I Spy

by Claire Kendal

  I sucked on his lower lip. ‘Is that medically evidenced?’

  ‘We can add to the research.’ Even drunk, Zac was a germophobe. He stayed where he was, pressing harder against me, or trying to, anyway, with my bump in the way. He turned the taps on, fumbled for the bar of lavender-scented soap he’d bought me, and washed his hands. He was reaching towards the towel rail, flailing when he saw the towel wasn’t there, spotting the heap of white cloth on the floor, bending to pick it up.

  My bump went rock hard, and though it didn’t hurt, though I knew from everything I’d read that it had to be a Braxton Hicks contraction, I couldn’t move.

  ‘What the hell?’ He suddenly seemed a lot more sober.

  I managed to look confused. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Look.’ He pointed at the laptop case and I followed his hand with my eyes.

  ‘Did you bring it in here with you when you got home?’ I didn’t feel even a tiny pang of guilt at gaslighting him, but I did feel huge amounts of terror at the idea of his examining the laptop and finding the portable drive I’d stuck in it.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  I looked him straight in the eye, traced a finger over his lips. ‘You must have.’ I put my mouth close to his again, inhaled. I marvelled that the technique for distracting him had such a high success rate. Maxine knew this when she kicked me out. She knew it when she ambushed and recruited me later. ‘Whisky. You know how sexy I find that, especially when I can’t have any myself.’

  I started to pull him after me, leading him into the bedroom, and he let me. Few circumstances would make Zac resist sex. His fury in the aftermath of my London disappearance was the one time he ever had. He grabbed the laptop on the way out.

  ‘When you said we could conduct some research. I didn’t realise you were talking about the kind you do on that.’

  He laughed and put the laptop down by his side of the bed. ‘Definitely not.’

  Afterwards, all I could think was, please let him go and wash as usual. And he did go. I felt tender towards him for that. Some things about Zac were so predictable.

  According to the clock on the night table, thirty-five minutes had passed since I’d installed the portable drive. As soon as Zac was in the bathroom, splashing at the sink with the door half-open, I rolled to his side of the bed, letting my arm hang off so I could unzip the case one-handed, snatch the portable drive out of the laptop, and stuff it under the mattress. When he returned a few seconds later, I whispered, ‘It’s true, what they say about pregnant women.’

  ‘I could tell.’ He pulled my head into the hollow beneath his shoulder. Already, I was sliding into sleep, as if the adrenaline had drained away all at once, leaving me with nothing to keep going. ‘That’s what I love about you, Holly. You can never hide anything. Your body, your words, your face – they always give you away.’

  Now An Ambush

  Two years later

  * * *

  Cheltenham, Monday, 8 April 2019

  Within minutes of George’s blow to the head on Saturday night, I’d made the decision to visit Maxine again. As I walk up the path to her front door, I think some more about George. I think about why I met him on Saturday night, despite the horror of the previous week, and how lonely I’ve been, and what it was like to kiss him once I got past the flashbacks from two years ago, and how soft his kisses were compared to every kiss I ever had with Zac.

  Then I think about the fact that George is no different than the rest of them, targeting me and lying about it, and I can feel my mouth set into a grimace. Not that it matters – given the fact I’ve blown his cover, he will almost certainly vanish.

  I don’t park out of sight in my secret-stash car. I leave the Mini I drive everyday smack in front of Maxine’s Georgian terraced house. My hair is down. I haven’t bothered with the prescription-less spectacles. Nothing says I am as serious and pissed off as Cat Woman like black jeans and a black shirt and black ankle boots, and that is exactly what I am wearing. It is 8 a.m. when I knock on the door.

  A man opens it, hair wet from the shower, white towel around his hips, his face wanting to twist in irritation but too well-controlled to allow it to. From deep in the house, children are squabbling. There is Maxine’s voice, trying to calm things, though her words are too far away for me to make out what she is saying.

  The man looks at my hands, as if expecting a parcel delivery, but sees they are empty. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I need to speak to your wife.’ I am assuming she is his wife. I know I shouldn’t assume anything, but the wedding ring I glimpsed last time, the children, everything about this set-up makes me think that she is.

