She was looking for her car when she noticed the moving van on the far side of the car park. Going too fast, Marie thought. Not just exceeding the notional speed limit – most drivers here did that – but hitting thirty, forty miles per hour. Open road speeds, in an unlit airport car park littered with jet-lagged arrivals from the long-haul red-eyes. Jesus.
Not her business, though. There’d been a time when she might have felt obliged to intervene, pull out her warrant card to deal with some loser getting his kicks scaring others. But not now.
God, she was tired. Tired and woozy. Not exactly jet lag. She hadn’t got her sleep patterns together long enough for it to kick in, or at least that was how it felt. Two days in Washington had been a stupid idea. A knackering interruption to her training, not the relaxing jolly that had been sold to her. She could see why none of the others had wanted to go. She’d learned nothing, met no one of any value. Just a dreary round of mind-numbing presentations, tedious seminars, formal dinners, late-night sessions in the bar, fending off the advances of drunken marrieds who assumed, naturally, that their drawling American accents would be irresistible to any Brit.
It felt as if she’d had no sleep for days. She’d expected to be out cold on the return flight, but she’d slept fitfully, disturbed by the comings and goings of the flight attendants and the noisy family next to her.
She felt semi-conscious. She’d already alighted from the shuttle bus at the wrong stop and was having to trawl through the rows of vehicles, dragging her wheeled suitcase behind her, to wherever her own car was parked.
She’d planned to go back into work today, but that increasingly seemed like a bad idea. Everyone expected her to take the day off, anyway. All she wanted to do was head home and crawl into bed. Liam would be pleased, at least.
From somewhere close by, she heard the roar of an engine. That bloody van. It had reached the end of her row and was turning left, down towards where she was standing, its speed undiminished.
Instinctively, she stepped back, pulling her case with her, positioning herself between two parked cars. Joyriders, maybe, or some drunk. Either way, best avoided.
She moved back into the shadows, expecting the van to roar by. But just before it reached her, the driver braked hard. For a second, she thought the vehicle would skid, but the control was perfect. The van slammed to a halt just a few feet from her.
The driver’s door opened slowly and a figure, little more than a silhouette, leaned out. ‘In the back,’ the man said quietly. It was a command, and the object in his hand suggested he had the means of enforcing it.
What the fuck? She looked frantically around her. Moments before, as she’d watched the van careering round the edge of the car park, there’d seemed to be numerous other people making their way back to their cars. Now, suddenly, the place was deserted. Somewhere, across at the far edge of the car park, she could hear the churning of a car ignition, but that was no help to her.
‘In the back,’ the voice said again.
She stepped forwards, as though to obey, leaving her case and handbag on the ground behind her. Then, as she drew close to the van, she raised her right foot and kicked the driver’s door as hard as she could. It slammed shut, trapping the arm of the half-emerging figure.
‘Shit—’
She was already running, her head down, expecting gunfire at any moment. Instead, she heard the revving of the van’s engine and a squeak of tyres as it U-turned.
Where the hell was her car? In the half-light, all the vehicles looked similar, indistinguishable colours and shapes.
And then a further thought struck her.
Her keys. Her fucking keys. They were in her handbag.
She was running headlong now, with no idea what she was going to do. There was no point in trying to reach her car. Her only hope was that someone else would appear, someone who could help her.
She could hear the van’s engine coming up behind her. No longer speeding, but moving slowly, taunting her, knowing she couldn’t escape. There was nowhere to go. A high metal fence lined the car park perimeter. The entrance was half a mile away across the vast expanse of tarmac.
She stopped and turned, blinking in the van’s headlights until it pulled in alongside her. A head peered out from the passenger seat, the face invisible. A different voice.
‘Christ’s sake. You’re going nowhere. Just get in the back.’
She heard the sound of the driver’s door being opened, footsteps. She stood silently, gasping for breath, as a silhouetted figure emerged from behind the vehicle. He gestured her to step forwards, a pistol steady in his other hand.
‘Nice try. Hurt my bloody hand, though. Now don’t open your mouth; just get in the back.’
After only a moment’s hesitation, she obeyed both ins tructions.
‘And you’re sure you still want to go ahead?’ Winsor had asked, two months before.
