Page 14 of The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies

“It’s a calculated one,” Gin shot back. “The bookshop is open, we just saw Olenev reenter, and he’s a one-man operation by the Rook’s account. I want to know what’s in here, so either you boost me inside, or I’ll find a milk crate and make a fool of myself.” She held out her handbag. “Hold on to this, will you?”

For the second time that morning, Braithwaite looked on the verge of abandoning her for a monthlong trek back to Cumberland. He pinched his brow. “I suppose they can’t fire us from a onetime job.” Accepting the handbag as though it were a bomb, he dropped to one knee and offered Gin a hand.

Squeezing through the narrow window, however, was more awkward than she anticipated. For one panicked moment, Gin thought she’d gotten stuck and would have to wriggle off her skirt, but then she was toppling inside. She caught herself on the table and straightened, tugging her clothes back into place. “I’m fine,” she called.

Braithwaite raised an eyebrow, his chin just visible over the windowsill. “Reconsidering yet?”

“You keep watch. I’ll be quick.”

But when the tawny head turned away, Gin felt her first flutter of nerves. Oh God, what was she doing? She was alone, in a strange apartment, into which she had purposefully trespassed … though, she reminded herself sternly, it was an assignment she had practically begged for, and barging into these quarters was her plan, after all. If she wanted to prove herself a capable candidate for the Security Service, this was her opportunity.

“Chin up, Bishop,” she murmured. “There has to be something here.”

Besides the table, the room contained a sagging couch and threadbare rug, an end table and lamp, and a small kitchenette on the other side of the back door. Pale light streamed through the cracks between the front windows’ boards, casting eerie streaks across the scene. Gin tiptoed to an open door off the main room and found an even more Spartan bedroom with a tiny en suite lavatory, though the smell of unwashed bed linen on the tarnished brass bed frame compelled her to retreat.

Gin turned back toward the sitting room and stopped. There was a desk near the door, completely bare, but a short hutch comprised of intricate cubbies sat on top. All of them were empty, but something about the piece struck her as odd. Every other bit of furniture in the rooms was dilapidated, but this was finely crafted from polished oak. Someone had purposefully wanted this desk in this house.

And what good was a KGB contact’s desk without a secret compartment or two?

Rapidly, Gin’s fingers danced under the tabletop and down the sides, searching for any sort of hidden lever or catch. When that proved futile, she inspected the hutch. Her mother’s rolltop desk had possessed a hidden nook where young Ginevra left love notes when her mother traveled. One of the compartments had a false back that depressed and slid aside—

There was a soft click when Ginevra pressed both sides of the hutch, and she exulted as the front half folded forward. More compartments lay behind—these full of glass bottles, a stack of booklets, a radio, and a camera. The handle of a small gun protruded from the largest nook, and Ginevra turned in alarm to review the other contents more closely.

The bottles of ominous white powder were labeled in Russian. Gin considered if they were worth taking to check for the cyanide that killed Tolliver, but alerting Olenev to their snooping might make things harder for the next agent, and so she refrained. The booklets, bound with twine as though for distribution, were titled The British Guide to Socialism, and there was nothing else hiding in the bundle that she could see. Carefully, Gin withdrew the camera, hoping to find evidence of what was photographed, but its strap caught on something else stuffed behind. She tugged, and a petite black notebook toppled out.

Quickly, Gin riffled through the pages—and froze. She was quite sure she recognized the wavering handwriting as Tolliver’s, and he’d kept a similar notebook on the inquiry desk. But why would the murderer steal it and transfer it to Olenev for safekeeping instead of destroying it? It contained a collection of tiny sketches that meant nothing to Gin, math calculations, and bizarre notes in a section labeled Gossip. But between the last pages of faded pencil nestled a carbon-copy receipt from Olenev’s store dated the day after Tolliver’s death.

Bartleby saw Jane with Zelda Zimmerman Saturday.

Today Xavier questioned how Frances knit pajamas.

Violet tore Cathy’s veil.

Peter crossed out Penelope’s mysterious answer.

Gin would have thought Tolliver had gone dotty if whoever took the notebook were not clearly interested in this nonsense—was this why the book had not been destroyed? Was it a code of some sort? Gin dared not rip out the page, but she was quite sure she could repeat the four lines back to Braithwaite and see if he could make something of it.

Only a distant whistle made her blood chill.

Gin shoved the hutch closed and bolted into the sitting room. Braithwaite stood outside the little window, scowling. “Come on, he just exited through the back and walked down the block.”

Which meant it was a small mercy Olenev hadn’t returned home instead. “Can you pull me out?” Gin asked. “I can move a step stool to the window, but it’s not tall enough to climb through on my own.”

Braithwaite shot an exasperated look of disbelief. “Use the bloody door!”

“I can’t re-bolt it from the outside,” Gin protested.

“Let him assume he forgot to lock it. Use the door.”

The urgency in his voice meant the time for debate was past, and Gin whirled to the door. Her hands trembled on the handle, and she pulled it shut with a sharper bang than she intended.

“Took you long enough,” Braithwaite said, herding her down the car park at a breathless pace. “I hope it was worth it, because I’m not sure we should ever return here.”

Despite her panic, Gin couldn’t help a touch of smugness. “It certainly was.”

The skeptical lines in Braithwaite’s forehead deepened into concentration as he stared at the copied words. They’d boarded a northbound bus, taking seats on the top deck, and Ginevra had scribbled down Tolliver’s final notes on a scrap of paper from her handbag.

“Well?” She prodded Braithwaite’s side. “It’s peculiar, right?”