I, Spy?

by Kate Johnson

  The phone rang again, and I ignored it. If I stopped now I might get stuck. I ploughed on to the sound of the phone chirruping (I hadn’t set voice mail yet) and Tammy warbling along in distress.

  When I was parked safely on the paving outside the house, I picked up the phone.

  “Now who’s laughing at my car?”

  Luke sounded very pissed off. “If I go up there, will I get stuck?”

  “There’s that possibility.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “Why didn’t you get a decent car? Really, the kindest thing you could do to that thing is let it sink without trace.”

  “What’s wrong with my car?”

  Uh-oh. Did I just break the cardinal rule? Did I just insult a man’s car? I mean, it wasn’t that bad a car. It was just boring. Luke should be in an Aston or something. Not a Vectra. Not something so…ordinary.

  Maybe I should refrain from saying so, though. I mean, we hardly knew each other, and he was sort of my boss.

  Then I remembered him sneering at Ted and said firmly, “It’s pants.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My dad had one once as a loaner when his got mud in the carburetor. He hated it.”

  “Did you ever drive it?” Luke asked pointedly.

  I made a face at the phone. I wasn’t old enough at the time. “Look, you know where my parents live. There’s a footpath just up the road a bit if you want to walk up, but really, I’ll be fine. Do you need me for anything else?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “So I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “No!” If he called, Chalker would be merciless. “Text me. I’ll tell them it’s Angel or someone.”

  “Ten-four.” And he was gone.

  I couldn’t help grinning at Tammy as I lifted her cage out of the car. In real life, people always said goodbye at the end of a phone call. Or at least thanks, or see you later, or something. They didn’t just cut the call. They only do that in X-Files land.

  Wow. How cool was I? I was just like Scully. Except I had blonde hair. And Luke was cuter than Mulder.

  Well, he was. Speaking purely objectively.

  I kicked open the door and lugged Tammy inside. Strange for such a tiny cat to weigh so bloody much. She was making herself as heavy as possible, I knew, just to spite me. And I’d never be able to get her back in the box to take her home.

  “Oh, hello. Why have you got Tammy?” my mother asked as she came out of the kitchen, tying her apron.

  “There’s a leak,” I improvised. “In the kitchen. Because of the builders. You know, across the car park. I called a plumber but they can’t get the part for it. So Tam and I are coming back here.”

  My mother shrugged. “Okay.” She glanced at the spitting ball of menace that was my baby kitten. “She looks pissed off.”

  You sort of have to get used to my mother. She can be a bit full throttle. Don’t get me wrong, I adore her and everything, but she’s not what you might call normal.

  Guess it runs in the family.

  I poured out some Go-Cat for Tammy, then got some milk at the ready in case she hadn’t forgiven me. But the biscuits seemed to work. She hissed at Norma Jean, my brother’s loopy blonde dog, and made herself at home in seconds flat. Cats are easy to please.

  “Charlie said you had someone over when he called this morning,” my mother said, giving me the sort of “tell me everything” look I usually get from Angel. “Someone male?”

  I’m afraid I blushed. “No, that was just the plumber,” I said. “Sorry.”

  My mother did indeed look disappointed. “Thought you might have invited him over,” she said.

  “What, the plumber? I don’t think so.”

  “It really wasn’t anyone interesting?”

  “Nope,” I lied. “Sorry. So who’s Chalker bringing home?”

  My mother did a palms-up. “I have no idea. Lucy? Laura? Lulu? The one with the blonde ringletty things.”

  “Jessica?”

  “Maybe. One of those skinny hipless things.”

  I smiled at that. My mother and I are united in our fight against turning into my grandmother (I have a good few years yet, and still have to look forward to turning into my mother first, but I still dread the day I wake up and think hair lacquer would be a good idea), who sort of melted outwards as she got older. Neither of us was built to be a hipless wonder, as my mother calls them, and we both know that neither of us would ever be able to run without wearing about three sports bras. We hated skinny girls.

