by Lynn Watson
Daniela was staring hard at her over her wide-winged glasses, apparently happy to prolong the suspense despite the high probability of someone coming into the shop at any minute.
‘Okay,’ said Fran, ‘I’ve had a few big surprises lately but hopefully I can take another one.’
There was a further long pause. When Daniela finally spoke, her voice sounded mechanical, full of steel-cold rage. ‘Vicky has disappeared, gone. It was Vicky who hacked into our website. Vicky doesn’t even exist, she’s not real. She was an undercover police officer.’
Fran instinctively recoiled and had to stabilise herself by clutching the counter. ‘No!’
It was just the single word that came out, shrill and shaky. All the intimacy, the banter, the fun, all the things she had given up on after the traumatic encounter in Andy’s kitchen came surging back and disintegrated once again. Her vision blurred and a sudden pain spread across her head, making her dizzy. She held fast to the counter edge, gripping its solidity and trying to regain control.
‘I’m sorry, Fran. She’s betrayed our trust, deceived us all.’ Daniela was speaking normally now, but very fast. ‘She’s been working for a special unit that the police set up to infiltrate the supply chain at all levels and gather intelligence on the online drugs market.’
Fran nodded dumbly but her brain was whirring, trying to fit the pieces together. That night of the singles party, being let off so easily for stealing the leopard-print jacket. It hadn’t just been her lucky night, or not in the way she had imagined. Someone had taken care of it.
Meanwhile, Daniela was continuing her explanation. ‘We got swept up in it because they were interested in so-called “smart drugs”, as well as the banned Class A and B and the legal highs. It’s quite outrageous. We are trading openly with Junoco, not in some immoral corner of the dark web.’
It was true, everything Daniela was saying and the buyers were mostly delighted, but the awkward fact remained that they didn’t know what it was they were consuming; the added ingredient was not wholly natural, as advertised. It hadn’t been banned but it hadn’t been approved either and it was definitely a psychoactive substance, so…
‘How did you find out, Daniela, about Vicky? What happened?’
‘Someone contacted me, an informant. He’s a journalist, the one I warned you about. He had a tip-off and he tracked her identity, proved it was false and showed me the evidence. She’s been spying on our competitors as well, so the police can crack down on the trade as a whole, but in our case it’s not going to work. Junoco is too well connected. We have friends in high places.’
Well connected, with friends in high places – that was the essence. Daniela and her band of associates were protected by their link to the government and its plans to test an unknown and unregulated drug on children, under false pretences.
‘Did she just vanish or was there a confrontation – did you challenge her?’ Fran needed to find out how Vicky had left; what justification she had given, if any.
‘There was no confrontation. I communicated with her through the journalist and then she disappeared, as undercover agents are trained to do. They may have our data but they can’t do anything; they’ll find their hands are tied. However, I have decided to close down the Junoco website and move the business overseas, somewhere there won’t be the same level of surveillance. I told Ned when we met last night. We won’t carry out any more deliveries from within the UK.’
No message then, nothing. How idiotic to think there might have been. Vicky had had access to Fran’s personal data too, if she had taken her chance to acquire it. Thankfully, it was no more than mildly embarrassing, nothing worth the smallest blackmail sting.
An old saying came back to her; something a former lover had written in a note telling her he didn’t want an explanation for her decision to end the relationship: Silence speaks harsh words in whispers. It just wasn’t true; silence wasn’t always so kind. Too often, it spoke of indifference – and indifference was cold and ghostly, worse than hatred. Unlike hatred, it couldn’t be explained as the flip side of love or friendship, intimacy turned inside out.
‘So, Fran, you’ve done a great job but I can no longer employ you on Junoco. I am going away for a few months. I would like you to continue in the shop and I value and trust you so highly that I want to offer you the position of shop manager, to oversee the business while I am away. Will you accept?’