‘Yes,’ Marie had replied confidently. Then, after a pause, ‘I think so, anyway. As best I can judge.’
He’d nodded approvingly and inscribed an ostentatious tick on the sheet in front of him. ‘Exactly the right answer,’ he said, a proud teacher commending a promising pupil. ‘Confident, but realistic. Just what we need.’
Patronizing git, she thought. Par for the course down here. She could live with it from the operational types. They might have been promoted to pen-pushing and desk-jockeying, but most had been through it. They had some idea of the front line.
Winsor was a different matter. He was a sodding psychologist, for Christ’s sake. Most of what he said was either blindingly obvious or plain wrong. Quite often both at once, remarkably. He was here on sufferance because they were supposed to give due consideration to the psychological well-being of officers. Winsor ticked a few boxes and showed that the Agency cared.
And yet here he was, passing judgement about her suitability for a job he probably couldn’t even imagine. Assessing her psychological equilibrium, she’d been told. Seeing whether she was really up to it, whether she could handle the unique pressures. In truth, though she doubted Winsor’s ability to assess her mental state, she knew the assessment was needed. This was a big deal. She wasn’t sure, even now, whether she really appreciated quite how big.
‘The main thing,’ Winsor said, unexpectedly echoing her thoughts, ‘is that you appreciate the magnitude of the challenge.’
Maybe he was better at this than she’d thought. ‘I’ve spoken to people who’ve done the job,’ she said. ‘Hugh Salter, for example.’
‘Ah, yes. Hugh.’ He spoke the name as if experimenting with an unfamiliar word. ‘Well, yes, Hugh was a great success in the role. For a long time.’ He left the phrase hanging, suggesting that he could say more.
She knew that Hugh had been withdrawn from the field eventually, but that was standard. No one did this forever. There’d been rumours about Hugh, but there were rumours about everyone. It was that kind of place. Whatever the truth, Hugh was still around, still apparently trusted. If she got through this, he was likely to end up as her contact. Her buddy, in his words, though that wasn’t how she’d ever describe him.
‘What did Hugh tell you?’ Winsor asked.
‘He said it was a challenge. Hard work. That it required certain qualities.’ She tried to recall exactly what Hugh had said. Nothing very coherent. She’d sought him out one evening when a group of them had been in the pub after work. Show willing, prepare for the selection process. But Hugh was already two or three pints ahead of her, and had mainly been interested in boosting his own ego. He was keen to let her know how difficult the job had been, how ill-suited she was likely to be to its rigours. Not because she was a woman, he’d been at pains to emphasize. That wasn’t the problem. The problem, she’d gathered, was that, like almost everyone else in the world, she just wasn’t Hugh Salter. Her loss.
‘What sort of qualities?’
‘Resilience,’ she said, though Hugh had offered nothing so succinct. ‘Attention to detail. Alertness.’ She paused, recognizing that she was trotting out clichés. ‘He said the main problem was the balancing act.’ She paused, trying to translate her memory of Salter’s semi-drunken ramble into something coherent. ‘Not just the obvious tension between the under-cover work and your home life. But the balance between the day-to-day stuff and the real focus of the work.’
Winsor looked up, showing some interest for the first time. ‘Go on.’
She paused, unsure how to render the phrase ‘fucking balls-ache’ in terminology acceptable to an occupational psychologist.
‘Well, it strikes me that it’s almost as if you’re leading a triple life. You spend a lot of the time building up the legend, making yourself credible in the right environments. Just getting on with the fictitious job. The real stuff – the intelligence gathering, the surveillance, all that – is only a small part of the picture, time-wise. So you end up doing a lot of stuff which is very mundane, but you can’t allow yourself to switch off, even for a moment.’ It wasn’t exactly – or even remotely – what Salter had actually said, but it was what she’d inferred from his beer-fuelled diatribe.
Winsor was nodding. ‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘That’s what most applicants fail to appreciate.’ He leaned forwards, as though sharing a treasured secret. ‘That’s one reason it’s so difficult to find suitable candidates. It’s not a question of ability. It’s a question of temperament.’ He waved his hand towards the open-plan office outside their small meeting room. ‘Not surprising, really. It’s a rare mix that we’re looking for, and probably even rarer in a place like this. You lot want excitement, the adrenaline rush. That’s why you all hate the form-filling.’
