You know I know what’s just ‘appened,’ she tests the water. ‘D’you really think now’s the time to discuss the strategy for your twisted little scheme?’
‘Of course it is, sweetheart. Of course it is.’ Joey lets go of her to make his grand entrance, throwing open the double doors to the dining room even though it’s the same space they eat in three times a day.
Martina rolls her eyes, but Joey hasn’t finished.
‘You see, regardless of what happens out there, sweetheart,’ Joey says, doing a passable impression of pulling himself together, ‘the show must go on.’
‘Right then,’ Joey folds his hands, placing them on the dining table in front of him. ‘Let’s talk strategy.’
‘Why’s she ‘ere?’ Billy demands, jerking his head in Martina’s direction.
‘Because she can’t be trusted on her own,’ Joey says. ‘I’m keeping an eye on ‘er.’
‘Eh—I thought you said we weren’t gonna let her know we’re gonna put her in the—’
‘Billlll-eeeeeee,’ Joey sing-songs in warning, his eyebrows raising. ‘Not what we’re covering this evening, son.’
Billy slumps back in his seat, muttering to himself.
Joey surveys the assembled company.
‘Shall we begin? Earlier today we covered part one of the act. The buildup, if you will. Now comes the main event. We need to appear in front of the crowd with dignity and style. Make an impact. Let’s run through it.’
The others mumble and groan and shift in their seats; stage direction is Joey’s territory, each of their performances apparently choreographed by him.
She can see why he allowed her to sit in on this one. Their ‘strategy meeting’ seems to be nothing more than a rehearsal for the act part of the heist; the drama; sketching out the bare bones of the performance, their strategy for wowing their audience rather than what they’re actually carrying out. Joey talks them through their opening (‘greetings’, of course), in which order they will appear, where each of them will stand.
‘And of course,’ he says, after mapping out their positions with the salt and pepper shakers and two glasses, ‘our Adrian will be behind the scenes keepin’ an eye on us, protecting us in the unlikely event of a dangerous tumble, won’t you, son?’
‘Oh, God, do we have to do the daredevil bit?!’ Adrian demands, his face going rather pale. ‘I’ve never been a fan of heights, Joey. And knowing I’m responsible for your safety like that…’
‘Heights?!’ Martina quizzes, but they ignore her.
‘You’re just gonna have to overcome that, aren’t you, sunshine? Particularly given we’ve already worked out how it ends.’
‘Oh, God, did you have to remind me? My nerves are hangin’ by a thread. Hangin’ by a thread!’
‘And,’ Joey says pointedly, giving his younger brother a stare until he quietens down, ‘we need you to keep a cool head, son, so don’t go losin’ it now.’
Adrian doesn’t look particularly reassured.
‘And now—without giving too much away…’ a pointed look in Martina’s direction, and she suspects this is something she’s going to be involved in against her will, ‘we come to the climactic bit.’
‘Your climactic bit, you mean,’ Jack leers at Joey, eyes twinkling, and there’s a double entendre in there Martina doesn’t really get.
‘We’re all in this together. I will do the talking, yes—but we all have our part to play.’
‘Talkin’ of how it ends, you’re a lucky bastard, aren’t yer? Gettin’ all the sordid bits.’
Joey raises his eyes to heaven. ‘There are no sordid bits.’
‘Not in the script, Jack grins, ‘but you’ll ad lib one.’
He pauses, smirking again at Joey’s befuddled face, and then flicking his eyes in Martina’s direction. ‘I know. I’m a mentalist.’
‘Perhaps we can discuss errors in mentalism later,’ Joey says, laying a rather strange-sounding stress on the word errors. ‘Okay? Right. Now. It’s after the audience realises we’ve taken it…’
‘Taken what?’ Martina sits up straighter.
‘Nice try, sweetheart. Nice try. Need to know basis, that one. So. It’s gone, isn’t it? They don’t know where it is. They know we’ve got it, we don’t know how, they’re waitin’ in suspense, and we do the reveal. We all step forward, and we say…’
Joey pauses, and Martina realises she’s waiting for them to contribute ideas.
‘Abracadabra,’ she heckles when nobody speaks up.
Joey points to her, as though singling out a misbehaving pupil in class.
‘No,’ he scolds. ‘Cliché. Bad.’
As if their whole act wasn’t one ginormous cliché. Real-world crimes aside, there’s nothing unique about any aspect of the Great White Whales’ performance.
‘I know,’ Billy says. ‘Hey presto!’
‘Worse.’
‘Don’t you have any imagination?!’ Adrian seems to be looking for an excuse to snap at Billy, as he often is.
‘Eh—it’s not my fault our Joey’s got a cob on! At least I contributed!’
‘For the first time in your—’
‘—all right, all right, cut the fussing,’ Joey rolls his eyes, raising his hands for quiet. ‘I’ve got it.’
They learn forward in anticipation. It’s laughable, their excitement—Joey’s ideas are far from original.
‘Behold,’ Joey says dramatically, raising his arms in triumph. The others applaud and nod, and Martina leans back in her chair, dumbfounded and irritated.
‘How was that better?!’
Joey’s face darkens; she’s clearly in his bad books now. For all Adrian is the sensitive, temperamental one in the family, Joey’s mood can turn on a sixpence when he feels criticised.
‘And that’s enough from you today, sunshine. If you can’t be sensible, you can leave this discussion.’
Now there’s an idea. This whole thing is ridiculous, and shaken Joey may be, but that doesn’t excuse his piss-poor attempts at showmanship.
‘And I thought you didn’t want me snooping.’
She has him there, but that only serves to annoy him further.
‘Try it and the handcuffs’ll come back. And test me patience again, sweetheart, and you’ll really be in for it.’
All right, then. If that’s how he wants it. She’d thought he was trying to reach out to her earlier, but their truce has dissolved again, clearly. She gets up and huffs off, shouting oh, get a thesaurus, Joey! over her shoulder.
It’s only an hour or so later, when she’s been sat on her bed grumbling and thinking up better lines herself, just because there are so bloody many it should be child’s play to come up with some more interesting material, that she catches herself.
She’s becoming far too invested in their act.
‘Gonna saw me in half, are you?’
‘Am I that transparent, sweetheart?’
‘Apparently so, Mister Boswell.’
‘Trust me, Little Detective Lady—it won’t hurt a bit.’
‘I’ve heard that line before, I’m afraid, love.’
Martina clenches her pillow in frustration when she wakes, and tries to block out the remnants of the dream.
The letter is just her starter-for-ten. As the days wear on, Martina makes more startling discoveries—all to do with the Boswells, none to do with the evidence she needs, and all of them leading to a strange flutter of empathy she tries to brush off.
A routine snoop of the accessible areas in the flat while the Boswells are in rehearsal turns up a little silk purse, stuffed into the trim around what Jack calls his ‘mentalist hat’, and which he has left unsupervised on its usual hat rack while showering.
Martina glances around surreptitiously, ensuring none of the others are around, and then pockets it to examine in her room and return later.
It’s monogrammed, a gold L.C. in curly letters on one side, and when she undoes the clasp, though no money falls out, two more things of note do.
The first, a name tag bearing the logo of a financial company she vaguely recognises.
Leonora Campbell
Loan Manager
The second, a little photograph of a well-groomed woman in her mid-forties, arms around a gormlessly-grinning Jack. They make an odd-looking pair: discrepancies in height, age and social standing—and yet the pair of them look unbelievably happy.
And wouldn’t it just be like Jack Duvall (no, Boswell) to ingratiate himself into someone’s good graces before robbing them?
No, a voice in her head tells her. It wouldn’t. Part of the Daft White Whales he may be, and a mentalist by trade he may be, but Jack isn’t the brightest bulb in the box. Not only that, he’d come down on the side of ‘really stupid’ when Billy had nicked something just for the sake of it, without meaning attached.
Which means, to have taken this—or acquired it; he was given it for all she knows—and to have hung onto it, Leonora Campbell must have meant something to him.
Martina turns it around in her hands, then lays it in her lap and just stares at it for a while, silenced by a bout of sympathetic grief that startles her.
Not two days later, she finds herself feeling this way a second time.
At a loss for something to do, she’s sitting idly in the living room, when a furious shout sounds from the dining room.
Martina rolls her eyes. The Boswells are always getting into some tiff or other, particularly when ironing out the particulars of their scheme. Why a group of siblings who never matured past the childish stage of constant arguing thought they could team up together she’ll never know.
‘Aw, ‘ey, I ‘ate this! When I get an act of me own I’ll be out of ‘ere!’
The doors fling open and Aveline stalks out (if stalks is the right word. She sort of totters huffily, but her meaning is clear).
‘Leave ‘er,’ Joey’s voice can be heard faintly from the other room. ‘She needs to work it through.’
The doors swing shut again, and Martina, mildly surprised but far from interested, sits back on the sofa again, counting swirls in the cornices of the Boswells’ ceiling. Their daft rows are of little concern to her; nothing worth finding out about. And so she’s ready to dismiss the entire thing, when Aveline changes her mind, turning away from her room, crossing to the sofa and sitting down beside her.
The Escape Artist of the family is looking close to tears, chin wobbling.
‘I don’t know how I can stand it!’ she begins blurting, before Martina can even properly sit up and take notice. ‘The lot of ‘em! Thinkin’ they know better, oh, Aveline, it’s for your own safety, love—I know that! I know it! It doesn’t mean I can’t be human, though, does it?’
None of this spiel makes much sense, not that Martina gets much time to try and make head or tail of it, before Aveline ploughs forward.
‘’ey—do you miss your fella? The one from the telly interview?’
Martina blinks, startled, but it’s not because Aveline is trying to have a heart-to-heart. That’s unusual, yes, but not unfathomable. They don’t have much of a relationship to speak of (if she can call the tentative truces she has with Joey, Billy and occasionally Adrian relationships), but she’s the only port in a storm to talk to, given their situation.
It’s the term she used.
Miss is such a strong word, she finds herself thinking. What does it mean, really? Certainly, when she’d first been brought here against her will, she’d found herself wishing she was there instead. That wasn’t missing Shifty so much as despairing her captivity (though, to be honest, though she can’t leave, it’s not so bad. Not as bad as she feared, anyway. The Boswells are surprisingly friendly kidnappers, she’ll give them that).
‘I—er—’ she begins, unsure how to answer that—though before she has to, she only has to take one look at Aveline’s face to see the other woman doesn’t actually want an answer. She just wants to talk about herself.
As she’s leaned forward, a chain has slipped forward through the plunging neckline of Aveline’s blouse, a gold ring glistening on the end of it.
Aveline spots Martina has noticed it, snatches it up and tucks it away again.
‘This is about the Reverend Carter, I presume?’ Martina hedges.
‘How d’you know about Oswald?’ Aveline demands, immediately going on the defensive.
‘I’m a detective, Aveline,’ Martina says, smiling wryly. ‘That’s what I do. It’s me job to know everything about you.’
Aveline looks slightly unsettled at this remark, and Martina has to remind herself that, though she dresses provocatively, though she is part of a criminal gang, Aveline is an innocent at heart. She’s a vicar’s wife, with childlike aspirations to stardom she’s never grown out of.
‘It’s all right, love,’ Martina says, as gently as she can, ‘not much I can do now, is there?’
Aveline hesitates, but her need to spill her guts wins out over her mistrust of Martina.
‘I tried to talk to him the other day.’ She looks wont to start blubbing at any moment, and so Martina does all she can to discourage this, lest she lose out on critical information.
‘Go on,’ she nods encouragingly.
‘I went to see ‘im. It was daft, they all said. I don’t think anyone noticed. We ‘aven’t seen each other in two years—and they’d already searched the vicarage and questioned Oswald. So I thought we were probably in the clear.’
Martina’s colleagues, presumably, using the information she had painstakingly gathered, the leads she collected, in their own search for the Boswells. A part of her seethes—someone always seems to take the credit for her achievements. It’s not relevant to Aveline’s woes, though, so she pushes it aside for now. Aveline’s attempt clearly failed in some way, given her devastation—and given her falling-out with her siblings there must have been more risk involved than she believed.
Communication must be feasible, somehow. At least through Magdelana, if Nellie Boswell’s letter is anything to go by.
‘I thought he’d be pleased,’ Aveline whines. ‘I thought we’d ‘ave a romantic moment, you know—in secret, that I could tell ‘im how much I miss ‘im, and that I’m thinkin’ of him, and leave him with a day to remember me by while I’m off with me brothers chasin’ the Eye…’
Again with the Eye. Martina shakes her head to clear it of annoyance (or intrigue, she’s not sure which).