‘I think… well, I’m honoured but it’s too much to take in; I’m all over the place. It’s too early in the day but I think what I need right now is a gin and tonic!’
It was the kind of jokey thing she would have said to Vicky, to break the tension. Daniela responded as she wanted her to, smiling widely to reveal the dimples Fran had noticed on their first encounter.
‘Well, I’ll let you think about it. I know you and Vicky had become good friends. Maybe she genuinely wanted to be a close friend, if the situation had been different.’
‘She came to my friend Judi’s funeral, Daniela. She drove me there in her car, sat beside me and listened to what I was feeling. She comforted me. That’s what I’ll never forgive.’
Daniela spread her arms out wide and Fran almost fell into her enfolding embrace.
***
She phoned Ravi as soon as she left the shop that afternoon, stopping on the corner and waving at Jean-Claude through the café window. A plan had come into her head ready-made while she was serving customers, reorganising the stock and trying to suppress her cynical thoughts. Not the plan she might have expected but a different idea altogether, an opportunity to help a friend. She needed to get onto a positive track.
‘Is that Ravi? It’s Fran, calling you back… Hello?’
‘Did you say Fran? Ah yes, bad connection, sorry; I was waiting for your call but I heard you’d been away.’
‘Can we meet, now if possible? I can wait in the Green Duck again, if you can get there within the next hour.’
‘I’ll be there, give me thirty minutes.’
He hung up immediately, like any good spy. She was even less convinced by his journalist persona now but recognised it could be her overheated imagination.
He was dressed in a light grey suit, with an open-necked shirt revealing the top of a hairy chest. Once more, they greeted each other formally and he placed his hands in his signature fold-over position on the table, as if preparing to tip it over. She was determined to take charge of the conversation and make it brief.
‘Okay, Ravi, here’s the thing. I assume you already know that Daniela is about to shut down the Junoco site and open a new business outside the UK. She has also told me that Vicky, our so-called IT consultant, was working undercover for the police. I believe this information came from you but in any case, I presume you’re no longer interested in me acting as your mole, as I’m no longer involved in Junoco. Daniela has stood me down, as they say.’
She watched his face, then looked at his hands but couldn’t fathom how much he already knew of Daniela’s plans. He gave a non-committal shrug.
‘Circumstances change. I could still be interested in coming to some arrangement with you. Why did you ask to see me urgently, if you thought I wasn’t?’
She had to tread carefully, reveal just enough and keep the best cards close to her chest. ‘Daniela is in a business partnership with Infrared, as you already told me. Infrared runs his own online enterprise in cognitive-enhancing drugs, so it’s possible he has been targeted by the police operation. That’s kind of beside the point. The point is that there’s a bigger story behind all this.’
He nodded as she spoke and gestured for her to carry on. She wasn’t going to be rushed and this was the judgement call. She needed Ravi and his influential contacts to get access to the senior civil servant mentioned by Osvaldo, her plan depended on it, but she didn’t know if Ravi was aware of Fred’s dual identity and the link between Junoco and the schools research programme. In other words, she didn’t know if she had any power to ex
ploit the situation. And despite picking up handy tips from Daniela, she was feeling her lack of tactical training.
‘Infrared is not only a dodgy businessman. He’s an eminent neuroscience professor working here in London and the lead academic on a research project to test, quote, “brain supplements, vitamins and nutrients” on schoolchildren. It’s a government initiative. My information is that the substance will be similar to Junoco – an officially unlicensed drug.’
Ravi took his slim hands off the table again and clasped them tightly, cracking a knuckle, while his face betrayed no reaction. ‘That’s interesting. It fits with the story so far. Do you know who’s managing it from the government side?’
‘Yes, I have the individual’s name but I’m not going to divulge it yet. I think that this person has been misled on the so-called vitamins and supplements and believes them to be harmless natural products. We have to get the truth of it confirmed or denied at the top and then we can expose what’s going on.’
