for once wide open, as guests from politics, finance and the media 
flocked in. Edward had followed the directions on the glass 
membership card and arrived at the same time as David, who had 
brought Maria and the Parker girl. Edward felt a twinge of—pride, 
guilt?—that his car, suit and watch were all significantly more 
expensive than David's this time around. He had eschewed the 
services of Mr Stathopoulos, opting instead for Huntsman, Saville 
Row. 


Before he could speak to Maria she was whisked away by David 
and he was left talking to the willowy blonde who had sat with Maria 
before—Lady Penelope, he remembered—who had materialised 
suddenly. 


"Edward! So good to see you. You look positively edible," she said, 
as before not extending her hand but smiling prettily. 


"Thank you. Uh, are you here on your own?" 


"Yes, I'm afraid so. | usually come with Maria Beaumont, but she's 
been stolen away by that fat little banker." She sounded genuinely 
put out. "Oh, but | forget; you're in the trade too, aren't you? You 
must excuse me, that was horrible." 


"That's okay. Erm, do | say Dear Lady?" 

"Only if you have to! Call me Alexandra." 

"Thanks. I'm here on my own too." 

"Oh, you're too cute to be on your own. I'll Keep you company.” 


Lady Penelope was an amiable enough companion; he wasn't sure 
if her flowery compliments indicated sexual interest on her part or 
whether that was just her way of getting attention. They chatted for a 
few minutes while he tried to catch sight of Maria, wondering what 
spectacle MC&D would put on for its guests. 


They didn't have to wait long. A mist spread out over the whole 
ballroom, arching over the guests, faint pricks of precipitation 
spotting their hands and faces. After a few moments the air became 
vaguely irritating to the eyes—guests started to murmur that 


something had clearly gone wrong and a few started for the exits. 
Edward closed his eyes for a moment to clear the stinging mist and 
to his amazement another scene altogether appeared before his 
eyes; a picturesque rocky shore, somewhere northern, pocked with 
rockpools and with seagulls flying overhead. 


It was clearer than a dream—as though by closing his eyes he had 
opened another pair somewhere else entirely. 


"Close your eyes," he said to Lady Penelope, then louder, to the 
other guests. One by one, they seemed to populate the scene, 
appearing in their tuxedos and elegant ballroom gowns along the 
shoreline. They started to clap as they realised that this was no 
mere illusion—however MC&D had managed it, they were able to 
see and interact with each other in this ethereal world. The eyes of 
every other guest appeared closed; Edward wondered how his own 
eyes would appear in the nearest rockpool, and cautiously stepped 
towards it, wondering if he was about to walk into a table or another 
guest. The still, clear water showed no signs of his reflection, though 
he was able to cup the water in his hand and taste the sea salt. He 
realised he could hear the seagulls. 


A low, bass music began, booming out of the tide and the sea. The 
Marshall, Carter & Dark Christmas Ball had begun. Edward offered 
Lady Penelope his hand again but she shook her head, a strange 
mix of longing and fear on her face. 


The guests of Marshall, Carter & Dark danced on that strange, 
otherwise deserted shore in their ballroom garments, whirling and 
turning in space, kicking up small plumes of sand. Not one guest 
stubbed their foot on an invisible table or stumbled into a clubhouse 
wall. Edward had no idea how this was being effected, but it was the 
most astonishing thing he had experienced in his life. He looked at a 
distant, crumbling lighthouse on a rocky outcrop, and wondered if he 
could reach if it he walked long enough. 


Suddenly left adrift on the sand by his previous partner, who had 
spun away, Edward found himself facing Maria, wearing a white, 
almost bridal gown. Looking at her, he remembered the codex and 
almost turned away, heart stung. Instead, she took him firmly by the 
hand. 


"Dance with me," she said. 


It was a Surreal experience—dancing on the shore of a great silver 
sea under a watery sun, seemingly miles away from London, his 
partner's eyes and the eyes of the dancers all around pressed firmly 
shut. As they moved he drew Maria closer until his nose was buried 
in her dark hair. She clung to him fiercely. 


They slowed and stopped, and the dreamlike dance around them 
seemed like an eternal progression; as though time had ceased to 
exist in this place. Then Edward looked past Maria and saw David 
there, facing them. His eyes, like the others, were shut, but his face 
was etched with lines of misery and betrayal. Edward disengaged 
himself from Maria, who turned and realised what he had seen. 


They hid themselves in the crowd, then, watching diplomats and 
celebrities dancing to that great thrumming noise at the edge of the 
impossible ocean. 


