by Kate Johnson
I jumped up and threw my arms around him. ‘Anything!’
‘Can I borrow Luke for an hour?’
My stomach clenched and I’m fairly sure the pain showed on my face, but Xander couldn’t see it.
You’re on your own now, Sophie. Time to pick yourself up and dust yourself off, because no one else is going to do it.
I straightened up and said as cutely as I could, ‘You’re welcome to try.’
It would be cold in Maine, Xander told me, and took me out shopping accordingly. I still had a bit of cash left over from Maura Lanley’s wallet, but not nearly enough to buy the beautiful things I coveted in Barney’s and Bloomies. Xander lent me the money for a beautiful and very smart jacket that was lined and warm, and we rooted out gloves, scarf and hat to match, just in case it turned really cold. I got some expensive walking boots (how much fun it is going shopping with a gay man, and how much more fun when he’s paying!), thick socks, some sweaters and shirts with giant checks in the flannel.
‘Can you remotely afford all this?’ I asked as the clerk sorted it into Big Brown Bags.
‘Sure I can. You’d be amazed how much people pay me to be painted in the nude.’
‘Oh, you’re that painter,’ the salesgirl said. ‘I could have sworn I read you were gay.’
‘You’re gay?’ I said in mock horror. ‘Xander, how could you never tell me such a thing?’
The salesgirl looked horrified. I covered my sniggers and went to look at luggage. I wasn’t sure my bag would hold all this stuff.
So Xander bought me a very smart leather wheely bag, and we went back to his apartment to pack everything into it and have a snack from the deli on the corner, and book a flight for that evening to take me to Bangor International. You know, it’s amazing how much going on the run can broaden a girl’s horizons.
I always thought Bangor was in Wales.
‘I’d come with you, darling,’ Xander said as he kissed me goodbye at the cab door, ‘but I’m sketching the most divine Latvian boy tomorrow. Doesn’t speak a word of English, but he is so damn hot.’
‘Is he paying you?’
‘Yes,’ Xander winked, ‘but he doesn’t know how, yet.’
I thanked him profusely, and settled back in the cab for the long ride to LaGuardia airport.
And then the loneliness hit me, as if someone had balled it up into one big, cold lump of emotion and thrown it at my chest. I’d thrown Luke’s help back in his face, I’d angered Jack so much he’d left me – twice – and even Harvey hated me. Harvey, who I didn’t think was capable of hating anyone.
I landed at Bangor International late at night and simply booked into an airport hotel. I could look into transport in the morning. Right now it was late and I was completely frozen, not to mention permanently tired, and still neither Jack nor Luke had called me. I sent a text to Xander to say I’d arrived, and he replied, so I knew my phone was definitely working.
Twice in the night, I reached for my phone and even got as far as dialling, ready to sob down the phone to Luke that I needed him, and twice I stopped myself. Crying down the phone wouldn’t be the way to persuade him either that I was capable of taking care of myself, or that I was the sort of girlfriend he wanted to hang onto.
Alone and depressed, I pulled on extra socks and a sweater and crawled under the covers to spend most of the night lying awake, listening to aircraft land and hating everything about my life.
Chapter Fourteen
‘Where exactly are you?’ Evelyn said.
‘Provence. Nice this time of year.’
She made an exasperated sound. ‘I am trying to help you. The least you could do is be honest with me and tell me where you’re hiding.’
‘Why should it matter? I’ve found somewhere Harrington can’t spy on me, that’s all that matters.’
A man in a hospital gown shuffled past, puffing furiously on a cigarette. Luke breathed in longingly. He had one hand holding the phone to his ear and the other caught up in that bloody sling, or he’d have lit up and joined in with all the other smokers hanging around the hospital entrance.
‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Word is he’s got people out looking for you.’
‘Then he’s not doing a very good job of it. Any idiot could find out when my follow-up appointment at the hospital is and wait for me there.’
Evelyn was silent a moment. ‘How is it?’ she asked. ‘Your shoulder?’
‘Fine.’ In fact it wasn’t fine, it hurt like hell every minute of the day and the surgeon had spent twenty minutes yelling at him for ever taking the sling off. She told him in no uncertain terms that he ought to have been in bed for a week and that if he didn’t swear on his own life to rest properly, she’d have him re-admitted, sedated, and quite possibly handcuffed to the bed.
Luke didn’t think it was a good idea to tell her he’d been shovelling manure for a couple of days, albeit one-handed.
He took a deep breath and swallowed what was left of his pride. ‘Listen, could you do me a favour?’