‘But he…’ Aveline’s voice is wavering now; she hasn’t got long before she breaks down, ‘he said he wanted nothin’ to do with me! After the paintings heist, he said. It saddens me, Aveline, ‘e said. I’m ‘eartbroken, ‘e said. You’re not the person I married anymore, ‘e said. And just stood there. All sad and serious and acceptin’. And then he walked away.’ And the floodgates open, tears and mascara waterfalling down her face.
Now that, Martina knows, must have hurt. She thinks of Shifty, of his undisguised indifference and smarmy excuses, and feels a pang in her chest at the thought of Oswald Carter, grieving genuinely, life touched not only by the separation from his wife but by the knowledge of what she’s doing, what she left him for. Grieving but wanting no part of it. And for his wife, casting aside his devotion to her but ardently wishing she could have shown him the same, somehow.
She’s not supposed to be feeling sorry for them. They made their bed, after all. They have to lie in it. That’s what you get for turning to a life of crime.
‘I’m sorry, love,’ she says, all the same. ‘For your, erm…loss.’
‘We all ‘ave to make sacrifices,’ Aveline says, nodding through her tears as though imparting wisdom. ‘That’s what our Joey says.’
The reference to Joey, the inference that they do this at his behest, has Martina’s eye twitching.
‘Tell me—why so intent on involving me in your tricks? You know I’ve no interest in being involved in your wickedness.’
‘Your gob says that, sunshine, but the rest of you says differently. And you were the one who volunteered, after all.’
‘Er—are these handcuffs?’
‘Merely a part of the trick, sweetheart.’
‘What are you gonna do to me, then?’
‘Oh, I can’t give that away, sweetheart, without ruinin’ the illusion.’
‘The illusion you have any form of magical powers, you mean?’
‘Shh. Trust me. You’re about to be amazed.’
A frustrated cry rips itself from her throat, waking her. Seems the angrier at Joey she gets, spurred by her encounters with his siblings and the fact that she can’t decide if he’s an evil bastard or a misunderstood man worthy of her sympathy, the more intense her night time fantasies become.
This cannot be good for her.
The third time, she gets more than she bargained for.
She gets up in the night for a glass of water (it hadn’t taken long before she’d realised the door to her room remains unlocked at night, and she exercises her ability to leave regularly, just to be sure she still can) when she hears a clatter, then a murmur.
She pauses.
It’s probably Joey. She often encounters Joey if she’s up at night; he keeps odd hours. She’d questioned him about it once, and he’d shrugged her off with a vague comment about habit from when I was a member of the wage earning community, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
But then voices sound—two of them, sounding somewhat agitated, and she slips into sleuthing mode, slinking closer to the doorway to the living room to see what’s going on.
It’s not Joey.
It’s Billy, brow furrowed in a genuine distress (not the Billyish frustration that clouds most of his daily interactions), talking to Magdelana in hushed tones.
Martina stays hidden, pressing herself against the side of the kitchen cupboard to keep out of sight, and observes.
The youngest member of the troupe stuffs a hand into his sleeve, pulling out an envelope he fairly shoves at his housekeeper.
‘See she gets it, okay, Magdelana? I’m dead worried.’
Magdelana pinches his cheek affectionately. ‘Of course. I know you love the little darling.’
Billy stares wistfully at the door for a while after Magdelana leaves, but, contrary to what Martina was expecting, he doesn’t go back to bed. Instead, he sits down in front of the coffee table, seemingly produces a deck of cards from nowhere and starts laying out a game of clock patience.
‘If this comes out,’ he says to no one, flicking and shuffling and moving the cards around so swiftly it makes Martina’s head spin, ‘she’s okay. She’ll be well again.’
There’s a touch of the reverent in the way he plays the game, it’s a ritual of sorts, one she doesn’t understand.
He completes the game in under a minute, shuffles the cards cartoonishly quickly and immediately begins another game.
‘If this comes out, she knows I love ‘er.’
Billy is a master at sleight-of-hand. It always comes out. Perhaps because he cheats somehow; Martina isn’t sure, but the kings always remain face-down in the centre, nary a one revealed in the entire game.
Martina’s curiosity gets the better of her, and, casting caution to the winds, she reveals herself. Simply watching is raising more questions than it answers, and Billy is young and daft enough that plain old asking what’s going on just might work.
She clears her throat. Billy leaps half a foot in the air.
‘What are you doin’ in ‘ere?’ he accuses.
Martina rolls her eyes as she comes and sits beside him.
‘I live ‘ere.’ She reassesses, admonishing herself for her imprecise choice of words. ‘I’m stuck ‘ere. Abducting me in front of hundreds of witnesses ring a bell?’
‘I know that,’ Billy says. ‘I meant…well, you’re here, aren’t yer? And I’m here, and…’
Billy rarely articulates what he means, even though his intent was clear. She moves the conversation on before they go in a circle.
‘What yer doing?’ she gestures to the cards on the table.
‘Oh, er,’ Billy laughs uneasily. ‘Nothing, just…playin’ a game, you know. Pass the time and all that…’
He’s trying to sound like Joey, but he never pulls it off. There’s a simplicity to Billy he can’t hide, which allows Martina to fairly easily bypass his defences. He wants to talk about it. She can see he does. He just needs a push in the right direction.
‘Who d’you think you can protect making the cards come out?’
‘How d’you know I’m protecting someone?’
‘If this comes out, she’s okay,’ Martina recites.
Billy appears to be debating arguing with her, but it’s weighing on him, this secret, and eventually he lets it loose.
‘It’s Francesca,’ he says weakly, defeated. ‘She’s gorra chest infection. And I wanna make sure she’s okay, and gets the anti-bionics, and there’s enough money she can get ‘em…’
‘Antibiotics,’ Martina corrects, the envelope he gave to Magdelana beginning to make sense to her. ‘Who’s—’
‘I’ve read somewhere about chest infections. You get bronchi-atitis, and then you get pneumonia, and your lungs have got bacteria, and I don’t want ‘er to have bacteria lungs ‘cause what if she dies, and—’
Billy is becoming slightly hysterical, his partially-lucid rant becoming quicker and less coherent, and Martina sees the sense in stopping it before he starts hollering and wakes the entire household.
‘The antibiotics’ll probably clear it up, love. You don’t need to send yourself into a state of collapse.’ She waits until the vein in his forehead stops throbbing before going on. ‘Who’s Francesca?’
While a look flashes across his face that betrays he’s not sure he should be telling, it’s quickly smothered by a smile of pride.
‘Me lit’le girl. She’s three.’
‘You have a daughter?’ Martina asks, eyes wide. Billy is such a young lad, and an immature one at that; she can hardly imagine him fathering a child.
‘Yeah,’ Billy’s beaming now, his face alight with pride. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his wallet and shows her a picture. The child has the same flyaway curls, the same beakish nose. She’s being held by a fairly ordinary looking young woman, and Billy, seemingly subconsciously, reaches out and touches both faces in the photo.
‘Her mother?’ Martina asks.
‘My wife,’ Billy says quietly, astonishing her even more. She hadn’t dug that little morsel of information up either. ‘That’s Julie.’
Martina sees the devotion in his eyes, and something occurs to her.
‘Julie Jefferson,’ she says softly.
‘Julie Jefferson,’ Billy nods. And another piece of the puzzle falls into place. Another alias born not of cunning, but of devotion. Devotion to another loved one left behind.
‘I can’t even be a proper father. A proper ‘usband. I just send money. A cash cow, that’s what I am.’
‘That’s not what a cash cow means, love,’ Martina puts her hand on his shoulder without thinking.
‘D’you know what it’s like? Every day, knowin’ I can’t see ‘em. S’pose you would, with that Shifty and all.’
Martina considers. Aveline had alluded to the same thing a few days ago, and she’s turned the thought over in her head a few times since. Safety, she misses. The familiarity of being home, she misses. Shifty himself? She’s hardly tearing herself up about being separated from him. A return to him constitutes a return to normality, nothing more.
‘Perhaps,’ she says, turning back to the matter at hand, ‘if you gave up this life of crime business, you wouldn’t have to stay away. I mean,’ unfortunately, he will likely have to pay, ‘if you gave yourself up.’
Billy looks at her like she’s grown two heads. ‘Gave meself up?’
‘Your involvement’s only small compared to, say, Joey’s. You mightn’t be in all that long, ‘specially if you cooperate and give evidence. You could go back to them sooner. Live your life.’
‘How can I? It’s not gaol I’m worried about. Even if I do get out of all this one day, the Eye might come for them. I’m a father, aren’t I? I’ve gotta think of them first.’
Perhaps the most mature thing she’s ever heard him say, except for the daft Eye bit in the middle.
She hadn’t thought the Eye was real. She’d assumed it was an urban myth, a convenient fiction the Boswells had capitalised on to add more mystery and intrigue to their act. Billy’s acting as though it’s a governing force in his life (or perhaps a threat), but then he’s…well, Billy. His word is not exactly gospel.
‘We’ve gotta do what we need to survive. That’s what our Joey says.’ Billy shrugs sadly and turns back to his photograph, pensive.
And all of a sudden, Martina sees red. They’re all suffering, and it’s all Joey’s doing.
Before she knows what she’s doing, her feet have turned her around and are propelling her to go and find him, and give him a piece of her mind.
Why, she’s not sure. It’s not as if anything she says will make a difference. It’s not as if it’s any of her business, really. But the urge within her burns hot all the same.
She finds Joey on the roof as usual.
His blond hair blows about his face; he looks younger, softer, less intimidating up here, in the light of the one bulb that illuminates the roof at night . There’s something of the vulnerable in his stance, in the way he grips the rails, tension and uncertainty radiating through him. He’s clearly come up here to think about something bothering him, and she’s interrupted him in the throes of some sort of turmoil. The glance he gives in her direction confirms it; his eyes are pained. It’s probably not the best time to pester him.
Martina persists anyway.
‘This little crime ring you’re running,’ she says, ‘I hope it’s worth it for all your sakes. Hurtin’ yourselves and others the way you do.’
Joey leans against the railing, looking out over the city.
‘I don’t recall askin’ for a cup of moral condescension. And I hardly think pinchin’ a few poxy pictures constitutes hurtin’ people.’
‘What about your brothers? Your sister? Julie Jefferson and Oswald Carter and Leonora Campbell?’ she demands, stepping closer. ‘Your mother? It doesn’t matter they’ve been hurt?’
‘That wasn’t my decision,’ he sounds mournful. He’s not looking at her.
‘What d’you mean, wasn’t your decision? You’re the leader of this little outfit.’
‘I’ve told yer, little detective lady,’ Joey says through gritted teeth, ‘it wasn’t me who landed us in this mess! But now we’re here, we do what we can for our fam-i-lies, all right?’
And then his anger fades, as though his exhaustion has sucked it out of him, and he sighs.
‘We can’t be with them, but…everything we do is for them. We send back the money discreetly, and messages where we can. Keep them safe, and separate. We try. It’s better than embroiling them in all this.’
Martina softens at this. Joey sounds saddened, resigned, and she realises perhaps he’s not what she thinks he is. He’s trying to protect their families from the mess they’ve made. It’s perhaps a skewed sense of morals he’s got, but it shows love all the same.
‘They’ve all got somebody they’ve left behind.’ She jerks her head in the direction of the stairs. ‘Apart from yer Mam, who’ve you left behind? Who was your somebody?’
Joey uses his real name. He carries no pictures, no lover’s mementos the way the others do. And yet, by the looks of him, he’s grieving something…someone…just as much as they all seem to be. The curiosity of it maddens Martina.
‘I left behind…’ Joey sighs. ‘The chance of there ever being somebody.’
He exhales again, and Martina isn’t sure she believes him, but she feels a flicker of sympathy all the same.
‘Lonely life, then, isn’t it? The life of crime.’
‘You don’t know the half of it, sweetheart. You don’t know the half of it.’
Joey turns to her, looking at her properly for the first time since she’s come up here. He studies her face, an intrigued expression unfurling across his own.
‘And what about you, then? You’re married and in a respectable job and you’re just as miserable as I am.’
‘Respectable job’s not all it’s cracked up to be,’ it’s Martina’s turn to sigh. ‘And as for Shifty, well…I married the wrong man. I knew I was marrying the wrong man on me wedding day. I remember looking at meself in the mirror in me wedding dress before I went in and thinking…what am I doin’?’
‘Why’d you go through with it, then?’
‘I was pregnant.’
‘What happened to the kid?’