Winsor was wrong about that, she thought. It might be what attracted some of them in the first place, but the ones who stayed, the ones who progressed, were those who paid attention to the detail. That was what the job was about. Gathering data, analyzing the intelligence. The fucking balls-ache. Most likely, Winsor was the one hankering after excitement.
‘So what do you think the job needs?’ she said.
He riffled aimlessly through her file, as if that might provide the answer to her question. ‘As you say, a lot of it’s very mundane. We set it up, provide the background. But it’s up to the individual officer to make it work. And all the time you’re waiting for the opportunities, the chances to gather intelligence.’ He paused. ‘Most good officers can handle the pressure. It’s the boredom that does for them.’
She wondered whether he was talking about Salter. ‘So what do you reckon?’ she said, deciding she might as well cut to the chase. ‘Have I got the temperament?’
He didn’t answer immediately, but flicked again through the file, this time apparently searching for a particular document. She had no idea what was in the thick, buff-coloured folder. Her original application form. Annual performance appraisals. Results of her promotion boards. Perhaps other, more interesting material.
‘I think you just might,’ he said finally.
‘Have a look at this.’ He pushed the file across the desk towards her, holding it open. It was a printed form, incomprehensible to her, covered with Winsor’s own scrawlings.
‘It’s the results of the personality questionnaire you completed,’ he explained. ‘Each of these lines shows a continuum between the extremes of various personality traits. So, for example, whether you’re inclined to follow prescribed rules or do your own thing.’
‘Wouldn’t that depend on the rules?’
‘Yes, of course. And the context. But we’ve all got our preferences and inclinations. At the extremes, you get people who feel hidebound by any rules or direction, however reasonable, or people who feel uncomfortable breaking or bending a rule even when they recognize that it’s necessary.’
‘And where do I sit?’
He pointed at a pencil mark on one of the scales. ‘In that respect – as in most aspects, actually – you’re pretty well-balanced. Close to the middle of the scale, with just a small bias towards rule-breaking.’ He smiled, suggesting that this was some kind of psychologist’s in-joke.
‘And is that good?’
He shrugged. ‘As you say, it depends. But in this case, yes. That’s the balance we’re looking for. We don’t want someone who’s constantly in danger of going off-piste. But equally there’d be times when you’d need to improvise. We don’t want someone who’ll fall apart if they can’t apply the rule book.’
She nodded, her eyes scanning down the sheet in front of her. She could see broadly how the scales worked, but the terminology was opaque to her. ‘What about the rest of it?’
‘We’ve got a full debrief scheduled for this afternoon,’ he said. Marie decided that Winsor himself was probably rather closer to the compliant end of the spectrum. ‘I’ll go through it all in detail then. But on the whole it looks very satisfactory. You’re a pretty balanced individual.’ He picked up his pen and gestured down the column of scales. ‘Here, for example. You’re fairly affiliative, enjoy working with others. But equally you’re comfortable operating on your own when you need to. This is a role that depends on effective networking, building relationships, but you will also really have to work in isolation. Not many people are comfortable with both.’
‘No, I can see that.’ She squinted more closely at the paper. ‘What about these ones? Those look more extreme.’
Winsor leaned forwards, reading the form upside down. ‘Ah, now, that’s quite interesting. Those traits show how you deal with your emotions. Would you consider yourself an emotional person?’
She found herself slightly taken aback by the direct question. ‘I don’t know. Not particularly, I suppose. I suppose I’d see myself as – I don’t know – pragmatic. I just get on with things.’
It was difficult for her to answer the question. None of her colleagues would see her as emotional, she thought. But that was a point of principle. Whatever they might say publicly, some of her colleagues still held largely unreconstructed views of female officers. When she’d first joined, she’d been determined not to allow her femininity to be perceived, however unfairly, as a weakness. Whatever crap had been thrown at her – and there’d been plenty in those early days – she’d been determined just to take it. If she had a bad day she never let it show. That was nothing more than simple professionalism. It was what you did. Whatever might be going on outside of work, you didn’t bring it through the office door. It was a philosophy that many of her colleagues, male and female, failed to apply. She’d had a bellyful of supposedly macho senior officers who came in and simply unloaded the garbage that happened to be filling their own domestic lives.
