I Spy

by Claire Kendal

  ‘Albert’s on his way.’ She smiles up at the camera, plays with the settings on a tablet to zoom in on the black leather chair where Albert will soon be sitting. ‘Just to reassure you, the video conferencing software I had you download uses end-to-end encryption. Everything you and Albert discuss will be absolutely secure and confidential.’

  ‘That’s so important these days.’ I say this with real feeling. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s my pleasure. Here comes Albert. You have a beautiful day now.’

  Albert E. Mathieson has the mega-watt smile of a superstar visiting Earth from Mount Olympus. He is in his early forties, like Zac, and every move he makes is made with a snap. ‘Hey, Helen,’ he says, snapping on a smile as he snaps open his briefcase. ‘Great to meet you.’

  ‘Great to meet you too. I’m really curious about what the E stands for.’

  ‘Ernest, my grandfather’s name. I do my best to live up to it.’ He laughs. ‘So,’ he says, leafing through the forms I emailed earlier and his assistant clearly printed. ‘Your US citizen father and British mother divorced when you were a baby, and you were born and raised in the UK. My main tip is for you to remain calm and not panic as you explore your next steps.’

  Is this the kind of tip you charge $1,600 for? ‘Panic about what, Mr Mathieson?’

  ‘Call me Albert, please. Your discovery of your US citizenship, and the tax obligations it brings.’

  ‘I see. Am I right in thinking you knew Jane Miller? Zac Hunter’s wife.’

  ‘Yes. I know her. Did Jane give you my name?’

  Yes, but not in the way you mean. I am thinking of the card she left in her suitcase. ‘The information for your forms,’ I say. ‘My place and year of birth, the countries I’ve lived in, my parents’ citizenship – those weren’t my own facts. They were Jane’s.’ I’d been surprised by how much Maxine had told me about Jane, when it came to it.

  ‘That was an odd thing for you to do.’ The smile is gone from his face. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I wanted to see what issues Jane’s circumstances raised for you. And I was worried you wouldn’t talk to me if you knew my real name – it’s Holly Lawrence.’

  There is a spark of a near-visible charge. ‘Zac’s spoken of you. We were friends in college – but you must know that.’

  ‘Yes. Do you mind picking up your tablet for a minute? I’d like to show you something.’ I direct him to the article about Jane’s body being found, watch him quickly read it. ‘They say it’s an unknown woman. It’s not. It’s Jane. She was smothered.’

  He swallows hard. ‘God.’ He shakes his head. ‘How awful. Zac must be devastated.’

  ‘I’m not sure how devastated the police think he is. Did you advise Jane?’

  ‘No. Zac wanted me to, but no. She wasn’t interested. I did advise Zac, after she left him.’ He sits back. ‘Zac gave me permission to talk to you – said nothing was off limits.’

  ‘Wow. When did he do that?’

  ‘He wrote to me’ – he checks his phone – ‘August, 2017.’ So, two months after I ran away. ‘He wanted me to let him know if you got in touch. Said you’d come across my card. He also said you were missing, presumed dead, but he didn’t believe you were.’

  ‘Well, he knows now that I’m not. Have you heard from him since?’

  ‘Not a word since that letter.’ He pushes the tablet and papers away. ‘Do you know about Jane’s inheritance from her father? The fourteen-million dollars?’

  I don’t bother to mask my shock. ‘Not that it was so much.’

  ‘When he left her that money he might as well have pushed a red button telling the IRS there was an American cash cow in the next field. She wasn’t filing US tax returns and she wasn’t reporting her offshore accounts, so she was breaking multiple US laws.’

  ‘But she was a social worker. She wasn’t a sex trafficker or a terrorist hiding money. Those “offshore” accounts were local to her.’

  ‘She didn’t even know she was a US citizen until the IRS got in touch. Had no idea she needed to obey our tax laws. But boy did they ever go after her. It took me by surprise.’

  It doesn’t take me by surprise at all. I am betting Jane would never have been on the IRS’s radar if the Maxines of this world hadn’t put her there. The US taxes were merely a weapon they used against her, because of her missing brother and his Snowden-esque secrets.

