Switch. Charlie Brooks

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СКАЧАТЬ built things beautifully in the eighteen hundreds. The high ceiling, the aged mirrors lining the walls and the glass atrium that flooded the whole area with natural light.

      He looked at the old ladies sitting on the delicate Louis XV chairs and wondered what they did all day. They made him think about his mother. Was she sitting around in some hotel in Spain? Maybe she’d moved on? After all, she wouldn’t have bothered to let him know. As usual, he cast her from his thoughts as quickly as she’d invaded them.

      Max stopped in front of the wooden revolving door to let a woman in an apron come past. She was carrying a huge bunch of red and yellow roses, all perfectly coming into flower. Some guy must have been caught swimming outside the ropes, he thought to himself.

      As he waited, he admired the magnificent bronze of Louis XIV on horseback, waving his sword around with an air of imperious egotism. The French had probably been all right, Max mused, until they had a revolution and became ridiculous socialists. Since then, they’d been nothing but trouble.

      Max nodded to the doorman, bid him ‘bonjour’ and stepped into the revolving door. It was a beautiful February day in the Casino Square, but the fresh, cold air made him reach for his coat buttons. He was a bit early and he knew he only had a couple of hundred metres to walk.

      He had time to nip into the casino. Just to have a look around. No harm in that, although he knew he’d win if he had a crack. No one would know. It could pay for dinner. But a sign at the foot of the steps said: Ouvert tous les jours à partir de 14 h. Maybe that was a good thing.

      Max’s mind flashed back to his last ‘gambling’ dressing-down on the Embankment in London from his then immediate superior Colin Corbett.

      Max had been leaning on the black railings watching the seagulls, opposite Vauxhall Cross.

      ‘Do you have any idea why we’re having this conversation here, and not in that building?’ Corbett had asked, pointing across the river.

      Max felt like saying, ‘The weather?’ but thought better of it.

      ‘Well, I’ll tell you why. We’re here because I have to decide whether we let you go, or stay with you. And I’ll be honest with you. Your file doesn’t make particularly good reading. So I didn’t want this conversation on the record. For your sake, Ward.’

      Corbett was referring to the incident in Saudi Arabia that had led to Max being sent back to London in disgrace.

      ‘My file?’

      ‘Your file. History’s repeating itself, isn’t it?’

      ‘No. What are you talking about?’

      A squat Filipino woman walking a Yorkshire terrier had shuffled slowly past them. Corbett had instinctively shut up until she was out of earshot.

      ‘Thrown out of Eton for gambling. Thrown out of Saudi for gambling. Any pattern revealing itself there?’

      ‘I was trying to make some contacts.’

      ‘We’re not idiots, Ward. Don’t think we don’t know what happened. You let some card game compromise your work. And we had to bail you out of there.’

      ‘I told you, I was trying to make a few contacts.’

      ‘No. You weren’t. You got sucked in like a mug. Because you have a weakness. Just like your father …’

      ‘That isn’t fair. He was a bookmaker.’

      ‘He shot himself, Ward. Because he lost all his money.’

      ‘That’s cheap. Very cheap,’ Max had said, watching the seagulls float on the air above the Thames. He hadn’t known whether to smack Corbett in the face or just walk away. A seagull had perched on the railings a couple of feet away from them.

      ‘They have a knowing look, don’t you think?’ Max had asked, buying time to compose himself.

      ‘Fuck the seagull. Do you actually want this job? According to Nash, not that much.’

      Max had paused, as if making up his mind. In truth, he was trying to control his anger.

      ‘My father made a big sacrifice to send me to Eton. I wish he hadn’t, because it killed him, one way or another.’ Max’s voice had wavered. ‘So of course I want this job. Otherwise it was all for nothing. This bloody job is all I have to show for his sacrifice.’

      Corbett’s face had betrayed his relief. It was exactly what he’d needed to hear. Passion. And maybe the beginnings of regret. If he was to justify hanging on to him, he needed to believe that was what Max was feeling.

      ‘You’re going to have a couple of very boring years riding a desk. Step inside a casino and all bets are off.’

      Max turned away from the casino and crossed the road to admire the fountain. Not just any fountain, either. Anish Kapoor’s Sky Mirror.

      His mind flickered to the dacha outside Moscow. Corbett being shot in cold blood. If nothing else, this mission could at least destroy Pallesson.

      Wrestling his thoughts back to the present, Max admired the way the mirror reflected both the sky and the casino. As he watched his own reflection, he noticed someone standing on the steps behind him. When he turned around, the guy walked off towards the harbour. He didn’t look back.

      Max loved the adrenalin of being out in the field; loved the feeling of being on his toes. Being alert. Ready to react to anything. All the more so because it was such a rare occurrence these days, though he was certain nothing would happen in Monte Carlo. Or at least nothing he couldn’t cope with.

      He walked around to the other side of the square. There was a policeman standing in the middle of the road doing nothing, as far as Max could see. Nice work if you can get it. The policeman took a long look at him, as if he’d read his thoughts.

      Max glanced at the clientele of the Café de Paris as they sipped their coffees. A man on his own with a newspaper open on the table seemed to be looking at him. Or was he looking at the leather document holder?

      Finally, Max left the square and headed downhill towards his destination. He stopped just around the corner by the Zegg & Cerlati watch shop to see if anyone was following him. The watches were mesmerizing: Zenith, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Breitling, Franck Muller, Patek Philippe. They were all stunning. But one particular watch by Vacheron Constantin caught his eye. The 1907 Chronomètre Royal was a watch that Max had always thought was perfectly him. It looked classic, unembellished, but distinguished. He loved the eleven Arabic numerals in black enamel and the burgundy-red twelve, all set against a white face inside rose-gold casing. And definitely a brown strap, not black. Max looked at the price. Thirty-five thousand euros. That was about right.

      After a while, Max realized that he was being scrutinized by a woman inside the shop. She beckoned for him to enter. He still had time to kill, so he went inside.

      Gemma arrived at the end of the long, empty white marble tunnel. Instead of turning left into the hotel spa, she turned right, out into the street, and set off down the hill towards the harbour. She pulled up the hood of her coat, but resisted the urge to look back towards the hotel. Max would be long gone by now.

      After fifty metres she walked past the Théâtre Princesse СКАЧАТЬ