  The man is square-jawed, brown-haired, and clean-shaven. A perfect specimen of perfect dismissive politeness. ‘That won’t be possible.’ A child’s shriek pierces the air. He doesn’t react. He is clearly a man who owns the room chairing board meetings.

  ‘Wait – Please.’ He is closing the door as I speak. ‘Tell her Jane Miller is here.’ The door clicks shut a second after my last word.

  I cross my arms, lean against the black iron railings that border the steps to the front door, and sip the coffee I bought at a cafe on the outskirts of the town. I evaluate the paned windows on the house’s ground floor. The wooden shutters are drawn in the lower half of each of them, so I can’t see in, though the upper halves are open, to let in the light.

  Fifteen minutes later, the door opens and the man steps out, flanked by the boy and girl I saw when I spied on Maxine the last time I was here. He must be doing the nursery drop-off on his way to work. He passes me as if I were a ghost. He looks straight ahead, though unhurried and confident, while the children stare over their shoulders.

  ‘Who is that lady, Daddy?’ the little girl says.

  ‘A friend of Mummy’s,’ he says.

  ‘Then why didn’t you let her in?’ the little boy says.

  Good question, I think, but if the boy’s father has an answer to this one, by the time he gives it they are too far away for me to hear.

  I sit down on the lowest step to wait it out, the cold concrete seeping through my clothes and into my skin. My phone rings, taking me by surprise. No Caller ID. I hesitate, but tap the green circle. ‘Hello?’

  There is only silence, though I can tell someone is at the other end of the line, listening. Those who have the number can be counted on one hand. The care home, my GP’s practice, the agency who manage my rented flat, work. Maxine is likely to have the number, too, though I never gave it to her. For an instant, I wonder if it is her, but why would she call when she is on the other side of the door? She will either come out, or she will completely ignore me.

  I don’t know what makes me say his name. Probably the knowledge that he has caught up with me. Whatever mysterious computations are processing through my brain, I am left with a one-word question. ‘Zac?’ The line goes dead.

  There is a change in the air, and I glance behind me.

  ‘Hello, Holly.’ She is wearing beetle-blue cropped leggings and a loose black sweatshirt, and carrying a gym bag. ‘There’s no point my calling you Helen here, is there, when there is no one around to hear? Unless you’d prefer me to?’

  I stand. ‘Are you worried I found you? It was easy, in case you were wondering.’

  She looks faintly amused, as far as Maxine ever allows herself any visible expression. All at once, I realise she must have wanted me to follow her after she showed me Jane’s body. That is why I didn’t miss her that day, despite my worry that I was too late.

  Does she know I was hiding in the graveyard? And that I saw her talking to Martin? Even if she does, she may not realise that I was able to overhear snatches of their conversation, including Frederick Veliko’s name. I certainly won’t be telling her now.

  ‘I saw your children this morning. They’re beautiful.’

  ‘I’m good with that. You’d only ever protect and help a child.’

  I swallow hard. I start to say, ‘Don’t …’<
br />
  She sighs. I’m not sure I have seen her sigh before. ‘Why did you follow me on Tuesday, Holly?’

  ‘Why did you want me to?’

  ‘I wanted you invested in what happened to Jane. But you … what were you hoping to achieve? What were your thoughts about that?’

  ‘I wanted to see what you did next. What you were doing for her.’

  ‘I thought as much. By the way, Zac’s Missing Persons ad has been removed.’

  I stand, not rushing, and cross my arms. ‘You know for a fact he’s here. You know for a fact he’s found me – I just got a silent call from a withheld number that was probably him. You know for a fact he killed Jane. But he’s still running around, throwing stones at people’s heads.’

  ‘He’s a suspect in a murder. I can promise you he’s not roaming free, unwatched.’

  ‘Are you telling me he is under surveillance every minute?’

