‘Not everything is where you would expect.’
The lift shuddered to a halt. The moment the doors opened, Ellie could smell the age in the air: a damp, dark smell of something that had been buried for centuries. How far down were they? The light from the lift crept over a square of flag-stoned floor; everything beyond was in darkness.
And suddenly it was golden. The moment Blanchard stepped out of the lift, hidden lights faded up to reveal a small square chamber bounded by ancient stone walls. Shelves had been cut into them, but even the stone seemed to sag under the weight of the treasures it held: plates and bowls, tureens and salvers, goblets, chalices and candlesticks. They sparkled under the lights, throwing off overlapping arcs of silver and gold that rippled across the floor like water.
Entranced by their lustre, Ellie found herself moving towards them. She stretched for a particularly ornate piece of plate, decorated with relief images of jousting knights.
Blanchard’s hand closed around her wrist and stopped it mid-reach. ‘Don’t touch. Every piece triggers an alarm.’
‘Where did all this come from?’
‘Orphan assets. We have been collecting for centuries.’
In the middle of the room, four stone columns supported the vaulted ceiling. At their centre, on a stone plinth, a golden cup sat spotlit in a glass case. It was the only piece in the room behind glass, though Ellie couldn’t see why it should be more valuable.
Blanchard loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar. He reached inside his shirt and pulled out the golden key on its slim chain. He advanced towards the cup. Snarling stone faces adorned the four corners of the pedestal, strange monsters out of legend. Blanchard reached inside the mouth of one, a horned serpent, and turned the key.
Ellie blinked. Nothing had happened. Blanchard stepped away and let the key drop back inside his shirt.
‘Behind you.’
Ellie looked back to the lift. The doors still stood open — but on the far side of the lift, where previously there had been a mirrored wall, a heavy oak door had appeared.
They stepped back through the lift. Blanchard took out the same key as before and slid it into the wooden door. The black iron of the lock seemed far older than the bright golden key. In the corner of her mind, Ellie registered that he turned it clockwise this time, as if locking it.
The door swung in — no hint of rust on the hinges. Blanchard gestured Ellie to enter.
She crossed the threshold and paused, swaying in the darkness like a feather in a breeze. She reached out, stroking the void for hidden obstacles. She felt nothing, but the movement must have touched some invisible beam. Hidden lights glowed into life, just as they had before, revealing a long gallery with low-vaulted ceilings. Twin rows of square pillars ran its length, dividing it into three aisles. There were no shelves, no golden treasures on display. Instead, the bays of the side walls were studded with iron doors like bread ovens. Each had a different shield painted on it.
‘It was an ossuary for the monks.’ Blanchard’s voice, breathing over her shoulder as if the old monks still haunted this place. ‘We removed the bones when we fitted the vaults.’
She felt a flash of pity; for a moment she imagined she heard the anguish of the unburied dead crying out. She shivered. This far down, in a city that was — for all its skyscrapers and fibre optics — indisputably ancient, it was easy to get carried away.
She turned. ‘Why did you bring me here?’
‘I wanted you to understand how deep the bank’s history goes. Monsalvat have occupied this site for five centuries. You have heard the story that we built on the ruins of an old Templar lodge?’
Ellie nodded.
‘That was built on the foundations of a Norman church, which in turn had vaults that were Saxon.’ His arm swept down, from crisp blocks of masonry to the smaller, crudely dressed stones beneath. ‘Where they built, who knows? Here, time becomes space.’
Blanchard led her further in, to a place where a sunken mosaic sprawled between a gap in the flagstones. ‘We think this might be Roman. Naturally, no archaeologist has ever been down here.’
Two thirds of the way down, a second corridor intersected the main aisle at right angles. It must mirror the shape of the church it had once underpinned, Ellie realised. She tried to imagine the floorplan of the Monsalvat building, and wondered if it still bore any relation to the buildings buried underneath, the pattern inscribed on every age of history.
At the far end — the east end, Ellie supposed, though it hardly mattered that far down — an iron door lay set in the floor. In the dim light she made out the bank’s crest stamped into the metal, the ravenous eagle with the spear in its talons. Blanchard took almost reverential care not to step on it as he approached one of the vaults in the wall. He moved his hand over the surface in a series of brisk gestures, then turned the handle and opened the door. Ellie peered over his shoulder, but couldn’t see inside.
‘There is another reason I brought you here.’
He removed a small leather box from the vault and presented it to her. She fumbled with the leather strap that bound it. The moment she had it off, the two halves of the box fell open like wings. Cupped between them, resting on a cushion of raw wool, lay a gold ring. A red stone the size of a hazelnut bulged from its setting.
‘I wanted you to have this.’
Blanchard slid the ring on to her hand. It was too loose on her ring finger, but fitted her middle finger perfectly. Ellie stared at the dull gold against her white skin, the way the smouldering ruby trapped the light deep inside. Her guts churned, she felt faint. Could he be …?
‘This is not a proposal of marriage, or something like that,’ said Blanchard, in such a way that mere engagement sounded trite. ‘This is an old ring of my family’s. It solemnises our attachments, brings us luck.’ He smiled. ‘A ring of power.’
A roar filled the chamber, as if a long-dormant dragon had woken in his lair to find a piece of his hoard missing. The walls shuddered. Ellie grabbed on to Blanchard in terror. He put an arm around her and grinned.
‘The Central Line travels very close to this place. When they dug the tunnel in the nineteenth century we had to lodge a special application to re-route it so it would not disturb our vault. As Mr Saint-Lazare likes to say, the present always intrudes on the past. And vice versa.’
He leaned forward and kissed her. His cold lips made her tremble, but his mouth was moist and warm. She tasted tobacco on his tongue. He hugged her tight and pulled her against him, so that the hard points of his body dug into her.
‘Do you like the ring?’
Ellie lifted her hand, enjoying the weight on her finger. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘I will not tell you how old it is. But — keep it safe.’
The vault door clanged like a bell as he closed it. He took her hand and began to lead her back to the lift, then paused.
‘The Finance Ministry in Luxembourg will announce the Talhouett decision next week, December twenty-second. Michel Saint-Lazare has invited me to spend Christmas with him afterwards at his home in Switzerland. He has asked specifically if you would come too.’
He said it casually, but the whole weight of his gaze suddenly switched on to Ellie. She felt caught, an exotic butterfly on the point of the collector’s pin.
‘It would mean a lot to me,’ he added. He’d dropped the detachment he usually wore; his words were almost painfully frank. ‘Christmas in the Alps is magical. To share it with you would be … perfect.’