It’s just after five in the morning when Beth wakes. She reaches out her hand and discovers that Elliot’s side of the bed, though still warm, is empty again. Light filters into the bedroom from the landing window because Elliot has left the door ajar. Beth lies in the gloom and listens. Even though he’s speaking in hushed tones, she can hear his voice drift upstairs.
Beth turns to the bedside cabinet and opens the drawer. Taking the clone phone out, she looks at it. She can see he’s on a call and the recipient is once again his mother. Beth fights with herself not to listen in. It would be so easy to press the phone to her ear but before she does, Elliot hangs up the call. Beth puts the phone back in her drawer and waits for him to return.
When Elliot comes into the room, Beth turns the light on beside the bed. He’s shocked to see her awake.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asks.
‘Oh nothing, just went for a glass of water,’ he says.
Beth blinks. She’s hurt by the obvious lie. She decides to take the bull by the horns.
‘You were on the phone,’ she says. ‘Who were you talking to?’
‘It was just a work thing,’ Elliot lies again.
Beth sighs. She doesn’t know what to say or how to reveal she knows this is a lie without admitting to cloning his phone. Something they’d probably never be able to recover from as a couple.
‘It’s not the first time you’ve made calls in the night. Tell me what’s going on.’
Elliot loiters by the bedroom door, uncertain what to say.
‘It’s my mother,’ he says. ‘She suffers from insomnia sometimes.’
‘Your mother? You’ve never told me anything about her,’ Beth points out. ‘Where does she live?’
‘She’s in a care home in Manchester,’ Elliot explains. ‘I did mention her once. She’s got dementia. I don’t talk about her much because… I feel guilty about leaving her there. I thought you’d think bad of me.’
Beth folds her arms.
‘Why would I think bad of you?’
Elliot shakes his head, reluctant to talk.
‘You might as well tell me because I’m not going back to sleep until you do,’ Beth says.
‘I tried to look after her, but she needed twenty-four-hour care,’ he says. ‘The weirdest thing is, she’s mostly okay and remembers everything, but then she gets these episodes. The doctors say, one day she won’t remember who I am and that will be it. So, when she wants to talk to me, I let her.’
Beth processes this information but she still has doubts. Why would he talk about work to his ailing mother? And because she can’t think of a reason, she asks him.
‘I thought I heard you talk about the murder case to someone, a few nights ago. Were you talking to her?’
‘Beth, my mother is the only person I talk to about anything other than you. You know what this job is like. We can’t tell anyone anything. But sometimes, when she’s not being very lucid and she’s all confused, I talk shop just to have something to say. I know it’s odd. But she never remembers our chats anyway. She just knows she’s talked to me and it settles her down.’ Elliot holds out his phone. ‘Look at it if you want to. You’ll see her texts and the calls I make.’
Beth shakes her head, refusing the phone.
‘I’m sorry,’ Beth says. ‘It must be awful for you that she’s fading.’
Elliot closes the bedroom door. He gets into the bed beside her.
‘I was going to tell you about her. But… I didn’t want it to be something we talk about. I really want it to be about our life when we’re together. Mum’s condition is a bit of a downer, and I try avoid thinking about it when I can.’
‘I understand,’ says Beth. ‘I won’t ask, but I want you to feel you can talk to me about her if you want to.’
The cloned phone is on her mind as she turns off the light and cuddles up to Elliot. She feels terrible that she hadn’t just asked him what was going on sooner. She blames the current situation at Archive for her constant state of paranoia, but it doesn’t excuse her suspicion of him. She closes her eyes, determined to return the phone and hacking device to Acquisitions the next day, both duly erased and reset.
When Elliot leaves for work the next day, Beth takes the phone out of the drawer. She switches it on and looks at the screen. Determined not to spy on him anymore, she is about to reset the phone back to factory settings when she sees that Elliot is writing a text to his mother.
Might be compromised, Elliot types. Beth questioning our late-night calls.
Time to come home? Mother replies.
Not quite yet, Elliot says. Haven’t got what we need.
Hope you’re not falling for the girl… Mother says.
Never in a million years, Elliot answers.
Make a move soon and get out of there! comes the reply.
Elliot replies that he is On it and the text exchange ends. Elliot then erases the conversation from his phone.
Beth stares at the message even as it disappears.
Elliot isn’t who he says he is and even worse, he’s using her. This is Beth’s worst nightmare.
Beth turns the phone off. Putting it back in the bedside drawer once more, she sits down on the bed staring into space. She wants to cry but she holds it all in.
