Steel kept herself busy in the time since Edwina’s funeral, kept to herself and nursed her wounds. She still hadn’t said anything to Major Darling about her sense of Georgia. She couldn’t even think about it, let alone talk about it. She would lie awake at night and pray that she was wrong. She would go over it all again and again, looking for the ludicrous in all of her assumptions. She didn’t find them, though. She still saw the puzzle piece as a perfect fit, and it only made her shattered heart bleed with a need for retribution.
* * *
SHE WENT UP and into the woods at Dorrington again. She took photos and ran as many forensic exercises as she could, but the forest had been swabbed clean. The scenes of Edwina’s and Andrew’s murders had both been meticulously lifted and relocated to a property two miles south, restaged as a drug arrest gone bad. It had been the work of experts, experts, Steel assumed, that she had been working alongside for the last six years. These were people she knew and trusted, who were now putting their talents to work for the sake of conspiracy and corruption.
She walked the now peaceful woods and pondered how common all that must be. She was new, as green as the saplings vying for light beneath the great oaks. Did the world really work this way, the way cynics and conspiracy theorists always claimed it did? Was subterfuge the order of the day, even at the highest levels? Maybe she wasn’t as adept at discerning the big picture as she was at the little ones. Maybe she had an eye for the pebbles and the sand, yet the faraway horizon never came into focus.
The wind whipped around as she went back to her patrol car. Her intuition was failing her. She couldn’t remember when she had ever doubted herself as deeply as she did now. What else had she been this wrong about? How could she have found herself to be in love with someone so duplicitous?
* * *
HER PARENTS BOTH knew something was seriously wrong. Her mother had been in a panicked state since Davina came home a week earlier with her arms and body bandaged and stitched. Davina slept later and talked even less than she normally did. Her shoulders seemed to droop with each and every step. Sheena stayed quiet when she could. She pried carefully when she couldn’t. Davina of course denied that anything was wrong, but it was no use: Sheena felt the pain she was carrying.
Steel’s heart was broken in the common way that a young woman’s heart breaks and bleeds, but this was different. This was something from the movies and from spy novels, something greatly uncommon. Every time she turned on the television the news was in some way or other lashed directly to her own personal plight, her own private pain. It was all “Georgia” all the time, and when it wasn’t “Georgia” it was “Adam Tatum.”
Had she been used? Was it all to keep her close, to know what she knew, what Darling knew? How much had she said? How much had she spilled out into that late-night intimate call? She wanted to retrace every bit of the conversation, but it hurt too much to go back over it or any of the other interactions they had had.
She called Georgia a third time. She didn’t want to make the call. She wanted to be standing on much firmer ground than this, but she dialed, held her breath, and waited as her mobile rang with a nauseating buzz. Georgia answered. Her voice, soft and throaty, comforted Steel, comforted and frightened her.
“I want to see you. I’ve been trying to call. I’ve left messages.”
“I know, love. I want to see you, too. It’s been such a thunderstorm these last few days. You must know that.”
“You’re the prime minister now. That feels so strange. It all feels so different.” There was silence. Georgia waited for a powerful current of emotion to settle back down. Steel could almost feel it through the phone.
“I want to see you, Georgia, so badly. I have so much to tell you. There’s so much that we need to talk about. I just need … you.” Once again a word had jumped from her mouth like a fish from a bucket back into the ocean, never to be seen again. She wished she hadn’t said it that way, casting herself as so weak.
“I need to see you as well, Davina. I do. It’s just that we’re in high drama here right now, do you see? Every hour is key, every minute spoken for.”
“What about now? Can I see you now? Can I come to see you, please?” She was one beat short of begging, but she didn’t care. She had a need and a purpose and was desperate to fulfill them both. Georgia knew it wouldn’t work to bring Steel to Downing Street—into the hot light cascading over her every move. She promised her a quick answer, hung up, called Early, woke him in the middle of the night, and against every bit of her better judgment had him come round and drive her to Bloomsbury.
* * *
THEY WALKED SILENTLY through the foggy streets. Early walking just behind them, while Stacey Rimple, the MI5 guard whom Early had insisted on bringing along, stayed back in his car outside Steel’s parents’ flat. Georgia hadn’t wanted Rimple along, but Early had prevailed upon her that her world had now changed and that caution was needed, even in moments like this, when it was being thrown to the wind. Georgia had her scarf over her head, once again covering her face. She wore her old ratty wool jacket, which made her look a true chemist’s daughter out for a windy night stroll with a young female friend.