  ‘Incidentally, Jane put two million in a joint savings account with Zac that she failed to report to the US Treasury, so the tax compliance problems affected him too.’

  I remember Milly’s astonishment that Zac never insisted our bank accounts should be joint. She couldn’t fathom why he would bypass such a sure way of getting even more control over me. Now I understand.

  ‘I’ve seen this stuff break up marriages,’ Albert says. ‘You won’t be surprised if I tell you Zac was pretty enraged. They were on vacation in Ireland. Apparently his temper got the better of him. He was violent. Jane ran away, along with most of her funds.’

  ‘Do you think Zac knew where the money went?’

  ‘No way. Plus, Jane left the joint account alone – I had Zac make it over to the IRS. He also undertook to pay the capital gains tax on his house in Yorkshire, once he sells it – did I mention that he put Jane’s name on the deed, so Uncle Sam gets a piece of that too?’

  ‘No.’ I see now why Jane had to flee and go into hiding, but Zac didn’t. There was no clear evidence of their involvement with Frederick, but there was irrefutable evidence of tax crime against Jane that they could use as a convenient excuse to pursue and pressurise her.

  Albert sighs. ‘It’s all so sad. I ought to let Zac know you got in touch, but I won’t, given the circumstances. I don’t want to do anything to put you at risk.’

  I want Zac to know I’m not sitting passively by. And I have said nothing to Albert that would betray a knowledge beyond what Zac would expect of me. ‘No, Albert.’ My head snaps up. ‘I appreciate the thought. But please do tell Zac we spoke.’

  Then The Spin Out

  One year and eleven months earlier

  * * *

  Cornwall, 13 May 2017

  ‘Hello, beautiful.’ It was Zac’s voice, dragging me out of sleep. He kissed my bump. ‘Hello, other beautiful.’ He slipped a hand under the back of my neck.

  I was in the sitting room, on one of the fat floral sofas Zac would never have chosen for himself. I was still half in a dream as I pressed my hands against his chest, trying to push him away.

  ‘Please, Holly. I love you so much.’

  How should I respond to this? I was thirty weeks pregnant and everything was ready. Maxine had followed through at her end. Tomorrow was the day my baby and I would disappear. I would stretch out in the back seat of the car and trust Maxine’s driver to get us to Bath safely. If I didn’t return Zac’s I love you with my own there was the potential for a raging fight that could ruin everything.

  ‘I love you too,’ I said.

  ‘It makes me so happy to hear that.’ He traced a finger over my lips. ‘Have you moved from this spot since I left this morning?’

  Gently, I took his hand, which covered the fact that I didn’t want him to touch me that way. ‘Barely.’

  ‘Good. It’s good that you’re resting.’

  ‘She kicks more when I lie down. I’m worrying she isn’t moving so much. I’ve been trying to keep track of her kicks, but I was so tired I couldn’t concentrate.’

  Zac put both hands on my bump. ‘Well, she has definitely said hello to her daddy. Did you feel that?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘I am. So trust me. I’m a doctor.’

  I tried to smile.

  ‘Let me show you how much I love you.’ He was pulling open the wraparound maternity dress I was wearing. I tried to grab his wrist to stop him, but my arms were caught up somehow, in my partly undone dress, from the way he’d tugged at the fabric and fiddled with the ties. He was lifting my hair from my neck.
His mouth was against my skin.

  ‘I don’t feel like it, Zac.’ I’d got a hand free. It was against his chest, trying to hold him away.

  There was that flash in his eyes, that tightening of his jaw and jutting of his chin, and the familiar pulse that vibrated out of his temple to his scalp. I thought again of my car keys held out of reach, of his magazines and objects. He had promised never to lock me in again, never to take away my phone or my keys again, never to block my car in again, though the last promise would have been easy for him to make given the likelihood that he’d put a tracker on it. Could I trust him to honour all of this, tomorrow of all days?

  ‘There’s been no bleeding since the end of the first trimester. We haven’t made love since April.’ He tried to joke. ‘But who’s keeping track? The midwife told you that intercourse is perfectly safe.’

