Beth turns over in bed to find Elliot gone. She glances at her watch and notices it is almost midnight. He’d met her back at her house that night and they’d cooked together and eventually hit the sack around 10:30pm. Beth had indulged in half a bottle of wine, but was unusually tired. She’d drifted off while Elliot was still in the bathroom brushing his teeth.
Beth switches on the bedside lamp. She gets up, pulls on her robe and goes in search of Elliot. She hears his voice drift up the stairs as she reaches the landing.
‘She’s asleep,’ Elliot says. ‘No… not a thing…’
Beth pauses and listens at the top of the stairs. She finds herself frowning as she wonders who Elliot is talking to.
‘There’s another body,’ he says. ‘That’s five now.’
There is a long silence while Elliot listens to the person on the other end of the phone.
When she returned to London from Newmarket a few days ago, Beth was told about the multiple bugs Michael found and the subsequent cleansing of their office that followed. After that there were a series of interviews. On Monday, all members of the team were subjected to polygraph tests to see if they could find the mole. Beth hadn’t been concerned about this as she knew she hadn’t done anything wrong, but one of the questions Ray asked was if she had any doubts about anyone else. She’d said ‘no’. But she’d been lying because she openly accused Ray of spying on them all to Michael.
But it isn’t just Ray she is worried about now.
As she listens to the one side of Elliot’s call, a new anxiety creeps into Beth’s mind. Who is Elliot anyway?
He’s been in her life such a short time and he’d come on full pelt straight away. It isn’t something she thinks about too much because when she does, she feels this same unease. Beth tries to dismiss these qualms again. It was, of course, a coincidence that the former pathologist had taken ill. Cancer she’d heard. When Elliot took over his job though, Beth fell straight into his arms with barely any hesitation. Elliot excited her and she liked feeling this way. Some would say she was rebounding following her split with Callum, but Beth knows this isn’t true. Elliot is the most interesting person she’s come across in a while, plus, she’d thought he was a safe relationship because they both work for MI5.
‘I’ll let you know what I find out, but I have to get over there now,’ Elliot says.
She hears him hang up. Beth returns to the bedroom, gets back in bed and turns off the light before Elliot comes back upstairs.
‘Beth?’ he says from the doorway.
‘Is something wrong?’ she says sitting up as though she’s just been jerked awake. She reaches again for the lamp.
‘Just got the call to go to a crime scene. Ray asked if you could go over there too.’
‘Sure,’ Beth says. ‘Do we know anything about it?’
‘Another body. Looks like the same killer. As usual it’ll be a need-to-know basis that MI5 are there, so the locals will appear to be running the show.’
‘That’s two in a matter of days,’ Beth says. ‘The killer is losing the plot.’
She gets out of the bed and begins to pull some clothes on. Elliot picks up his discarded jeans and T-shirt from her dressing table stool.
When they are both dressed, Elliot picks up his phone to make another call.
‘Who’re you ringing? Beth asks.
‘Got to get the team motivated and over there,’ he says. ‘I don’t have any equipment with me, so I need to make sure they bring it.’
‘Oh, right,’ she says.
She observes that he goes out of the room to make the call, but doesn’t listen in. Instead she goes downstairs, opens the front door, and goes to talk to the security detail posted outside her house.
The driver in the vehicle gets out of his car when he sees her come out. ‘Everything okay?’ he asks.
Beth explains the call to the crime scene.
‘We’ll take you both,’ he says. ‘Safer that way.’
Beth goes back inside the house and finds Elliot on the phone in the kitchen.
‘Hold on a second,’ he says to the person on the line. ‘Beth?’
‘We’ve got a ride as they have to stay with me,’ she says nodding towards the front door.
‘Good,’ says Elliot. ‘Right, so we’ll need crime-scene suits for myself and Security Agent Cane as well. Okay Pam. We’re about forty minutes away.’
Elliot finishes his phone call and Beth picks up her house keys as they go back out to the security team outside. She sets her new house alarm and locks up. Then she joins Elliot in the back of the car.
‘Sorry about this,’ Beth says to the two security men.
‘At least we have something to do,’ the driver says. ‘I’m always up for security on a crime scene.’
As the car sets off, Beth glances at Elliot who is staring at his phone as though reading a text message. He begins to tap a reply and then presses send.
She doesn’t ask him who he’s texting, but she experiences a nervous sickly feeling in the pit of her stomach. Can she really trust Elliot? They barely know each other in the scheme of things. And it’s not the first time she’s woken to find him gone in the night to take a call from someone.
‘You’re quiet,’ Elliot says.
‘Sorry. Still waking up. Tell me what Ray said about the crime scene,’ Beth says.