‘I lost it. Twelve weeks in. I’d been married two of those weeks. And so there I was, stuck with a man I didn’t love and not even a child out of it. And that was it; that was my life. I thought perhaps another one would come but it never ‘appened, and Shifty didn’t care. He was up to his neck in other women by the time I threw in the towel. Probably has a few lit’le bastards around the place to carry on his genes, so why did it matter if there might be something wrong with me on that front?’
Joey’s looking at her sadly.
‘It never occurred to you to leave him and try again with someone else?’
She shakes her head. ‘I didn’t think I was worth all that. At least someone wanted to be married to me. Well. Sort of.’
His sad face intensifies, mingled with a little bit of horror. And now Martina’s started letting it out, to her captor of all people, she finds she can’t stop.
‘It would have been nice if he’d ever…I don’t know. Cared even just a bit. He liked the idea of me, and of having someone to come home to and keep the house tidy and get him out of trouble, but he didn’t ever really...well. You know.’ She sighs yet again. ‘He gave me material things. Lots of things, as if they made up for not loving me. Presents and nice dinners and it was all…none of it was real. It was all to keep me sweet because of what he was doing on the side. It’s not that I cared about the things, I just…would’ve liked one honest gesture. You know, I’ve never received one bunch of flowers with any genuine care attached to them. Just whole gardens worth of oh crap, you caught me havin’ another affair roses.’
‘Aw ‘ey. That’s awful.’
Joey steps closer to her, one hand behind his back. ‘Would you accept I’m sorry I put handcuffs on you when you first came here because I quite like you now even though I’m using you in a plot roses? I know it’s not really a consolation, but…genuine anyway.’
Martina laughs weakly. ‘The thought’s nice, love.’
And Joey’s hand emerges from behind his back.
‘M’lady.’
Martina sighs and accepts the roses Joey has seemingly produced from thin air.
‘Before I take these, where did they come from?’
Joey grins. ‘It’s magic.’
‘No, really,’ she retorts, ‘I’m not sure I want to touch something that’s been concealed on your person. Who knows what orifice they might’ve been hidden in?’
‘You really think I’d give a woman flowers I’d hidden somewhere inappropriate if I was tryin’ to impress her?’
‘I don’t know, Mister Boswell. I’m not familiar with your proclivities.’
Joey laughs then; it rings out over the tops of the buildings and drifts off into the air.
‘Would you care to find out?’
‘Find out?’
‘What my proclivities are.’
Martina takes a step back, holding the flowers as if they might somehow magically form a wall between them. Not that she believes in magic.
‘Somehow I don’t think my husband would approve of that.’
She turns away, leaning over the railing and gazing at the city below. Where is Shifty right now? Yes, he’d given a smarmy, not-so-convincing outpouring of grief on telly, but now the media hype is off, she wonders if she’s left any sort of hole in his life at all. He’d barely spent any time in their house, and when he had, she’d got the sense that what he really wanted was simply for someone to be there when he got back from his misadventures. That was all she’d been, a stopgap to fill in the lonely hours between thieving, getting himself into trouble and having his affairs. He’s probably being ‘comforted’ in the bed of some dolly bird from the pub as they speak (before lifting a few quid from her purse and slipping out). The devotion of the Boswells to their significant others, crooked though it may be, has had her re-evaluating everything to do with her husband.
And if that’s the case, which it probably is, Martina thinks, why shouldn’t she sleep with Joey? It’s tempting, if only because she wants to get back at Shifty.
Well, that or the fact that he’s inescapably attractive. And the dreams haven’t gone away since that first one.
‘Why do you bother?’ Joey has come up beside her, and his sudden appearance mere inches from her face startles her. ‘I mean, come on, sweetheart, he’s not exactly living the life of a monk, is he? And all those countless times you’ve found him with another woman…do you really care whether he’d approve? Does he have any right to, sunshine?’
‘Are you trying to break into mentalism now?’ Martina rolls her eyes. It’s as if he’s read her mind, only she doesn’t believe he possibly could have. ‘I think you should leave that to your Jack, love.’
Joey moves in now, his face almost touching hers, and it would be so easy to take things a step further and press her lips to his in this current position. So very easy.
So instead she moves back a little.
‘I am merely,’ says Joey, and she’s found that the way Joey says merely every time he’s trying to get away with murder has become anticipated, annoying and endearing to her all at once, ‘so in tune with you, sweetheart, that I can tell what you’re thinkin’ without having to employ my magical powers.’
‘You have no magical powers,’ Martina scoffs.
‘Oh, yeah? No magical powers, eh?’
And then Joey’s mouth is on hers, and she’s overcome with sensation, with the burning of her own physical desire. She kisses back, realising as she does so that she’s going to take him to her room—or go with him to his, if he so desires. She wants to so badly. She hasn’t felt this sort of electricity since…oh, God, it’s been a long time. Long before Shifty. Not since she was a teenage girl and the boy she’d fancied at school for years had decided he fancied her back and snogged her ferociously outside the school gates. And now she’s remembering what passion feels like, she doesn’t want to let go of the opportunity to experience a bit more.
Joey draws back, his lips singed a darker shade. She can feel her own mouth still tingling, all of her insides buzzing.
He grins at her.
‘Wanna bet?’
Martina closes the gap between them again, kissing him hard, unsure whether she wants to hurt him for his irritating arrogance or merely regain that wonderful sensation of a few moments ago.
‘Why don’t you,’ she whispers against his lips, ‘prove it?’
Chapter 6: Part V: All night show with just you and the crowd
Chapter Text
Part V
All night show with just you and the crowd
Her colleague Carmen has always been of the opinion that you can tell a man’s profession by what he’s like in bed. Martina wonders briefly if she was right.
It’s obvious Joey’s a magician. He knows an awful lot of tricks.
And, much like a bewildered audience watching a magic show, Martina’s left feeling slightly astounded afterwards, but unable to shake the thought that somehow, she’s been duped.
She wakes up still in his bed, though she knows he’d left almost as soon as the deed was done, and is certain he has not re-joined her in it since. She hums, unsure if she’s ticked off by this or not (Joey’s sleep habits are odd, after all), and allows herself a proper look around the room. Joey has decorated his space as befits the leader of a criminal gang who wishes to impress—tacky, overpriced furnishings and black walls and carpet, with the odd leopard-print throw rug and gold-framed mirror to add a touch of what only unsophisticated people could ever consider sophistication.
Martina hears voices overhead—Aveline’s wail, Billy’s raucous tones, Joey’s authoritative bark above the rest, silencing them one by one. For a moment, she debates getting up and joining them, but after considering all the rowing that seems to be going on, she thinks better of it and lies back into Joey’s plush mattress. The Boswells argue with an alarming frequency for a group of outlaws who need to stay united to avoid arrest. They’ll get caught one day, just because some passing policeman happens to hear them bickering, or because they’ll be too busy disagreeing on the ‘right’ way to execute their plan that it will all fall to pieces.
Pathetic fake magicians. If that happened, they’d deserve what they got, Martina thinks snidely. She turns her face to the ceiling, only to be confronted with an enormous mural Joey has had painted of himself. On a cloud, in place of Adam, touching fingers with God.
For goodness’ sake.
Martina is reflecting on the ridiculousness of vanity when Joey bursts in, fully dressed, though he has not returned to his room to retrieve clean clothes and his old ones still litter the floor, a balaclava dangling from one hand.
‘We’re going for it today.’
Not even so much as a good morning. A bit rude, given the events of last night, Martina thinks.
‘Going for what?’ She properly takes in the rest of his attire. He’s decked out in black, as usual, but not the suave leather-and-silk-shirts ensemble he usually tries to pull off—this outfit is designed to blend into the shadows. Thick black turtleneck. Wool trousers. The balaclava. Gloves. He couldn’t look more like a man about to commit a crime if he put a little mask over his eyes and carried a crowbar.
‘Phase One of our next performance.’
Ah. She’s been wondering when this would happen. By her calculations it’s been nearly a month since her abduction now—long enough, presumably, to lure the city into a false sense of security but not let them forget the Great White Whales completely. Their timing, should they make a dramatic reappearance now, is optimal.
And Martina is quite sure, even as her stomach lurches to think of it, she’s going to be involved in this next performance.
‘I’ll go and get dressed,’ she sighs, sitting up.
‘Ah—when I say ‘we,’ sweetheart, I refer only to my colleagues and myself.’
‘Oh,’ says Martina, unable to hide her surprise. She hastens to turn her exclamation into a sarcastic barb. ‘Not plannin’ to use your hostage to garner public sympathy?’
‘Your time will come, sunshine. Your time will come. Just not today.’ Joey comes forward, runs his thumb over Martina’s lips. ‘To ensure our grand finale is as spectacular as we’ve planned, thorough preparation is necessary—which, dear lady, you cannot be part of.’
‘All right.’ Martina rolls her eyes. ‘See yer when you get back, then. I look forward to watching you make a spectacle of yerselves on telly again.’
Joey either ignores her sarcasm or doesn’t notice it. ‘Unfortunately, Martina, it’s best if you don’t get any inkling of what’s goin’ on before your cue—to maximise the magic effect, you see.’
‘You mean, so I can’t somehow shoot me gob off to the authorities about how you did it and what you’re doin’?’
‘Precisely. Now, surprising things might go on today, and it is best you have no access to any media while we’re gone—nor,’ he says pointedly, ‘to any phone on which you might tip somebody off about what you know. We’ve come to the conclusion it’s for the best you stay here for the time being.’
Martina goes to point out that she had already worked that out for herself when it hits her. ‘Here’ means ‘this room.’
‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary, Mister—’
‘Now let’s see, you’ve been livin’ here for nearly four weeks, have presumably worked out where we are, know where the knives are in case you thought of either suicide, usin’ one as a weapon or some feeble attempt at cuttin’ your way out of here…’
‘—I hardly think that last one is possible.’
‘…you know where we’ve stored most of our vital magical equipment…’
‘Yer decks of playing cards…’ she’s trying to make light of the situation, but Martina doesn’t like where this is going.
‘…in order to prevent anythin’ going wrong, such as, oh, say, you sabotaging our plan somehow, you will be confined temporarily to my suite. Of course, you will find there is nothing you need you won’t find in here. Help yourself to anything you like.’
Of course he would call it a suite. For some reason, despite the fact that she’s confined to one room again, despite the fact that something devious is afoot and she doesn’t trust that the Great White Whales’ latest plan won’t be utterly dastardly, it’s this that annoys her most. She’s too busy tutting at his affected grandiosity to really register that he’s left the room without another word, that a beep and a click indicate she’s locked in.
Staying in Joey’s ‘suite’ all day would be no hassle at all, were it not for the fact that she’s locked in. Martina decides to make the most of it while simultaneously annoying Joey, takes up his offer and does indeed help herself to everything available. She showers in Joey’s en suite (black tiles and gold tap fittings, of course, and the full-length mirror startles her until she realises Joey must want it to admire himself in his birthday suit, and this sets her off laughing), puts on his robe, opens a bottle of expensive champagne from his bar fridge (honestly, who has a bar fridge in their bedroom?) and makes short work of the stash of chocolate she finds in the door of it. On finding that the television, which appears state-of-the-art, is either broken or has been tampered with to prevent her from watching anything (she suspects the latter, given Joey’s words about ‘access to any media’) she lounges around on the leather sofa in front of it anyway, deliberately getting Flake crumbs in every crease.
After a couple of hours, she’s bored.
The only reading material in the room is a classic car magazine, inside which Joey has circled a few pictures of Jaguars he apparently likes, and after reading it cover to cover three times she’s sick of the sight of wheels and leapers. She tosses it across the room, indulging in a self-satisfied smirk when it lands in a creased heap. That’ll teach Joey.
Martina wonders what Joey’s doing now—what they’re all doing. She can’t picture Aveline, with her ten-foot acrylic nails, complicated hairstyles and clownish amounts of makeup, getting into black woolly gear and hiding out in some courier truck somewhere, waiting to receive a delivery of stolen goods or worse. She can’t imagine simple Jack sneaking anywhere—more likely he’d lumber in and set off an alarm. She can’t imagine Billy…doing anything.
Yet they have before. Even as she sits here, one of Monet’s original water lily paintings is in their living room and Van Gogh’s sunflowers sits over a dining table that is not only dined at, but strategised at. They treat their acquisition of these pictures as a joke, and yet somehow they actually managed to pull off taking them. And they’ve been planning and plotting for weeks, practising picking locks and evading security cameras.