  ‘There was a glitch on Saturday night with the local police.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘If this is the sum total of what you came to talk about, then I can only say that I’ve done what I can for you. You know what you need to know to protect yourself, so stay aware. What you did with that blog wasn’t smart.’ She has her car keys in her hand, and steps past me, on her way out.

  I grab her arm, twist her around so fast she nearly loses her balance. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t try that again.’ A normal person would hiss this. In Maxine’s flat register the words are chilling.

  ‘What do you mean about the blog?’

  ‘It’s been deleted. Milly will have received an official-seeming message that the domain has expired. I warned you two years ago you couldn’t make contact with your old life. Do you think your coded messages to Milly are going to achieve anything other than fucking with her head? Not to mention your own?’

  ‘You had no right.’ I feel as if I have lost Milly all over again. ‘You’re not God.’

  ‘We had every right. It’s the deal you made.’

  ‘No I didn’t.’ I straighten my slumped shoulders. ‘I never made any deal with you. Do you know what happened to me at the weekend? The man I was with could have been killed.’

  ‘Is that why you came today? Because of this man? George, isn’t it?’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ I practically snort. ‘You know it is. Partly that’s why I came, yes.’

  ‘I suggest then that you believe exactly what he told you. A man from your gym. A business analyst or solutions consultant.’

  I realise George has probably told her that I asked him to search for information about Frederick Veliko. ‘Why is he spying on me?’

  ‘Keeping an eye. Protecting. Though it seems you protected him on Saturday night.’

  ‘You reject me from MI5 because you think I’d sleep with someone for the role, but you promote others for doing exactly that.’

  ‘That is never part of any plan. It’s not supposed to happen. Not sanctioned.’

  I shake my head. ‘You’ve been keeping things from me from the start. Asking me to help you but not giving me enough information to do it.’

  ‘I’ve given you as much as you need.’

  ‘Why didn’t you simply tell me that Jane had been murdered? Why drag me to that house to make me look at her?’

  ‘I needed to impress on you the seriousness of what we are dealing with.’

  ‘Do you think I didn’t already know that?’

  ‘Look. It boils down to this. I thought you had a right to know. I thought you were owed that much. I owed you that much.’

  ‘Did you know all along she was alive? Even when you first asked me to spy on Zac?’

  ‘It seemed probable. We needed to find her.’

  ‘All that concern about her disappearance, about my being in danger. That was all fake.’

  ‘The concern for you was real.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. It never made sense that the Security Service would be so interested in a missing woman. You don’t care about an individual case of domestic abuse. Tell me why you’re so interested in her. I’ve asked you this a million times – you never tell me the truth.’

  ‘I could see Zac was hurting you. And I do believe he’s dangerous. That’s why I got you out. That’s why I wanted you to see what happened to Jane.’

  ‘No.’ I hold up a hand, as if to ward her off. ‘That’s why you put me in.’

  ‘You put yourself in.’ I notice she hasn’t bothered to take off the wedding ring.

  ‘If I’d left sooner …’ My voice chokes. Two years later, and it still chokes. ‘You made me wait.’

  ‘It wasn’t—’ She stops herself. ‘It’s possible it would have been different. No use pretending otherwise.’ She puts a hand on my arm. Almost no physical contact since we first met six years ago, and now she’s tried it twice in a week. ‘I wish it had been.’

  I jerk away. I think of Eliza’s real fear when Zac came home early. ‘Zac may be doing the same thing to his new wife that he did to me.’

  ‘And this matters why?’

  ‘Are you going to protect her?’

  ‘Why would we? She’ll be safe from him soon. He isn’t likely to be free much longer.’

  ‘What about the little girl? She’s the same age – their birthdays are a few days apart. She can’t be mine, can she? Can Zac have somehow got my baby away?’

  ‘This is your real reason for coming here today.’

  I don’t respond.

  ‘Holly.’ Maxine’s voice is so gentle for a minute I think it isn’t her. ‘That isn’t possible. You know, deep down, that the whole world didn’t conspire with Zac to steal your child. Think about it. If it were true, he’d be hiding from you. Putting as many miles between you and that child as he could. He wouldn’t be placing missing persons ads and combing newspapers to find you. He wouldn’t be chasing you to Bath. He’d have happily believed you were dead.’

