Laurel
Would slapping my boss get me fired? Very likely. Nonetheless, I was tempted.
Unaware of the slapping danger she was in, Nicole grinned at me. She thought she was doing me a favour.
“I’m not doing it,” I said forcefully, glaring at the blonde bombshell in charge of Exposure Magazine’s investigative department. “Find someone else.”
“You’re the only woman who’s both single and capable. I wouldn’t trust this to Jenna.”
“Jenna will be fine.”
“She’s an intern. Can you imagine the insurance issues if she gets into trouble?”
“So you admit this assignment will end in trouble?”
“Not for you. I trust you, Laurel. After your success with the oil spill exposé, this will be a walk in the park.”
“A dark, creepy park in the middle of the night,” I muttered. “Why don’t you do it yourself?”
“Because unlike you, I’m married. If their claims are true and they actually find your soul mate, what would I do then? What happens if my wife isn’t my actual soulmate? No, this is a job for a singleton.”
Like you, I heard her say, even though Nicole’s lips didn’t move. I opened the file again, leafing through the pages our intern had prepared. I had to admit that it was an intriguing case. Women were going missing from across Scotland. At first, there seemed to be no connection between them, until our talented intern had realised all the women were single and registered with a dating agency. Hot Tatties. Their logo, a chubby cupid wearing a kilt, leered at me from the page. Ugly bastard.
“You’ll wear a tracker at all times,” Nicole continued while I scanned the file. “If it gets too hot, we’ll get you out. Which pseudonym do you want to use this time?”
“Why can’t the police do it?” I complained.
“Because this might be the biggest scoop of the year. A dating agency as a front for human trafficking? I want it in Exposure Magazine. This could be your big break. If this is what I think it is, it’ll be a prize-worthy story. Every journo in the country will be jealous of you. I don’t understand why you’re hesitating.”
Because I didn’t like that I was chosen only due to my relationship status. I was single, so what. Anyone could pretend to be. I was in the middle of researching a highly complicated story about industrial espionage, and Nicole wanted me to register with a dating agency? Despite the suspicions, this felt like a fluff story that wouldn’t make the front page if it didn’t turn out to be human trafficking. But if she was right…
"What if they actually find me a match?" I asked my boss. "It's kind of heartless to drive up his hopes only to crush them once he finds out I'm not real."
"Scoop of the century, Laurel. That's all I'll say. Besides, I bet most guys are only looking for a one-night-stand anyway."
I supposed she was right. My own recent dating experience had been disappointing. No matter how often I swiped right, the people I matched with were never what I was really looking for. Even with the most promising dates, something was missing. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but the men I'd met just weren't enough. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe I was searching for a unicorn in a herd of donkeys.
I looked at the dating agency's brochure again. The guys on there were so hot they were clearly photoshopped. There might be one or two hotties like that in real life, but not dozens. All of them wore kilts and along with their ginger hair, they couldn't have looked any more Scottish.
Nicole grinned at me, knowing she'd won. "I'll book you a train to Glasgow."
I stepped into the rain, not surprised at all at the weather. This was stereotypically Scottish, just like the sound of bagpipes from somewhere outside the train station. I scanned the crowd for any hot guys in kilts. No such luck.
This was only my second time in Scotland. My first had been a school trip many, many years ago. They'd taken us to a whisky distillery in the Highlands, but of course we'd not been allowed to drink any. The disappointment of it all - along with a week of rain - was so ingrained in my memory that I hadn't returned since. It was only five hours from London, so if I ended up getting a match from the dating agency, I could almost turn it into a weekend relationship. Not that I was in it for love. I wanted the truth about the disappearances, that was all.
My wig itched and I cursed the decision to dye my hair blue last week. My original walnut brown was forgettable and perfect for undercover operations, but blue was too memorable. So now I wore the wig Nicole had given me, turning me into an icy blonde. It didn't suit me, but my boss thought otherwise. She and the intern had ganged up on me, transforming me into a blonde bimbo with way too much makeup, heels unsuited for the Scottish hills, and a suitcase full of clothes that didn't belong to me. I regretted agreeing to this.
Scoop of the century, I repeated to myself. It was all that kept me from stepping back onto the train back to London.
I hailed a cab and spent the short drive familiarising myself with the dating agency's owners. Pamela Chester and Steffanie Clynder, two local women. Steffanie had only recently been made one of the co-owners. She was who I was going to target. There had to be a reason for that promotion. Pamela wasn't old enough to think of retirement. She'd been the solo owner for a decade, so why the sudden change in organisational structure? Another big flag was how heavily the two women were recruiting. They'd hired several assistants and opened two smaller offices in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. They got regular payments from offshore accounts that explained how they could afford their expansion. In times of dating apps, how was this agency growing this fast?
