Gemini. Mark Burnell

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      ‘Go on, then.’

      ‘It’s because you don’t care why.’

      Inevitably, he was right. The more he diminished Petra, the more Stephanie loved him. It was the calmness. At first she’d mistaken it for indifference. And even arrogance. Later she recognized it as strength. Inner strength, not the show of strength that Petra preferred. Only once had she seen a side of him that could have been attractive to Petra.

      The previous December they’d been mugged in a poorly lit side-street off Battersea Park Road. It was just after nine on a wet Wednesday evening. They were scurrying back to the Saab when three youths emerged from a soggy patch of waste-land fringing a tower-block.

      Stephanie’s first reaction was disbelief. It couldn’t be happening. Not to her. It was such a cliché: black teenagers with their hoods up and gold around their necks. Her second instinct was to let Petra loose on them. Of the two, that proved harder to contain.

      Knives out, they demanded money and Mark’s car keys. The one closest to her was glaring at her, his switch-blade glinting in the wetness. For all of her that was Stephanie, the part of her that was Petra would not allow her to give him the fear that he wanted.

      Mark was handing over his wallet. The one nearest her wanted her watch. Still staring at him, she unfastened the strap.

      Petra was straining at the leash, trembling inside Stephanie.

      She held out the watch. The mugger reached for it. Quite deliberately, she let go of it, her eyes still riveted to his. The watch fell to the pavement. She thought he’d tell her to pick it up. Or take a swipe at her. Instead he spat at her.

      As a spectator, the seconds that followed seemed to play in slow motion. Mark attacked all three of them. Too stunned to be Petra, Stephanie stood by and gawped, helpless and useless. Even when one of them slashed the palm of Mark’s hand, she did nothing.

      They never stood a chance. It wasn’t really self-defence. Not after the first blow to the mugger nearest him sprayed shattered teeth into the gurgling gutter. And certainly not later, when the mugger who’d tried to steal Stephanie’s watch found himself being propelled face first through a rear passenger window, then hauled back to receive a kick in the balls powerful enough to strain the tendons in Mark’s ankle.

      When it was over, he took back his wallet and keys, then picked up her watch. Stephanie was completely speechless. As she should have been. Except it wasn’t an act. It was genuine.

      Mark drove them home, his hand wrapped in an oily rag they found in the boot of the Saab. Neither of them said anything. In the kitchen at Queen’s Gate Mews, Stephanie examined his hand. She said he should go to hospital. He said he wouldn’t.

      ‘You can’t afford to damage your hands, Mark.’

      ‘Just do what you can.’

      So she did. Afterwards he opened a bottle of Calvados and collected two tumblers from the draining board. An hour later the mist began to lift and the man she knew started to drift back to her.

      He said, ‘I should call the police.’

      ‘What’s the point? I mean, we were the ones who were attacked. Let’s not forget that. But the way the law works, you’ll be the one who gets charged.’

      ‘If I don’t call, I’m no better than they are.’

      ‘I understand that.’

      ‘What I did – I shouldn’t have …’

      ‘I understand that too, Mark. And I know that you’re not going to be persuaded by notions of natural justice. But hear me out.’

      He drained his glass and poured himself another couple of fingers.

      Stephanie played the fear card. ‘If you call the police there’ll be a record. Especially if you’re charged with something. That means names written down, addresses, phone numbers … they could find out where we are.’

      Reluctantly, he’d relented. And she’d been more grateful than he could possibly have imagined.

      Stephanie shrugged off her leather coat to reveal a lime cut-off singlet that just covered her cosmetic scar but left her stomach exposed.

      Cyril Bradfield said, ‘If a daughter of mine dressed like you, I’d ask her what she thought she looked like.’

      ‘And if a father of mine asked a question like that, I’d ignore it.’

      ‘I’m sure you would. Tea?’

      ‘Funny you should ask.’ She reached into the plastic bag she was carrying and handed him a box from Jackson’s of Piccadilly. ‘For you.’

      ‘Russian Caravan. My favourite.’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘The sweetener before the pill?’

      Stephanie nodded.

      ‘Where to this time?’

      ‘The Far East.’

      They took creaking stairs to the attic; the forger’s lair or the artist’s studio, depending on your point of view.

      ‘You’ve been fiddling about.’

      Bradfield worked off two large wooden benches running down the spine of the attic. The shelves on the far side of the room had been rearranged: solvents, inks and adhesives in their own sections, with documents and reference books also partitioned. There were two shelves of photographic make-up, although Bradfield no longer permitted clients to come to his house. With the single exception of Stephanie.

      ‘What’s that machine?’

      There was a dull beige unit on the bench closest to her, next to two lamps fitted with natural daylight bulbs.

      ‘You didn’t see it when you were last here?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘I used it on your Mary Reid document. Purchased from E.R. Hoult & Son of Grantham, Lincolnshire. Printers, in case you didn’t know.’

      ‘That doesn’t look like a printer.’

      ‘It isn’t. It laminates. And with it I can replicate with absolute precision the way the UK Passport Agency laminates all new passports. Including placing a UKPA watermark over the face of the document holder. Which, as you may have noticed, makes identification harder, not easier. It’s connected to my computer so that I can pick up a signature, scan it in and download it to this machine. Then it’s lasered onto the page.’

      ‘Computers, lasers, machines that laminate – you’re selling out, Cyril. Where’s the art?’

      ‘In the perfection of the document. As always.’

      He switched on the paint-spattered kettle at the end of the other work bench, tore the seal from the box of tea and took two mugs from the sink.

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