  Chalker’s new bird turned out to be minuscule and hardly out of primary school. Her name was Jeni (had she not even learnt to spell yet?) and she ate about a square inch of lasagne before declaring she was full.

  I should probably explain that while I am nearly a proper vegetarian (just chip shop fish, I swear), my family just cut out red meat. It was some thing my mother started years before we were born as a health fad, just like she started yoga and taking so many vitamins she rattled. The rest of us sort of went along with it.

  I used to eat all kinds of meat until I was six, when I saw my first adorable baby lamb and asked my mother what it was.

  “Lunch,” she answered, and I’ve not eaten meat since.

  Chalker was explaining this to Jeni, with rather more emphasis on me being really weird, and telling her that he ate chickens “because they’re stupid”.

  I gave him a look. “Then you might as well eat Norma,” I said, and from under the table, the dog gave a sigh. No one knew what breed she really was. She was just pretty and blonde and really stupid, and she’d roll on her back to have her tummy tickled by just about anybody.

  Really, she was Chalker’s ideal woman.

  After tea, Chalker got a text from Tom, the singer in his band. Then Tom turned up, apparently to pick up a CD but really to check out Jeni. Chalker had by this point got his guitar out to impress Jeni, and then he handed it over to Tom and started on the piano to really rub it in. Before I really realised how late it was, it was midnight and we were still singing Beatles songs.

  “Oh my God,” Jeni squeaked, “I have to go to college tomorrow.”

  I blinked at her, feeling cruel. “Which college is that, Jeni?”

  She gave me a defiant stare. “Cambridge.”

  Hardly. At dinner she’d said she adored The Importance of Being Ernest, and when my mother asked if she was an Oscar Wilde fan, Jeni had looked blank and said, “Was he the butler?”

  “Really? What are you reading?”

  Her pretty brow creased. Dear me, I thought, better stop that or you’ll get wrinkles. In, say, twenty years’ time.

  “Well, my main text book is Modern Business. It’s sooo heavy. It really makes my back ache!”

  Since a glossy magazine would probably double her body weight, I wasn’t surprised.

  “Are you doing a business degree, then?” I asked, poisonously. I’d seen that book at school—at school—and it most definitely was not a degree-level tome. In fact, Norma Jean could have critiqued it.

  I caught Tom’s eye. He was trying hard not to laugh.

  “Well,” Jeni said, “maybe, once I’ve got my GNVQ.”

  I bit my lip and couldn’t trust myself to say anything.

  “A GNVQ is equivalent to two A levels,” Chalker said.

  “How would you know?” I asked pleasantly. “You never got any.”

  Chalker scowled, and I got up for more wine. My family was great, so long as you have been healthily immunised with alcohol.

  Tom followed me into the kitchen. “What is she, sixteen?” I asked.

  “Seventeen,” he replied, “she says.”

  “She’s such a child!”

  Tom grinned. “You want to know the best bit?”

  I nodded eagerly.

  “It’s not even advanced GVNQ. It’s intermediate. She failed all her GCSEs.”

  I put my hands to my mouth. That was fabulous
.

  When we were at school, we called a GNVQ Generally Not Very Qualified. If you did A levels then you had to do three subjects and fill your timetable up, but the GNVQ lot rolled up for about three hours a day, including study periods. Plus, it was generally acknowledged that any qualification in business meant nothing. It was like on The Secret of My Success when Brantley finds out his college qualifications will only get him a job in the mail room.

  Jeni left soon after to get her beauty sleep before going off to chew her pencil at Cambridge Regional (not quite the same as King’s) in the morning. Tom crashed out on the floor in Chalker’s room. I went upstairs and found Tammy asleep on my pillow, looking all lost and helpless.

  “It’s okay, baby.” I scooped her up and she wriggled against me, all warm and sleepy and adorable. “The nasty scary people won’t get you here.”

  She curled up in the crook of my arm and went back to sleep instantly. I lay awake, somewhat harder to convince.