  I stare at my feet.

  ‘Holly,’ Maxine says again in that un-Maxine voice. ‘Alice has a mother. She isn’t you.’

  ‘She brought Alice to the hospital where I work. Was Zac behind that?’

  ‘Alice has a genetic condition that requires specialist paediatric care. You work in the one place she can get it. I told you that before. It was inevitable you’d meet. If you worked in a Columbian cafe and his wife especially liked South American coffee, you’d have met there.’

  I squeeze my eyes tightly. ‘What about the fact that Jane was having an affair before she left Zac?’

  ‘Who told you that?’ Maxine asks this with her usual flatness, the flash of her humanness already so deeply erased you wouldn’t think it possible that it ever existed.

  I’m in no mood to fill her in about Mrs Hopwell and the telephone calls to Ireland and Texas I made two years ago. ‘Tell me who the man was, Maxine.’

  ‘Let me promise you this. I will explore how much more you can be told. That is my best offer for now.’

  ‘Whatever deficiencies I have, you know you can trust me. You know I keep secrets.’

  ‘True and noted. But there is nothing further I can tell you right now.’

  ‘Fine. Then I want to talk to Martin. Tell me where to find him. Give me that much and I’ll take it from there.’

  ‘Not possible.’

  ‘Is he in Cheltenham? Are you GCHQ now? Along with George.’

  She blinks several times, something I can’t remember seeing her do before. ‘Martin is still in London.’

  I continue to press. ‘What department?’

  She smiles, as if telling a joke. ‘Covert Financial Enquiries.’

  ‘Did Jane commit some kind of financial crime?’

  She does her usual trick of pretending not to hear the question, which makes me think the answer is yes. I remember that business card, emblazoned with the words Albert E. Mathieson, International Tax Law. Maxine said two years ago that she was following it up. Was she telling me the truth? I ask the question aloud.

>   ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘It was useful.’

  ‘That’s vague. In what way was it useful?’

  Again this is met with the silence she so often uses when I press her directly.

  ‘Hasn’t it got beyond you keeping things from me? You’ve shown me Jane’s body. You took away her privacy and dignity when you did that, when you turned her into a circus after such a horrible death. You intruded me on her. And her on me.’

  ‘It was my call. I stand by it.’

  ‘So why did she turn up where I’m living? Why did she die there?’

  ‘Now you’re asking the right questions.’ She considers. ‘I think I can say that you seem to be the catalyst in all of this. Maybe not the only one, but a key element.’

  ‘You’re saying I made someone kill Jane?’

  ‘Of course I’m not saying that. We think Zac found you. And she found him.’

  ‘Well, here is another right question for you, Maxine. Why would she want to?’

  Then The Handkerchief Tree

  Two years earlier

  * * *

  Cornwall, Mid-April 2017

  Zac was sitting beneath the handkerchief tree on a white wicker chair, in exactly the place I’d been two weeks earlier when I phoned the Blackwater Hotel and Mrs Hopwell. In his hand was a cup of lapsang souchong. The tea was black and strong, the way he liked it. There was a hardback book on the white iron table. From the cover, I could see it was written by a lawyer who raises asylum claims for whistle-blowers.

  Zac was so passionately on the side of those who fought for individual freedoms and stood up to authority, yet so against the people closest to him having any freedom themselves. It occurred to me that such a paradox wasn’t unusual. Sometimes when you knew too much about how a thing worked, even if you thought it was wrong in principle, or that it should only be used for a larger good, you still couldn’t help trying it yourself. And then it became a habit. Wasn’t I guilty of this too?

  Beside the book was a laptop, a new machine, I noticed, that Zac switched to sleep mode as I kissed him. Propped against the scrolled table leg was a laptop case with built-in combination locks. The case was silver and new, and appeared to be made of some kind of high-security metal. Was he spooked that night two weeks ago, when he found the laptop in the bathroom?