She puzzles over it, trying to work out what tricks might be in store next. First paintings, then people…surely they’ve reached a plateau where thefts are concerned? Which means…she swallows.
Whatever they’ve planned is no small feat.
It’s past midnight and pitch black when Joey returns. He says nothing to her, doesn’t even acknowledge her, simply rustles around for a while—undressing, she guesses—climbs into the bed and pulls her to him.
Despite her earlier anger at him, Martina clutches him to her, lets him roll her onto her back and do what he will. The company, after a day alone filled with worrying and wondering, is nice. A little physical contact goes a long way where curing loneliness is concerned.
Joey seems more interested in working off his excess adrenaline and chasing endorphins tonight than he is in impressing her, and Martina re-evaluates last night’s analysis of him. You can tell a man’s profession by what he’s like in bed. You can tell Joey’s a criminal.
A criminal desperate to get it right, and afraid of what might happen if he fails.
He’s still there when she wakes this time. In fact, his presence is stifling—her head is cradled in his arms, his limbs around her, clutching her with the grip of a boa constrictor. The clinch is sweaty as well as suffocating, and Martina wants nothing more than to be free of it. She extracts herself from his arms, waking him in the process.
‘Greetings.’
‘Plan go off without a hitch, then?’ she says in place of a reply.
‘What’ve you done to me room?’ he fires back.
‘I asked you first, Mister Boswell.’
‘All sorted,’ he says, looking pleased with himself. He props himself up on his elbow, grinning at her. ‘All sorted.’
‘Oh, good.’
‘Which means,’ he’s springing from the bed now, clearly energised by his success—or perhaps by last night, or a full night of sleep in one place, rather than his usual habit of wandering around at all hours—‘I am free to relax for a few days. Except, of course, from the sound hiding I’ll be giving you for trashing me bedroom.’
Martina bites her lip to hide her smirk. ‘You said I could have what I wanted.’
‘I didn’t say you could destroy what you wanted.’ He runs his finger across the sofa, making a face at the chocolate crumbled all over it. ‘Tsk. Jesus.’
‘Can’t you just steal another one?’ she mocks.
‘Sofas are a bit below our league, little detective lady,’ Joey’s tongue pokes through his teeth as he winks. ‘Well. You’re familiar with our work, aren’t yer?’
‘All too familiar,’ Martina rolls her eyes, gestures to herself. ‘So. This first phase—I take it from your attire yesterday the performance itself hasn’t happened yet. Can’t imagine the Daft White Whales wowing a gaggle of simpletons without the flash gear.’
‘Perceptive lady.’
‘Which means it must have been preparation for whatever you’re actually gonna do.’
‘It would appear that way, wouldn’t it?’ Joey says, being deliberately enigmatic. She knows he’s not going to tell her what he’s got planned, but she’s made up her mind to try and weasel some of it out of him. Whether to use it as evidence or just to tease him she’s not sure, but it’s one or the other. She’ll decide which later.
‘Not to mention I’m meant to come up in this sad little play somewhere, and apart from sittin’ at ‘ome bored out of me brains, I haven’t had all that much to do.’
‘Oh, you will, sweetheart. You will.’
‘I know that much. The ominous feeling of dread coming upon me reminds me daily. So this preparation,’ she gets back on track, ‘presumably was pavin’ the way for whatever theft you think you can pull off. Removing obstacles in the way. Correct?’
Joey’s mouth twists, amused at her attempted deduction.
‘Close.’
‘Oh, yeah? Enough for me cigar, this time?’
He laughs then, and it’s a lovely sound, one that has Martina smiling in spite of herself.
She sits up, folding her arms around herself. ‘Go on, then. Let’s hear it. I know you’re itching to give someone an earful about how brilliant you thought you were—and yer prisoner who can’t know specifics will do in a pinch, won’t she?’
Joey eyes her suspiciously for a moment, clearly trying to work out her motivation (she’s not sure of that one herself, to be perfectly honest), and then relents, gives in to his own ego.
His smile stretches from wall to wall. ‘Our heist was sheer magnificence. The epitome of stealth and cunning…’
He paces as he boasts, completely absorbed in his own tale—although, as he’s not actually giving anything away, it mostly comes across as him and his siblings creeping about magnificently, which makes Martina’s mouth twist in amusement. She’s seen another side of Joey, of course—the concerned eldest brother, the one with a deeper side and hints of a soul—but Joey-the-Illusionist has an arrogant streak that makes her want to smack him and roll her eyes and laugh out loud simultaneously.
She’d chastise him, but the view is quite nice from where she’s lying. She rests her head back against the pillows and watches him, steals a few long, lingering eyefuls of his body. Well, why not? He’s stolen enough recently. It’s someone else’s turn.
‘Don’t think because you’ve skirted around any actual details that you’re safe, you know,’ she says after a while, after Joey’s rendition of magnificent not-much begins to bore her. ‘I’ll work out what you’re all up to—mark my words.’
Joey pauses, turns back around.
‘Oh, yes?’ He shoots her a cocky look, comes back towards her.
She gets out of bed just as he reaches her, stands in front of him, aware that she can’t really intimidate him when he’s got at least a foot of height on her, deciding, as he leans down and unites their lips again, that she doesn’t care.
And it’s strange, standing naked in the hideout of a criminal genius, kissing him as if he isn’t the man who orchestrated her abduction, who’s holding her here for use in yet another crime, who went off yesterday to put into action a part of that crime.
What’s even stranger is how utterly at ease with this she feels.
‘You,’ Joey says, pushing her gently into a sitting position, ‘are far too concerned with what we’re up to for your own good.’
‘And why shouldn’t I wonder about it? Seein’ as I already know I’m part of the end result of all this schemin’, I ‘ave a right to be concerned with what’s goin’ on, and what I’m gonna be embroiled in.’
‘It’s better you’re surprised. Trust me, sweetheart. I think what the doctor ordered here is a good distraction. Wipe your mind of these unhelpful thoughts.’
He kneels in front of her, clearing his throat as though making an announcement in one of his daft shows.
‘Prepare to be astounded as I make all your thoughts disappear.’
‘Another magic trick?’
‘Oh, you’ll believe in magic by the time I’m finished with you.’
‘That so?’
Joey grins at her, and Martina finds herself grinning back as she shuts her eyes.
Of course, now what’s done is done, it would be impossible to keep everything from Martina.
Large boxes have appeared in the flat overnight—and while the Boswells pay lip service to stopping her looking in them, there are so damn many of them she’s got her hands on one while they’re feebly guarding the others, and has opened it. Stacks upon stacks of money are inside—crisp, freshly-printed notes all parcelled neatly up together.
So. They’ve robbed a bank, presumably—though of course, they all go tight-lipped and cryptic when she hypothesises as much.
‘Who can say?’ Joey says, guiding her away from the boxes, though his voice doesn’t hold much conviction. ‘Is it within the bounds of the imagination that they could have been procured elsewhere?’
‘Printing your own, are yer?’ Martina shoots back, though the burglar outfits of last night don’t fit with that picture. Unless they robbed the printers to take a fresh batch. It’s possible, she supposes, though far less grand than a bank, where dramatic thefts are concerned. What she doesn’t get is why, if the ‘performance’ isn’t until later, they’ve undertaken the theft already.
The Boswells all gather round for the news later that evening—and in spite of her total media blackout the other day, (a part of her suspects they don’t really care what she knows now, given she can’t stop them doing it) Martina is invited to join them.
She perches on the arm of the sofa next to Billy (safe choice, gives nothing away about the events of last night, or this morning) and settles in, waiting for their triumphant cheers and the inevitable disaster announcement that an enormous sum of money has disappeared from the bank (or several banks).
None comes.
Instead, the current events scroll on as though it’s been a very ordinary, dull sort of twenty-four hours—a few political comments, the weather, opinion piece about the state of education. It’s not until the broadcast is wrapping up that a very brief news story pops up, as though it were an afterthought. A short report that two high-security delivery vans were stopped, the drivers drugged, and they had appeared to be broken into, the locks blasted open.
Martina sits up straighter. Here we go.
‘Eyyy!’ Billy raises his mug as though toasting the announcement.
‘Investigators checked the contents of the vehicles, but in spite of the broken locks, nothing appeared to have been taken. And now we return to the studio, to—’
The announcer has changed the subject again, almost as quickly as he brought this one up, and Martina finds herself shouting what?! before she can stop herself, because that can’t be it. That cannot be it. All that plotting and rehearsing, all that keeping her in the dark about what was about to happen can’t have been for a theft that wasn’t a theft, that nobody even knows about.
Notwithstanding the fact that something was taken—great big boxes of something, too obvious , too bloody much money to have been overlooked.
The report, however, seems to have made perfect sense to her captors, who make a few approving nods.
A minute or two later, Joey gets up and switches the telly off.
‘Well, then. That’s that. Fancy a game?’
He’s got a pack of cards in his hand, shuffling them as if it’s a normal evening.
‘Not bloody bridge again,’ Jack says, also as if it’s a normal evening, ‘if we’re playing tonight, it’s poker, and I’m dealing.’
‘You?’ Adrian’s voice joins in the fray. ‘I wouldn’t trust you to deal as far as I could throw you. I know you count cards—and my winning streak is hanging by a thread. Hangin’ by a thread!’
And they’re getting up and moving off towards the dining table, casual as anything, leaving Martina dumbfounded, and unsure whether she’s annoyed or disappointed.
‘Martina?’ Billy calls. ‘Are you comin’ or wha’?’
It’s automatic to get up and go and join them, though her brain is still buzzing.
What?!
Nothing was taken.
Nothing.
And yet…
Martina finds herself gazing at the eyesore tower of boxes again and again over the next few days, puzzling over it.
She’s inspected the notes properly—and though she’s not an expert in these things, they appear to be real. Clearly something was taken. Judging by Billy’s cheer, the apprehension of the delivery vans had something to do with the Boswells—and it would fit with what she’s observed of their plotting over the past few weeks. Adrian had been working on getting them inside delivery trucks at a pivotal moment, and the why now makes sense. Clearly they had been transporting a shedload of money somewhere, and the Great White Whales had picked some of it off. Perhaps to flaunt later, in front of people (she does know the other night was preparation for the main event, and also that she is meant to be used in their plot at some point)—but even so, how they took it without anyone noticing…that baffles.
There are far too many boxes of money for the Boswells to have merely skimmed some off the top—this much going missing should be noticeable. So either they’ve replaced it with fakes (from where? They’ve never had anything like that around the flat), or they’ve tricked or bribed the drivers or whoever inspected the vans to say it was all there. Or hypnotised them, her daft brain tries to suggest, but she ignores this, because that would be actual magic, which she does not, repeat not, believe in.
There has to be something going on, though—it just doesn’t make sense to take something but by all accounts for it not to be missing.
The possibilities are—or should be—worrying.
What’s more worrying is that this, while it interests her, is not the central focus of her attention. Instead, she finds Joey occupying far too much space in her brain, memories of their tryst the other night floating around, consuming her with a strange mix of remorse, lack of remorse, humiliation, ecstasy, frustration and a highly inappropriate amount of longing.
She hasn’t had much to do with Joey since then, other than the usual pleasantries. After he’d made good on his promise to distract her, he’d swept off to do something else, she’d picked up her clothes, put them on and gone back to her own room, and that had been that. They haven’t brought it up since.
And, owing to the fact that Martina isn’t sure how to go about it (how do you interrupt someone who’s very busy scheming and rehearsing a daft magic act, who also happens to be your kidnapper, a and say by the way, the other night was nice, wasn’t it? Fancy another go?) she has put on a good front of being totally absorbed in trying to work out whatever it was the Boswells pulled off instead, acting as though it was as totally unimportant to her as it was to Joey.
God, she hopes the others don’t know. Martina isn’t sure how much Joey tells his siblings. He tends to be the quietest on the personal front, but that’s not to say he doesn’t occasionally confide in them. Another reason to go on acting completely focussed on the crime they committed. The last thing she wants is to catch one of them looking the wrong way at her, and spend hours fretting and wondering how much they might be aware of.
And yet she can’t help thinking Joey is avoiding her, spending minimal time in her company, and never without the others. Whether he’s regretful of their encounter, doesn’t want a repeat, or desperately does and is trying to pretend otherwise, she’s not sure. She intends to find out, though.
Eventually, after another couple of days pass somewhat normally, somewhat awkwardly, Martina decides something has to give. Either concerning their not-theft, or concerning what went on between her and Joey. She’s not much of a detective if she can’t work out either mystery. (And she knows, ashamedly, which one she wants to crack first, using the other as a decoy).
