muted noise of quiet conversations or a TV on low, coming from any of the rooms, the doors were so thick and heavy.
Now it was decision time . . . and she knew this would happen on the way up from the foyer, where she’d left Mum waiting impatiently. She knew she was going to forget the number in the lift going up - way too busy thinking about what she was going to buy with the spends Dad had given her for the trip.
204? It is 204 isn’t it? . . . Or was it 202?
Leona wondered if Dad’s business was all done now, or if he was still waiting for his mystery visitor. He’d been a little nervous and jumpy when he had shoo-ed her and Mum out to go window-shopping; snappy, tense, just like Leona remembered being on her first day at big school earlier that year.
Nervous - exactly like that.
Mum was pretty sure he must have finished his meeting by now. Since he’d bundled them out a couple of hours ago, they’d both visited a big department store glistening with Christmas displays, and grabbed a coffee and a Danish in a bustling coffee shop that overlooked the busy streets surrounding Times Square. And Dad had assured them his very important business meeting would be over quickly.
Leona hoped maybe he would be able to join them; to come back down with her now that the ‘work’ part of their family trip to New York was over. It wasn’t the same without him. But either way she really needed to pick up that beanie-bag of hers with all her spends in. There were just too many things she’d seen in the last two hours that she desperately needed to buy.
She decided it was room 204 they were staying in, not 202, after all. She placed her hand on the old-fashioned brass door-handle. She noticed a flicker of light through the keyhole beneath.
Dad nervously pacing the room? Or maybe his meeting had started already? She was about to hunker down and spy through the keyhole to be sure she wasn’t going to interrupt his business, but her grasp of the door-handle was heavy enough that, with a click, the latch disengaged and the door swung in heavily.
The three men stared at her, their conversation frozen in time. They stood at the end of the emperor-sized bed; three men, old men, very smart men, looking down at her. She noticed a fourth, younger, dark-haired man standing to one side, a deferential distance away from the others. He broke the moment, starting to move swiftly towards her, his hand reaching into a pocket.
‘No,’ whispered one of the three. That stopped him dead, although his hand remained inside his smart jacket.
The one who spoke turned towards Leona, stooping down slightly. ‘I think you’ve come into the wrong room my dear,’ he said, his voice pleasant and disarming, like a doting grandfather.
He smiled warmly at her, ‘I think your room is next door.’
‘I’m really s-sorry,’ Leona replied awkwardly, taking a contrite step backwards out of the room and into the corridor, pulling the door after her.
The door closed gently with a click of the latch and there was a long silence before one of the two older men who had remained silent, turned to the others.
‘She saw all three of us. We were seen together.’
A pause.
‘Is this going to pose a problem?’
‘Don’t worry. She doesn’t know who we are. She doesn’t know why we’re here.’
‘Our anonymity is everything . . . as it has always been, since—’
‘She’s a little girl. A few years from now, the only thing she’ll remember will be whatever she got for Christmas and the Millennium Eve fireworks. Not three boring old men in a room.’
The Present
Monday
CHAPTER 1
8.05 a.m. GMT BBC, Shepherd’s Bush, London
‘He’s lost some weight,’ said Cameron.
‘Really? I think he’s put some on.’
Cameron studied the monitors lined above the mixing desk. On them, Sean Tillman and his co-anchor, Nanette Madeley, were exchanging a few improvised witticisms between items.
‘No, you can see it in Sean’s face. It’s less jowly.’
His assistant producer, Sally, wrinkled her nose in judgement. ‘I don’t think he’s lost any weight. Do you suppose he’s feeling threatened by the younger news team over on Sky?’
‘Christ, yes. Can’t blame him though,’ Cameron replied. ‘Let’s be honest, if you’ve just woken up and you’re channel-hopping first thing in the morning, whose face would you want yapping the news at you? Flabby old Sean Tillman, or someone who