Killers of a Certain Age

Back at Benscombe, Billie and the others are exhausted and irritable. She takes a packet of cigarettes and the dossier she stole from Carapaz to an outdoor shed, thinking about her history with files and dossiers. In the past, the team received detailed files from Provenance with coded imagery of “a young girl looking over a flock of sheep. It was a play on Constance’s code name of Shepherdess” (279). Billie used to smoke and drink soda while plotting her plans of action and attempts to do the same now. She uses her mother’s lighter, all she has left of the parent who emotionally neglected her before abandoning her entirely. The lighter has accompanied her on jobs and to every moment of her brief liaison with Taverner: “[I]t was a talisman of sorts, and it never failed me” (283).

The dossier is a copy of the one mysteriously submitted to the Museum. It frames Billie and her friends as corrupt assassins for hire but its content is clearly fake. Billie finds a code identifying the dossier’s author. Whilst most dossiers have multiple authors, this one comes from a single source. Billie receives a message from Martin telling her he has been eavesdropping on Vance, who was recently discussing something called “toll-mash” (285), and this leads Billie to an auction house called Tollemache.

The auction house is well known in London, catering to wealthy clients. Billie finds there is a large art sale that includes many famous pieces planned for January. Billie is drawn to a late addition and sees this painting as the solution to the puzzle. The chapter ends before she names it, but it is implied the painting is The Queen of Sheba Arising.

Billie brings the listing to the others and explains the painting’s significance. A reference to a recent repair convinces the others the painting is the same one from the Zanzibar job as the bullet hole left by the baroness was likely covered by a restorer. Helen recalls that the painting’s owners or their descendants were never found: Only a senior Museum member could have taken the painting out, and the others who could have, Carapaz and Paar, are now dead. Billie thinks Vance has staged the auction on purpose to ensure Billie and the others will use it to target him. Billie tells them the name she decoded from the dossier and declares, “add another name to the hit list’’ (292). Raybourn keeps the reader in suspense about the fact that it was Martin who targeted the women for assassination and that Billie learned this from the dossier.

The four women discuss strategy, especially the challenges of the auction house setting, for them and anyone targeting them: Murdering Vance in public risks civilians being hurt. Billie’s musings are interrupted when she finds a painting from 1941 called The Shepherdess of the Sphinxes, which depicts an armed woman shepherding the mythical creatures through a field of men they have recently preyed upon. Billie reflects, “they weren’t evil, after all. They were simply true to their nature” (295). The painting reminds Billie of a past conversation with Constance, who told her that “true leadership, Miss Webster, is not about trusting yourself. It is about trusting your team” (296). Billie tells the others her plan, and the narrator reveals only that they are unhappy; it takes Billie hours to convince them. Later that night, Billie finds Helen looking at her address book, but Helen does not explain her plan. Helen, Billie will learn, has just called Taverner.

Billie comes downstairs, shocked to see Taverner. Helen explains that while Minka and Akiko are part of the plan, they will need support, and Taverner adds an unpredictable element. Taverner tells Billie he is furious with her for not telling him she was alive all this time as Sweeney had informed him they all died on the cruise. After his tirade, he storms out.

Helen does not apologize to Billie, reminding her that the plan is sound, and that Billie would have refused Taverner’s help if Helen had asked in advanced, and Billie is upset to learn that the others were all aware of Helen’s arrangement. She admits to Helen that she feels guilty for not thinking of Taverner’s feelings.

Billie goes to find Taverner, and the two catch up on their lives: He is now a grandfather with two grown daughters. He consoles Billie about Vance’s treachery and her new feeling her career was a waste, saying, “hey, you killed some really deserving people. That’s got to be worth something” (303). Billie is disappointed to find Taverner has brought no guns—generally illegal in the UK, where he lives—but starts to think of a plan when he shows her that the trunk of his car is full of firecrackers. She recalls seeing a mother let her children stuff apples with them and set them on fire.