And so she corners him, waiting until late at night when she’s sure he’ll be wandering around alone as usual, and makes her best effort to push his buttons.
‘What’s a delivery truck that wasn’t burgled got to do with your performance?’
‘You tell me, sweetheart. You tell me,’ Joey tries to push past her, but she blocks his path.
‘How d’you take money and not take it at the same time?’
‘You are asking too many impertinent questions.’
‘You’re one to talk about impertinence, Mister Boswell. Seein’ as how you’re leaving evidence of your devious plot in plain sight while pretending I can’t know anything about it.’
‘And given you’re a detective, sunshine,’ Joey says, jaw setting, ‘I thought you’d be more interested in detectin’ that yourself.’
‘You know, for someone who prides himself on bein’ so sophisticated and clever, I’d say only half covering up your crime is just askin’ to be found out.’
Joey growls, trying to move past her again, and when she grabs his arm to stop him, he turns to her and shoots her what he clearly intends to be a furious glare.
Except it isn’t. Not properly.
It may just be her, but Joey’s reaction goes beyond mere annoyance with her. There’s an undercurrent of frustration that suggests he hasn’t been able to get the other night out of his mind either, that her pouncing on him is forcing him to confront that—and, to test her hypothesis and see if he’ll take that frustration any further, she pushes him harder, rattles off another list of questions at breakneck speed until she can see his jaw twitching.
‘God, Martina,’ he bursts out, ‘I’ve had it up to my eyebrows today. I’m not in the mood for your interrogation—and I’ve made me rules on you snooping pretty clear, sweetheart. If you’re not gonna stop, you can go to your room and I’ll lock you in again.’
Well, that’s an opening, even if it’s not quite the reaction she was hoping for (she’d had something a bit more physical in mind, such as, oh, say, acting on their mutual frustration). She’ll use it. She makes to go to her room, half-sure he’ll follow her.
‘I thought there was an alternative I could take to square things,’ she calls provocatively over her shoulder. ‘At least that’s what you said last time.’
She doesn’t look back after that remark; just keeps walking. Leaves the door open, just to see what he’ll do.
Joey pokes his head round the door all of two minutes later, face slightly pink. She’s done it; she’s cracked his countenance, forced him to confront whatever he might be thinking about their previous encounter. He’s realised, at least, that her interrogation had more to do with getting his attention than actually trying to work out anything
‘Er.’
Martina raises her eyebrows, gives him her best forbidding stare. ‘Yes, love?’
He rakes a hand through his hair. ‘You, er…you can come out now if you like.’
Martina smirks at him. It’s clear he’s hesitant about making any further moves; is waiting to see whether he misinterpreted the double entendre in her comment. Well, this is a turn-up for the books. Suave magician reduced to nervous adolescent in her presence, second-guessing himself lest he overstep. It endears her to him again.
‘Or you could come in ‘ere instead.’
She sees him debate himself, a brief conflict flickering through his eyes before his gob makes the decision for him, stretching into a grin.
‘Why not, eh? Why not?’
Martina holds up the covers for him, unable to stop herself from smiling either.
‘I thought you’d never ask. I was this close to producin’ a pair of handcuffs just to see if you’d go with it.’ His body is warm, heavy above hers. Martina’s smile stretches as she pulls him closer. For someone who prides himself on being whimsical, transient, mysterious, he’s wonderfully warm and solid, the small certainty she needs right now.
‘Though I don’t understand why doin’ me head in to get a reaction from me was necessary. For future reference, a nice polite how about it? will suffice.’
Martina shrugs. ‘Seeing as you were avoiding me, Mister Boswell, I thought it necessary to take a harder line.’
‘Avoiding? God, no. But, er…there’s not exactly a book of etiquette for situations like these, is there?’
Martina snorts against his shoulder.
‘And, see, the thing is, Martina,’ Joey hones in to press a kiss to the side of her neck, ‘Sophisticated and clever I may be, but when it comes to you…’
He presses closer still, and Martina feels her breath catch in her throat.
‘…I don’t have that sort of self-control.’
The Great White Whales lie low for another few weeks. A few weeks in which Martina wakes up in Joey’s arms every morning, feeling surreally like she’s simply taken a lover, rather than being held hostage for use in some dastardly plan.
She knows he’s using her, that it’s just convenient. She supposes opportunities for getting your end away are thin on the ground when you’re a wanted criminal known around the world.
She likes this arrangement, all the same. Though she wouldn’t admit it, and though he annoys her no end, Joey’s bloody fantastic in bed, and she might as well get her money’s worth while she has the opportunity. It makes up for her mostly anorgasmic sex life with Shifty.
She’s finding, against her better judgement, she likes being in reasonably close proximity to the others as well. Something has shifted since she saw the human side of them, their dedication to those they’ve loved and lost, and she oscillates between telling herself they deserve what they get for choosing a life of crime, and feeling incredibly moved by them. She never did find out from Joey why they took this path in the first place (she’d been…well…rather side-tracked, every time she gets Joey alone, and never gets the chance to ask), but they’re clearly remorseful about at least some part of it.
And so when Billy frets over Julie and Francesca, Martina comforts him, and when Jack seems sullen and moody, and she catches a glimpse of the little purse he keeps in his hat, she makes sure to spare him her usual sarcastic barbs at dinner.
But when Aveline makes another failed attempt to contact Oswald, and runs to her room in tears exclaiming how much she loathes their life and wants out, Martina remembers again that they brought this on themselves and she still doesn’t really understand why, and it has her shaking her head again.
Joey has gone after his sister, and she can hear him through the half-open door, trying to talk her off an emotional ledge.
‘It’s for him, sweetheart,’ she can hear Joey saying to Aveline. ‘As much as it is for us. It’s for all our people. We’re doin’ this so they can keep on living as normal. So we can keep on takin’ care of them.’
Aveline goes on sobbing noisily.
‘Surely there would have been a better way,’ Martina mutters.
Adrian gives her a filthy look. ‘Even if we weren’t wanted and on the run, do you think the Eye would just allow us to walk away?’
Martina flinches. It hadn’t occurred to her the Boswells were captive in this as well.
‘I thought,’ Joey teases her when she wakes up one morning, brushing her hair off her face and pressing a kiss to the side of her neck, ‘you said you’d never scream in amazement at my magical skills.’
‘I don’t believe I have.’
‘Oh?’ Joey feigns innocence. ‘I’d beg to differ after last night.’
Martina flushes. ‘That’s not magic. It’s basic biology.’
‘Whatever you prefer to call it,’ Joey kisses her, ‘I’ve certainly impressed you by this point; I know that much.’
‘Normal physical responses to stimuli hardly equate to me bein’ impressed.’
‘Vocal ones do.’ Joey is looking far too cheeky now. She snogs him aggressively, just to wipe that look off his face. It doesn’t work. He’s still looking far too pleased with himself.
‘Want me to impress you again?’
‘Haven’t you got things to do? Devious little plots to execute, that sort of thing?’
‘Oh, of course,’ Joey’s already laying her gently against the pillows. ‘But you are a far more pressing matter. I’ve always wanted to convert a sceptic, you see.’
‘Try and impress me all you like,’ Martina says wickedly. ‘I won’t object to that. But it’ll take a lot more than that to make me believe in magic, I can assure you.’
She feels him pause, grin against her ribcage. ‘Wanna bet?’
‘I think you’ve made yer point, Joey,’ Jack says later that afternoon when they emerge. He’s got a face on him like a bulldog. ‘You don’t have to subject us all to it all bloody day every bloody day. You can make her scream. She’s amazed. We get it.’
Martina’s face heats up. She stares at the floor in embarrassment, then at Joey with unbridled fury.
Joey looks unfazed. ‘You’re only jealous,’ he teases his brother, ‘get yer own.’
Jack gives him a filthy glare and lopes off, and Martina’s jaw drops, her humiliation forgotten and replaced by disgust.
The mentalist had looked pretty furious, and she can’t help remember that Jack, like the others, is pining for a lost love. And Joey is, it would seem, quite intentionally flaunting what he and Martina are doing in his brother’s face.
And why?
It seems so unlike the Joey Boswell she’s come to know, ever the protector of his siblings, to be so callous about their plight, that it has her rounding on him.
‘D’you care to explain what was going through what passes for your brain?’ she snaps, jabbing a pointed finger at Joey’s temple. ‘In what world was that warranted?’
‘Take no notice,’ Joey waves her comment away, ‘they can’t really hear us.’
That’s not the point (even though she knows, unfortunately, that he’s lying), and she’s quick to say so.
‘Don’t play me for a fool. I know full well what he’s lost. I may have me reservations about your collective sense of ethics—but even daft mentalists don’t deserve reminders of their heartbreak rubbed in like that.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ Joey raises his eyebrows, his own hackles suddenly up. ‘Is that what you think I’m doing? After everything you’ve seen of me—that’s got to be me motivation, has it? And what about what I deserve?’
Martina’s speechless. What is he bloody implying, anyway? That he deserves to take advantage of his prisoners (willing participation in the taking-advantage aside), that he deserves happiness more than the others…that he deserves it at all? She never did work out whether he was telling the truth, when she asked if he’d left anybody behind. His anger now, triggered by something she’s not sure of, suggests there’s more to his history than he’s letting on.
He confounds at every turn. And that sense of befuddlement he leaves her with, combined with her righteous indignation about his earlier comment (even if he does have his own secret sob-story, his remarks to Jack were still uncalled-for) intensify the rage swelling in her head.
She stares at him for a moment, mouth hanging open, and then she forces herself to regain her composure, turns primly away from him and marches out of the room, shutting the door behind her just hard enough to convey her fury in a dignified way.
She’s curled up on the bed sulking when Joey comes in.
‘Get out. I don’t wanna see you.’
‘Well, I’d like to, sunshine,’ Joey sounds cheerful, though there’s a strange undercurrent to it that suggests he’s still riled up, ‘only you stormed off to my room.’
‘Oh.’ Martina is sheepish. It also concerns her slightly that she’s started acting as though they’re simply lovers who live together, who’ve had an ordinary lovers’ tiff, forgetting the complexity of their true situation.
‘You can still huff off to your own quarters if you wanna make your point now. I’ll pretend to be just as remorseful as if you’d done it right the first time. ’
She doesn’t particularly feel like it, though. And when Joey lies down next to her and pulls her into his arms, she lets him hold her.
‘Why’d you get into this life?’ She’s got him here, for once dressed and not distracting her; now’s as good a time as any to try and get this straight. ‘All of you miss your people, and you can’t see them without putting them at risk…why’d you let that happen?’
‘We didn’t choose it, you know,’ Joey says, the anger under the surface re-emerging. He presses his face against her neck, his breath warm and laced with frustration. ‘We didn’t exactly have a say. Now we’re in…there’s no out. Not if we want everyone we love to stay safe. We’re doin’ this to protect them.’
‘Protect them from what? From your own crimes?’
‘The crimes are a cover-up,’ Joey says mysteriously.
‘For what?’ She doesn’t know why she’s pushing this so hard today. Making sure, perhaps, that she means something to the man she’s letting take advantage of her day and night, means she’s determined to gain even a modicum of his confidence, his trust.
‘They keep the world’s attention on us, so the others don’t have to go into hiding. So they’re left alone.’
This doesn’t make much sense to Martina, but something else occurs to her.
‘And if you’re so hell bent on living in hiding, did it not occur to you to ask them to come with you? I’m living proof you’ve got the means to hide people. Least you’d have been together that way.’
Adrian seems pretty attached to Magdelana, after all. And it doesn’t appear she suffers from their arrangement, nor is she forbidden, it would seem, from knowing anything.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Joey says quietly. ‘They didn’t want that, sweetheart. Didn’t want that sort of life—and can you blame them? Oswald’s got parishioners he feels responsible for. Julie’s got a child—a child she wants to have a good life. Mam wants a normal existence in a little house surrounded by her loved ones and her ornaments. We wouldn’t force our life on any of them—or deny them normality. The best we can do is try and look after them from afar. Send them the means to live their lives well.’
Martina nods, understanding, but her curiosity not entirely satisfied, because it makes her wonder…
‘If they had chosen to go with you?’
‘I don’t know what t’others would do,’ Joey sighs sadly, ‘but me? I wouldn’t wish this life on anyone, ‘specially not someone I love. If they could have any other kind of life, anything else to live for, I’d encourage them to stick with that.’
She mulls this over.
‘And what if they didn’t ‘ave anything else to live for?’