  Chapter Six

  I was woken by Tammy licking my nose at half past six. My dad gets up early to go to work and usually feeds Norma Jean before he goes. I guess Tammy remembered the early breakfast from when we both lived here.

  I pushed her on the floor and tried to get back to sleep.

  Tammy burrowed under the covers and settled on my back, kneading and purring. It would have been a great free massage except that she has really sharp claws. I extracted her from the duvet and pulled it right up to my chin.

  Tammy sat on my chest and started patting my nose.

  I was about to give up when I heard Dad get up and go downstairs. Tammy bolted after him and I sank blissfully back into sleep. Ah, wonderful sleep. I love to sleep. It’s one of the things I’m really good at.

  Dad let Norma Jean out and she started barking at the rabbits on the other side of the stream.

  I gave up on sleep and went downstairs, thinking, I’ll be productive. I’ll work on the Nokia.

  I managed to set ring tones and voice mail and, by the time I’d finished, was so sleepy I dropped the phone on the floor and went back to sleep. Tammy joined me and we curled up together on the sofa, both of us exhausted by yesterday’s very long day.

  Then my new phone rang.

  It was flashing Luke’s name. “What?” I mumbled sleepily.

  “Wake up.”

  “I am awake.”

  “I’ve got a job for you.”

  “Oh, goody.”

  “Lexy’s gone through the computer and come up with a couple of names who could be behind yesterday’s grisly murder.”

  I shuddered.

  “And you want me to…?”

  “Check them out. I’m doing it too. Give me five minutes to get my contacts in and I’ll be back as Luca. Come up to the office in half an hour, I’ll give you the details then.”

  He clicked off and I sat staring at the phone. Half an hour? I had to wash my hair and everything!

  Tom was waiting as I came out of the bathroom, dripping, wrapped in a towel. He ran his eyes over me.

  “Oh Sophie,” he said longingly, “why don't you dress like that more often?”

  “Because I’m part of a huge campaign to halt bathroom perversion.”

  He winked at me and slipped into the bathroom.

  I threw on yesterday’s clothes, stopped and swore and went charging around the house for my Ace uniform.

  “I thought you were working a late today,” my mother said.

  “Change of plan. Overtime,” I explained, grabbing a shirt from the laundry basket and trying to remember where my scarf was.

  Crap. It was at home, along with my pass.

  I made it to the office only ten minutes late and scrambled inside. Luke was reading through some paperwork, looking serene and sexy in his un-crumpled uniform, eyes brown, in full Luca mode. Alexa was immaculate and smiling. I was hot, sweaty and irritated.

  “You’re late,” Luke said.

  I glared at him and he shrank away. “Next time, give me more time.”

  “Half an hour is plenty long enough to get ready and come into work.”

  I flashed a look of despair at Alexa, who rolled her eyes. “Coffee?”

  “Yes. Please.”

  She rolled over to the kettle and switched it on and, when she came back, handed me a large manila envelope. “This is all for you.”

  I looked inside. Oh God. Warrant card, red go-anywhere BAA pass, remote keys to the office, complete with passcodes, list of phone numbers for me to program into the Nokia.

  It was like Christmas.

  “Don’t save any of those numbers under their real names,” Luke said. “Put them all as Mum or Aunt Alice or make up a lot of names. But for Christ’s sake remember who they are.”

  I looked down at the list. A lot of them were police chiefs and army contacts. “Let me guess, I have to eat this when I’m done?”

  Luke and Alexa shared a look. “You could,” Alexa said, “or you could just burn it.”

  Better plan. I was liking Alexa a lot.

  “Don’t let anyone see your red pass,” Luke said, “you’re not supposed to have one. Ace still thinks you’re a Passenger Service Agent.”

  “What about the duty managers?”

  “They know about me—at least, they think I’m with Special Branch. They know you’re helping me. They don’t know you’re actually with us.”

  I nodded as if I understood.

  We went up to the terminal in the Vectra. “Seriously,” I asked Luke, “this is your car?”

  “Ha ha.”

  “Why do you have it?”