After a long time, the hiss of mist they realised had been there all 
along faded and the shore grew wavery and dim, as though the tide 
had come in and drowned the scene. One by one they winked out of 
existence, opening their eyes to find themselves seated or standing 
where they had been at the start of the dance. Out of the corner of 
his eye Edward saw Maria get up and leave David's table, though 
she did not come to him. 


Guests were not left long to discuss what they had experienced—a 
German-language operetta began, the female soprano's voice 
hauntingly beautiful yet startling in its mundanity next to that 
timeless waltz. During the opera guests were served small dishes of 
seafood and crudities in fresh seasonal dips, and it seemed 
normality had reasserted itself. An authentically MC&D touch at the 
end of the opera—the pain of the singers and the blood as the tenor 
threw himself upon his sword and the soprano agonisingly dragged 
herself onto the point projecting from his spine seemed very real, 
though this time the performers did re-emerge after the curtain came 
down to make their bows. 


Christmas dinner was served thereafter—marine variations on 
Christmas fare. Three chefs had been drafted in for this occasion, 


and again Edward had to wonder whether the Ready, Steady, Cook 
presenter, the Domestic Goddess and the school food campaigner 
in one kitchen wasn't a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. 
However, his meal of wild salmon with fennell and stuffed with 
bacon, pears, pecans and caramelised onion put paid to any 
criticism. For dessert, mixed white, milk, and dark chocolate had 
been woven into the form of various sea creatures, doused in spiced 
milk and nutmeg. On other tables he saw artificial coral 
crennelations in the shapes of Christmas trees, stars and angels, 
miniature undersea castles made from strands of sugar, a honeyed 
ship-flambé slowly drowning in a lake of warm rice pudding, bodies 
of marzipan castaways littering the surface. 


As guests finished their meals, the only thing left to do seemed to be 
to depart. Then, the lights began to dim, until the ballroom was lit 
only by cold, distant stars in the domed ceiling above. 


"| have a special part to play this time around," said Lady Penelope, 
as she stood up, taking a slim red leather volume out of her 
carrypurse. Edward obligingly clinked his glass until its sound had 
covered the whole length of the great hall. 


"Ladies and gentlemen," announced Lady Penelope, "we thought 
you really couldn't go home without just a little more excitement. So, 
we're going to play a party game. I've looked through this darling 
little book until | found something that sounded just right. We're 
going to play Sardines!" A couple of appreciative murmurs. 


"And because this is no ordinary place and no ordinary time, we're 
going to play this game with a twist." 


To Edward's surprise, Lady Penelope began disrobing in sight of the 
astonished guests. "We're going to play it entirely nude." Lascivious 
chuckles. 


"In a few minutes we'll draw straws and the longest is our first 
Sardine. At that time we'll extinguish all the lights. Our Sardine will 
go and hide somewhere in the chapterhouse. Every successive 
player will have to clamber in there with them, and we'll all feel sorry 
for the poor loser, as they'll be wandering all on their lonesome, in 
the dark." 


Each guest took a 'straw'—a piece of starched seaweed of varying 
length, some already beginning to remove their clothes. Edward saw 
David taking his straw—a stub of wrack—and heard him laugh, loud 
and bitter. 


"We have a winner," exclaimed Lady Penelope, "Maria Beaumont." 


Flushed with embarassment, Maria Beaumont stripped to the waist 
—Edward tried to avert his gaze, but caught a flash of tan skin. He 
glanced, and met her eyes—wide, the whites showing, like a wild 
animal. She shrugged off her skirt, her shoes. The lights went out, 
and he heard her footsteps pattering away, before they were 
engulfed in a tide of rustling and clandestine giggling, as though the 
great and good had been reduced to so many teenagers. He undid 
his zip, his buttons, and let five thousand pounds sterling of suit fall 
to the ground. The temperature of the ballroom had been lowered 
enough to induce shivering, all the better to make guests huddle 
together. Then the hunt began. 


Feeling their way in absolute darkness, the finders called out to each 
other to avoid colliding and to determine who was still in play. One 
by one, they went silent as each found Maria's hiding place. 
Occasionally enough moonlight shone through a vent or a locked 
backroom door to suggest some feature to the dark-adapted eye; an 
ornate lampshade or an Elizabethan chair. 


"Hello?" he called. "Am | the last one still out here? Come on guys, 
it's cold!" He thought he could hear a quiet suppressed snigger but 
careful exploration in the direction he thought it had come from failed 
to yield any results. 


Suddenly, a collision in the dark with something yielding, motile. He 
barely checked a yelp and startled back, his shoulder impacting 
what felt like wood panelling. For a moment there was nothing and 
he wondered if he had imagined that it had been a body—something 
about it had felt too cold, not alive. Then a hand touched his 
shoulder—icy, painfully cold. 