‘I don’t think that’s true of anyone. Everyone’s got something.’
Martina rolls over onto her other side so she’s facing him, studies his eyes.
‘Not necessarily. I ‘aven’t.’
‘You’ve got a husband and a good job.’
‘A husband who’s off in the bed of a different woman every week and a job that pits me against most of the people in this city. If it were me in the place of your Billy’s Julie or your Aveline’s Oswald, I wouldn’t think twice. I’ve got nothing to lose, have I?’
‘You have,’ Joey says gently, his eyes distant. ‘You’ve got the freedom to do anything with your life that you like.’
Martina doesn’t know why, but she doesn’t like this answer.
Chapter Text
Part VI
Doing tricks you’ve never seen
Martina notices something one morning that stops her in her tracks.
She’s wandering out of Joey’s room (she doesn’t bother to be sneaky with it anymore; by this point everyone has to know) when she does a double take.
The money is gone.
It had cluttered up the flat for a good two weeks, great big obnoxious trip hazard boxes that Billy inevitably stumbled into at least once a day, and now, all of a sudden, its absence looms large. The Boswell penthouse is open and airy again.
Disoriented by this turn of events, Martina wanders around, trying to account for it. Opens a few doors, checks the sinister little room where she’d found the trunk, all those weeks ago—and finds nothing at all.
This can only mean one thing, she realises, her heart stopping in her chest as it hits her.
The second act of their next performance can’t be far off.
When she first arrived here, she was making convict tallies on her bedroom wall in lipstick, counting down the days until she escaped the Boswells—and somehow, she had convinced herself, she was going to use this so-called next performance to get herself rescued.
And yet now, with every day it draws nearer, Martina finds herself wishing time could slow down just a little.
Things have changed, of course. For one, when she first came here, she wasn’t sleeping with Joey Boswell. And maybe that’s just to butter her up, or for convenience on his part (he’ll never get another chance with anyone, the way his life tends now), and she doesn’t really mind if it is, given she reaps some benefits and her imprisonment has become more enjoyable—but it feels as though there’s something more to it than that. Not that Martina believes in love much more than she believes in magic, and it’d be a bit of a stretch to call it that, given the circumstances, but there are times when it feels they’re doing more than just working off excess hormones. They’ve confided in one another on some level. They enjoy each other’s company—when he’s not doing her head in, that is. She’s beginning to feel closer to him, whether she likes it or not.
For another, she’s beginning to feel closer to the other little Boswells and all. It’s impossible, she supposes, to live with people for this long and not be endeared to them in some way.
This is life, now. Her and Joey and the other four Great White Whales. Magdelana. This flat. There is nothing else; it’s hard to remember there ever was.
They abducted you, the cynic in her reminds her. You’re being held for ransom; anything that comes out of something that devious can’t really be trusted, now, can it?
Funny, but her predicament just doesn’t seem as dire as it should. Nor, she realises, biting her lip, do her own warnings to herself.
At some point, in her mind, the danger stopped being in here—here, where her captors plot and practise sinister magical crimes and get involved with God-knows what.
It started being out there. Out there, where her job awaits her, where her colleagues are paying lip service to finding her while using her research for their own gain, where her house stands waiting for her return and Shifty pretends to care about her disappearance.
Out there, where, she’s ashamed to admit to herself, she never wants to go back.
Ever, ever again.
She soon realises concerns about Joey flaunting their trysts are unfounded.
In spite of whatever hardships they’re facing in their own private lives, the other Boswells quickly get used to Joey and Martina’s arrangement. Billy bursts into Joey’s room one evening to announce that dinner’s ready, notices Martina’s head has emerged from the blankets and, surprisingly for such a dramatic lad, doesn’t even blink. Just utters an oh, hi, Martina, and goes off.
When they all sit together of an evening, Joey rests his head in her lap and none of the others bat an eyelid. (Adrian and Magdelana have usually sneaked off somewhere by this point anyway to canoodle, so perhaps they’re more used to love being flaunted in front of them more than Martina realised).
She doesn’t sleep in her own room anymore, and Magdelana not only stops making the bed in there, but she’s actually moved some of Martina’s clothes into Joey’s enormous walk-in wardrobe. Joey kisses her so often in front of his siblings she’s beyond being embarrassed by it. They play card games most evenings, when the Great White Whales have nothing to do, and Joey always teams up with her (they’re surprisingly successful together, amusingly competitive when they join forces, and they win more often than not, even though Billy is the second best card trickster in the family and puts up a fair fight ). It would almost feel normal, like she’s his girlfriend, simply getting to know his family.
Except for the fact, always in the back of her mind, that she isn’t. That Martina is married. That somewhere out in the world, she has a husband and a job which involves bringing them all to justice. That Phase Two of their performance is looming, and then she doesn’t know what’s going to happen. Whether they’ll all end up in prison, whether they’ll abandon her after the trick is done, whether they’ll be forced to flee and she’ll go with them—she doesn’t know which option is going to come true, only that their peaceful little life in the penthouse is coming to an end. She wakes up at night thinking about it, looks over at Joey’s sleeping form, and though she doesn’t fully know why, she despairs of this fact. Wishes somehow she could stop Phase Two from ever coming. Sometimes Joey wakes as well, and she sees him studying her face, his eyes unfathomable. He reaches out and touches it, and she’s not sure whether he knows she’s awake or not, but she keeps still, lets him stroke her, hears him sigh and then settle back down to sleep.
She awakens in a panic one night after turning over and reaching for him to find him gone. Martina sits up in bed, heart pounding. She shouldn’t be concerned—Joey still gets up and wanders about at night more often than not; this is far from abnormal—but tonight something doesn’t sit quite right. Intuition, perhaps.
The door is slightly ajar, faint light bleeding in.
‘Oh, God,’ she hears Joey’s faint voice.
Martina slips out of bed, pulling his robe around herself and tiptoeing out into the flat.
Joey appears to be staring at a blue patch of the light on the wall, slightly exasperated. He’s dishevelled, shirt unbuttoned, holding a half-drunk Scotch.
She inches closer, squinting at the flickering, realising, as she draws near that he’s watching some sort of slides; there’s a projector over her head flashing the old photos up on his makeshift screen. A woman with pin curls and a crooked pinny; a man with flyaway hair and an enormous moustache. A younger Joey, lighting candles on a child Billy’s birthday cake, in an ordinary kitchen. An elderly man in a wicker chair with a tray of dinner on his knee. And she realises she’s intruded on his private moments, memories he brings out to treasure once in a while, to remember a simpler life.
The blue light disappears. Joey leans forward, puts the Scotch on the coffee table and his head in his hands.
Martina, although aware she’s witnessed something she’s probably not supposed to, makes her presence known, comes up behind him, puts her hands on his shoulders and massages gently.
‘Didn’t hear you there.’
She’s almost anticipating shock, anger that she’s here, that she was snooping. But Joey merely sighs and leans back against her.
‘Just a reminder,’ he says dismissively waving at the projector. ‘Needed a bit of motivation to keep going—remember what it’s all for. We need to pick up the pace a bit. We’re falling behind schedule.’
Martina doesn’t know what to say. She’d like to plead with him not to go through with it, hide here forever. It likely wouldn’t work—and anyway, she’s not supposed to be on their side. She’s supposed to want them to fail. She did a few weeks ago. She could tease him, taunt him, just to keep up whatever shreds of that illusion remain, but she doesn’t feel like it.
‘Come back to bed,’ she says instead, dropping a kiss to his temple, reaching her hands down into his shirt.
‘In a minute.’ Joey’s voice is distant. He’s still staring at the wall. ‘You go on, sweetheart. I’ll be there now.’
She goes against her better judgement, gets back into bed and waits, unable to sleep. Joey returns an hour later, climbs in beside her fully dressed and clutches her so tightly to him Martina feels overheated.
‘Everything all right?’
Joey’s answer isn’t what she expects.
‘Part of it is, sweetheart. Part of it is.’
‘Which part?’
Joey’s answer isn’t what she expects.
‘Phase 1.5.’
Phase 1.5 takes them a couple of hours, and seems to involve just reminding the public they still exist, by warping in and out of an important press conference and making allusions to their upcoming next performance, as well as turning every piece of paper on every clipboard into Martina’s missing person poster.
Jack comes back with someone’s ring on a chain around his neck. He spends the rest of the afternoon spinning it around the kitchen counter top, getting in the way of Martina’s attempts to make herself a sandwich, occasionally flicking it back and forth with Joey, who has perked up since their escapade. Martina has cheered up herself, something inside her settling that had been disturbed since she’d noticed the boxes missing.
Joey’s ad hoc plan has clearly bought them some more time, perhaps to make further preparations, perhaps to wait until a more opportune moment to put their second act into operation—but, Martina tells herself, that is not the reason she’s relieved. It is not that she’s secretly pleased to have a bit more borrowed time in this particular living situation.
Trouble is, she can’t think of any other way to explain it. Can’t even begin to come up with a convincing counter-story. And so, in a move uncharacteristic of her usual meticulousness, she doesn’t even try.
For some reason, Jack turning up with his new little accoutrement sparks quite a different reaction from that of Billy’s sporting trophy. Nobody chastises him, nobody tosses around the words really stupid, and Martina can only conclude that there was a reason, a Great-White-Whales-approved reason for taking it that somehow makes it acceptable to them. There has to be, or the conversation she’s hearing between Joey and Jack right now is downright hypocritical.
‘It’s not much,’ only Jack could call something of clear significance not much, ‘but it’s nice to look at summat real, isn’t it? To remember you worked your arse off and accomplished something. A lit’le reminder of what you’ve achieved to sustain yer.’
‘I find that to be true,’ Joey reaches over and pats Martina somewhere inappropriate. She whirls round and glares at him.
‘A word in private, o Magical One?’
She rounds on him when they get into his room.
‘I do realise you think your little stunt with a vanishing cabinet was impressive,’ she snaps, ‘but may I remind you, Mister Boswell, that I am not your trophy.’
Joey shrugs, flips her backwards onto the bed, and she’s still angry but this is so bloody thrilling, compounded by her annoyance, and perhaps by her relief, that she’s quickly losing her resolve yet again.
‘Of course you’re not,’ he says, his voice irritatingly blithe. ‘You’re my prize.’
‘And what’s the difference?’
‘Oh, there’s a difference, sweetheart, there’s a difference,’ Joey says, leaning over her, and she wants to point out that that is not a proper answer, only he’s already somehow got most of her clothes off.
Martina growls, flips them, pinning him down to the mattress. She may not be able to arrest him properly, but she gets a strange satisfaction from restraining him at least physically like this, forcing him to take the brunt of her frustration. Judging by his reaction, so, it would seem, does Joey.
‘Don’t you think,’ she says, trying to make her voice dangerous, ‘that given I’m the person hired to bring about your downfall, you’d better watch what you say to me?’
‘Oh, of course,’ Joey grins. ‘Apart from the fact that you’re my prisoner and there is nothing you can actually do to me.’
Martina grins back wickedly and leans over him, straddling him.
‘Oh, no, Mister Boswell. You see, even if it’s only for now—you’re mine.’
Joey’s smile stretches even wider. ‘Do your worst then, sweetheart. Do your worst.’
‘Martina.’
She looks up to find Adrian standing over her, a sombre expression on his face. Oh, God, he’s in one of his moral moods. She knows that look. That I’m above this whole caper and the lot of you disgust me mood that comes out when he’s feeling particularly self-righteous (the man’s hypocrisy astounds her, given he willingly aids and abets his siblings in committing actual, proper crimes, planning most of the logistics himself).
Still, she moves across on the sofa, gestures for him to sit down. The others are rehearsing yet again; there’s not much else for her to do at present. She might as well hear what he has to say.
‘This…this thing between you and our Joey.’
Martina purses her lips, gives him her best forbidding stare, in the hope he won’t dare stray further into that subject. To no avail, though—his gob is clearly on the verge of opening, and so Martina tries to cut him off at the pass.
‘And why,’ she says icily, ‘do you think it’s any of your business?’
‘He’s getting attached, that’s all. And…this could hurt him.’
Martina feels anger swell and crest inside her without warning.
‘And what about me? I didn’t exactly come here of me own free will, did I? No thought to how I might be hurting, was there?’
They sometimes forget (as she herself ashamedly forgets) that she was kidnapped. It seems a lifetime ago, though it can’t have been more than seven or eight weeks, that they secreted her away and turned her world upside down, transforming her from a detective out to arrest them into…what, exactly? She still pays lip service to her official mission to arrest them all. She still can’t technically leave (not that she’s thought about leaving for a long time now). The word ally is a bit of a stretch, but considering herself their prisoner doesn’t seem to sit right anymore.