  I saw the midwife a week ago, the day before my visit to Milly, and Zac wasn’t fully quoting what she said. Safe if you feel like it were her exact words.

  ‘I need to know everything is okay between us. You need to show me that. Come back to our bedroom. You can’t sleep in the guest room forever. It’s been two weeks of not having you with me at night and I hate it. The baby needs to see her parents properly together. We love each other, Holly. We need to fix things before she’s here.’ He’d got me into a sitting position. I was seeing stars. ‘Do you remember the first time we made love? In this room?’

  I wanted to shove him the fuck off me. But if I did that there would be an argument, and it would never end. It would go on all night and into the morning, and he might disrupt his routine tomorrow to continue it. Milly checked and double-checked the doctors’ rota for me, choking back tears while she did it, guessing why I was asking but knowing better than to say. It was absolutely certain that he needed to be at work for handover tomorrow morning. Could I take the risk of wrecking that?

  I had only today to get through. I could go to the antenatal clinic in Bath to check on her tomorrow, as soon as I got there. Just one more day, and one more time, to keep us both safe.

  He was sliding the dress from my shoulders and down my arms. He was unhooking my bra. Did one last time matter? Would it kill me, once more, to do the very thing Maxine wanted me for? My real value, as far as she was concerned. The thought made me want to cry. Already he was slipping off my underwear. He was planting kisses over my neck, my breasts, growing more intense with each one, his breath coming faster.

  He was pulling the cushions from the sofa onto the floor, and me along with them, manoeuvring me onto my side because of my bump, and I told myself that this really would be the last time, though my body tried to move despite my willing it not to, and then I was panicking and he was holding me and the dress was a tangle and my balance was off and I couldn’t get loose or get up or stop him.

  Cornwall, 14 May 2017

  ‘Say goodbye to me properly.’ Zac was trying to kiss me and I was straining my head away because I was scared that if he put his mouth on mine I was going to be sick.

  Go, I told him silently. Please, please go. Please go. You need to go. If you don’t go, then I can’t either.

  I didn’t want to tell him that I wasn’t feeling well, and my bump was hurting. If I did, he might stay. If I told him that I might never get away.

  His arms were around me, propping me up. My feet were bare. The flagstones were icy, and I realised that that was different. Since my pregnancy, I had been so warm I didn’t usually notice the chill below.

  The grandfather clock was no longer in its place. It was sliding sideways.

  ‘You’re pale, Holly,’ he said. ‘Holly?’

  The walls were moving and Zac and the clock were moving with them. It was hard to keep his face in focus, but I thought he was frowning. He was squinting, and saying the word pallor, and blue, and something about listening to my heart, and running bloods. He was saying shock, too, going into shock, and I wondered why he was shocked.

  I was no longer in our entry hall. I was with Milly and we were at an amusement park. We were on a ride. It was called The Spin Out. We stayed in one place, standing with our backs to a post and our feet locked down and a belt around our waists, but the circular room turned round and round, twirling us faster and faster as the floor dropped.

  ‘Holly? Holly, Holly, Holly. Holly, look at me. Can you look at me, Holly? Look at me.’

  The walls were spinning and spinning and spinning some more, and the floor was dropping further. There was only air beneath my feet.

  My legs seemed to have lost their bones. Something stabbed me, low down in my belly, and ripped away inside. A rush of hot liquid streamed down my thighs. My brain seemed to be spinning, too, inside my own head.

  Now Illegal Entry

  One year and eleven months later

  * * *

  Bath, Tuesday, 9 April 2019

  I fall into bed after ending the video call with Albert E. Mathieson, but my head is too full to sleep. It was data that drove all this, I think. Financial data. Security data. Personal data. Text and numbers and codes. But behind it all were real bodies, messy bodies, with blood and flesh and damaged hearts filled with grief and jealousy and longing and despair and fear, and sometimes love. That is what gets lost in it all. That is what Maxine and her friends don’t pay enough attention to. That is why they make mistakes. Why we all do.

