‘Six days until Christmas. My folks are travelling out west today. We have an aunt in Cornwall. I’m to follow, but not until Christmas Eve. They booked me on a train. I never took a train on my own, Mr de Guise.’

Raymond clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Go and make yourself more tea. Make yourself a whole pot. It’s cold down here. Don’t worry, boy. I’ll look after the door while you’re gone.’

The boy’s face creased. ‘You’d do that for me, Mr de Guise?’

‘I’m not one of those who think they’re better than you. But hurry – it’s late enough as it is. It’s time for my bed.’

After the boy was gone, Raymond opened the door for a frozen Artie and bustled him through.

‘I thought you said you was banished?’

‘Maybe the story hasn’t got around to the porters. Who knows? But Artie, we haven’t got much time.’

Raymond shepherded Artie through the interior door, directing him to one of the housekeeping stores where he waited in darkness for Raymond to return. With the boy back sitting slumped at the door, his hands wrapped around a steaming hot cup of tea, Raymond pulled Artie back out and together they headed up and out of the housekeeping hall.

This wasn’t robbery like any Raymond had ever known. This was more like their Aunt May with her fingers in the till at the butchers where she cleaned on Friday mornings. An inside job. For a moment his resolve wavered. The Buckingham had been his home, his sanctuary, for so long; he had made so many happy memories within these walls. But, he thought, his heart hardening, that had all changed. This was not the place he had known – the Buckingham had turned on him and others like him. There were people here who were the very worst of human kind, and there were those who stood idly by while evil took hold in these halls, in his ballroom. And that hurt like a knife to the ribs.

The reception hall, rich with the fragrant scent of the Norwegian fir, was empty at this time of night. One of the hotel pages appeared, then disappeared just as quickly. Raymond and Artie lingered in the hallway behind the lifts, peeking out only to see one of the night managers poring over his ledger, then pacing back and forth. On occasion he disappeared through a door, to make some phone call or cross-reference some other ledger – and it was in one of these lulls that Raymond took Artie by the arm and marched him behind the vast sweep of the reception desk itself. Here another door led down to the bookkeeper’s office and the door of the hotel director’s office beyond.

Raymond looked up the barrel of the corridor. He reached for the door handle. Of course it was locked.