It was none of those things. Instead, it was a place of business. A going concern, providing a variety of services to its clients. A polished brass plaque above the doorway read, in bold gothic font, THE ATREUS CLUB. Named after a king of ancient Greece, the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus, not that the name bore any connection to the nature and purpose of the establishment. A nature and purpose to which, in turn, few people were ever privy.
The Atreus Club was strictly private, hence the locked gates, and hence the broken glass on the walls. Members only. Expensive to join, and only certain individuals need apply to enjoy the secluded and discreet haven it provided for its exclusive, distinguished membership.
And for good reason, considering some of the activities those pillars of society enjoyed there.
Behind a tall balcony window, up on the fourth floor, one of those activities was currently taking place. The room was large but quite sparsely decorated. It had been a bedroom, and sometimes still was used as such, depending on need. Today, though, it was something else. At its centre stood an antiquated wooden school desk, the kind with the flip-up top and a recess for an inkwell. In front of it was a larger teachers desk, behind which stood an equally old-fashioned classroom blackboard, complete with chalk and duster. Scrawled in slanting chalk script across the board were the words, I must not be a naughty boy; I must not be a naughty boy. Over and over.
At the far side of the room, in the light from the tall window, stood a metal frame, seven feet high with a steel bar supported between sturdy mounts either side. Attached to the overhead bar, arms raised above his head by the rubber manacles and rubber chains that bound him firmly in place, stood one of the rooms two occupants. He was naked apart from his socks. A man in his early sixties, grey-haired, tall, slightly stooped, and not in the best of shape physically. His bare buttocks were pinched and somewhat shrivelled and very white, except for where they were striped red from the whipmarks that the rooms other occupant had spent the last few minutes inflicting on him.
She was blonde-haired and attractive in a stern, Slavic kind of way, and at least forty years younger than her client. But not naked, not yet, as specified by the instructions that had to be followed to the exact letter. All part of the expensive services provided by the Atreus Club. And this particular client had specified, as he always specified on his frequent visits here, that the girl be wearing a mortarboard and one of the abbreviated black academic gowns that Oxford University tradition dubbed a Commoners gown. Both items duly obtained from the official university outfitters, Shepherd and Woodwards of the High. No expense spared. Aside from the academic garb and the matching black fishnet stockings, garters and suspender belt, she was wearing nothing else. Again, as per instructions. The instrument of torture was a whippy rattan cane, the type that schoolmasters had once used to inflict corporal punishment on disobedient pupils, back in the day. The client had never been caned at school, however. He had always been a model pupil, set for academic glory.
Have you had enough, you bad, bad professor, you? the blonde asked with a wicked smile on her red lips. Professor was what she was instructed to call him in their fantasy role-play. She spoke with an Eastern European accent that drove him even more crazy.
No! Hit me again! Ah!
The clients cry of pain and pleasure was drowned out by the whoosh and sharp crack of the cane as she whipped it through the air and added another fresh, livid stripe to his pale rear end. The velvety tassel on her mortarboard swung with the movement.
Again! More!
Whoosh. Crack.
This could go on for quite some time. As the blonde knew very well, because it usually did and she was his regular pick. She had the technique down better than any of the other girls. Something in the wrist action. For some reason, she was a natural at it. He knew her as Angelique, which, needless to say, wasnt her real name.
Another piece of information the client lacked was that the private session he was currently enjoying was, in fact, anything but.
The tall, mature oak tree on the front lawn was about as close to the house as it was possible for a hidden observer to get without being spotted from the windows, and you could reach it easily enough by darting from hedge to bush. Plenty close enough, for the man who was perched high up in its branches. The only challenging part of his job had been getting over the wall unscathed. The rest was easy. Almost fun. He had an excellent view through the window in question, and at this range the telephoto lens on his camera was capable of producing crystal-clear close-ups of both the client and the girl whipping him.
The watcher wasnt so interested in the girl. The client was another matter. Just a few more snaps, and the watcher would descend unseen from his perch and make his way back out of the grounds and over the wall to his vehicle.
