For the first time in a while she wasn’t constantly aware of whether her heart was jumping in her chest, wasn’t worried about loud noises or someone creeping up on her. This vast canvas spread in front of her. This landscape with birds rising from scattered seed and tiny bounding spots of fluff on distant hillsides, mirroring the little clouds scudding quickly past in the cold bright blue sky. Lissa shut her eyes and took a deep breath.

So it was ironic, really, that the very next second she jumped out of her skin.

Chapter 27

The traffic wasn’t getting any less frightening, Cormac noticed. He thought there was meant to be something called a “rush hour,” but it didn’t seem to exist here. It was like that all the time.

The next address was a tower block too, but a very different one.

Right on the south bank of the river, on a street called, mysteriously, Shad Thames, stood a high warehouse building and, at the very top of it, as if it had been plonked down, a white-paneled house in the shape of a lighthouse, with a weathercock on the top of it, surrounded by terraces overlooking the Tower of London and the sparkling river.

Inside, it was the most extraordinary place Cormac had ever seen. It was immaculate, beautifully furnished in a minimalistic way. Large, expensive-looking paintings lined the walls, even though from the mirrors on three sides of the room the view was reward enough. It was a beautiful day in London, warm enough that Cormac’s hi-vis jacket was an encumbrance, but the apartment was perfectly temperature controlled. Fresh flowers were lined up on every available surface. There weren’t many drugs in Kirrinfief, but Cormac had dealt with a few overdoses as a student on placement. He’d never, ever met a junkie who kept flowers in a vase.

Barnabas Collier leaned against an island in the vast kitchen, having buzzed him up. At first Cormac couldn’t imagine what on earth he was doing there. His patient was standing with a glass of something he’d just taken from a massive American fridge. He was incredibly handsome: floppy hair over the high planes of his face, long green eyes. Slim and fit looking. It felt like a setup or a strange blind date gone a bit wrong.

“Hello,” said Barnabas warmly, shaking his hand. He was wearing lots of what was clearly an extremely expensive cologne. “Coffee? Water? Wine?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” said Cormac, then he frowned and glanced at his hospital notes. Why couldn’t Lissa have filled him in? There was nothing but the basics here . . . “Sorry, it says here we have a wound treatment?”