"I'm—sorry," he said, "I didn't hurt you, did I? | didn't think there was 
anyone left." 


The hand began to slide along his shoulder, up the side of his neck. 
"Erm, hi," Edward said. "I really don't think..." 


Before he could continue the shape pushed up against him—a body, 
unmistakeably female but so unbearably cold the absurd thought 
crossed his mind that he had somehow collided with a mannequin or 
something else human shaped. The notion was dispelled as it began 
to move against him, and he found it had pinned him to the wall by 
both shoulders, impossibly strong. It pressed in—so cold, and damp; 
clammy, like uncooked meat. It pressed against him, chilling, 
insistent, and Edward found himself fighting his gag reflex. 


"No," he said, and tried to pull away. The presence gripped him by 
his arm and chest, its nails digging into his flesh. "Let me go!" 


He twisted sideways, the woman's nails tracing lines of pain across 
his chest and left arm. He stumbled, bruising his shin on a low table, 
and half-ran half-crawled away on all fours. 


He blundered around in a daze, trying to navigate by the thin shafts 

of light, until a hand gripped his arm. This time he cried out, but was 
immediately checked by a chorus of muted laughter, and he realised 
the hand holding him was warm and alive. 


"Is that you, David?" said Maria's voice. He muttered an affirmative. 


"Somebody scratched me," he whispered, unable to vocalise the 
horror that he had felt. 


"It was probably an accident," she said, holding his face. 


Moments later, the lights slowly brightened—politicians, bankers, 
debutantes and stock traders found themselves in an undignified 
pile at the base of a staircase, spilling up as high as the mezzanine. 
Sheepish cheers gave way to a more businesslike atmosphere as 
everyone bustled to find their clothes. 


"| thought it was a cupboard," Maria said, standing up, covering 
herself with her arms. 


Who had been left out? Scanning the faces Edward could see only 


one omission—David Went. This has got to be the worst night of his 
life, thought Edward. He didn't know what he could or would say to 
the man. A couple of other other guests went searching for Went, 
whom they agreed had probably got turned around somewhere 
upstairs. 


He redressed, noting ruefully the creases and footprints across 
Huntsman's best. Maria joined him, and acquiesced to his barely 
audible offer of a lift home. 


A sudden scream rang out, amplified by the domed roof. Then 
another. Edward got to his feet and ran towards the sound. Why 
‘towards'?, said his Philosophy lecturer, sitting on the lower fold of 
his right ear and kicking his legs against his earlobe. The human 
survival instinct as commonly understood that you run away from 
possible danger; that you take concern for the collective rather than 
yourself proves you to have social—in fact socialist—tendencies. 
Now, are they innate, or are they learned? Are you running because 
as aman you are socially conditioned to risk your own life for 
others? Are you incapable of resisting that programming, or do you 
have free will? 


Maria followed, still buttoning her blouse. As Edward crossed the 
threshold into the back stairwell, an elegant thing of three floors and 
jutting balconies over an alcoved space filled with flowering plants, 
and saw the thing hanging from the top railings by its belt, he 
doubled back and caught Maria. 


"Please," he said, "please don't look." She tried to push past him but 
at the same time buried her head in his chest, as though she already 
knew. 


The body of David Went, suspended in the air, rotated a quarter- 
turn, then reversed itself. One of his shoes—Church's, two hundred 
and fifty pounds—had fallen off and lay on its side two floors below. 
A crowd had gathered to behold the spectacle; some of them even 
started to applaud, as though it might have been some grisly finale 
to the evening—Murder in the Dark, which it was—before realising 
everyone else was looking on with horror. Edward pushed past them 
and went back to his table. No-one would be going home yet. 


Chapter Five: "There's Five" 


Along with the Parker girl, the only other guest from Cooper Drake, 
he had been asked to come down to the police station and provide 
an oral statement. At the firm's insistence he had been accompanied 
by Cooper Drake's lawyer, a hawk-faced gentleman with thin, 
slicked-back dark hair in a widower's peak who answered every 
question with a question and would only allow Edward to answer 
after whispered consultation. The police had found a note in David's 
pocket, handwritten, scrawled apparently blind on a napkin. Edward 
knew what it said because the police had shown it to him. 


This is what it said: 


| am guilty. Tomorrow is Christmas Day and | cannot 
bear to see it. | have made millions from deceit and | can 
no longer stand silent. | cannot confess and | will not go 
to jail. | am left with one honourable outcome. | say 
honourable, but | will be spoiling everyone's evening. | 
am sorry. Birkman, Solico, UN Ltd. There is more. | 
operated alone; | did not involve others from Cooper 
Drake, or any other firm. I'm sorry.