I, Spy?

by Kate Johnson

  But then, I never have to pay parking fines…

  I hefted my bag back over my shoulder and stomped out of the ladies, stopping halfway and remembering myself. I plastered on a big fake smile and sashayed on over to Gate 36, where the thug, known as Gavin, was playing with his computer.

  I gave him a smile. “Hi.”

  He looked surprised. “Hi. Do you have a flight from here?”

  No, I’m in love with you. “Yeah,” I said. “Prague.”

  He nodded and went back to his computer.

  Damn. I flicked through the flight systems. There was a Prague flight, but it wasn’t for four hours and it was in another satellite. I toyed moodily with the machine for a while, then had the bright idea of pulling out the keyboard cable while he wasn’t looking.

  “Oh,” I said aloud. “Damn. The keyboard’s not working.” I made a show of checking the wires. “Is it always like this?”

  He shrugged. “Some of them are. D’you want to use mine?”

  Bingo. I leaned across him and wriggled slightly, and checked a few random things on the computer, knowing full well he wasn’t looking at the monitor.

  “They’re all in,” I said, looking up at him on the “in”.

  “What?” He’d been looking at my arse. Men are so damn easy.

  “The passengers. They’re all checked in.” I straightened up and leaned back against the desk. “So what’s yours?”

  He licked his lips. I actually saw it.

  “My what?”

  “Your flight!” I gave the silliest laugh I could. “Where is it to?”

  “Oh. Frankfurt.”

  “Frankfurt, huh?” This was on a plate. “I love Frankfurters.” I licked my lips. “I could wrap my tongue around one right now.”

  Okay, so maybe that was going a bit far, but he was falling faster than Marlon Brando from the Empire State Building.

  “You’re hungry?” Gavin croaked.

  I let my eyes match his. “Starving.” Abruptly, I let my gaze fall. “I’ve been working all day.”

  “Yeah. Me too. What time do you—”

  “I was on all day yesterday as well,” I said. “With all those belt failures.” I stuck my fingers under my own belt for emphasis. I swear, Gavin’s little piggy eyes nearly rolled out of his head.

  “I was at home,” he said in a strangled voice.

  “Really? You weren’t working overnight? I hear the problem happened overnight.”

  He shook his head. “I was asleep. Came on at six yesterday.”

  “You came straight here? Right up to the gate?”

  “Check-in.”

  “You didn’t leave the desk all day?”

  He shook his head. “What—”

  Shit. Losing cover. “I mean, I was on check-in yesterday. I’m surprised I didn’t see you.”

  He smiled. “I saw you.”

  I blinked. “You did?”

  “Yeah. You ran through yesterday.” He frowned. “You weren’t in uniform.”

  Double shit. No, I wasn’t. “I, er, I was just coming off shift,” I explained hastily. “I got changed then realised I’d left my uniform in the staff room. Silly me.” I rolled my eyes.

  He nodded. “You always get changed in your staff room?”

  I shrugged and nodded. I’d heard what I needed and I wanted to go now.

  “It’s right next to ours. Hey, just think, you’ve been getting undressed next to me for months and I never knew.”

  Urgh. I so didn’t need to hear that. “Yeah. Imagine.”

  “Oh.” He was smiling wider now. “I’m imagining.”

  Triple shit. I swung around and started tapping on my defunct keyboard. Nothing happened and I had to restrain myself from slapping my own forehead.

  “You want to hop on over here?” Gavin asked, and I nearly shuddered.

  I managed a smile and leaned over him again, this time trying not to touch. “Well, won’t you look at that? They changed the gate. It’s in Sat 1. Gotta go!”

  I tried to straighten up but was stopped by Gavin’s hand on my backside.

  Oh, quadruple shit with bollocks on top.

  “So, what’s the combination for your staff room?”

  I leapt away from him. “I don’t know,” I stammered. “I, er, I have to go.”

  “Wait a sec,” he squinted at my name badge—or maybe it was my chest, I could never tell—and grabbed my arm. “Sophie, don’t go—”

  I started staring around randomly, looking for some excuse. I was about to start yelling that there was a plane on fire outside when to my immense relief I saw Luke sauntering casually towards me.

