He saw the house. How often had he stood outside, in the shadows, planning his revenge? Now, thanks to happy circumstances, it dropped in his lap and he just had to catch it. The gate was locked but he slipped off his coat and tossed it over the railings on top of the wall while no one was looking. He took a run up and jumped over, slipped through the wet garden where the bushes were clipped to look like birds or some such. Bloody waste of money if you wanted his opinion. Money that should’ve been his.

The dining-room window still didn’t lock properly and Shawley eased it open, slipped over the sill and dropped down silent in the darkened room on the other side. Always had a knack for treading softly. Place hadn’t changed much. Dark table and chairs, dark dresser with the silver plate gleaming. Silver plate that should’ve been his.

He heard laughter, talking, more laughter. A woman’s voice, he thought, a young woman, an older man. They’d no idea what was happening in the city yet, by the sound of it. Strange, that fifty strides from the madness it could be just an ordinary day. He padded down the corridor and peered around a door frame.

It was an odd scene given the carnage in the streets. A girl of twenty with a mass of blonde hair stood admiring herself in a mirror of Visserine glass which must’ve cost more’n Shawley’s house. She wore a half-made dress of shining fabric, two seamstresses attending to her—a young one with a mouthful of pins and an old one on her knees busy stitching at a hem. Furnevelt sat in a corner, wine glass in his hand. He had his back to Shawley, but you could see him smiling in the mirror as he watched it all done.

And Shawley realised the girl must be Furnevelt’s daughter. That was how long he’d been waiting. Should’ve just killed the old bastard where he sat, but Shawley wanted him to know. So he stepped around the door frame and tipped his hat.

“Ladies,” he said, smirking into the mirror, and they turned to look, puzzled. Not scared yet. That’d come. Shawley couldn’t remember her name, Furnevelt’s daughter, but she’d turned out so pretty. That’s what happens when you grow up with all these advantages. These advantages that should’ve been his.

“Shawley?” Furnevelt jumped from his chair, a delicious shock across his face. “I thought I told you never to come back here!”

“You told me a lot of things.” Shawley let the axe slide from his sleeve so he was gripping the haft. “You self-righteous old shit.” And he hit him on the side of the head.

Furnevelt got his hand up and knocked it wide, but the blade still caught his scalp, blood flying across the room.

He made a funny little gasp, stumbled, dropped his wine glass and it broke across the floor.

One of the dressmakers screamed, pins falling from her open mouth. Furnevelt’s daughter stared, the tendons starting from her pale bare feet.