‘Hold on, that may not be the best approach, to expose it. We need to do more investigation first. It will take a little time to build up the picture, develop it into a full story.’
‘I’m sorry, Ravi, but I have reasons to be impatient and no time to waste. Either you agree to use your high-level contacts to arrange an early meeting with this civil servant person or I’ll keep silent on their identity and call the other journalist who’s approached me. I’ll do it tomorrow if I haven’t heard from you by 4pm.’
He grimaced, probably to show he hadn’t fallen for this obvious ploy. ‘All right then, okay, hold your horses. I’ll work out how to contrive a meeting with the civil servant, as long as I can come with you. And for your part, you must agree to say nothing to Ultraviolet.’
‘Who’s that, Ultraviolet? Sorry, I don’t get it.’
‘Your boss, Daniela; it’s the code name used by the Infrared associates.’
Ultraviolet; it was perfect. Vicky would have adored playing with that, in the days when they were fooling around together.
‘Are we agreed on the way forward then, Fran? I’ll get back to you as soon as.’
It was a massive gamble and she may have overplayed her hand by handing Ravi the end of a new thread to follow. For all that, it felt like a risk she had to take.
***
‘Can I help you? Are you looking for something in particular, a gift?’
The young man had been wandering round the shop, pausing in front of the display of lacy lingerie, peering into the jewellery cabinet and fingering the velvet and beaded evening bags. It was lunchtime, which usually saw a small surge in customers, especially since Fran had suggested they made room for a stand of greeting cards. Today was no exception, and it was only now that she had found an opportunity to respond to the man’s frequent glances, which indicated he might like some advice.
‘Yes, it’s for my girlfriend’s birthday. I thought maybe one of these bags but I’m not sure about the colours, whether they’ll go – this red and gold, she wears a lot of red…’ He gazed across to the other side of the shop. ‘Or earrings, I was thinking, or a silk scarf, but it’s the same problem. I don’t know, maybe I’ll have to bring her in to choose.’
‘It’s always difficult but I’m sure she’ll like it that you took the time to look for something special. We have a returns and exchange policy, twenty-eight days to bring it back.’
As she was speaking, Fran saw Kirsty out of the corner of her eye, first passing the window and then coming into the shop. She didn’t look in Fran’s direction but turned to the far clothes rail near the fitting room and started picking out items on their hangers and folding them over her arm. The lunchtime crowd was thinning out and with any other customer Fran would normally walk over or call across to encourage her into the fitting room. Instead, she half-watched Kirsty moving along the rail, unsure whether she knew Fran worked here and aware that any suspicions Kirsty might harbour about her neighbourly relationship with Marcus were now at least partially justified.
There was a crash and she turned back to see that the cards stand had toppled over, sending its contents sliding across the floor. The young man gripped the left side of his head, looking dazed.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, what happened? Are you hurt?’
‘Yes, the fucking thing hit me, didn’t it? I just reached across to look at a card and it tipped right over, just like that. It can’t have been fixed down properly.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. It’s meant to stand alone like that, inside or outside, so I thought it was safe. Would you like to sit down? Can I get you a cup of tea or anything? How’s your head now?’
‘It’s okay, I’ll live. But I’m not buying anything from your stupid shop after that.’
As he stomped out, she righted the stand, tested its balance and bent down to gather the cards and put them in piles on the counter, ready to restack them later. Kirsty had turned to observe the scene but showed no sign of recognising Fran.
Would you like some help? Can I put those in the fitting room for you?’
‘No, I tried them on the other day and said I’d come back to buy some stuff.’
Kirsty approached the counter with her chosen items, which came from the new spring range. Fran laid them out on top of each other, preparing to process them for payment. There was a short lemon-and-black dress, a dandelion-yellow cardigan with large pockets, and a pair of loose-fitting, cool white-and-grey trousers. When she came to these, she looked up at Kirsty, standing there with an air of assumed nonchalance, now laced with defiance.