  “Luke!” I shouted. Bollocks, I mean, “Luca! The gate’s been changed for Prague, we have to go…”

  “You don’t have a Prague flight for hours,” Gavin murmured. “Spend some time with me.”

  I wrenched myself away and ran to Luke, much to his amusement. “I think you’ve got the wrong idea,” I chuntered to Gavin, who looked very confused. Beside me, Luke was nearly cracking up. “I—I have a boyfriend. Right here. Luca is my boyfriend.”

  Luke stared. Gavin stared. Half a million Ryanair passengers stared. I hadn’t realised I’d been quite so loud.

  I glanced up pleadingly at Luke.

  “That’s right,” he said eventually, sexy Italian accent in place. “Sophie is my girlfriend. We are in love,” he purred, slipping his arm around me. Mmm. He felt pretty good. All warm, and hard, and warm…

  I glared at Gavin.

  “But—but you were coming on to me,” he said forlornly.

  “I was not! I was making polite small talk, one PSA to another.”

  Gavin glared at Luke. “She’s a bloody tart,” he said.

  “Hey, don’t insult my girlfriend. Is okay, baby, I’m here now,” Luke said, and to my astonishment, kissed me.

  I think it might have started out as a little closed-mouth kiss, but it very, very soon turned into a full-blown snog. Christ, he was a good kisser. Or maybe Pete-the-philanderer had been really bad. But I’d never kissed anyone and had sparks before. Not actual sparks. I swear, if it had gone any longer we’d have blown up the satellite. We’d have been arrested for terrorist action. Standing there in the blackened rubble of the building, still making out.

  And there were hands too. Actual hands. Doing rather naughty things under my jacket. Under my shirt, too. I forgot how to breathe when Luke’s fingers brushed my bare skin, but that wasn’t a particular problem at the time, since my mouth was glued to his and I’d given up on oxygen.

  My God. His mouth should be illegal.

  Probably is, in some Southern states.

  “Jesus,” I said when he let me go. I was shaking. An American family was applauding us.

  Luke had his arms around me—just as well, since my bones had all turned to the consistency of custard. “We could get fired for this,” he murmured.

  “I’m the one with the payslip, remember?” I glanced around and my gaze alighted on Gavin. He looked mightily pissed off.

  “I’m calling Ace,” he said, and we both shrugged. He’d only get through to the check-in office, and Luke had said Paola was on today. She’d think it was hilarious.

  “We’d better go,” I said, grabbing Luke’s hand—yes, just his hand, although other ideas did flash through my mind—and pulling him away from the gate.

  In the lift on the way back down to the terminal transit, I couldn’t look at Luke. My face was burning. I had to be professional about this. Yeah. We could be professional. I glanced at Luke.

  “That was hot,” he said, and I felt like dying.

  “Ih,” I said, trying to sound indifferent, “it was okay.”

  Luke lifted my chin so I had to look at him.

  “Liar,” he said, and I nearly stopped breathing.

  The lift doors opened and I stumbled out into the cool air of the transit platform. It was full of passengers and I pushed through them to the front, Luke following me.

 
“Sophie,” he said, catching my arm, “are you embarrassed?”

  “No.”

  “You are.” He grinned. “That’s very cute.”

  I blushed even further and thought about throwing myself under the transit tracks, but they were bloody sealed off by hydraulic doors.

  “I’m not embarrassed,” I told him. “I’m professional. That was a professional action.”

  Luke got very close and said, so no one else could hear, “You wanted me.”

  Maybe I could go out onto the tarmac and get myself sucked into an aircraft engine. I heard that was a great way to die.

  The transit train arrived and I hurtled into the furthest corner, tailed by Luke.

  “Don’t you even want to hear my news?” he said.

  “No.” Then, “What news?”

  “About Ana?”

  “Oh. Yes.” I tried to settle myself. “What about her?”

  Luke winked. “I can’t tell you here.”

  The journey back was torture. I made sure I was in the middle of a crowd all the time so Luke couldn’t tell me how much I wanted him again. Because I really did want him. He was sexy as hell and he kissed like it was life support.

