“Of course you were.” She wiped away her tears. “Of course you were.”
“Have you forgiven your brother for keeping things about Caspar from you?”
“Let’s say it’s a work in progress. But he’s my brother, the only family I’ve got.”
“You have me—my brother, sister an—”
“Your parents?”
“Yes. And Felix. We’re your family.”
She moved and lay a hand on his cheek. “Go shower. I’ll put the coffee on. When you come back, you can tell me why Bryce and that woman were here.”
Five and a half minutes later, Kitt ambled into the kitchen, in his dressing gown, in need of feeding, left hand bandaged. He smelled clean, of orange, bergamot and a whisper of spicy nutmeg that blended with the aroma of coffee. The scent suited him.
“There’s something we need to talk about,” he said, moving behind her to kiss her neck.
“That phrase always sounds so ominous.”
“Yes, it does.” He nosed into her hair. Felix nosed the back of his knee.
Mae giggled and squirmed away all goose pimply, kicking a tennis ball across the white tiles where a man had once bled to death. “So, who was she and what did she want?”
The dog chased the ball and caught it, growling as he bit into it.
Kitt watched the dog for a second, then set his eyes on his wife. “That was the Consortium’s SOD Deputy Director Barbara Cubby and Bryce. I’ve been asked to step into the position.”
“What position?” She moved to the cooker, switched on the gas, and set a frying pan on the hob.
“Director of Special Operations Division, Llewelyn’s job.”
Mae looked at him quizzically. “What did you say?”
“I said I’d have to discuss it with my wife.”
She leaned against the worktop beside the cooker and glanced at Felix chewing on a yellow tennis ball. “And then what happened?”
“Bryce laughed, Cubby handed him fifty quid, and…I’d say you were gazing at me adoringly, but you’re not. Why are you looking at me that way, with that indefinable expression?”
“A few reasons really.” She switched off the gas and slid the frying pan from the hob. “Before Llewelyn died, he said something about retiring and naming his successor. I’m quite sure he was about to say his successor was you.” She reached for her coffee cup and had a sip. “At the time, I thought he was goading me, but he wasn’t. He expected you would step into the role, as if you’d been planning to, which I don’t think you were. I don’t think you ever considered it, although you are now.”
“Am I?”
“You must be if you said it was something we need to talk about.”
“Oh, sod, it, I am.”
Mae chuckled. “If you decide that you don’t want this job—”
“I never said I wanted the job. My stepping into that role, hanging on to that life, it isn’t safe. I cannot, and will not, continue to bring that life upon you. I have yet to find a way to keep you safe and that job is not it. I hate hiding. I don’t want to send you someplace where I only see you now and again, but that is all I can think of. That is not a life for you. This not a life for you.”
“You don’t get to make that decision for me.” She laughed and shook her head. “Caspar chose for me. I had no say. What he did decided the course of my life, but it brought me to you. I will not decide the course of yours. You will not decide the course of mine. I want to be part of your life and not have you resent me for something you have to give up to be with me.”
“I wouldn’t resent you,” Kitt said, expecting her to give him the look, the one he loved, the one that told him he was full of shite. But she didn’t have to because he knew he was full of shite. Yes. Eventually, he would resent her.
“Your parents,” she said. “I’ve wondered about them.”
“We’ll meet them soon. They live in,” he gave a small laugh, “New Mexico.”
“I mean, I wonder how you keep them safe. Your sister, too. Simon can take care of himself, but how do you keep your parents safe?”
“I don’t see them often,” he said with a more than a touch of remorse. “I don’t live with them. I don’t sleep with them.”
“And they understand?
“Yes.”
Mae set her coffee cup on the butcherblock worktop. “The other day, well, night actually, I mentioned that I have a way that this might work for us, that might keep us all safe. Perhaps I have a very good way.”
“I cannot wait to hear it.” Kitt leaned against the edge of butcherblock and looked at his dog gnawing on a bright yellow tennis ball.
Mae crossed her arms. “Just listen. You have to do what’s best for you, for your psyche. It’s a strange, selfless virtue to risk your life for others, and I know this isn’t something you merely choose to do, it is something you have to do. You believe you are giving back to humanity and I have teased you for that.”
“Mercilessly.” He sipped coffee.
Mae smiled. “You once said that you have a highly developed social conscience, being born into a world with more wealth and comfort that you could ever need means you have a moral responsibility, an obligation to look after and give to those less fortunate and share your wealth in more than a philanthropic capacity. What was it, you believe in community, service, social justice? I know who you are. I know how you are. I know the restlessness typically begins at three months. The inactivity burrows beneath your skin, and it becomes evident, in subtle ways, that the sedentariness of work that doesn’t challenge you turns you soft in mind and body. I’ve lived with you long enough to know the pattern. The occasional pulse in your jaw, the long sigh when you finish your scrambled eggs.”