But Marie found it hard to distinguish between this work persona and whatever reality might lie beneath. She never showed any strong emotions and, to be frank, she rarely seemed to feel them. Of course, like anyone else, she went through cycles of joy or gloom, she had good days and bad days. But these were variations around a relatively placid norm. When real adversity came around – when she and Liam had being going through a tough time, or when her parents had died, not entirely unexpectedly, within a few months of one another – she simply buckled down and got on with life. In other circumstances, she reflected, a psychologist like Winsor might see that as unhealthy. Now, he seemed positively enthused by the assessment.
‘If we look at these scales, you see, you come across as someone who keeps their emotions carefully in check. You’re very conscious of the image you project to others. Your inclination is to subordinate your own feelings to the job at hand.’
He was beginning to sound like a tabloid horoscope, she thought. ‘Those don’t necessarily sound like positive qualities.’
‘Well, again, it depends on the context. And if your responses were at the very extreme end of the scale, I’d have a concern. It might suggest an inability to cope with emotional issues. But this indicates simply a preference for control. Which in this role is important. It’s a very isolating job. If you’re faced with emotional issues, you have to be able to cope with them yourself. Of course, we keep an eye on agents out in the field, assess their well-being periodically. But we can’t provide too much support from the centre without risking compromising the operation.’
‘And you think I’d be up to it?’ She gestured towards the assessment form. ‘On the basis of that, I mean?’
‘Well, it’s impossible to be sure.’ He reached across and picked up the file. ‘It’s a fairly blunt instrument, this. And it can’t give us a definitive insight into the “real” Marie Donovan, whoever that might be. What it really tells us is how you see yourself and how you think others see you. But, for all that, I think, yes, that overall it does indicate that you’re likely to be suited to the job.’
Well, that was something, she thought. A fairly lukewarm endorsement, but an endorsement nonetheless. One hurdle climbed.
Winsor was still leafing aimlessly through her file. Finally, he paused and ran his finger carefully down one of the documents.
‘You’re unmarried?’
She nodded. ‘So far.’ This had been typical of Winsor’s style. Off-the-cuff, apparently random questions, but each one with a little hidden barb.
‘But you have a partner?’
She knew he already had the answer. When she’d joined the Agency, Liam’s background had been checked out as thoroughly as hers. A clause in her employment contract obliged her to inform her superiors if her domestic circumstances were to change. The way things were going with Liam, that clause might become relevant before long.
‘I live with my boyfriend,’ she said, ‘if that’s what you mean.’
‘And how does he feel about you applying for this role?’
That was the question, of course. How did Liam feel?
‘Well, he’s got concerns, of course. But he’s fully behind my career. If it’s what I want to do, he’ll support it.’ Which was all true as far as it went.
‘And your boyfriend,’ Winsor said conversationally, ‘what does he do? His job, I mean.’
‘He paints. He’s an artist.’
‘Ah.’ Winsor managed to invest a wealth of meaning into the single syllable. ‘Would I recognize his name?’
She smiled. ‘I don’t think so. Not yet.’
‘Well, perhaps one day.’ Winsor looked at his watch, as if he were already losing interest. ‘And what about you?’
‘Me?’ She wondered momentarily whether he was enquiring about her own artistic prospects.
‘Yes.’ Winsor was beginning to pack up his papers. ‘Why do you want the job? What made you apply for it?’
Another good question. She’d had an answer all prepared – opportunity for career development, new challenges, a desire to step outside her own comfort zone, all that kind of nonsense. But Winsor’s nonchalant query had, presumably as intended, caught her off guard and she found herself blurting out something closer to the truth.
‘I don’t know. I suppose I feel in a bit of a rut. A bit passive. Time’s getting on. The big three-oh next year. I just want something new. I want to take more control.’
He was barely looking at her, struggling to fit the stack of files into his briefcase. ‘At work or at home? The rut, I mean?’
She paused, aware now that she was saying more than she’d intended. ‘Work, I suppose. I’ve spent the last year doing intelligence analysis. Crunching data. Spotting patterns. It’s important work and I’m pretty good at it, though I say so myself. But I don’t think it’s making the most of my talents. I want a bit more control over what’s going on. I want to make things happen.’