The watcher permitted himself a smile as he watched the blonde step back to give herself space, then swing the cane and whack the old perv again. He could almost hear the snap of the thin rattan against soft, loose, white flesh. Framed in the viewfinder the clients eyes were rolled upwards and his mouth was open with a sigh of ecstasy.
The shutter clicked one more time.
A perfect shot.
Someone was going to be happy.
Chapter 2
Ben Hope sat on the edge of the single bed with his old green canvas bag wedged between his feet and gazed around him at his strange, yet so familiar, surroundings.
And wondered, What the hell am I doing back here?
In some ways he felt like much the same person who had once lived in this very room, slept in this very bed, done all the things that a restless nineteen-year-old with the devil inside him and too many troubles for his young mind to bear is wont to do. In other ways, he was a very different person now. Twenty-something years of the kind of existence Ben had led since leaving this place couldnt but profoundly change a man, if it didnt kill him altogether.
But one thing was for sure. The place itself had barely changed at all during his long, long absence. Old Library 7 still had the same fusty smell of a building overdue for renovation by a century or longer. The yellowed and chipped woodwork of the ancient bow window was maybe a little more in need of repair. The carpet was still worn in all the same places he remembered. The thinly upholstered armchairs were the same ones hed sprawled in evening after evening, meant to be reading but usually ending up asleep with the book upturned and dog-eared on his lap. Even the battered desk was original equipment, still bearing the black marks of cigarette burns and the scar from the time hed smashed a bottle against it in some drunken fit of anger.
Hed been angry a lot of the time back in those days. Drunk even more of the time. Not the best of memories.
The only thing missing from the room was the old piano that had once stood over by the window, its place now taken by a saggy couch. Which seemed to make more sense. Quite why the college authorities had ever seen fit to put a piano in an undergraduates room had always been a mystery to him. Hed never even opened the lid, having never attempted to play a musical instrument of any variety in his life before or since.
Hed been angry a lot of the time back in those days. Drunk even more of the time. Not the best of memories.
The only thing missing from the room was the old piano that had once stood over by the window, its place now taken by a saggy couch. Which seemed to make more sense. Quite why the college authorities had ever seen fit to put a piano in an undergraduates room had always been a mystery to him. Hed never even opened the lid, having never attempted to play a musical instrument of any variety in his life before or since.
Ben stood up and walked by where the piano had been. He undid the Victorian sash window latch, painted over so many times that it needed force to open it, and worked the stubborn window frame upwards until it was far open enough to lean out.
The view of the quadrangle below was exactly the same as it had been twenty-something years ago, with the rear façade of Meadow Buildings facing him. The wide open space of Christ Church Meadow lay beyond. Here in the middle of a hundred and sixty thousand people, the colleges nearly forty acres of unspoilt fields and woodland were a tranquil haven for wildlife, and for Ben. He could smell the river and hear the traffic rumble in the distance. It was a crisp and sunny Easter-time morning, in the break between Hilary and Trinity terms, and the usual troop of camera-toting tourists was bustling about the quad. Spanish, judging by the barking narrative of the guide who was busily ushering them around the hallowed college grounds.
It seemed an ironic coincidence that he should have been given his old room. Or was it? Maybe he had Seraphina to thank for it, looking up old records and being over-efficient. Perhaps she thought hed go all mushy and nostalgic and be forever grateful to her for the gesture. In which case, she obviously didnt know enough of Bens history with the place, or the circumstances under which hed left it.
Which in turn brought him once again to asking himself the same question that had been in his mind ever since hed arrived in Oxford early that morning.
What the hell am I doing back here?
Ben knew what.
It had been a spur of the moment thing. A snap decision. Perhaps not, in retrospect, the wisest idea hed ever had. Perhaps he was getting sentimental, after all. Which wasnt like him, or so he would have preferred to think. But he was here now. One night, and tomorrow hed be sixty miles away having his business meeting; then soon after that hed be home again at Le Val, getting on with life and work.
It was no big deal. Hed survived worse things in his time.
