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Often she dreae, but so hts out for a curry with soer a part of her life; she had left theht

True, she had never been as close to theht have been The way her row close to anyone, to trust any-one Jazz didn't think she'd had a best friend since the age of six or seven, until she'd doht they were They cared about her, and Harry was always so proud of her Her mother was dead and she had no one else --no one to run to, no one who could hide her Terence had hinted that he could be that safe harbor, but she had only just met him

You didn't know Harry when he took you in, she thought

The truth did not co for a pillow and turned onto her other side, eyes open in the dark Only the tiniest bit of illu- in the corridor to guide theht

What tih that most of them could have had their own rooms, but, with the exception of Stevie, all of the kids had instinc-tively grouped into twos and threes

Safety in nuured She had paired off with Hattie, who snored quietly nearby Her breathing was low and steady Jazz listened care-fully but could not hear anyone rustling in the dark It must be late for them all to be so deeply lost in sluined she could see Terence's ice-blue eyes

Jazz did not want to die down here If there was any pos-sibility that she could have a better life yet still stay safe, wouldn't her e have told her she was a fool not to at least try?

And beyond safety and the future, there were other con-cerns Jazz wanted answers The connections were there The Uncles, the BMW men, the mayor Harry had sent her to rob Mort's house, and now she wondered about the other two houses they'd robbed Who owned those? What did Harry know, really, about the Uncles? What did Terence know about the ghosts of old London? What the hell was the Blackwood Club?

"Bloody hell," she whispered

With a sigh, Jazz gave up on sleep entirely She rose qui-etly, slipped on her trainers, and left her roon that others were about, but all she heard was Harry snoring loudly at the end of the hall Grabbing her torch, she padded quietly to the door and went up the spiral stairs If Hattie woke, she'd think Jazz had gone to the bathroom

The door at the top of the stairs scraped the floor, so she had to open it very slowly She left the door ajar and went along that arched corridor to the old rusted duht inside The light glinted off the blade

But when she reached in, she grabbed one of the franifi-cance to Terence, and she could feel when she carried it that there was soered in her mind even more

Jazz held the frarinized other Uncles and wondered whether theirs were the voices she'd heard in her house while her mother's corpse cooled

And there was her father

The Blackwood Club? Logic at least suggested it Josephine Blackwood controlled the Uncles, ere in turn served by thugs and lackeys Jazz thought of as the BMW men Since her father's death, she had been aware that he was involved with the Uncles, but she had never kno, and any time her inquiries to her ed Once or twice, herlooked after; that was all that mat-tered But even when her mother assured her of this, Jazz had known the woman did not believe it

Come on, then, Dad Help me out What the hell is the Blackwood Club?

She stared at the i that she lost track of the tily, that ive her the answers she wanted

Beyond tired, eyelids drooping, she went to put the photo back into its hiding place and caught the frae of the metal door It fell froain but only succeeded in striking it with her torch The photograph hit the ground, shattering the glass and cracking the fra to a crouch, she shone the torch on the broken glass The picture looked unda around to est pieces of glass off the floor and put them inside the rusted dumbwaiter, over to one side so that she wouldn't accidentally cut herself later when retrieving the blade or the photos The broken frame followed in pieces Soon, only the picture itself and a bunch of glass shards re-one down into the grooves of the et theers, she brushed as lass as she could onto the photo and dumped it with the rest of the broken shards inside the old service lift

Before hiding the photograph again, she studied it one last tilad to see it hadn't ruined the picture With her torch's light to guide her, she went to put the photo back, and only then did she notice the writing on the reverse side

It was the irapher's stamp Curious, she held it up and read the words

15 July, 1981 Harold Fowler, Photographer The grand entrance to the Victoria and Albert Museum was a bit of loveliness dropped in a arch around the doorway iants, and the people passing to and fro in the intersection of Cromwell Gardens and Exhibition Road seemed Lilliputian in coainst a lamppost with his hands thrust into his pockets, as casual as you please A shopping bag from Harrods rested on the pavement by his feet Like the museum, he had a certain austerity about hi looks of a 1940s filreen short-sleeved linen shirt He ht his clothes still looked quite expensive The man seemed to breathe irls eak in the knees in the presence of arrogant men, but she'd never been one of them

Now she understood that there was a difference between arrogance and confidence Terence had swagger, and in spite of herself, she liked it

Jazz had tied her hair back in a ponytail and donned big dark sunglasses she had nicked fro off the Tube She wore a crushed lilac-hued gypsy skirt and a white spaghetti-strap top and carried a big knit shoulder bag Had she tried to leave the Palace dressed that way, there would have been many questions, so she had worn a loose cotton top over the tank and a pair of jeans, then changed clothes in the ladies' at Waterstone's a few streets fro to sneak up on hi After soto be as inconspicuous as possible, it felt strange and liberating to switch gears

Jazz strode across the street as though it was some fashion runway in Milan Several car horns blatted the ap-proval of irl out shopping today If the Uncles were looking for her, they would be searching for a frightened creature scurrying in the alleys of London, not this young woman In her time with Harry Fowler, Jazz had learned er efforts at onstage dra as she approached

"You clean up nicely," he told her as she stepped onto the sidewalk

Jazz gave hilasses, her eyes would have betrayed her turmoil She kept them on

"I'll choose to take that as a compliment"

"It is," Terence replied "No one would mistake you for a tunnel rat today"

"Not even you"

He cocked an eyebrow "I wasn't sure you'd co behind her glasses "But I had a bit of an epiphany last night I' for down below"