I Spy

by Claire Kendal

  ‘Sorry.’ He releases my hand.

  I shake my head. ‘It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting …’ I take his hand, feel how warm his fingers are, loose in mine. I curl my own around his.

  Gently, he curls back. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  We are still for a minute. ‘Nice?’ He leans sideways, drawing closer, but not touching.

  ‘More than nice.’ I squeeze his hand.

  ‘Shall we find somewhere quieter?’

  I am not going to let what happened freeze me forever. In the throes of my tipsiness, my appreciation of the difference between George and Zac makes me turn to George and look up at his face.

  I have yet to conclude whether George is a good spy or a bad one. He may, in fact, not be a spy at all, though I think this is the least likely option. Whatever he is, my hand is floating to the side of his head, my palm on his neck, my thumb in front of his ear and my other fingers cupping his head behind it.

  Somehow, one of his hands is on my shoulder, and the other on my waist.

  ‘You’re much faster with those hands than I guessed, Mr Markham.’

  ‘I like to think I’m full of surprises, Miss Graham. You certainly are.’ He pulls me closer. ‘You’ve drunk quite a lot, haven’t you?’ Those bright blue eyes of his, those fluttering lids, the way he dips his chin.

  ‘Three glasses isn’t that much, is it?’

  ‘Well, you can still count, so that’s a good sign, and a bit of that third glass did escape.’ He is so gentle. The way he dresses reminds me of a schoolboy. Grey trousers, blue jumper. As if he never learned to do it any other way. He is the anti-Zac, as far as his fashion consciousness goes, or rather, his lack of it. I find it endearing. ‘I won’t take advantage of the fact that you are a lightweight.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’ To my astonishment, I am flirting. My skin is so alive the sleeves of my thin sweater are filled with static. ‘Do you know?’ I say.

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘That I nearly didn’t come out tonight. And I probably wouldn’t have phoned you if I hadn’t had that wine. But I’m glad I did.’

  ‘I’m glad too.’

  I shake my head very quickly, several times, from side to side, then stop suddenly, and open my eyes wide to look in his. Test, test, test. ‘Have you found anything about Frederick Veliko?’

  ‘There’s something I want to double-check. Give me a bit more time.’

  ‘You can’t get in trouble, can you? Are you searching on the Deep Web? Or is it the Dark Web? I get them confused.’

  He laughs. ‘I use a VPN.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A virtual private network. No risk of trouble.’

  Push, push, push. ‘That’s good. But how do you know how to do this stuff, George?’

  ‘Practice.’

  Even drunk, I can’t help myself. ‘Isn’t it unusual to be able to find that sort of thing? I mean, stuff that normal people can’t?’

  ‘They could if they took the time to figure it out.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I say. ‘You have very nice eyes, you know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. A friend of mine says men always do that.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Pretend not to hear when you give them a compliment, so you have to repeat it. She says a man can never hear a compliment too many times.’

  ‘Very wise. What friend is this?’

  I want to say Milly’s name, in the way that unfaithful wives want to drop the names of their lovers into the conversation, despite knowing it is dangerous. Instead, I go onto my tiptoes and kiss George, quickly and lightly, then fall back on my heels, wobbling. He is so tall, I realise, compared to Zac. He must be 1.9 metres.

  He steadies me. ‘As distraction tactics go, that was – excellent. So effective I can’t remember what it was I asked you.’

  He holds out his hand again, and I take it as we descend steps to the lower path that skirts more closely along the black cord of river. To our right is the water, dotted with narrow boats. To our left is the sloping wall of rock. Above that wall, and parallel to us, is the higher path we were on a minute ago, studded with benches. Beyond that is grass, then a brick wall fronted with trees.

  The weir soon becomes a distant hum. The air is steamy, by this quieter water, and warmer than it was during the day.

  George aims us towards a stubby bollard and invites me to sit down on it as if it were a throne.

  I burst out laughing.

