Rook

Grafter thing. And now she was pleased with herself for sneaking into a snooty hotel and befouling their swimming pool. “It was quite an event.”
    “I don’t suppose you’d fancy a drink?” the man asked with a smile. “I could bring something down.”
    “It’s a delightful offer,” said Myfanwy, smiling back. “But I have to go find the rest of my party. That said, I don’t suppose you could lend me a shirt?” She gestured at the large stains on her top.
    “A shirt?” he asked. “Certainly.” He disappeared into his room and came back onto the balcony carrying a folded blue business shirt. “It may be a little big on you,” he cautioned as he dropped it down to her.
    “It’s infinitely better than the alternative.” She put the shirt on, noting with amusement that it reached down to just above her knees. “Well, I must away. Thanks for the shirt.”
    “I’d tell you to party responsibly, but I think it’s a little late,” said the man wryly.
    “Don’t worry, I’m fine,” she said. “Have a good night.”
    “You too,” he said, watching as she walked out the way she had come.
    M yfanwy would never know whether the club would have let her back in covered in gunk, but it turned out they had no problem with a girl who was soaked from the waist down. The club seemed far more mundane after the events of the previous hour, and Myfanwy eyed it thoughtfully.
How on earth did the Grafters find me
here? she wondered.
It’s the last place I would have expected to find myself, so how did they know?
    Maybe they tailed me from the garage,
she thought doubtfully.
Which would mean that they’ve been staking it out since before I knew it existed. That’s quite a while to wait.
    But Alrich knew I was here,
she realized with a chill.
Could he have tipped them off?
Her speculations were cut off by her own enormous yawn, and she shrugged mentally.
I’ll think it out in the morning.
Across the dance floor, even Bronwyn and her friends were starting to look tired.
    “What happened to you?” Bronwyn asked incredulously. “That is definitely not the top I gave you, and—you’re soaking wet!” She picked anxiously at her sister’s clothes.
    “I got splashed by a passing car,” Myfanwy explained. “And a very nice man gave me his shirt.”
    “He just took it off?” Bronwyn asked.
    “Yeah,” said Myfanwy, inventing madly. “He didn’t seem to miss it.”
    “But where’s the shirt I gave you?”
    “It’s in my handbag,” said Myfanwy. “I’ll have it laundered and get it back to you.”
If it’s salvageable,
she thought.
Who knows if you can get weird biological stains out?
    “And your work thing?”
    “It was a dire emergency, which I solved over the phone,” said Myfanwy. “At three in the morning. Are you ready to go?”
    “Are you good to drive?” asked Bronwyn.
    “Oh, sure. But I think you’ll need to be the one who gets the car out of the garage. The guys at that hotel don’t like me very much.”

31
     
    T he phone in the flat was ringing, and Myfanwy was not inclined to answer it. She reached out fully intending to pick it up and hang up, but some sadist (probably her, but possibly Grantchester) had placed the phone on the other side of the room. She flailed at the bedside table, hoping to find a lamp, but instead managed to activate the device that set her round bed to rotating. By the time she had escaped the bed, wandered across the room, tripped over the sodden jeans she had jettisoned two hours earlier, cursed them to the depths of clothing hell, untangled herself, gotten up, and answered the phone, she was still not fully awake.
    “Yeah?”
    “Rook Thomas, it’s Ingrid.”
    “Yeah?”
    “It’s six thirty.”
    “Yeah?”
    “You have your medical examinations in half an hour.”
    “Yeah.”
    “So, shall I have breakfast waiting for you in your dining room?”
    “Yeah.”
    R ook Thomas?”
    “Hmm?”
    Rook Thomas?”
    “Yeah?”
    “It’s been fifteen minutes, and you haven’t come out yet.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Are you dressed?”
    “Nah.”
    “Are you naked?”
    “Nah.”
    “So I can send these large bodyguards into your room right now?”
    “Don’t you dare! I’ll be out in five minutes and there had better be coffee. And once I’m done, send someone up to figure out how to turn off my bed.”
    W ho are they?” asked Myfanwy dully, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder at the two massive men flanking the door to her office.
    “Those are