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apartment had proved hard to escape, especially with Doug using all his wiles to sabotage her departure.
    She nodded good morning to the receptionist and crossed to the lift. And stopped.
    There were no buttons.
    ‘You have to use your card.’
    A suited sleeve with gleaming gold cufflinks reached past her and slid a card into a discreet recess beside the lift. Ellie half turned.
    ‘Are you the new girl?’
    ‘Ellie.’
    ‘Delamere.’
    She’d already noticed that nobody used first names atMonsalvat – though Delamere looked too young to have picked up the habit. He had sallow skin and dark eyes, with a mouth that tended naturally towards a certain hangdog grin, as if he was embarrassed about something. His dark hair was flecked with grey at the sides, though he couldn’t be much older than Ellie.
    ‘Do you work in Mr Blanchard’s department?’
    He gave a conspiratorial laugh. ‘Everyone here works for Blanchard. I’m on the legal side. Very boring.’
    They got into the lift together. Delamere pressed the button for the second floor and then, unprompted, the fifth floor for Ellie. She looked at the button above and remembered what Destrier had said.
Stay away from the sixth floor. It’s off limits.
    ‘Who works on the sixth floor?’ she asked, trying to be casual.
    Delamere seemed to flinch slightly. He fiddled with his tie. ‘Monsalvat’s a very devolved sort of place. Half the time you’ve no idea who’s doing what, even the man next to you. Drives us mad, but Blanchard insists. Says it’s good for security.’
    The lift chimed its arrival. He swiped his card again to open the lift doors.
    ‘Security seems to be a big thing here,’ Ellie said. ‘Are they scared of bank robbers?’
    ‘Blanchard likes to say you can steal more from a bank than its money. An old place like this has plenty worth hiding. Plenty of secrets.’ The door was closing. He stuck his arm out to hold it and looked at her, with a strange sadness behind his involuntary grin.
    ‘You don’t seem like the sort of girl they usually go for.’
    The words hit Ellie like a punch. She felt tears pricking around her eyes, and prayed she wouldn’t start crying. Thatwould really finish her. Delamere seemed to realise he’d said something wrong.
    ‘I’m sure you’ll do fine,’ he said. ‘Fine,’ he repeated. ‘Just – be careful.’
    He looked like he wanted to say something else, but the closing doors cut him off. He didn’t try to stop them this time.
    By the time the lift reached the fifth floor, Ellie had recovered enough composure to believe she wouldn’t start sobbing at the first colleague she saw.
Idiot
, she told herself.
Of course you’re not like them
.
    She still needed another minute before she faced Blanchard. She crossed the empty hall and leaned against the windowsill. The building stood around a central courtyard, like a school or a prison: from the internal window, she could look right down into it. A dove preened itself on the rooftop opposite.
    It made her realise something. Pushing her nose against the glass to see down, she counted the floors of the bank. Ground, first, second, third, fourth, fifth – but when she looked up, there was only a flat roof.
    No sixth floor.
    She shook her head to clear the confusion.
An old place like this has plenty to hide
. She found a tissue in her bag and dabbed her eyes, just to make sure no rogue tears had crept out to betray her. Then she went to find Blanchard.
    Blanchard was out. He’d left a note on her desk apologising: a cream notecard with the bank’s crest stamped into it. His handwriting was a quaint, Victorian cursive that slanted across the page in spidery lines. The paper had absorbed his scent: when Ellie picked it up to read it she caught a breath of something floral, and a darker, bitter note underneath. Overnight, the stack of files on her desk had grown several inches higher.
    She tapped her passcode into the laptop and opened it. Locked, the seam