The City of London is the urban setting where Myfanwy’s forced choice becomes concrete: at a bank in the City, she must decide whether to use the resources left for escape or return to the life of the woman whose identity she has inherited. It is also the Checquy’s operational center, concealed in a building that presents an ordinary face to the outside world while sheltering its headquarters and defenses.

The Choice at the Bank

A letter from the former Myfanwy gives her successor two keys to lockboxes at Mansel Bank on Bassingthwaighte Street in the City. Box 1011-A holds what she needs to leave the country and build a new identity; 1011-B will put her back into the former Myfanwy’s life. The choice is deliberately left to her, despite the warning that someone wants her dead and that neither option can make her entirely safe.

The amnesiac Myfanwy reaches the bank in a waiting car after checking her card balances at a hotel ATM and discovering the scale of the wealth available to her. She takes in London’s familiar sights, including Trafalgar Square and St. Paul’s Cathedral, with the estrangement of someone who recognizes places as if from pictures rather than memory. At the bank she watches for signs that she is being followed, then enters; even the question of what name to use remains unsettled. The City thus brings together material security, the threat of pursuit, and the decision over whether inherited identity will become a chosen life.

The Checquy Headquarters

The City is also home to the Rookery, the Checquy’s headquarters for in-country operations. The organization occupies the Hammerstrom Building, acquired under the authority of then-Rook Conrad Grantchester. Its functions are extensive: it houses the Barghests, provides temporary holding and interrogation facilities, contains a major Checquy arsenal, and offers emergency residences for Rooks.

The building’s public appearance conceals that work. To outsiders, it is occupied by law and accounting firms, which have no clients outside the Checquy; its public-facing spaces also include a bank, restaurant, and pub. Behind that ordinary frontage, years of refurbishment to Grantchester’s specifications added secret passages, specialized wiring, and concealed security fortifications. The contrast makes the City more than a backdrop: it is a place where the Checquy’s ordinary-looking urban presence masks a carefully secured center of power.