‘These trousers are beautiful, they’re new in. They’ll go well with the white jacket – a good choice.’
Kirsty stared blankly at her.
‘The white faux fur jacket – the one you put into your sports bag a few minutes ago, when you thought I was preoccupied with picking up the cards.’
Kirsty had set the sports bag on the floor beside her. Now she kicked out her left foot to pull it in close and hold it tight between her ankles.
‘And the bra and panties set, the silk blouse and the red dress. I know something about shoplifting, Kirsty, because I used to do it myself. I also know how to cause a distraction – I’ve tried that too, more than once. Now, open your bag or I’ll call the police.’
Kirsty glared at her, but underneath the hostility Fran could tell she was unsure what to do: whether to fight, flee or cave in.
‘I’ll tell you what, Kirsty. You give back those things right now and nothing will happen. Hand them over and go, move on with your life and don’t come anywhere near this part of the world again.’
‘I am moving on. I’m going to Australia with my boyfriend, if you must know. That stupid old fucker Marcus said I’d find someone better than him and you can tell him I have.’
She knew perfectly well, then, who Fran was, although she had pretended otherwise. She had called her an old slapper, after all, so Fran must have made some kind of impression.
‘That sounds great, Kirsty. I wish you well and I hope your boyfriend hasn’t got too big a headache from his clash with my card stand. Now put it all on the counter and scram, before I change my mind.’
Fran smiled to herself and couldn’t help admiring Kirsty’s long glossy braids falling over her shoulder as she bent down to unzip the bag.
Chapter 18
‘Shall I slice the carrots and courgettes, or do you want them done in strips?’
‘Whichever you like, Alice. I call it the chopper’s prerogative. I’ve got a spiralizer as well, although I’ve never actually used it – in the top drawer over there.’
Fran got out her biggest wok and the dark soy sauce. Her cooking was nowhere near Ned’s standard, but she enjoyed doing these tasty one-pot dishes. One day she would have Ned over for dinner, but tonight it was Alice in her kitchen and she had invited Marcus and Kwesi, who were upstairs practising for the request session featuring her favourite songs.
‘How was your holiday with the mystery man, then?
Did it live up to expectations?’
‘It was great. A fascinating country – I’d go again like a shot. But, Alice, there are things I need to tell you quickly, before the guys come down. My mystery friend – Ned, that is – plans to set up a new venture selling mind-enhancing products, using a variant of Junoco and targeting the luxury London market – hotels, corporate events and the like. And for some reason, he’s fixated on having me as his business partner. Oh yes, and he thinks we could run a high-class male escort agency on the side, through the same contacts.’
‘Fran, you are such a dark horse! Have you said yes to any of these offers?’
‘Not yet, but I’m inclined to go for the first one, for starters. I’d appreciate your thoughts but not now, there isn’t time. There’s something else, more significant to you.’
‘Go on. Are these strips coming out right? I’m not sure I’ve got the hang of this whatsit.’
‘They look fine. Anyway, when we were away, Ned arranged for us to meet Daniela’s cousin and business associate, Osvaldo, at our hotel. Osvaldo and his companion confirmed what we already knew: that Professor Fred doubles as Infrared, the sinister business rival. I also found out that Osvaldo’s logging company has cleared a larger area of forest to grow more berry bushes to supply the Bright Minds programme. And there is something else in the mix, as you suspected: a drug manufactured in Vietnam or Cambodia.’
Alice arranged the courgettes neatly on the plate, folding in the stray strips that had curled onto the counter. She picked up one of the stools to reposition it, so she could sit and look at Fran while she poured them another glass of wine.
‘Yes, I did suspect,’ said Alice, ‘but still I can’t get my head around it. Fred seems so wrong, miscast. I’m bitterly disappointed in him. How can he imagine they’re going to get away with it? It’s in the name of science, I suppose, and making his reputation. He has been helpful to me, to my career, I will give him that.’