The cold inside the house sent a shiver down Astrid’s spine, making her back arch and fingers clench. It also triggered her first memory of the man who should be living there. It was six months of training and frustration before she got her first taste of an active investigation; and her first sight of Director Cross. Something important was happening across London, and the heads of the other intelligence agencies had made their way to the clandestine organisation hidden from the public.
‘Is this a COBRA meeting?’ she’d asked Agent Storm.
‘COBRA is what the public see,’ he replied. ‘This is CHAMELEON.’
The Agency was a hive of activity; people with gloomy faces and dread in their eyes scurried everywhere. The only expression of calm in a sea of worry belonged to Director Cross. He was a handsome man who could have spent his days lounging around on fashion shoots in the world’s most stylish cities, with his warm blue eyes, chiselled cheekbones and distinctive short grey hair. As he ushered his colleagues into a windowless room, she stared at him, and he gave her a smile which warmed her heart. She couldn’t understand why she was like that. Up to that day, she’d thought about running away again, fleeing another situation which constrained her. It was that brief expression of emotion from Cross which convinced her to hang around a little longer, to let the Agency provide some direction in her life.
It was another three months before he spoke to her, a cheery ‘good morning’ as they passed in the hall. By the end of her first year, she was sitting in his office, waiting for her initial appraisal. She’d expected it to be delivered by Joe Storm and was surprised to see the director walk into the room. Their friendship had grown from that moment. Grown enough for him to convince her that life in the Agency would eventually destroy her.
‘Once you accept the Agency’s invitation, you’re there for life,’ she told him. Astrid knew of agents who had tried to leave; they got their way, but not how they wanted. They didn’t return to a life of freedom, but were spirited away and never seen again to keep the Agency’s dirty secrets from an unsuspecting public. That’s why George initiated her disappearance from the Agency, until it had all gone wrong for both of them.
Astrid remembered his sweet smile as she flung the door open and marched into his home. Her hand stretched out to turn the light on as she stepped over the pile of unread mail scattered on the floor. Laurel kicked the paper on the ground to one side as she closed the door.
‘How long since you were here?’
Astrid continued into the house, decorated with floral prints and brilliant blue paint on the walls. The place smelt clean and fresh, with a hint of his aftershave lingering in the air. But it was only her imagination recalling her last visit to the house, her face pressed against his as they said their goodbyes.
‘A year ago, not long before I started my Vacation.’
Apart from a thin sliver of dust across everything, nothing had changed in the room: a medium-sized TV in the corner; table by the side of the wall adorned with plastic roses; small pieces of jewellery; and two porcelain ornaments of a mother and child. Grey carpet covered the floor, with a three-seater sofa accompanied by two single-seaters in the same patterned style of reproduction Art Nouveau. The walls were white and bare, reminiscent of a doctor’s surgery. Against the far wall was a large bookcase stuffed with volumes of all shapes and sizes.
Laurel slumped into one of the single chairs as Astrid sprinted up the stairs.
‘What are you doing up there?’
She did a quick sweep of the upstairs, checked everything was safe and clear, before heading down carrying a laptop.
‘Laurel, can you check the kitchen to see if there’s anything edible in there? And put the kettle on while you’re at it.’
It was more of a gentle request than a command. Laurel did as instructed while Astrid slumped into the sofa and opened the laptop. She crossed her fingers and hoped it was charged since she hadn’t been able to find the cable for it, sighing with relief when it sprang to life. She punched the password into the screen as Laurel returned, holding a couple of dusty tins of chilli beans and a packet of posh-looking rice.
‘These are out of date by a week, but it was the best I could find, unless you want some indiscriminate green fruit.’
‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’
‘If you hack into the Agency system with that, they’ll track us here. They’ve improved their search and destroy technology since you took your Vacation.’
The worry in Laurel’s voice drowned out the sounds of hunger in Astrid’s stomach; neither of them had eaten since they’d left Delaney’s.
‘Eventually, they would, yes. But I don’t need to get into the Agency files. There’s a perfectly good database on this computer; it’s just a tiny bit out of date. You’re not on it, for example.’
The grin transformed into a smile wide enough to catch flies. Astonishment consumed Laurel’s face.
‘What?’ Laurel said. Having a copy of the Agency database outside the building was a treasonable offence.
‘One of the first lessons George taught me was never to trust anybody you worked with or for, especially in our line of employment.’
She indicated Laurel should sit next to her. It was so she could show her what was on the screen, but she also had a sudden craving to squeeze her hips next to the other woman. Being in dangerous situations had always played havoc with her libido, and the current perilous state had thrown it into overdrive.
Laurel sat down, clutching on to the two tins of out-of-date chilli beans as if they were comfort blankets. The rice was lying in the middle of the floor where she’d dropped it at the news of Director Cross’s illegal and unprofessional activity.
‘Is this why he never returned to work because they found out what he was doing?’
‘I don’t know what happened to George; and I will find out, but I don’t think it was because he was collecting information he shouldn’t have. If it were the case, they would’ve found this place and what he has here.’
Laurel stared at the screen. ‘How old is the database?’
Astrid scanned the details. ‘It’s at least a year out of date. He must have prepared this not long after I left; I’m not on it.’
Laurel grasped the significance of that: everybody who’d ever worked for the Agency - current staff, deceased agents, those on Vacation, and all those who’d left in some ignominious way, including imprisonment - were on the Agency database.
‘He was going to use this to replace the existing one so you could disappear forever?’ Laurel’s eyes were as wide as Astrid’s grin.
‘That was the plan.’
‘But people would remember you.’ She sounded as if she didn’t believe they’d get away with it.
‘Of course, they would. But if I weren’t officially in the database, they’d assume I’d moved on to another pseudonym, another identity. And if they were brave enough to ask at the highest level, George would say it was need to know only.’
She relaxed into the sofa as the laptop warmed her legs. Laurel dropped both tins of meat into her lap, only aggravating Astrid’s hunger for something more than food.
‘Why would he do this for you? Risk everything he had, that he’d built over the years, for somebody who worked for him?’
Astrid’s mouth quivered for a fraction of a second, highlighting the vulnerability inside her. It was a liability she perceived as weakness, something she’d erased as soon as she’d left home. At least, she’d thought she had. It pained and warmed her at the same time. Fearful it would cost her everything, she was also glad of the new pleasurable sensations it had given her: first with Olivia, and now with Laurel. To feel protective of somebody else, like she did with her niece, or to know that somebody was concerned for her generated a type of happiness she’d rarely experienced before. Before now, George had been the only person she’d cared about. She thought long and hard before answering the question, hesitant to open herself up to anybody.
‘Because I was like the child he’d always wanted but could never have. For me, he was the parent I’d dreamt of since I was a kid while my biological father hurt me and my mother laughed.’
And my sister conspired against me, smiling all the time she did.
Wherever George Cross was, she was determined to find him.
Laurel took the laptop from where it sat on Astrid’s legs and placed it on the floor next to the tins. Then she took Astrid into her arms, and they held on to each other into the night.