He set his cup down on the worktop a little hastily. Coffee splashed up and over the rim. “Are you—are you encouraging me to take on the role?”
“I’m encouraging you to be true to yourself.” Mae handed him a tea-towel to mop up the spill. “Being true to yourself in this case means regular hours, close to home, all the intrigue and manoeuvring, with only the occasional instance of an international crime syndicate trying to kill you.”
“Only the occasional?”
“You’ll need an assistant. If you pick up the dog poo, I’ll do the paperwork.”
“I’d have Bryce for that.”
“Yes, Bryce, your trusted Moneypenny-type is already sorted, but you are in need of a floor manager, one you can trust, one who would never, ever serve you tea.”
“Goodness me, you are encouraging me to take on the role.”
“I’m saying,” she looked at him with one eye narrowed thoughtfully, “that it’s a not perfect solution. We make up stories to fit the image of ourselves and the image of the messy, horrible, beautiful, imperfect world around us. I love you, Hamish. You turn me inside out and upside-down. You want me to stay. I want to stay. I know I am a husk, hollow without you. Th—”
“A husk?” Kitt lifted a brow. “That’s a bit dramatic for you.”
“Yes, surprising, isn’t it?” She poured more coffee in her cup. “This may surprise you as well. Here is my idea. Instead of hiding, I say we live in the open, like ordinary people, because we are ordinary people—you just happen to kill. If the idea of safety is such a concern, if you’re worried someone might try to poison my coffee beans, or the Chelsea bun I send to work with you, I think I have something of a safeguard for myself, and it might allay your fears for my safety, maybe even yours.”
Felix growled and shook the living hell out of the tennis ball, bright yellow fuzz hanging from what had once been a sphere.
“You know I keep a journal, but at this point in time it’s maybe less of a journal and more of a…book.”
“You’ve written a book?” He handed back the tea-towel.
Mae topped up his coffee. “It began as something to help me process the things I’ve been through. I started last year, I wrote about killing Sal Tornatore with a toilet brush in this kitche
n, finding Russo the baker’s hand toasting in an oven in Sicily, to you declaring your unspoken love for me right here in this kitchen. Then it became part of the job I had when I thought you were dead and I was observing Taittinger and his wine-collecting, cultural artefact-stealing friends, but the journal became a narrative. Now it’s a book.”
“When have you had time to write a book?”
“What do you think I did in the empty hours when you were away?”
“Empty hours. I like that.”
“I thought you would.”
“I believed, in all those empty hours, you were renovating and cursing my name.”
She shrugged and nodded. “Those days you were gone were devoid of any joy, and in my joyless evenings, when I finished renovating and cursing your name, I wrote. Then after you returned home, in the mornings, when you went to your office, I wrote. Do you see what I am suggesting, the safeguard I have, should I need it?”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I supposed you want to take the story to the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Sunday Times?”
“It’s what happens in spy films and spy novels all the time. Someone goes to the press, feeds classified documents to a reporter. The reporter ends up dead, but the newspaper exposes the corruption deep within a black-ops government agency. But no, I don’t want to be an unnamed source. I want to tell the story myself.”
“How, take it online, send it out on social media?”
“I was thinking of having it published as a sort of memoir.”
“Do you know how hard it is to get published?”
“I’d self-publish it.”
He laughed. “Oh, yes, the world will rush to read your self-published memoir.”
She paid his mocking no mind. “I imagine it would be like Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer’s Operation Dark Heart: Spycraft and Special Ops on the Frontlines of Afghanistan and the Path to Victory, only without all the politics, the hollering about classified documents, government attempts at censorship, and my suing the Crown for the right to print an un-redacted document.”
“Christ. You read too many spy novels.” He had a gulp of coffee, his favourite Tanzanian brew, and wondered if she’d spiked it with something because what she was saying made…sense.
“Shaffer’s book isn’t a spy novel. It’s a memoir, and the attempts to keep secret some of the information he included attracted attention, which led to an increase in book sales. Have you ever heard of the Streisand Effect, the phenomenon where an attempt to hide or censor information has the opposite effect of spreading the information widely?”
“Is that what you’re hoping for?”
Felix rushed out of the kitchen and back in again, the remnants of the fuzzy, floppy tennis ball in his mouth. Mae looked at the dog and grinned and he zoomed out of the kitchen. “I’m hoping for a satisfying resolution to this strange little love story of ours, which, I suppose is a more like a novel or screenplay rather than a memoir,” she said.
“A screenplay? Really, Mae?” Kitt drank the rest of coffee that wasn’t drug-spiked.
“It’s not that far-fetched. Think about it, it’s got everything; suspense, action, thrills, murder, mystery, spies.”
“And true love, don’t forget true love. This has also been a love story.”
“Somebody often dies in a love story.”