  But I was determined not to let him see. I knew his type. He knew he was gorgeous and he was just trying to get a rise out of me. Well, fuck him.

  Not literally, obviously.

  We got back to the terminal and I eventually had to turn and face him. But his face was blank. “Where now?”

  “Home, James?”

  I shrugged. “If we’re done here. My car’s at the office.”

  We walked back down to the car park in silence. Maybe Luke had forgotten about it. Why was he being so quiet?

  “So, how’d you get on with the thug?”

  I nearly tripped down the stairs. “What?”

  “Did you get anything?”

  I stared.

  Luke laughed. “About the murder. Did you find out where he was?”

  “Oh.” I tried to recover myself, and failed. “He was at home. In bed. He came on at six, spent the whole day on check-in.”

  “Right.” Luke nodded. “Well, he was just a fail-safe anyway. We found out he had a juvenile record. He wasn’t on camera.”

  I glared at him. “So I got the dummy?”

  “In more ways than one. Whereas I found out something extremely useful.”

  “I’ll bet you did.”

  Luke grinned and held the door for me. “Ana wasn’t on the desk when I got there. They said she was off sick. I said I needed to get hold of her on a personal matter and they told me to wait. I told her I couldn’t wait, I was her boyfriend.”

  “Lot of that going around.”

  “And they said, you can’t be, her boyfriend was killed in an accident yesterday.”

  I stared at Luke.

  “Ana Rodriguez was Chris Mansfield’s girlfriend?”

  “Yep.”

  I shook my head. Pretty little Ana? God, she must be devastated.

  “So why’d she go down there in the middle of the night?”

  “Four a.m. Why’d you think?”

  I shrugged, then it occurred to me. “No!” Luke nodded, and I whistled. “That is kinky.”

  “Yep. It’d have been kinkier still if they’d pulled it off, but the tapes only have her going down there, not him.”

  “So to speak.”

  Luke laughed. “Yeah.”

  “So what do we do now? Go and speak to her?”

  “Bingo.”

  We walked out to the car in silence. It was cold and the wind blew straight across the runway at us. I shivered, and Luke put his arm around me.

  “Hey, cut that out.”

  He looked amused. “You didn’t seem to mind at the gate.”

  “I was acting at the gate.”

  “Ah.” We’d reached the car now, and Luke dropped his arm to get his keys. “Acting.”

  We got in, and I fastened my seat belt. My fingers were shaking.

  “So, if I told you the thug was walking this way right now, what would you do?”

  I started to turn my head, but Luke grabbed me. “Don’t look.” He kissed me again.

  I have to tell you, I am fully prepared to back Jeremy Clarkson in his hatred of the Vectra, based on my own experiences. Those seats are bloody uncomfortable when you’re trying to make out.

  But then equally, I have to hand it to Luke. After about thirty seconds I no longer cared about the seats. Or the gear lever. Or the hand brake. Or any of it. Luke’s hands were on me again, and it was magic. His mouth was hot, and he kissed me like he was in charge. I ought to have been bothered about that, but the Scarlett in me just swooned and let herself be dominated.

  The only thought that entered my brain was how attractive my underwear was. Once I’d remembered it was perfectly presentable, I happily shut down all cognitive functions and concentrated on the heat of Luke’s body under my hands, the sweep of his tongue against mine, the hot, sweet taste of him. I felt drugged. It was marvellous.

  Eventually Luke pulled back into his own seat and extracted his hand from my shirt. “Your place?” he said, and I nodded. I knew there’d been no thug.

  I swear, the journey home had never seemed so long. It was about five miles but it felt like fifty. Luke’s fingers brushed my leg whenever he changed gear and I got so hot I had to stick my head out the window. Note to self: don’t do this when there are trees by the side of the road. Having my head attached to my body could only be a good thing.

  It took me bloody years to find my keys when we got to the flat, and Luke didn’t help by running his hands over me and murmuring in my ear what he wanted to do to me. My hands were shaking at the mention of those things. I liked those things—okay, I liked the idea of those things. If he actually did them to me, I'd probably die.