He looked at his watch. Theyd still be serving breakfast in Hall, and he needed a coffee. But he felt grubby after the long drive up from Normandy and decided to take a quick shower first. Old Library was, as its name suggested, the oldest block of undergraduate accommodation within the college buildings, and convenience of facilities hadnt been uppermost in the minds of the architects back then. Each floor had just one communal bathroom, which in Bens case was down the musty-smelling corridor from his room, past a series of deep-set oval windows and down a short flight of creaky steps.
The bathroom was still pretty much as scabby and mouldy as Ben remembered, and the plumbing still howled like a werewolf at full moon. He showered in tepid water, dressed quickly, then locked up his room. The oversized door key hed been issued at the Porters Lodge on arrival was the same Victorian affair hed used back in the day. He slipped it in his pocket and hurried downstairs and out of the iron-studded door of Old Library. The way to the Great Hall was through a small cloistered quad, which until about 1520 had been the site of an eighth-century priory. Lots of history in this place. But right now Ben was more concerned about missing his morning coffee, and he quickened his step up the grand staircase to the Great Hall.
That hadnt changed either, with its grand vaulted ceiling and richly wood-panelled walls hung with scores of old gilt-framed portraits of Oxford luminaries through the ages whose names Ben had never cared to remember, and the three immensely long tables on which those students brave enough to consume college food took their meals. Ben vaguely remembered hearing a while back that some big movie production had used the hall as a location. Something about a boy wizard, he remembered, but that was all. He didnt watch a lot of movies.
Breakfast time was winding to a close. A few people were filing along the self-service aisle on the left of the hall, picking up pastries and croissants and being poured coffees by the college staff. Ben got himself a mug of black coffee, nothing to eat, and took it over to sit on his own at the bottom end of one of the long trestle dining tables, not too far from the door, intending to gulp down his coffee and slip away without having to get into conversation with anyone.
He glanced at the faces of the others in the hall. They were mostly about his age, and he supposed they were old members from his year, here like him to attend the college reunion. Some of them knew each other and had bundled together into little groups, their laughter and excited chatter echoing in the huge room. He didnt remember them.
But he quickly remembered the college coffee at the first swallow. It was just as bad as ever. Something on a par with British army coffee, a comparison Ben hadnt been able to make back in those days. It was too vile to gulp down in a hurry, so he sat sipping it, alone with his thoughts.
That was when a voice from behind him said, in a tone of astonishment, Ben Hope?
Ben turned, coffee in hand, and looked at the guy standing there, carrying a tray laden with a pot of tea, cup, saucer, jug of milk, bowl of cereal, glass of orange juice. For a second or two they stared at one another. The guy was a little older than him. Neither short nor tall, thin nor plump. Light brown hair beginning to show a dusting of grey around the temples. The face was very familiar. Even more than the face, the eyes. Sharply green, filled with a mischievous kind of sparkle as they peered closely into Bens.
Ben Hope, it is you, isnt it? Of course it is. My God, how long has it been?
Nicholas? Nicholas Hawthorne?
Thank God, you remember. I was beginning to think I must have aged beyond recognition. Not you, though. You havent changed a bit.
I know thats not true, Ben said. But thanks anyway. He motioned at the empty space next to him at the table. Will you join me, Nicholas?
Why, gladly. Nicholas Hawthorne settled himself on the bench seat beside Ben. There was that strange, hesitant uncertainty between them that you got when old friends who had gone their separate ways were reunited after many years, and the ice needed to be rebroken. Its just Nick these days, he said with a smile. I only use Nicholas as a performance name. The agents idea. He says the formality of it is more appropriate to the classical market. But never mind boring old me. What about you? Youre the last person I ever expected to see here.
Me too.
What have you been doing with yourself all this time?
Oh, this and that. The fact was, very little of what Ben had done in the last couple of decades could be discussed in anything more than the vaguest terms. Even if he could have talked about it, and hadnt been the kind of person who preferred to keep things to himself, the details would only upset most normal, gentle folks for whom his life of risk, trouble and danger would seem alien, even frightening. Hed come prepared for that. His strategy was to provide the briefest and sketchiest account of himself possible, keep it vague and dodge direct questions. He said, I live in France now.