  He kneels beside me. ‘It’s good to see you laugh. There’s something so sad, sometimes, that comes over you. Seeing you light up … I could spend a lot of time trying to do that.’

  ‘Oh. That might be nice.’

  He clears his throat. ‘When you phoned me tonight, why did you block your number?’

  ‘Did I do that?’

  ‘You know you did.’

  ‘Can’t you use your mega-Deep Dark Web skills to find it?’

  ‘Let’s say I could … doesn’t mean I should.’

  ‘I like that answer.’

  ‘Tell me something important about yourself.’ He looks so earnest.

  ‘My parents are both dead.’

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that. But extremely glad that you’ve finally told me something meaningful.’

  I am imagining how George would look naked, realising I haven’t imagined this about any man since Zac.

  George tips his head to the side, resting it on mine, and we watch the water. It is so peaceful. There is a whoosh from the path above us. Almost in the same instant, there is a thump, then a splash. George’s head jerks forward, and his body follows after. It is all so fast I only just manage to stop him from smashing forehead-first onto the concrete. My wrist is practically dislocated, my own body slams sideways off the bollard, and I land half on top of him.

  ‘George?’

  He is terrifyingly silent.

  I get him onto his left side, in the recovery position, then stand. I am no longer tipsy, as I look above the rocky slope. A dark figure is rushing across the grass and into the shadows, climbing one of the trees that grows beside the brick wall, then vaulting over the top and into the fields on the other side. I will never catch him. And whatever he threw at George has sunk into the water.

  I lower myself beside George. His body is limp. My bag has fallen to the ground. I strain to reach for it without moving him, grapple for my phone, and dial 999 just as his lids begin to flutter, his eyes open, and he is sick in my lap.

  While George is having a CT scan, the A&E doctor fires questions at me about what happened, how long he was unconscious, how many times he vomited, how hard the blow to the head was.

  A&E is filled with police officers, parading up and down with drunken brawlers who need checks before they are thrown into the cells for the night. Two officers manage to escape their escort duties to take a written statement from me in an empty examination room, and I am subjected to another quick-fire session of questions and answers.

  Did I see the person who did it? From behind, as they ran away.

  Any idea of the height? About 1.8 metres, maybe a centimetre or two more.

  Male or female? Male.

  How certain are you of this? 99.9 per cent.

  Had I any sense that we were being followed? None.

  At this one, I blush at myself for my own failure. I’d been so distracted by George, and hazy with wine, I hadn’t been looking.

  I try to remember the sequence of events. George tipped his head sideways, over mine, and we’d been still for a moment or two before the impact. The point is that they waited until we stopped moving before they threw, so I’m pretty sure George was the target, not me.

  Milly and I spent our childhood by the sea, skimming stones. James used to tease us that we were good enough for the world championships. Did James guess how much time I spent secretly practising, so I could refine my aim and control the force I used? I’d wanted to impress him. I understand
at first hand the skill of the person who hit George.

  Zac played cricket at school and at UCL. He was a bowler. He was very good. The two of us used to have contests on the beach, laughing as we skimmed stones. We always drew.

  However many questions I ask myself, I come back to the same answer. It is one word, three letters, and starts with a big fat Z.

  George is resting on a paper-covered table, in a bay whose blue curtains are drawn at the sides but not the front. In the facing bay, a man with a bloody nose is lying on a gurney. Another hulking police officer is standing beside him. There is so much in the news about how there aren’t enough police officers. Clearly it’s because they are all in this hospital. Invisible on the other side of the curtain to George’s left, a woman is swearing loudly, and I wonder how long it will be before the police officer across the way goes to look in on her too.

  Bits of sick are congealing on George’s jumper. He puts his hand, lightly, to the back of his head, near the top, and winces. ‘I seem to have grown an egg here.’

  ‘I heard them telling you your CT scan looks good. No sign of brain injury so far.’ He is so pale. I continue to count the ways he has passed his medical tests. ‘You seem to be good in your verbal responses and physical movements.’