  I am haunted by Jane and how she was hunted by Maxine and the intelligence agencies of at least two countries, then hunted by the IRS at their behest. All the time I thought I was trying to save Jane, I was working against her. I was feeding information to the very people she had run from. Every scrap I found made them more likely to catch her. And if it weren’t for my presence in Bath, she and Zac might not have collided. She might still be alive. Why was she here? The question won’t leave me alone.

  Around 5 a.m. my eyes slip shut, but they open again with the early morning sun. By 7 a.m. I am standing in the shower, trying to wake myself up under a stream of water that is as hot as I can bear. I think of Alice, and put on the most non-grim thing I can find, a midnight blue T-shirt dress dotted in tiny white crescent moons. It is long-sleeved and A-line, with hidden pockets. I wear black trainers. Shoes that I can run in are a constant necessity.

  I down two strong coffees, take a bite of a stale croissant, and make myself wait until 8 a.m. to try Eliza again. There is still no answer, so I put my still-damp hair in a quick ponytail, sling my bag over my shoulder and head straight out the door.

  The black iron gates are closed. There is no car in Eliza’s driveway and the curtains at the front of the house haven’t been opened. On the gravel drive is a picture book. Horton Hatches the Egg. My first thought is that the book was dropped by Alice as she was carried hurriedly away. My second is that it was left there by Eliza, staged as some sort of cry for help.

  When I press the buzzer I have the sensation that someone is watching me, though the only evidence I have of this is my own paranoid instinct. Still, I think of Zac. Is he in there? Are Alice and Eliza with him, not allowed to open the door? Fuck you, Zac, I think, though it is easy to be brave when he isn’t in my face. I rattle the gate, but it is firmly locked. I could climb it. I nearly did the last time I was here, though that was to get out rather than in. But I was desperate enough then to risk being seen by a passing car or neighbour, and I really don’t want that right now, so I walk up the road and turn left at the corner, to the parkland that touches the side of Eliza’s garden.

  The parkland is a botanical paradise. Butterflies flicker through clumpy bushes of purple wallflowers. Bees flit through hyacinths and crab apple and crocuses. The blackbirds are singing and the air is already warm, scented with sweet violet and roses. There is a mix of peach and apple and cherry trees, as well as a medlar, which makes me think of the jelly my grandmother used to make each autumn. In the centre of it all is a huge cedar of Lebanon.

  The area that borders Eliza’s garden is bounded by a wall. This is covered in clemati
s and jasmine, though they are not yet in flower. Near the wall is a tulip tree with a trunk that splits a metre and a half above ground. Each segment is knotted and twisted and perfect for climbing. I look around me. There is a rock garden, where a mother and her little girl are sitting, the mother sipping coffee from a takeaway cup, the child eating some sort of muffin. On a path that circles a duck pond filled with lily pads, an elderly man is taking his spaniel for a walk. Nobody is paying attention to me.

  Thirty seconds later, I am sitting on one of the tulip tree’s thick branches, a third of a metre beneath the top of the brick wall. I have a perfect view of Eliza’s garden, and the rear of the house. The curtains and blinds are drawn on the upper floors, but the basement wall of glass that is her kitchen is uncovered. The sun is glinting too brightly for me to see inside.

  I shift myself onto the wall. I don’t have time to think about the two-and-a-half-metre drop. The grass on the other side will be soft, and my arms are strong from the gym. I slip my bag from my shoulder and release my grip. My bag hits the ground with a soft thud, and makes me think of when I dropped Zac’s bag from the garage shelf in St Ives two years ago. All in one move, before I can change my mind, I lower myself, dangling from the top, my palms burning as I cling on, my knees stinging from being scraped and banged on the bricks. This move is the hardest part.

  The rest isn’t so scary. With my arms and body length getting me a good way there, the distance to the ground isn’t as much as I’d imagined. I land squarely on my feet, my legs wobbling in a kind of shock that I have done this and managed it without breaking any bones. I wipe my hands on my dress, grab my bag, and move towards the house, skirting the side of the brick wall.