He finally snapped shut his briefcase and looked up, his expression suggesting that he’d taken in nothing of what she’d been saying.
‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘Always good to take control. That’s very interesting. As I said at the start, this session isn’t really part of the formal interview process. I just like to have an informal discussion with candidates before I put together the detailed feedback on the psychometrics. Gives me a bit of context.’
And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything, Marie told herself. Winsor had protested just a little too much about the unimportance of their conversation. She hoped she’d struck the right balance – alert enough not to let anything slip, but not so tense that she seemed phony.
The whole thing had been like that. Two days of interviews and exercises. A traditional selection panel with four stern-faced senior officers asking a series of apparently random questions. A series of role-playing exercises, supposedly with other candidates, that had left her feeling slightly wrong-footed. She’d suspected from the start that not all the participants were genuine candidates. Some of them would be plants, there to observe or to throw additional spokes into the wheel. Or perhaps that was just paranoia. Either way, it felt like appropriate preparation for whatever this job might throw at her.
‘As I say, I’ll be giving you some formal feedback on the psychometrics this afternoon. After that, you’re free to leave. And we’ll be getting our heads together to make the decision. We should be able to let you know tomorrow.’
‘But you really think I’m in with a chance?’
Winsor looked momentarily embarrassed. ‘Well, I’m not in a position to say for sure. Obviously, it’ll be a collective decision. But, yes, on the basis of what I’ve seen, I think you’ve a very good chance.’
There was an expression in his eyes that she couldn’t read. As if, she thought, he couldn’t be sure whether or not he was giving her good news.
There was a bright light shining in her eyes, and she could make out no more than the outline of the man sitting opposite. So they weren’t afraid of clichés, she thought. An interrogation scene from an old war movie. We have ways of making you talk, Britisher.
It had been a surreal experience. At the airport, with the pistol held against her, she’d climbed into the back of the van. It had clearly been prepared to accommodate passengers, although the rear compartment was enclosed and windowless. There was a row of seats bolted to the chassis, and an interior light. All the home comforts you’d need if you were being kidnapped at the crack of dawn by a bunch of apparent lunatics. Behind her, she’d heard the sound of the rear doors being locked.
Her initial, instinctive reaction had been panic. That was why she’d tried to run, unthinking, her mind still fogged by lack of sleep. It was only when she’d seen the pistol pointing unwaveringly at her that she’d realized the truth.
It was a test, of course. A fucking exercise. Part of the training. If she’d been more awake, she might have expected it. Even the trip to Washington had probably been part of it. She’d seen it as an odd intrusion into her supposedly sacrosanct training schedule, and wondered why they’d been so keen for her to attend. The conference itself was genuine enough, of course. In fact, that was just bloody typical. The Yanks were keen to have a Brit there and had apparently funded her travel and expenses. The Agency had been its usual opportunistic self, killing two birds with one bloody great transatlantic rock.
The aim had been to destabilize her, presumably. She’d spent the last two months in character, preparing in a controlled environment for the experience of going under-cover. They were giving her an identify, a legend, that would enable her to blend unobtrusively into the local business community, building on the reputation established by her predecessor in the area. Their key targets were themselves local businessmen, running criminal networks in the shadow of apparently legitimate commercial operations. The plan was for her to work in the same shadowy hinterland.
She had become Marie Donovan, businesswoman, and had been coming to grips with the financial and legal implications of the mundane printing and reprographics franchise that she’d be taking over. She’d had dealings with the bank, with the solicitors, with the franchise owners. The ground had been prepared for her, but then she’d been on her own, a new starter still finding her feet. The business people she was dealing with no doubt thought she was an idiot, a would-be entrepreneur without a clue. But, from their responses, she guessed that they’d encountered such characters many times before: deluded halfwits who wanted to stick their life savings or redundancy pay in some ridiculous business fantasy. It was no real skin off their nose whether she succeeded or failed, so long as she had the necessary funding today.
But after the first stumbles, it hadn’t been too bad. She’d been surprised how quickly she got into character. She’d also been surprised at how quickly she’d begun to enjoy it. It was a new challenge, a new way of thinking. A whole new life.