  “Why do you think?”

  I raised my palms. “Lost a bet?”

  He gave me a look. “Would you look twice at a Vectra driver?”

  “I wouldn’t look once.”

  “Exactly.”

  “…Oh.” When he put it like that, it was rather sensible. Wasn’t that why the police drove them as unmarked cars?

  We parked up and made our way up through the undercroft to the terminal, Luke briefing me as we went.

  Hark at me, a briefing. Look out, world, I was a real secret agent now.

  “I need you to keep an eye on this guy.” He handed me a grainy photo of someone with a shaved head. “Has a record. We’re just checking him out as a precaution. Lexy hacked into the allocations, he’s on the gate today. Checking in a flight to Frankfurt. Get your arse over there and flirt the information out of him.”

  “Precisely what kind of information are we looking for?” I asked, wondering how far I’d have to take the flirting.

  Luke grinned. “Just where he was when Mansfield was killed. Lexy has it down to somewhere between two and four yesterday morning.”

  Eurgh. So while I was deciding whether to get out of the airport business, Chris was having it decided for him.

  “Any questions?”

  “Just one. Why was Chris in the undercroft in the middle of the night anyway? If he was on the morning before then he wouldn’t be working that night.”

  Luke tapped me on the head. “Smart cookie. We don’t know why he was there. He was supposed to be working middles, nine-to-five.”

  I made a face. We never did middle shifts. “All right for some.”

  “Don’t be bitter. You don’t have to do shifts any more at all, remember? Only when we need you there. Okay, kid—” we’d reached the stairs now, and Luke seemed to be expecting me to go up them, “—race you.”

  “Naff off.” I walked past and pressed the button to the lift.

  “Can’t you even run up a flight of stairs?”

  “That’s about three storeys!”

  “You need to be in good shape.”

  “I’m in plenty good shape,” I said, offended.

  Luke ran his gaze over me and I felt a little hotter.

  “Prove it.”

  I sighed. “I am not racing you up those stairs.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’ll win.”

  �
��Defeatist.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “At least walk up them.”

  Eventually I consented to that, although Luke jogged up and taunted me from the top. I glared at him and stalked past.

  “So where are you going?” I asked.

  “Cameras caught one of the girls from Information going down there on the night in question. A Miss Ana Rodriguez.”

  I frowned. “I know her. We went to get our passes together.” I frowned deeper. She was very pretty in a Penelope Cruz sort of way. “Luke, how come you get the tiny little Spanish girl and I get the big scary thug?”

  “He’s not a thug. His file says he’s only six foot.”

  “Oh, tiny.”

  Luke grinned. “He’s shorter than me.”

  “Show off.”

  He laughed. “Got your phone?”

  “Yes. Both of them.” I hefted my Ace bag. “And my other pass. And my warrant card—which, by the way, I have no idea what to do with. And I have my cuffs and defence spray and everything.”

  “Running shoes? Sports bra?”

  “That’s a very personal question.”

  “Don’t flirt too hard. There’s nothing unsexier than a big boulder-holder sports bra.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him and made my way over to the gate.

  On the way over to the satellite the Ace jingle played at full volume. The Ryanair girls in their natty little blue suits looked over at me and tittered, and every single passenger zoomed in on my Ace logo.

  I tried to make myself smaller. It was hard when you’re five foot ten and wearing a giant black parka with the word ACE stamped across the back in massive letters.

  I skipped into the ladies on my way to the gate. Luke had told me to invent a cover story, so I figured I’d make something up about a last-minute gate change that left me in the satellite with nothing to do for a while. I checked out my reflection, got out my make-up and added extra mascara and lip gloss, and wished desperately that the Ace uniform gave more leeway for sexiness. Probably people would notice if I unbuttoned my shirt halfway down. Besides, as Luke pointed out, my sports bra really wasn’t too attractive.

  It’s not fair. Flat-chested girls can run whenever they want. And they can wear pretty little camisole strappy things. I have to have substantial shoulder straps. It sucks.