Excerpt from The Night Climbers by Ivo Stourton, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Is there somewhere else we can go to talk? I don't mean to be melodramatic; I just haven't seen you in a long time, and if I'm going to get turned down I'd prefer to do it somewhere pretty. Don't you have a client hospitality area or something? After all, I am a client." She grinned again.

We stood in the lift, and I watched as the two halves of my image slid together in the metallic panels of the doors. Jessica's appraising look was still fresh in my mind, and I checked myself out discreetly. My dark hair was perfectly slicked, my blue eyes glowed even in the dull surface of the metal. My arms were thick from the gym. The slight bulge of flesh around my collar appeared again today. I raised my chin a little to tighten the skin. Jessica almost caught me in the reflection, and I looked away. The lift deposited us smoothly on the top floor, like riding up in the palm of a giant. The doors slid apart, and my image divided and disappeared. By the time we arrived, Jessica was solemn, demonstrating one of those mercurial mood swings that had confounded her youthful suitors. The young men at Cambridge could never tell whether to court her as a child, a princess, an executive, or a clown. Only the few of us who had become truly close to her had learned to read her sudden shifts, like sailors at the mercy of an unpredictable sky.

The great glass wall of client reception disclosed a cinematic view of the city, stretching down to the glittering ribbon of the river and the stately dome of Saint Paul's. On the Southbank the great blocks of culture faced the towers of commerce, the National Theatre hunkered down on the edge of the Thames, its gray concrete balconies camouflaged against the sky. I put on my overcoat and led Jessica past the ranks of black leather sofas, neatly stacked periodicals, and the fresh fruit and orchids quietly dying in their glass vessels.

The Japanese garden on the client reception floor had one of the best views in the city. Old enemies appeared on the eastern horizon, Magic Circle law firms sitting in state by Moorgate. The balcony overlooked Saint Andrew's Church, a tiny nub of conscience subsisting in the center of the financial monoliths, so much older than the buildings that blocked it from the sunlight. The leaves of the weeping willow in the churchyard spilled over the wrought-iron railings onto the pavement. The roof garden itself was composed of large black obsidian stones and elegant little shrubs arranged on a bed of white sand. The sand was raked into perfect parallel trenches, like a plowed field in delicate miniature. A slate walkway paved the edges and formed a bridge over a tiny stream that bubbled up through the rocks. The sky seemed huge when you were so many floors above the skyline, with no other buildings hemming it in. It closed like the lid of a freezer over the cold city. I felt proud to have brought her up here, on top of my impressive building, above my kingdom.

I slid the door closed behind us, and heard the comforting click of the catch, sealing my working world inside like the body of a despot in a vast stone tomb. The wind was strong so high above the street and carried a film of drizzle that coated the garden with a thin layer of cold moisture. She walked away from me, her heels sounding on the gray slate, and leaned on the stainless steel banister that separated the balcony from the empty air beyond.

"I know what you're thinking, James. I'm not on the run from the mafia or the police, and I don't want money from you or help or anything else, really, except a couple of showers' worth of hot water. You work during the day. I go out at night. You won't even see me, if you don't want to."

"I don't know how you are placed financially, Jessica," I said, slipping into my professional idiom. "But it seems to me that you could easily budget for a hotel with a higher degree of anonymity than an old university buddy's flat."

Copyright © 2007 by Ivo Stourton