That was why she’d been annoyed and bemused when they’d dragged her out of her preparations to attend that bloody conference. A last chance to be yourself, they’d said. Enjoy it. Right.
And now, after two days of being herself, they’d sprung this on her. She didn’t even know what game she was supposed to be playing. Presumably she was back in character, back to being Marie Donovan, tinpot entrepreneur. But if so, who were these jokers supposed to be?
‘We know who you are, Donovan,’ the figure behind the light said softly. ‘We know what you are.’
She knew she had to behave just like the fictional Marie Donovan would behave in these circumstances. Except of course that the fictional Marie Donovan, if she were real, would never find herself in these circumstances.
But how would she respond? Fear, of course, and bewilderment. But also anger. Donovan – the businesswoman Donovan – was as feisty as the real one, accustomed to battling her way through a man’s world. Even with a pistol being waved at her, she wouldn’t take any crap.
‘What the hell is this?’ she snapped. ‘Who are you people? You can’t just drag people off the street—’
‘We know what you are,’ the voice said again. ‘We know what your game is.’
‘I don’t know what the bloody hell you’re talking about. How do you know my name?’ She allowed a small tremble to creep into her voice during the last sentence. Donovan might be feisty, but she’d still be terrified in this scenario, however much she might try to hide it.
The man behind the light was leafing through a sheaf of documents. She leaned forwards, peering, trying to see what he was doing, who he was. They’d blindfolded her when they’d taken her out of the van, and she’d seen nothing till the light had been shone into her face. She wondered whether she might recognize the voice. A colleague? Someone from the training team? She estimated that the van had driven for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, but she had no idea where they were, and she’d seen nothing that would give her any clues.
‘Just moving into the area,’ the man said. ‘Taking over a print franchise. Making your way in the world. What’s the story, then, love? Getting over a messy break-up, want a new start?’
‘Something like that,’ she said. ‘Though I don’t know what business it is of yours, or why you’ve been snooping into my private life. Who the fuck are you?’
This was more or less the legend that had been established for her. She’d split up with a partner down south, pretty acrimoniously, and was trying to start afresh up here.
‘Never mind me, love. More to the point, who the fuck are you? Who is Marie fucking Donovan?’
‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’
‘Haven’t you, love? Where’ve you been for the last couple of days?’
She hesitated, working through the implications of this. She’d been given no brief about how to play the American trip in relation to her supposed cover story. She hadn’t envisaged any overlap between the two. So the smart bastards were putting her on the spot. They’d set her up beautifully to trip over her own feet.
‘What business is it of yours?’
‘Just got back on the 7.05 arrival from Washington DC,’ the man said. ‘We watched you walk into the arrivals hall. Nice luggage.’ He made the last phrase sound mildly salacious.
‘You’ve been fucking following me?’
‘Question is,’ the man went on, ‘what were you doing taking time out, right in the middle of setting up this new business of yours? And why Washington?’
‘Who the hell are you?’ she said. ‘The provisional wing of the local enterprise agency? What’s this all about?’
‘Thing is,’ the man said, ‘we’re not sure you’re what you seem to be. We’re not sure your little story hangs together.’
‘What little story?’
‘This little tale of splitting up with your partner, making a clean break. All that bollocks.’
She began to rise to her feet. ‘I don’t know what you want. But you can’t just keep me here.’
‘We can do what we like, love, until we find out a bit more about you. We get nervous about people coming into our territory, you see.’
‘Your territory?’ she said. ‘What is this? The Wild fucking West? I’m buying a printing franchise, for Christ’s sake.’
‘So you say. It’s just that we’ve got an interest in that business of yours. It has a bit of history.’
She felt a sudden unease. The print franchise was an established business, used by a previous officer operating in the same area. She’d queried whether this was good practice, whether there was any risk that her predecessor had been compromised. She’d been told that, on the contrary, it made life easier. Simpler to take over an established business than to build one from scratch. And, far from being compromised, her predecessor had credibility as a wheeler-dealer who could supply goods – vehicles, people, documents – that others couldn’t. He’d been withdrawn from the field only because he was suffering from health problems. A recently-diagnosed heart condition, she’d been told. She was beginning to understand why that might be a problem in this line of work.