Elliot had been the one to say he loved her first. He’d instigated every step they’d taken to advance their relationship and he didn’t fake his lust for her. That was genuine. But then, these things were easy for men to do. Beth knew she wasn’t unattractive. She worked out, keeping herself fit to do her job and her body was toned. Yes, she was lust-worthy and Elliot may have seen that part as a perk of the job.
All of those romantic talks we’ve had, she thinks. How he must have laughed at her behind her back. Looking back at everything he’d said and done, Beth finds the deceit almost too hard to conceive. But on the text, Elliot had said he could never love her ‘in a million years’. Beth feels sick to her stomach. She runs into the bathroom and dry heaves into the toilet bowl.
She’s shaking and crying when she returns to the bedroom. She sees the ruffled sheets and her mind flashes back to the night before. The heady sex. Always so unselfish on Elliot’s part as he made sure she was taken care of. Could someone really fake that?
She tries to reconcile what she’s experienced with him and what she now knows about how he really feels and it’s a hard pill to swallow.
He’s a liar. No… he’s a spy. Probably the mole that placed the bugs in their office. But how? He’d never been left alone when he visited her. Beth dismisses this as soon as she considers it. Elliot couldn’t have planted the bugs.
She dries her eyes and tries to bring her mind back to what’s important, taking the emotion out of it and looking at the situation as an agent. According to the text from ‘Mother’, he had a task to do. What was it?
Beth picks up her phone and searches for Ray’s number. She pauses, then presses cancel. What proof does she really have that Elliot isn’t who he says he is? Ray will question why Beth suspected him in the first place. He’ll tell her she shouldn’t have acted alone, and he would be right. What she’d done was dangerous. And really, a few late-night calls weren’t that suspicious, were they? Maybe she’d been looking for a way out of this relationship all along. At least, Ray might see it that way, and that would mean ‘misuse’ of MI5 equipment. A sackable offence. She can’t afford to lose her job, not after all she’s worked for.
Beth decides to keep her findings to herself for now. But it’s not a decision she makes lightly. She’s been an idiot in every sense. She’s shown a serious lack of judgement in getting involved with Elliot, and in cloning his phone just to prove something to herself. Ray will not understand. Not unless she goes to him with something tangible. It is important to discover what Elliot is up to first, and next time to make sure that she screenshots any conversations he has with ‘Mother’ – whoever that really is. That way, she’ll be covering her own back and hopefully bringing a spy in their midst to much-deserved justice. This is the only way she’ll come out of this with both her reputation and her job still intact.
After confronting him for his late-night phone calls, she’s sure he won’t make any again when he’s with her, but that doesn’t mean she can’t monitor others he makes during the day.
Feeling as though she’s taking back control, Beth showers and changes. She removes the phone from the drawer and places it in her handbag, determined to keep checking it at intervals throughout the day. She’s a spy. This is her job and she’s damn well going to find out what Elliot is up to.
When she gets to work, Beth finds an email from Elsa saying she’s been pulled away for a ‘family emergency’. This means the office is only being manned by Beth and Ray. And Ray is out, having yet another meeting with MI6.
Beth curses under her breath. Some people just don’t have the same work ethic as others. The girl hasn’t been there long and she’s already giving excuses not to come in. Beth had learned early on that you don’t put family before this job. Beth finds herself wishing Michael was there. They’d at least be able to bounce ideas off each other, and maybe Beth would even ask his opinion about Elliot. He was after all the one person she’d feel safe to confide in.
On her own and trying to field calls as well as do her own job, Beth’s day is swamped, and she only gets a chance to look at the phone at lunchtime and at 5:30 in the evening when she finally calls it a day. She sees that Elliot’s phone has been silent all day. Beth begins to worry that he knows what she did.
She sends Elliot a text and tells him she’s tired and needs a night alone. On the clone phone, she sees the words pop up as he sends the text.
Not upset with me, are you? he asks.
Beth has been expecting this and so she responds, Think I’m coming down with something and just wouldn’t want to give it you.
Okay. Rest up. Let’s talk tomorrow.
Beth wishes him a relaxing evening and then she studies his phone to see if he contacts anyone.
He doesn’t.
She packs the phone away and picks up her handbag. Then on her own phone she sends a message to her security detail to arrange collection in the car park.
Beth locks up Archive’s office and walks towards the lifts. She wasn’t lying when she said she was tired. A night away from Elliot might help her get some perspective. She knows she’ll have to face him again soon though. If she is to learn what he’s up to, she has to be a better spy than him.
Beth gives a bitter smile. First and foremost, this is what she was trained for. She’s a spy, Michael is a spy and so is Ray. Why should it surprise her that Elliot, MI5 pathologist, was anything else?
A night alone, that’s all I need, Beth thinks. And then I’m going to string that bastard along, just like he’s been doing to me.