They tucked into Bloomsbury Square. A tiny, authentically square patch of unhealthy green nestled alongside a tall office block and a row of old homes. It was dark and forgotten. The trees were not large or full enough to hide drug use or illicit sexual encounters, and there was no real place for shelter or sleep, so it sat quietly at night, waiting for the morning and the pedestrian traffic or the first rumble of the parking lot buried below it. Early hung back and gave Georgia the privacy he knew she would never have again. Georgia and Davina instinctively found a nest of small trees to shade themselves from the moonlight.
They kissed, softly and carefully, neither sure who had initiated the embrace. Steel went weak in the knees. She didn’t want it to end, wanted to pull her even closer, but instead pulled herself back and looked at Georgia. It was a razor’s edge, what she was feeling. It was lust, love, bile, and hate, all in a perfectly wrapped bow. She did what she could to mask the dread. She wasn’t here to confront her. She wasn’t after drama. She was hunting truth. She knew she needed to keep the flame on the front burner. She stroked her cheek, teased her.
“Madam Prime Minister. What must that be like? You must be so thrilled.” Georgia chuckled in reply.
“I don’t know what I am. I really don’t. I’m a bit adrift, if you must know. I’m taking it all on a minute-by-minute basis. So much of it doesn’t seem real. Does that make any sense?” Steel nodded, yes, and spoke in a gentle whisper.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about so much—about us, but also the investigation.”
“Have you uncovered anything new? Is there a break?” She led Steel over to a bench. They sat down holding hands.
“No. It’s more of what I thought, though. Even clearer now that someone very high up is involved. The murders in Tewkesbury last week of the DPG agents—” Georgia cut her off with a concern that Steel knew was inauthentic.
“The drug bust?” Steel struggled again to stay in the light, to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“Yes. But it wasn’t a drug bust. It was murder. Heaton’s men were responsible, and it took place on the grounds of his Dorrington property.”
“That’s absurd. It seems to be a cut-and-dried case of a drugs bust. I read the report.”
“I was there, Georgia. I saw it all with my own eyes. I watched Edwina die.” The blood drained from Georgia’s face. “Heaton is a monster. He’s behind all of this. He’s murdered that Gordon Thompson, the American’s father-in-law. He tried to murder Roland Lassiter. It’s him. I’m sure of that now.” Steel’s eyes went cold. Georgia saw the change and held her hand firm.
She wanted to tell Steel everything, let the truth escape from her soul, fly out and up, right there over Bloomsbury Square, but she knew that she couldn’t. She’d be revealing herself not to a beautiful young thing who had somehow stolen her heart, but to an investigator dead set on the truth. She wanted to tell sweet Steel how badly she had been duped, how sick she was with it all. She wanted to confess and collapse right into her arms, to hear young Davina tell her how right it all was eventually going to be, how much she was going to do to protect her. Each breath she took as they silently held each other’s hands brought her closer to releasing her burden—to confession.
Steel somehow sensed it, somehow gleaned through the old wool coat and the now pushed-back scarf Georgia’s desire to open up to her. She tried to prod the conversation along to her benefit.
“Do you have any idea who in the government he could have aligned with him, any sense of it?” She looked deep into Georgia’s eyes, begging her to volley back with the truth. Georgia sat there for a loaded moment, waiting for a response to percolate, praying for the right combination of words to come together. What should she protect? Her life? Her job? Her freedom, or her heart? She finally spoke, stroking Steel’s hands as she did.
“No. No. I have no idea who he’s colluded with. I couldn’t even begin to think who would stoop to that. I wish I had an answer, love. I do.”
They spoke just a while longer. Georgia laid out promises about uncovering it all—about them finding a time to be alone together, in some safer version of privacy, nothing, though, that had a sincerity to it. It was time to move on—they both knew that. They kissed gently once more, held each other in small fits of warmth, and then Georgia left. Early walked her back to Rimple’s car.
Steel watched as the government vehicle lumbered off. She had had this one chance to get Georgia to confess. It hadn’t happened. It was over between them. She was sure of that.
She knew Georgia had cleverly held her tongue. She was sure, as well, that she’d never get as close to her again. It was all now past tense between herself and the new PM. Steel stood alone in the frigid night air on the vacant, sterile, concrete street. She opened her coat and ripped out the useless recording device she had taped to her chest.