The story they’d put about was that he was taking early retirement, and that Marie was an associate in the same line of illegal business. That she was buying into more than just the print shop. All it needed was for her predecessor to effect a few introductions to the right people and she’d be off and running.
Shit, she thought. Maybe this wasn’t an exercise after all. Maybe it was for real.
If so, she couldn’t imagine that this was just their way of making the introductions, short-circuiting the usual social niceties by bundling her into the back of a sodding van. If this was for real, they’d already sussed out who she was. And that meant that she wasn’t likely to leave this place alive.
Jesus, what was she thinking? Of course it was just an exercise. She was allowing them to play with her head. This was another of Winsor’s fucking tests. Physical assault, threat, psychological torture. Let’s see how she copes with that little lot.
‘What history?’ she said. ‘What are you talking about?’
The man suddenly leaned forward, his features finally becoming visible to her. He was no one she recognized.
‘Don’t you understand, love? We know who you are. We know who you work for. Do you get it now, bitch?’
There was a venom in the final word that shocked her. Christ, she thought. I was right. It’s not a fucking exercise. She began to push herself to her feet, her mind racing.
‘I don’t—’
The man pushed the table violently against her, knocking her back into the seat. ‘Sit down.’ He leaned towards her, the pistol back in his hand. He was tapping the barrel gently against the tabletop as if he didn’t quite know what to do with the weapon. ‘You’re going nowhere. You’re going to tell me all about your undercover work. You’re going to tell me who else is undercover. You’re going to tell me who’s a grass. You’re going to tell me every fucking thing I want to know.’
‘Look, I really don’t—’
‘Know what I’m talking about. Change the record, love.’
She took a deep breath. She would say nothing. She thought – she hoped – that she’d have said nothing even if she believed that it might help secure her release. But these people weren’t going to release her. Not if they believed she was an undercover officer. Not now she’d seen this man’s face. She could feel herself on the verge of breaking down, but she wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of seeing that.
‘I don’t know who you think I am,’ she said, struggling to keep her voice steady. ‘But you’ve got the wrong woman. I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’
The man smiled and shook his head. ‘You’ve got bottle, I’ll give you that, darling. But you’ll talk in the end. You’d be surprised how persuasive we can be when we put our minds to it.’
As he spoke, she silently eased her chair back a few inches, giving herself room to move her legs. Then, suddenly, she thrust the chair back further and kicked out with both feet at the edge of the table, driving it back into the man’s groin. Immediately, she was on her feet, trying to force her way past him to the door.
It almost worked. Her aim had been perfect. The man doubled forwards in pain, momentarily losing his grip on the gun. She’d been unsure if there was anyone else standing behind him in the darkness, but there were only the two of them in the room. She was past him and already reaching for the door when he grabbed her wrist, pulling her savagely back round towards him.
‘Stop it, you stupid bitch.’ He grabbed her throat and forced her back hard against the wall. She was reaching for his face, trying desperately to claw at his eyes.
Behind them, she heard the sound of the door opening, and she knew that any chance she might have had was gone.
‘OK, Josh. That’s enough. I think we’ve seen what we needed to see.’
The man – Josh – loosened his grip, and she stared, baffled, at the figure standing in the doorway.
‘Not bad, sis. You did good.’
‘What the fuck, Hugh?’
Salter. Hugh fucking Salter. Grinning at the terror on her face and Josh’s testicular agonies. Not that she was wasting any sympathy on Josh, whoever the hell he might turn out to be. From the look on Josh’s face, the feeling was largely mutual.
‘Thought you’d got us sussed at first, sis. Thought you’d rumbled it was just a training exercise.’
‘I had. But your friend Josh there was just too convincing as a macho sexist bastard.’
‘Ah, well,’ Salter said. ‘He’s bloody good is our Josh. Mind you, he’ll need to keep his balls on ice for a few days. That’s quite a kick you’ve got there.’
Josh was still glaring at her. ‘Just fuck right off,’ he said. She assumed, perhaps over-charitably, that the words were aimed at Salter.
‘Bit of risk goes with the territory, mate,’ Salter said, still beaming. ‘Especially when you tangle with Marie Donovan, undercover officer.’