I didn't know anyone my age who'd used an agency to find love. Why pay lots of money if you could swipe on your phone? Besides, there was something embarrassing about admitting to strangers that you'd been unlucky in finding a partner. I was the only one in my circle of friends who was still single. I'd always blamed it on focusing on my career, but I had friends who were successful in their jobs. One was an A&E doctor. If anyone lacked the time to date, it was her, but she'd been with her boyfriend for five years.
"We're here," the cabbie announced, smirking at the huge kilt-wearing cupid painted on the otherwise drab stone building. "Good luck, lass."
I showed my displeasure by forgoing a tip. I didn't like being judged. Especially not by strangers who knew nothing about me - or about the identity I was wearing today. Laurel Knight, 28 years old, investment banker from London, looking for a quieter life with a Scottish hunk.
I snapped a quick picture of the cupid logo and sent it to Nicole. I'd exchanged my phone for one of the magazine's burner phones, so I might as well use it.
"Good luck," came her instant reply.
I swallowed the snarky response and walked into the dating agency. Two desks sat below another oversized cupid, but only one was occupied. A grey-haired woman with boobs I couldn't help but be jealous of got up and smiled at me.
"Laurel? My name is Pam and I'm one of the co-owners of Hot Tatties."
I shook her hand. If Pam was a people trafficker, she certainly knew how to act. She had a friendly grandma vibe, the sort of woman who'd squeeze you against her ample bosom and feed you biscuits. She did not look like someone who had any illegal dealings going on in the background. But one thing I'd learned in six years as an investigative journalist was that looks could be deceiving. In fact, they almost always were.
Pam led me into a smaller room in the back, this one luckily without a kilted cupid. I took a seat on a blue velvet sofa while she made us some tea. I almost laughed when she came back with a plate of ginger snaps.
"So, you're here today because you filled in our online questionnaire and we think you have high chances of landing a match in our database," Pam said once she'd sat on the old-fashioned armchair opposite me. "I should point out that we're currently undergoing some rebranding. In the past, we mostly focused on Scottish matches, but now we've had a big influx in Scandinavian men looking for love. Think Vikings, beards and axes."
"Axes?!"
"The group of men our agency works with is very attached to their heritage." Pam looked like she was about to say something else, but then shook her head and handed me a tablet.
This had to be a scam. Why would a group of Scandinavian hotties use a Scottish dating agency? But there was only one way I'd find out the truth.
I went through the questionnaire at record-speed, making up things as I went along. Laurel Knight liked knitting, betting on horse races and listened to Grime music. Her favourite colour was turquoise, and she liked her steaks raw. Some of the questions were very random, but I enjoyed coming up with ridiculous answers for my fake persona. Once I was done, I handed the tablet back to Pam.
"Now I just need a quick DNA sample. Spit in this tube and I'll send it out with this week's batch of samples later today. We'll have a result in about a fortnight, although that doesn't mean that we'll immediately find a match for you. I like to say that there's a soulmate out there for every one of us, but if they haven't registered with our agency yet, it makes them harder to find. It's why we're recruiting both lads and lasses as much as we can. Anything to ensure that our clients find their match."
"You really believe in soulmates?" I asked.
"Of course. I'm married to mine."
I eyed her sceptically. Of course, she'd say that. She owned a dating agency; she had to pretend she believed in that sort of stuff.
Pam smiled at me. "I've been with my husband for almost thirty years, but I didn't find out that he was my actual soulmate until last year, when we both took the test. We'd talked about it ever since scientists discovered the tiny DNA marker that identifies soulmates. My hubby and I both agreed that we'd be fine if we weren't real soulmates - after all, thirty years is a long time to get to know each other. We'd been through a lot together and knew our relationship could withstand it. But we also weren't surprised at all when the test came back positive."
I needed a moment to process all that. She was either the world's greatest salesperson, or she really believed in her agency's test. If that test could really identify soulmates, it was revolutionary. I'd get the front page just for that, even if there wasn't any human trafficking involved.
"Why isn't this all over the place?" I blurted.
"What do you mean?"
"If you can find soulmates, why aren't you doing media interviews? Why haven't you been given the Nobel prize for medicine? Why isn't there a queue outside?"
The older woman chuckled. "Because we like things the way they are. Until we employ even more people, we're at capacity. We do a bit of advertising, but word of mouth is mostly enough to keep our database full of eligible singles. If we got more publicity, we'd be unable to cope with the demand. The lab we use can only process so many samples each week. But you're lucky, after a bit of a backlog they're finally back on track, so your result won't take long. I'll get in touch if - no, when - we find a match for you."
It couldn't come soon enough. Not because I wanted to find my soulmate. Because this was the biggest story of my career.