  ‘I like to think I excel in those areas.’

  ‘The doctor doesn’t want you alone for the next twenty-four hours.’

  ‘You mean to make sure fluid doesn’t start streaming out of my nose and ears? It does that most days.’

  ‘That’s not funny.’

  ‘Are you trying to invite yourself over, Helen?’

  ‘Unless you’d rather call someone else to babysit you, I suppose I am.’

  Bath, Sunday, 7 April 2019

  When I open my eyes the next morning, I don’t recognise the white T-shirt I’m wearing, or understand why I am lying on top of a strange quilt, covered by a velvety throw.

  There is a wooden stool, draped with my skirt and sweater. The sight makes me remember sponging George’s sick from my clothes, and where I got the T-shirt. I’d taken it from his chest of drawers under his direction. Now I know where I am, and why I am here.

  As carefully as I can, I turn and face the middle of the bed. The curtains are open, and George looks ghostly in the pre-dawn light. His eyes are closed, his legs are beneath the quilt, and the rim of his boxer shorts is visible just above it. His stomach is exposed, and I can’t help but think it is beautiful, though worryingly statuelike, so that the resemblance to Michelangelo’s David isn’t entirely a good thing. I wonder so intensely about how it would feel to trail my fingers and lips from the centre of his chest to his belly button that I picture myself doing it.

  But I don’t. Instead, I hitch myself up, pull my hair out of the way and hover an ear over his heart to listen. He is definitely breathing. It is there, soft but even, the rhythm of someone deeply asleep. To the best of my judgement, it is the kind of sleep-breathing that is hard to fake.

  I slip off the bed and step onto the cold wood, sweeping my clothes from the chair and my shoes and bag from the floor as I move. The door gives a small creak as I open it, but George doesn’t stir. I wince when it creaks again as I close it behind me and enter the sitting room.

  I look around me as I dress. Given my impromptu invitation to the pub, and the unplanned blow to the head, George clearly didn’t have time to prepare for a guest. The utter mess in this flat is endearing, compared to Zac’s hyper-ordered ways.

  The sitting room sofa is covered in a mix of discarded coats, carrier bags that haven’t been unpacked, and two laptops, both closed. The floor is a gauntlet of books, piled so high any of them could tip at a puff of air. If one of these books is a fake shell for storing things, finding it would be as easy as locating a specific grain of sand on an endless beach. I step carefully between the piles, in dread of the crash that would come if one were to topple.

  My ever-persistent secret voice is saying, Stop it, Holly. You like him. He’s searching the Deep Dark Web for you with his VPN. Even if you are suspicious of his ability to do this, not every man is a Zac. But a louder secret voice is saying, Then he has nothing to worry about. It doesn’t hurt to be cautious. And you’ve learned the danger of not being.

  I examine the spines of some of the books. Dickens … Hardy … the Brontës. Is it a coincidence that George has so many of my favourites? Mixed in among these are odd volumes in other languages. I pick out French, Italian, Spanish, German, Chinese, and Russian. The last two make me even more certain that this man is no ordinary computer geek.

  I don’t have any equipment with me, but I have a basic app on my phone for detecting hidden cameras. I aim it at the most obvious places – television, computer, light fixtures, the thermostat knob, a wall clock, even the pens scattered across his desk and the car-lock remote mixed up in them. Nothing pings the sweeper app, but if George is British intelligence, his surveillance tools are likely to be immune to any detector of mine.

  I am growing more certain that George’s presence in my life is not an accident. What was his job title, again? Something like Information Systems Security Officer. People with his kind of expertise don’t fall out of the sky. But he isn’t behaving as someone from the Security Service normally would. I may be his target, but his interest in me seems real. And that isn’t how it’s supposed to work. What’s more, if I am his target, why?