It was the closest Salter would ever come to acknowledging her success. But it was close enough for her.
‘What’s this all about, Hugh?’ she said.
‘Training exercise, like I say. Which you came through with flying colours. Sorry if Josh went a bit over the top, but we had to get to the point where you’d start to think it might be real. Up to that point – well, it was useful, because at least it showed us you could stay in character . . .’
‘Even at the crack of dawn after two days of just being myself?’
‘Quite so. And you did it well, but there was no real pressure. Not till Josh managed to get you questioning whether it might be real after all. Then we saw what you were made of. Josh in particular, I think.’
‘Christ, you don’t do things by halves, do you?’
‘Can’t afford to, sis. Look, this is what it’s going to be like. I mean, not like this – let’s hope not, anyway. But having to keep up the act even if you’re being challenged, even if you’re scared out of your wits. Having to improvise when things don’t go to plan. Having to remember which lies you’ve told and to whom.’
‘Jesus, Hugh, anyone suggested you get a job in sales?’
‘They like people who tell the truth, do they? But you’ll be all right, sis. If you can get through this lot, you’ll cope with anything the job can throw at you.’
‘I hope you’re right, Hugh. Because it doesn’t feel that way just at the moment.’
‘You did good, girl,’ Salter said again.
‘Well, thank you, Hugh.’ She turned and nodded to Josh. ‘And thank you, too, I suppose. You make a very convincing total bastard.’
She moved towards the door, wanting now just to be out of there, to be heading home. To be sleeping. The adrenaline had melted away, and she felt as exhausted as she had back at the airport. As she pulled open the door, she paused to look back at Salter.
‘In fact, you both do,’ she said. ‘You both make very convincing total bastards.’
Liam waved the bottle in her direction. ‘Want any more?’
‘No. You finish it. I’ve had enough.’ She drained the last dregs of the red wine, and climbed slowly to her feet. ‘I’m knackered,’ she said. ‘Think I’ll turn in.’
He poured the last of the wine into his own glass. ‘What time you off in the morning?’
‘Not too early. About eight, probably.’
‘We can have breakfast together before you go, then.’
‘If you’re up.’ She immediately regretted the response, which sounded more sarcastic than she’d intended.
‘I’ll be up,’ he said. ‘Want to see you before you go. One last time.’
‘It’s not forever, Liam. A month. Then I’m back.’
‘For a weekend. Then you’re off again. And so on. Maybe forever.’
She bit back her exasperation. ‘We’ve been through this, Liam. Dozens of times. It’s what I want to do. It’s a new challenge. It’s terrific experience.’
‘I know. I know it’s what you want. I’m not trying to stop you. I don’t have to like it, though.’
‘No, well, you’ve made it very clear that you don’t.’
‘You’ve said yourself, Marie. It’s risky. We’re having to live apart. You can’t expect me to like that. Or pretend to like it.’
She nodded. ‘OK. It’s not going to be easy. But we’ll get through it. They won’t let me stay out in the field for too long. No one does. A year. Eighteen months, max.’
‘Almost there already, then,’ he said. The tone was ironic, but he was smiling now at least.
‘Come to bed,’ she said. ‘It’s our last night. We ought to make it worthwhile.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Five minutes. I’ll just finish the wine.’
‘Don’t drink too much. I don’t want you incapable,’ she half-joked. ‘How are you feeling now, anyway?’
He shrugged. ‘Not so bad. Tired. Aching a bit. But I’ve been feeling better lately. Not so difficult walking.’
She looked at him, wondering what was going on in his mind. Whether he was really feeling better or just trying to make the best of things. Since he’d received the diagnosis, he’d become harder to read, more withdrawn. When she tried to talk about it, he just shrugged it off. There was nothing to say, he insisted. Maybe it would be all right, maybe it wouldn’t. All he could do was take each day as it came.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘But you don’t want me falling asleep on you.’
‘Certainly don’t.’ He raised the wine glass in her direction. ‘Here’s to you, Marie. Here’s to us. Here’s to the future.’
He sounded very slightly drunk, she thought. And there was no way to tell whether he was being sincere. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘To me. To us. To the future.’