“We’re both still alive, but I see your point. Perhaps you could stretch it out to a fourth book and give it a happy ending. Everyone loves a happy ending.”
“I think it works better as a trilogy.”
“How then would you conclude this trilogy?”
She lit the hob and placed the frying pan on it. “With scrambled eggs, Hamish.”
“And that, my love is the happy ending. If someone was writing a book about your life, this would complete the story or narrative arc.”
“It’s not an arc, it’s a feckin’ circle. Here we are, where we started, in the kitchen, frying pan on the cooker, a cup of coffee in your hand as you wait for me to scramble your eggs.”
“That was then. This is now. This is forever.”
“I prefer forever to until death.”
“As do I. It’s far more romantic. Here we are now, in the kitchen, in service to each other, forever.” He set his empty mug on the worktop, and the earnestness she’d grown accustomed to, the sincerity that made his cool, blue-grey eyes glow with heat whenever he bared his feelings, appeared, his gaze as hot and bright blue as the flame on the gas cooker. “I love you,” he said.
She looked at him, expectantly, waiting for him to continue, waiting for genuine, sentimental declarations that didn’t ensue and she frowned. “I love you, is that all I get?”
Head cocked slightly, the left corner of his mouth rising. “It’s not impassioned, flowery, or poetic, but it is simple. To the point.”
“So it is.” She cracked three eggs into a bowl. “Would you see to the toast?”
Kitt plunged whole-wheat bread into the toaster and watched her whisk whites and yolks together, watched her pour them into a pan with a knob of butter that melted, watched her push the yellow liquid about until the pan was filled with pale and fluffy scrambled eggs, and he grinned, but the smile was short-lived. “I have no idea what I am going to do for a living.”
“So you’re not going to take the job?”
“It does come with a rather nice Mercedes, but there’s so much paperwork, Mae.”
“In that case, how do you feel about renovations and restorations? I’m thinking of buying a place in Oxfordshire or Surrey. One of them is a ramshackle estate with a ramshackle cottage that has a stone fence and an orchard right at the front.”
“This scares the hell out of me, but I think we ought to discuss my future, our future over breakfast. Are those ready?”
She spooned fluffy yellow onto a blue and white Minton plate with a gilt edge. She handed him the dish. Kitt stared down at the mouth-watering, pale-gold, perfect, tiny bites of joy, and grinned again. Could it be that simple? Her idea, insurance, the stuff of clichéd, idiotic spy film and fiction, might just work.
“You know, Hamish,” Mae said, the toast popping up, “murder, spies, mystery, romance, dead bodies, weird weapons, henchmen, villains, it’s all enough to destroy a couple, but our relationship has always been built on the solid foundation of a good breakfast.”
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to Suzanne and Henny for their assistance with Dutch language and culture. Many thanks to Fiona Gregory and Dr Illias Zontirios for the toxicological expertise (and hot dance moves). Thank you my Liebchen, Kriss Wagner Plumer, for showing me true friendship by reading my first (truly horrible) book and sticking it out as I became a better writer. Blessings upon Anne-Marie Scoones for reading the messy draft. I am grateful to Rebekah Turner for all the tireless-nothing-is-too-hard cover love, coffee, and writer bitching sessions. My sincere thanks to Angelo Thompson for the time he read Goldfinger to me on a road trip, to Elle Gardner for knowing regret is unprofessional, to Lisa Barry for always being excited about writing. A special thank you to Megan Whalen Turner for telling me stories, encouraging me to as well, and wanting to stuff me into the boot of her car after 40 (40!) years of friendship. Many thanks to my big little love Belinda for editing what I never knew was going to be a series.
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Finally, to my big, bearded Sicilian—thank you for your enduring patient love and support, and emboldening me to make enough money to buy the really good coffee.
About the Author
All my books present women over the age of forty as lead characters. I am so interested in dispelling the myths and ‘Hollywood’ stereotypes of older women you often see (or don’t see) in fiction and film I did a doctorate on the subject! You can call me Dr Sandra.
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Although I live in Australia, please note I use both UK and US English spelling depending on the characters and setting of the book. Any mistakes in Italian, the Sicilian dialect, and
Dutch are mine. My US-based novels, A Basic Renovation, For Your Eyes Only, Driving in Neutral, and Next to You, are romantic comedies and romantic-comedy-mysteries published through Escape, a Harper Collins imprint. My UK-set books that are part of the In Service series, At Your Service, Forever in Your Service, True to Your Service and the short story, Your Sterling Service, are cosy and gritty romantic spy mystery-thrillers.
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My books are available as ebook and paperbacks via
www.sandraantonelli.com and all other e-tailers.
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I have been persuaded to write another book for the In Service series. Since it takes me about a year to write a book, I’ll aim for a 2021 release. The fourth book is tentatively titled Your Uncommon Service.
True to Your Service Page 32