Still, in principle, she shouldn’t be letting them think they can get away with it. That abducting people for their own gain is at all acceptable. And then to go on about considering their feelings…well, much as her dislike of them has abated against her will, there’s a selfishness about that which has her fuming.
Adrian falters a little, takes a small step backwards at her comment.
‘Look, our Joey—’
‘Joey found a convenient screw,’ Martina says acidly. ‘And I’m daft enough to go along with it out of some deranged form of Stockholm Syndrome.’
‘Oh, God! Do you have to try and pour your poisonous cynicism onto everything pure and wonderful?! It’s nice to know you view the love the same way you do magic—through a black lens of scorn and sceptical malice!’
‘Ever thought of goin’ into poetry?’ Martina mocks. ‘All that flowery rubbish you spout, you’ve got a sonnet or two in that brain o’ yours somewhere, I’d wager.’
‘I have thought of it, yes,’ Adrian says, defensive even as his eyes take on a dozy, misty quality. Oh, God, she’d better get him back on track before he completely glazes over.
‘And you need talk, do you? Handy little setup for you, isn’t it, keeping Magdelana around to do your ‘ousekeeping and give you a bit on the side. Not concerned for her wellbeing, then, were you?’
She’d expected anger for this comment, retaliation, but Adrian is ready with a response.
‘Magdelana would have been deported. She came to visit me from Italy when all this first went on and a few weeks turned into a few years… it’s lucky, I suppose, that she didn’t want to get sent back. That she had no family and a low-paying job as a maid, even though she had a degree in Art History. She found it degrading. Staying with me truly was what she wanted above all else. Having all this helped her escape her own reality as well. She keeps house because none of us are any good at it, brings us groceries because we can’t go out ourselves, but…she helps me as well. She’s clever, just humble about it.’
Makes sense, Martina admits grudgingly to herself. Every time she wants to despise one of the Boswells, they come out with something that forces her to acknowledge the caring side of them. And oh, how she hates the way they endear her to them against her very will.
‘Magdelana chose to stay, and I’m…I’m lucky in that regard. God knows I’m lucky to have her; everything else other than my private life is ‘angin’ by a thread. But nobody else did. Nobody else stayed.’
‘Yeah. I know.’ Martina exhales. ‘I’ve ‘eard. Everyone, save you and Joey, had somebody once and is now feeling the effects of losing ‘em.’
For reasons she still doesn’t really understand.
‘Joey did have somebody once.’
This makes Martina look up, her head snapping in his direction so fast she feels a pain shoot through her neck.
‘He never told me that.’
She’d suspected it, that night they’d first kissed on the roof, when Joey had dismissed her query, but she’s never had proof up til now. A shudder runs down her spine.
‘Ah. Yes. Well. It didn’t end well for him.’
‘No-one else’s did either, from what I can gather.’
‘Yes, but this woman…God, she was a nasty piece of work. Her name was Roxy, and she…well. She wasn’t anybody’s favourite, I’ll tell you that. Nobody liked how she behaved towards Joey, how she treated him…that was even before she tried to get us mixed up with The Eye.’
Not the bloody Eye again. They’ve all alluded to the stupid myth at least once, though she’s interested to hear Adrian’s take on it.
‘You’re gonna have to get me up to speed with The Eye, Adrian, if you want me to follow this story. You all of you skirt around it as if I should automatically know how it fits in with all this.’
Surprisingly enough, he complies.
‘All right. She was involved with this…well, I don’t really know what you’d call it. Elite group. Anyone with any sense would run a mile. They think they control the magical world. They think they own it, and everyone with magical talent. I don’t know what they want to use people for—but it’s got evil written all over it. You join them, and you get everything material in life you ever wanted, but lose your soul, or…you refuse, and they make life difficult for you.’
And everything is slowly coming to light. Why the Boswells feel captive. This is darker than she’d realised, though, and it frightens Martina a little. Notwithstanding the fact that Adrian is talking as if magic is real, and she doesn’t believe this.
‘And that’s who you work for?’
‘No!’ the strength of Adrian’s response is staggering. ‘I’ll have you know we do have some integrity! But…well, they did come after us. Even though we used to perform fake tricks, keep out of trouble, go through life with a few card tricks and a few laughs… they saw we had real magical talent, and …they wanted us. They want everyone with real magical talent, but our Joey’s something else. He’s gifted—and they wanted to add him to their collection, their crowning glory. Joey held out on them—refused. He wasn’t keen on using his real magic at all, but using it for evil…he couldn’t. But Roxy, well. She used Joey as bait to curry favour with the Eye. Tried to trick him into joining, gave them intel on us when Joey didn’t go along with it, and before we knew it the Eye was fixed on us, and everyone in our lives who didn’t come into hiding with us was in trouble if we didn’t get it off our backs. And the only way we could avoid it was… draw enough attention to ourselves that the authorities went after us instead. As long as we’re on the run from the law, the Eye don’t see us as a threat. We don’t hold any power in their world. We can’t expose them.’
Martina furrows her brow.
‘So we’re public with our magic,’ Adrian says. ‘We use it blatantly, to do stupid crimes. The world sees us as someone to eliminate. There must be hundreds of “experts” out there looking for ways to explain our tricks. Making ourselves into stage magicians discredits us. And as long as we do that, our family is safe; there’s no need for the Eye to turn towards them. As long as the world thinks we’re tricksters, and as long as we’re a hair’s breadth away from landing in gaol, we have no credibility. Even if we did try and expose the Eye, nobody would believe us. Our life has become about drawing as much negative attention to ourselves as possible.’
He shrugs.
‘Joey wants to bring them down one day—the Eye, I mean. Put a stop to them. We’ve been looking into it, when everyone’s distracted by our crimes. We’ve a long way to go yet, though.’
‘And this woman,’ Martina says, wildly curious, ‘Roxy. She used Joey to become part of…’ it makes her wince, using the words The Eye, given how daft it all sounds.
Adrian nods. ‘Joey really did fall for her. But Roxy…she knew what she was doing. Joey was only valuable to her as long as she got what she wanted. She already had a feller—did a double act with a magician named Stan. He was a talented fellow, but…’ Adrian shrugs. ‘Once you’re connected with the Eye, it’s hard to tell where your talent ends and where the dark magic it’s given you begins.’
Martina suppresses a shudder.
‘Roxy pretended it was over between her and Stan, and convinced Joey to blend everyone together into a troupe and start putting on bigger performances—promised him it’d make him enough that the two of them could get married, and all the while the Eye was becoming more and more aware of us. And it gave her fame by association, I think. Her magic barely went noticed—it was quite generic, you see. But the promise of getting Joey for their collection gave her entry, and once you’re in, you’re in. She set a trap for us all—apparently got us a deal with a benefactor who wanted to meet us, sponsor our performances. Only it wasn’t—it was one of the Eye’s higher-ups, scouting for talent. He made a lot of promises about what we could have, if only we’d do a few things in return—things we didn’t need to know about just yet. Nearly had us sign away all our souls before Joey actually read what was being asked of us in the contract and declined. They weren’t too chuffed about that, let me tell you.’
‘Go on.’ Martina suspects where this is going.
‘And after that, the little incidents started happening. Warnings, I suppose, of what’d happen if we didn’t hand ourselves over to them. A ground floor flat we stayed in flooded, supposedly because of a burst water pipe. Another had a gas leak that would’ve killed us all had Aveline turned the stove on before our Jack noticed. And when our Joey’s dog Edgar mysteriously got run over right outside our Mam’s house…we knew we were in trouble. If we didn’t do something, it’d be family next. We all knew that.’
‘So you went on the run and turned yerselves into criminals to protect yourselves and your family,’ Martina finishes for him. And then, because she can’t resist, is maddened with nosiness about this woman she’s never met, she asks, ‘and what happened to Roxy?’
‘You can imagine, I’m sure. Joey confronted her—and just like Roxy, she tried to turn it around on him, blamed him for not going along with it instead of admitting what she’d done. She was in deep by that point; spouted off a load of the Eye’s favourite talking points. About how this was for their future, how together, working with the Eye, they could have everything they ever wanted. Joey was utterly betrayed. The fact that all of us—and not just us, but the entire family—were stuck in this mess as well cut him deeper than if it had just been him. He never told us directly, but if our Jack hadn’t rung him to let him know Julie was in labour…I don’t like to say it, but I think he would have killed her that night. As it was, he rushed off to help Billy and Julie out, we all did shifts to prevent any Eye-related mishaps at the hospital, and then we had to sit down and work out a strategy to protect the lot of them.’
‘And that was the last any of you saw of her?’
‘Oh, she’s out there somewhere, getting sawn in half by Stan and causing chaos herself. She was ambitious—she’s probably worked herself up the ranks, as far as the Eye will let us plebs go.’
Adrian meets her eyes, and his own dark irises are swirling with an ambivalent emotion.
‘Joey hates the fact that we all ended up this way. And he resents Roxy for making it happen. He could never understand how someone who claimed to love him would subject him—all of us—to that. That’s why he always vowed he would never subject anyone he loves to the same fate.’
It makes sense. It makes horrible, sickening sense. The cynical part of Martina reminds her that something so far-fetched, so fantastical surely can’t be true, but in spite of her general disbelief in magic, she has no reason to believe Adrian is lying. It pulls everything together so neatly. Explains everything—why they can’t be with their loved ones, why they waste all their time and effort committing crimes for show, Joey’s silences and haunted looks.
And, suddenly, for Joey to be with her the way he is…knowing what had befallen him, knowing his hesitation to involve anyone in his family’s unfortunate schemes…it’s a lot harder to write that all off as convenience. As lust and nothing more. Especially when coupled with Adrian throwing around comments like getting attached. And that, much as she hates to admit it, sheds light on a glimmer of feeling of her own, carefully concealed in the back of her mind.
It’s all too much to take in.
Adrian must notice how stunned she is, because he stands, his assertiveness and affected superiority replaced by his usual awkwardness and quaking.
‘So you can, er…’ he says weakly, ‘you can see why I’m concerned for our Joey. Just…letting you know. That’s all. To tread carefully. He may pretend he’s above it all, but…his heart breaks just as hard as the rest of ours. Just remember that, whatever happens now.’
‘Yeah,’ she murmurs, still lost in the dizzying mess of her own head, ‘I, erm….yeah. I see.’
She’s not even sure what she’s saying she sees, just wants him to stop talking. She needs to think, to sift through the information she’s just had thrown at her. She gets up in a daze, wanders into her room, realising only after she’s got there that she’s made another absent-minded slip.
She doesn’t sleep here anymore.
And though she’d wanted to be alone to think, it’s telling, some part of her recognises, that she takes comfort from getting up again, going across the hall into Joey’s suite and seeking refuge there instead.
Martina lies in Joey’s arms that night, just wondering. Wondering about Roxy, about Joey before he became the version she knows now, wondering about the Eye, about how such a sinister presence can exist out there in the world while everyone goes about their business, oblivious.
And wondering about the doom-laden sense of apprehension that’s come over her; that gnawing feeling that something is about to happen and soon.
She’d been a bit out of it this evening, unfocussed, wandering aimlessly around Joey’s bedroom until the man himself had burst in, frenzied and dishevelled, grabbed her and kissed her as though it was their last day on earth. And in spite of her emotional confusion, she’d gone along with it, let herself be swept away in Joey’s unprecedented desperation, the two of them crashing together on the bed and grabbing and pawing as if to destroy one another.
Joey’s frantic affection, she knows, can only mean one thing. The Great White Whales have advanced in their plan, and they’re careening at breakneck speed towards something intense and potentially dangerous.
Everything is too calm and still now, Joey’s breathing too contentedly steady while Martina’s mind is in turmoil. She shifts away from him, flops back against her pillow, sighs heavily.
She shouldn’t bring it up. It’s not her place; she doesn’t know whether Adrian was supposed to share what he did; Joey likely doesn’t trust her with it; she’s not even supposed to care, and yet her curious questions chomp at the bit against her tongue, desperate to escape her mouth.
If Joey’s behaviour this evening is anything to go on, there may not be much time. If she doesn’t ask now, she may never get the chance.
‘Joey.’ It comes out of her gob so quietly she’s surprised he hears it.
‘Not again, sweetheart,’ Joey slurs sleepily, nestling closer. ‘ ‘m tired now. I’ll make good in the morning.’
