Thursday 28th January 2016
En route to Nice
Fiona Morris has paid the premium to sit in the front row and gets rewarded on the plane with extra legroom and no one in the seat beside her. No longer wearing the expensive cashmere jumper and sparkly rings and bangles so beloved of Adam Fraser, the young field officer in training is today in down-to-earth jeans and a cheap fleecy top. She is in something of a quandary, feeling not a little anxious and quite a lot confused. Miss Milner’s words of instruction, delivered in the form of a very casual, almost parental piece of advice, still revolve around in her head.
‘Take a tip from a former field agent. No emotional entanglements.’
Originally, she had been a FAST-stream graduate who had rolled off the civil service programme because a talent scout at MI5 had thought she had been bright enough, quick-witted enough, possibly even attractive enough – although heaven forbid that such a line of thinking had any place in the selection criteria – to warrant a quick transition to a permanent position. Her first line manager had been a Miss Margaret Milner. To this day, Fiona has never yet progressed beyond the ‘Miss’ stage, not even when her boss had announced, four months after joining, her intention to move to the NCA. When Milner had then invited the young field agent to come across with her, Fiona had readily accepted.
Field agent. It is, she reflects as the plane reaches its cruising altitude and the engine pitch changes, a strange title.
What do you do?
I’m a field agent.
It sounded only a marginal step up from buying and selling properties.
I work for the NCA. As a field operative.
Agent, operative, who could care less? Not Fiona it would seem, or indeed her stage name lookalike, Emma.
Do you work undercover?
What kind of question is that? Of course she works undercover, she’s an actress, working for the Miss Milner school of low-budget actors. Previous credits include: ski-loving journalist; person executing honey trap on unsuspecting man; and nurse. She had looked up the name of her supposed nursing specialisation whilst waiting at the airport.
Phlebotomist: specialist clinical support worker who takes blood samples from patients.
More interesting than being an accountant, not as much fun as a winemaker, but might still turn a few heads at a party.
What do you do?
I’m a phlebotomist. No, actually I work undercover for the Security Services.
She likes that last bit: The Security Services. Capital letters too, all very mysterious.
Are you a spy?
I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to talk about that.
Certainly more exciting than saying that she works for the civil service. Or indeed the police, which is what she’s meant to say.
I work for the police.
So what exactly do you do?
Without going through the whole rigmarole again, she wonders what the right response would be to that question.
I’m meant to be a case officer for an agent in the field, actually.
Now that is starting to sound like quite an important job all of a sudden, despite her not being sure what, precisely, a case officer is meant to do.
Explain the ‘meant to be’ comment? Are you a case officer or not?
Which brings her full circle to the reason she is currently confused, if not anxious.
Because I might – completely inadvertently, you have to understand, Miss Milner – find myself unexpectedly in something of an emotional entanglement.
It wasn’t meant to be this way. She is actually meant to be in a steady relationship, forget any workplace entanglements. Yes, possibly it had all been a bit too steady for too long: and yes, maybe some of her female friends had been suggesting that she dump her boyfriend and move on. But to become entangled with someone else behind the poor man’s back? It wasn’t the way she would have planned to end a steady relationship, was it?
Or perhaps it was?
Perhaps in going ‘above and beyond’ (in the words of Miss Bateson née Milner) of what had been expected in reeling Adam Fraser into the bosom of the NCA’s low budget operation, she had known exactly what she was doing all along?
To make her anxieties worse, she has never run an agent of her own in the field before. For this production there have been no training courses, no rehearsals, nor scripted lines. Instead, she’s having to rely solely on her ability to improvise.
An agent of her own.
The implication of that statement is that her agent, in this instance Adam, doesn’t belong to anyone else: not strictly true given that he appears, like herself, to be in a relationship already. Perhaps this is the nub of the problem? With possession nine-tenths of the law, maybe this explains why as an inexperienced agent handler she feels so possessive about Adam, her desire to continue going ‘above and beyond’ in the relationship still very much alive and burning? Boiled down to its elements, arguably this is the root cause of her current emotional quandary?
There is one other matter that is slightly bothering her. She held something else back from Miss Milner. The fact that she and Beef had been followed back to their rented apartment by Ricky’s head of security, Vladek. Why did she not confide this little operational snippet to Miss Milner? The truth was, she hadn’t wanted to risk being taken off the case there and then, potentially losing contact with Adam forever. In hindsight, it was and remains a foolish omission. Too bad. The deed, as the record will show, has been done and cannot be that easily undone.
More’s the pity.
“Hi, it’s me.”
“Emms?”
“I guess.”
“Where are you?”
“Gatwick. About to board my flight. How about you?”
“Same old place. Waiting for your call.”
“Can we meet?”
“Are you serious? Of course we can meet.”
“Can you come to the airport when I arrive? I’d like that.”
“What about Beef?”
“I’ll say I’ve been delayed.”
There is a pause, neither knowing quite what to say.
“I am looking forward to seeing you again, you know that.”
“Me too. I can’t wait.”
“Me neither. I’m a bit scared, to be honest.”
“I’ll look after you, I promise. What time do you arrive?”
“Ten-twenty your time.”
“I’ll be there.”