  But what a way to go.

  We fell inside, still kissing, and I tripped over the mail.

  “Dammit,” I said, grabbing the bunch of bills. “Just let me—euw!”

  “What?” said Luke, as I held up an envelope that was dripping all over me. It was dripping something red. It was dripping blood.

  Suddenly all sexy thoughts vanished from my mind, and I could see they were vanishing from Luke’s too. He raced over to the kitchen and grabbed my rubber gloves, took the bloody envelope from me and carefully opened it.

  And withdrew a severed finger.

  Chapter Seven

  We both stared at it. Luke was standing there in my hallway holding a severed finger that was dripping blood all over the carpet. Thirty seconds ago I’d been about to have sex with him. Now he was holding a severed finger.

  “Oh God,” I said, clutching the wall for support. I reached out for the envelope but Luke held it away.

  “Fingerprints,” he said, and peeled off a glove for me.

  It had been addressed to me in the most ordinary of writing, plain blue biro on a manila envelope. There was a torn plastic bag inside which I guess had been to stop the blood leaking all over the place. Somehow it had failed.

  “That’s a finger,” I said, staring at it. “That’s a real live finger.”

  “Actually, it’s a real dead finger,” Luke said, going into the kitchen again and looking for something to put the finger on. He ended up with a plate, which I resolved to smash immediately.

  I watched him get out his phone and speed-dial. “Lexy? Can you access the autopsy of that body? The Mansfield one.”

  How many bodies did they have on the go?

  “Was it, by any chance, missing a finger?”

  There was a pause. My heart was hammering. Someone sent me a severed finger in the post.

  Someone sent me a fucking severed finger in the post.

  “Several. And toes too? Marvellous. Did they check in the mechanism? Okay. Thanks.”

  He switched the phone off and looked at me.

  “There are more to come?” I said, and my voice was rather shaky.

  Luke si
ghed and stared at the finger. “He was missing all his toes and all but the last two fingers of his left hand. The police assumed they’d been ripped off by the mechanism but the autopsy says they were cleanly cut.”

  “But why only leave two?” I sat down as casually as I could, trying to sound like I wasn’t about to pass out. I took some deep breaths. It wasn’t that gross. It was just… Well, okay, it was that gross, but Tammy left dead things all over the place for me to find. Sometimes I didn’t find them until they were mouldy. That was way grosser, right?

  Someone sent me a finger. That was just… I mean, what kind of weird lunatic did that? It was gross, and I was officially offended.

  Luke shrugged. “Maybe he got interrupted.”

  I love the way when people are talking about murders and stuff they always call the murderer a “he”. Like a woman would never do such a thing.

  Ha!

  “Sophie—” Luke was looking at me closely, “—are you okay?”

  I thought about it. I mean, I’ve never been sent a finger in the post before. I didn’t really know how to react. Was I shocked? Was I scared? Was I mostly disgusted?

  “I think I am,” I said eventually, having pinpointed my uppermost emotion as dismay that I’d have to wait to sleep with Luke. “I don’t suppose…?”

  He already had his phone out. He didn’t look like sex was the first thing on his mind, for once. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Luke took charge, and not for the first time I wondered if he’d ever let me do the cool stuff. When would I get to ask Alexa about autopsy things? When would I call the police about severed fingers? When would I get a damned gun?

  At the back of my mind, I started to form a plan.

  “Okay,” said Luke eventually, “we’re going to take this up to the station and then…” He looked at me again. “Sophie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t want me to take you up to your parents’ or anything?”

  I made a face. I was a bloody secret agent now. I did not need to run to my parents every time something gruesome happened.

  “I’m fine,” I snapped. “Can you drop me at the office so I can get my car?”

  We were silent in the car. I started to look around and notice things…things like the hands-free phone kit and the police radio that was currently switched off. I never understood how police kept up-to-date with those things. I mean, we had them at the airport, and occasionally if I got the supervisor’s board or I was closing flights, I got the radio. And I found it impossible to concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing and listen out for the radio at the same time. People always had to call me twice and then usually phone me as well, and I could never clearly pick up what they were saying.