Typical man. Always assuming that’s on her mind above all else. Some things are universal, even when you’re dealing with a criminal magician mastermind kidnapper. In spite of everything, Martina rolls her eyes.
‘Joey, wake up,’ she says irritably, shoving at him. ‘I need to talk to yer.’
‘All right, all right,’ Joey mumbles, half sitting up and pulling her closer. He rakes a hand through his hair, blinking as he pulls himself back into proper consciousness.
‘What’s wrong, sweetheart?’
‘Your Adrian told me,’ she whispers. ‘About Roxy. About…’
She hesitates.
‘—the Eye.’
Joey looks at her sadly. ‘Now you understand why this life.’
She nods.
‘We’re working on it, you know,’ he says conversationally. ‘Bringin’ ‘em down. We’ve got some leads we’re following up, but…to do that…’
‘You’ve got to make them think you’re still focussed on causing trouble with yer third rate public magic acts.’
Joey nods.
‘Hence the grand robberies.’
He chuckles softly. ‘Hence the grand robberies.’
It makes sense they’re taking ridiculously ostentatious things. Makes them look careless and arrogant—no real threat to any darker, more dangerous so-called magic groups out there.
‘And how do I fit into this little play? Why’d you take me for a hostage?’
‘Because you…’ Joey visibly debates telling her the whole truth. ‘Because you, sweetheart, are possibly the only detective who actually seemed in with a chance at bringin’ us down. And that would have ruined everything. Only course of action was to remove you from the picture.’
‘Why keep me around, then? You could’ve disposed of me on day one and been done with it.’
‘Because someone so clever,’ Joey kisses her, ‘someone so beautiful…that’s someone I wanna befriend, not make an enemy of. And certainly not dispose of. In a different life, Martina…in a different life, I’d have…’
He hesitates, exhales heavily, shakes his head.
‘Doesn’t matter. No use daydreamin’, is there?’
He gazes over at the window, pensive, distant.
‘There is no different life.’
Martina awakes to familiar caresses, Joey’s hands stroking down her back, his lips at the back of her neck—and for a moment, everything is normal, and they’re going about the day as they always do. She turns to him sleepily, her mind not awake enough yet to remember the turmoil of last night, and her sickening intuition, and instead lets her instincts be her guide.
‘Time is it?’ she murmurs, her hands finding his chest.
‘About five,’ Joey whispers back.
That has her wide awake. She sits up abruptly, taking in the still-darkened room.
‘Five?! What have you woken me up at this hour for?!’
‘Just making good. I said I would last night, didn’t I?’
‘At five o’clock in the morning?’ she says sternly, but even as she’s preparing herself to chastise him, something doesn’t sit right.
‘Has to be now, sweetheart.’ And there it is. It’s his voice. It’s not quite normal. She can’t properly make out his face in the semi-darkness, but Martina’s pretty sure it wouldn’t be normal either. She was right; something is afoot.
‘Oh, yeah?’ She tries to sound her usual self, but her own voice quavers. ‘Why’s that, then? Got some sinister little plots to execute at the crack of dawn?’
‘Never you mind my sinister little plots,’ Joey teases, though his voice still doesn’t hit the mark. He shifts them, pressing her against the mattress. ‘Now, then. Where were we?’
And a part of Martina wants to object, to demand to know just what is going on, but she’s stopped by a quiet little voice in the back of her head, telling her to reconsider.
One last time.
God, she hopes her intuition is off. And yet she can’t shake the feeling that, whether she wants to accept it or not, it’s right on the money.
Everything about the encounter is wistful, filled with longing. And afterwards, as the first rays of the sun come through the window, warming her skin even as her blood runs cold with apprehension, Joey turns to her, takes both her hands in his.
‘It’s happening, isn’t it?’ She can’t deny it any longer. Joey nods, and then winces.
‘I’m sorry, sweetheart,’ he says softly.
Martina frowns. ‘Sorry for what?’
‘For this.’
His grip is tighter on her hands, restraining her now, though she’s not sure why.
‘What are you up to?’
‘Martina,’ he says, voice solemn and strangely stern. ‘Look at me.’
‘What for?’ she demands.
‘I need to see yer face.’ The same stern voice—Joey rarely uses his firm, authoritative tone on her the way he does with his siblings, in spite of her prisoner status. It catches her off guard, and she wonders what exactly he’s about to tell her that’s so important it demands her undivided attention.
She glances up at him. There’s a guilt swirling about Joey’s features she can’t miss.
‘Look me in the eye,’ he commands.
‘Oh, God, whatever it is you’re about to say—I’m warning you now, if you—’ but she doesn’t get further with what was going to be a sarky retort. Can’t. Because she’s somehow arrested by what she sees.
Joey’s eyes look different, though she can’t pinpoint how, exactly. Intriguing. There are flecks of gold in his irises she’s not sure she ever noticed before—perhaps because they weren’t there—and she gazes as though falling into them. God, she could swim in those deep, beautiful pools, she might never stop—
What is this? Of all the daft—Martina realises too late, as some piece of herself not yet lost tries to reason with herself, to tear her eyes away, that she can’t. She can’t stop looking at him. Joey leans in closer, his hand reaching out to touch her face.
‘You’re tired, sweetheart. Wears you out, bonking, doesn’t it? That’s why all you want right now is to sleep it off. Sleep for a good few hours.’
His voice is strangely, warmly wonderful. Soporific, even. Martina feels a tingling run through her body, followed by a heaviness, as though she’s just been dosed to the eyeballs with anaesthetic. Warning bells sound in her brain, imploring her to get away from…this, whatever it is, it’s dangerous…but it’s also far too irresistible.
‘Oh, don’t you dare pretend you’re hypnotising me,’ she slurs, the cynic in her fighting to keep its grasp on reality even as she feels herself weakening, her body succumbing to whatever he’s doing and slowly shutting down. There’s no such thing. Not really. Is there?
‘Not hypnotising,’ Joey says, facetious even through his obvious sadness, ‘wouldn’t dream of it, sweetheart. I wouldn’t dare make you submit to summat you don’t believe in.’
And then his voice takes on that strangely enticing tone again.
‘Just ensuring you have adequate rest, sweetheart. Wouldn’t you like that, Martina? A good, restorative rest in this lovely, comfy bed?’
‘Yeah…’ Martina murmurs hazily, and then shakes her head, screwing up her face, though she can’t close her eyes, nor keep them from staring into Joey’s. ‘No.’
She hears Joey tut. ‘Don’t fight it, sweetheart.’
‘Why are you doin’ this to me?’ she’d wanted it to sound severe, cross, but instead it comes out pitiful. And somehow, though she wasn’t aware she’d done it, she’s laid herself back down, further crumbling her resolve to resist. This bed is lovely and comfy. She could just drift off. What would it hurt?
Joey leans over her, stroking her hair.
‘Oh, same reason I locked you in a few weeks ago. We need to make some final preparations at home—and it’s better you’re kept in the dark until your cue. Maximises the magic effect, you see. And it might give us some protection if you get caught, if you can’t go spilling your guts about how we did…what we’re about to do. Fragmentary plot, our Adrian calls it. Only need to know your bit.’
His hand is rhythmic in her hair now, adding to the effect.
‘And given you’re so prone to snoopin’…well, got no choice, have we?’
‘I won’t,’ she protests pathetically.
‘No, you won’t. Because you’ll be asleep. Wouldn’t that be nice, Martina? A good, long, relaxing rest.’
Yes, that would be nice.
Martina moans weakly, but she can’t respond anymore. She feels too heavy. Joey’s eyes are too beautiful. Oblivion is beckoning.
‘Sleep, Martina. There’s a good girl.’
And why not? She wants to, after all. It’s all she bloody wants. And as soon as she realises just how badly she wants it, above all else, she feels herself released from Joey’s gaze. She rolls over onto her front, rests her face against the pillow, and lets the pressing weight that’s come down on her take over.
The last thing she feels is Joey tucking the blankets around her, squeezing her momentarily, and then kissing her forehead.
And then she’s under.
‘Martina? I’m just lettin’ you know—you can come back now.’
The voice in her ear isn’t the one she’d expected—it’s higher-pitched, more raucous and a touch uncertain, even as it shatters the fog holding her in a strange, surreal dream-state.
Martina has no idea how hypnotism is supposed to work (not believing in it and all), but it surprises her that Aveline is somehow able to break the trance Joey had placed her in.
She sits up, feeling as though she’s been hit by a lorry. Outside it’s dark again; she’s slept through the entire day, and Martina wonders what the Boswells were running about doing all day, what they were preparing, setting up, discussing, that was so critical they couldn’t risk her hearing about it.
Aveline and Magdelana are standing at the foot of the bed, over which is draped a shimmering red evening gown and faux-fur stole, and a note in Joey’s handwriting reading wear me.
Oh God, she thinks, the last cobwebs of her induced coma melting away. This is it. The Great White Whales’ performance is about to begin. And after that—who knows? It’s all down to whether or not they pull it off.
‘You get ready now,’ Magdelana says, as if she couldn’t have worked that one out for herself. ‘We help.’
Martina sends them away while she gets out of bed and dresses, and then succumbs to being gilded at their hands.
Aveline applies her makeup (thankfully doing a better job of it than she usually does her own; she’s clearly been briefed); Magdelana swirls her hair up on the back of her head; several pieces of gold jewellery end up on her person—in her ears, around her wrists. Somehow, Jack’s stolen ring-on-a-chain ends up around her neck, and Martina still isn’t sure of its significance.
‘Now be careful with this,’ Aveline says, nodding emphatically as she slides what appears to be a decorative gold hairpiece into Martina’s hair, just above her ear. ‘It connects you directly with our Adrian.’
They’re both are subdued, apprehensive, as is Martina when she beholds herself in the mirror.
She looks like a 1930s film star, not a hostage, but then the Great White Whales have always been fond of theatrics.
And it sickens her, because she’s being dressed up before being led to her execution, in a way.
And when Joey comes in, dressed to the nines for the performance, a dazzling black suit with gold trim setting off the twinkle in his eyes, Martina’s heart sinks further. Her time has almost come. And he has to look so devastatingly beautiful before they go off to do something dangerous. She can’t even bring herself to be angry with him for…whatever pretend-hypnosis that was (she refuses to believe it was real; he must have slipped her a Mickey Finn somehow, she rationalises). A part of her realises Joey’s keeping her in the dark is not necessarily to stop her telling the authorities how they did their tricks. It’s in case she falls into the hands of the Eye. And that’s terrifying in itself.
They pause in front of each other. Look each other up and down. It’s a strange, grotesque parody of a wedding, only they’re glimpsing each other before going off to a firing squad, not being joined forever. They could die for all she knows. She doesn’t know just what danger they’re going into, but there are a lot of people after the Boswells, and some of them will definitely be armed. And if they do succeed…then what? Where do they go from there?
‘We’ll give you a moment,’ Aveline says knowingly, and she and Magdelana sidle out, leaving Joey and Martina alone.
‘I, er…’ Martina isn’t quite sure what to say.
‘You look…’ Joey tears his eyes away from her for a moment. Steps closer. Puts his hand on the back of her neck and leans in, then realises she’s wearing red lipstick, carefully applied by his sister, and there isn’t really time to fix it, and he pulls back again.
‘It’ll be all right.’ She shouldn’t be saying this, reassuring him this way. She’s not supposed to be on their side. She’s not even sure if her words are true. She touches his hand.
‘Yeah.’ He closes his fingers around hers. ‘Martina, if anything happens to us…I want you to know, I…’
‘Come on, Joey,’ Jack’s fist pounding on the door cuts off anything he might have said. ‘We need to leg it if we’re gonna start on time.’
They trudge out to meet the others, fingers still intertwined.
‘Well, then, little detective lady. Your cue has arrived. Ready, sweetheart?’
No, but she never will be. She nods.
A dove materialises from Joey’s sleeve, and then she’s in the foyer of a grand-looking bank without any real understanding of how that happened.
Notes:
As you can see, I've deviated further from the original NYSM, with regards to the Eye. Because although the Boswells, canonically, may be okay with the odd dodgy, they would never cross a line into outright evil. And although the Horsemen are painted as the (anti) heroes of NYSM, the whole Eye thing...it reeks of evil to me. So in keeping with the Boswells' modus operandi, as a family with a slightly loose grip on morality, who are nonetheless normal people, Catholics, family oriented and just trying to do right by each other by whatever means necessary, they want no part of the Eye.
(Someone like Roxy, however...)
JellyKate1 on Chapter 2 Tue 04 Feb 2025 05:58PM UTC
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