  There is a desk, facing another paned Georgian window, and a third laptop, this one large and open, the screen dead. The desk is heaped with papers. George’s office chair is the only clear surface, so I sit down, my back to the room in the pose of a relaxed innocent who doesn’t worry about who is coming. In any case, I can already hear him approach.

  He slowly spins the chair to face him, kneels in front of me, and says good morning. ‘Sorry about the mess.’

  ‘What mess?’

  He puts his hands around my waist. ‘Is this okay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You only have to say if it isn’t.’

  My hand floats to his back. ‘I’m glad you survived the night. How are you feeling?’

  He touches his hair, winces. ‘Like I’ve been hit on the head.’

  ‘Very funny.’ I put the tips of my fingers to his cheek, thinking again about how I’d imagined trailing them down the centre of his stomach.

  ‘That tickles.’

  ‘Sorry.’ I take my hand away.

  He puts it back. ‘Don’t be. I like it.’

  ‘Will you be okay for work tomorrow?’ I touch his blond hair. It is soft, despite its thickness, and surprising after Zac’s smooth scalp.

  ‘No worse than a bad hangover.’

  ‘Who is it you work for, again?’

  He looks me straight in the eye and repeats the dutiful lie he fed me on Wednesday morning. ‘The civil service.’

  ‘Hmmm. Isn’t that a cliché of a cover job, George?’

  He squints. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘What does an Information Systems Security Officer do?’

  ‘Impressive for you to remember that mouthful.’ He turns my hand over in his and studies my palm as if he is about to tell my fortune. ‘Boring stuff. Business analysis.’

  ‘Business analysis?’

  ‘You should have been called Echo instead of Helen.’ He brings my hand to his mouth, presses a kiss on it, and I can feel that my heart is beating faster.

  ‘So what does that mean? Business analysis?’

  His pupils have grown huge and startling, leaving a narrow rim of bright blue. ‘Another of my job titles is Solutions Consultant, if that helps?’

  I am leaning closer towards him, so my chest is against his. ‘What solutions do you offer? Do your employers consult you on the mysteries of the nineteenth-century novel, knowing that your ability to speak multiple languages and penetrate the Deep Web will give you an edge on those pesky Victorians?’

  His answer is a kiss. ‘Is that okay?’

  ‘
Very okay. Which of those job titles is the true one?’

  ‘All of them. Are you a trained interrogator?’

  ‘How many languages do you speak, George? I found books in six so far, but I haven’t examined them all.’

  This elicits a modest mumble of syllables with no meaning, followed by an it’s-nothing, best-not-to-mention-it shrug.

  ‘Is it six?’

  He gives me another modest shrug.

  ‘Ah. More than six.’ Lightly, I try that experiment I’d fantasised earlier, or at least part of it. I slip a hand beneath the T-shirt he put on before emerging from the bedroom and run my index finger from the centre of his chest and down, stopping above his belly button.

  He inhales. ‘Maybe a few more than six.’

  His persona of self-effacing guilelessness and charm is one of the best I’ve seen, but if I had a shred of doubt that he has been targeting me, it is now gone. ‘Are you a spy, George?’

  He turns red.

  ‘Are you spying on me?’ I withdraw my hand from the inside of his T-shirt. ‘I think you may need a refresher course on controlling your physical stress responses.’

  ‘Only around you.’ He circles my wrist, wanting to keep my hand near.

  I break his grip, and it is like resisting a magnet. ‘Is that an admission?’

  ‘Helen …’

  ‘Tell me the truth. If any of this is real – if you actually do like me – you need to tell me the truth.’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘You might also consider reviewing your evasion techniques.’ I stand and grab my bag. My heart is pounding – there is no denying my attraction to him, but also my fear, and anger, too.

  ‘Don’t go.’

  ‘Your death isn’t imminent and I need to leave.’ I move towards the door.

  He shuffles back and forth on his heels. ‘I want to keep seeing you.’

  ‘Only because of the role.’

  He looks down, so his hair flops over his brow. ‘That’s not the reason,’ he says to the floor.