She was silent again. Eventually she said, ‘I don’t know, Luke. I’m not exactly flavour of the month around here at the moment. Sheila’s pretty mad at me for even speaking to you.’
‘Oh, please, she loves that you’re speaking to me. She can pump you for information afterwards. No, look, I just need a bit of info.’
‘Well … I don’t know, Luke.’
‘Please? Just a few little snippets.’ Luke shook himself mentally and reminded himself that before he became a chain-smoking depressive with a fugitive girlfriend, he used to be a very charming man with an incredibly high success rate when it came to women.
‘Look, if Sheila finds out I’ve been helping you with anything, she’ll have my job.’
‘Then there’s no need for her to find out, is there? It’s hardly anything anyway. Stuff you could do on your lunch break.’
‘Then why can’t you do it?’
Because I’ve called the Home Office twenty times today and they’re not talking to me any more. Bloody Sheila.
‘Because I’m persona non grata with the security services right now, and word’s starting to get around.’
Another smoker passed, and Luke inhaled deeply.
‘Just a couple of phone calls, and maybe we can meet for a drink later to discuss it?’ he said, putting as much persuasion into his voice as possible.
‘I thought you were in hiding,’ Evelyn said, clearly torn.
‘Well, then we’ll have to find a really dark bar.’
Silence. He waited. And eventually Evelyn said, ‘All right, what do you need me to do?’
Luke smiled.
I woke late and wondered where the hell I was. I took another shower in another hotel bathroom, just like all the other showers in all the other hotel bathrooms, and considered turning myself in, just so I might have some solidarity in my life. For the first time I started to feel really wretched. I started to think I was fighting a totally unwinnable battle. How the hell was I going to achieve anything? What had I ever achieved? I wasn’t going to be able to outrun MI5 forever, and sooner or later Sarah Wilde, or whoever the hell was chasing me, would catch up.
And then I’d be dead.
And it would be over.
For one obscenely long moment I thought about it. How much would I be missed? Would my parents mourn because they had to, or because they wanted to? Would Luke be glad to be free of such an irritating, clingy, changeable, argumentative girlfriend?
Would the world be better off without me?
For about ten minutes I sat on the bed, ugly short hair dripping down my back, staring at a crack on the wall and trying to summon the energy to get up and get dressed and stop feeling so bloody sorry for myself.
It didn’t come. But I still dragged myself up, still put on my clothes, still brushed my hair and checked the contents of my bag and made myself go downstairs. Pasted on a smile for the man who held a door open for me. Dredged up a bit of acting talent,
and acted like I wasn’t someone whose life had been flushed down the toilet so hard it was already halfway along the sewer.
At reception they told me that a bus was the best way to get to East Penobscot, so I put all my important things in my shoulder bag, removed all personal traces of myself from my room, and got on a bus.
East Penobscot was a small town – I guess in England we’d call it a village. Two main streets criss-crossing each other, lined with pretty whiteboard New England houses, a few smaller streets trickling off here and there, people walking about, a banner across the street announcing a local theatre production of Death of a Salesman. The sky was clear and cold and big and blue, and I was glad Xander had bought me some warmer clothes. If you look on a globe then Maine is further south than England – it hits the mark somewhere around the middle of France. About where Cécile’s farm is. And yet April in France is pleasantly warm. April in Maine feels like winter in England. I suppose that’s the Gulf Stream for you.
I went into a small diner-type restaurant and used the last of the cash Xander had given me to buy lunch and ask the waitress if she knew the whereabouts of one Belinda Marple.
‘She was a friend of my father’s,’ I smiled, inflecting a somewhat softer version of the accent I’d used in Hartford, in an attempt to make myself less conspicuous, ‘and I’d really like to try and find her. All I know is that she lived in this little town – my father used to tell me about it all the time.’
The waitress softened at this. ‘Were they friends for long?’
‘Oh, yes, for years. Until my father moved back home. He died,’ I added suddenly, feeling I was losing sympathy. ‘He died last year and I’m trying to get in touch with all of his old friends but it’s not easy …’
The waitress nodded sympathetically. ‘My father died two years ago,’ she said, ‘and do you know what he said before he died? “I wish I’d kept in touch with all my old friends.’’’
They sounded like pretty crappy last words to me, but I nodded and sniffed and said, ‘My father said the same thing.’
Thank God for small town gossips. The waitress – who told me to call her Louisa-May, my dear – not only knew who Leonard David-John’s sister was, but where she lived, how long she’d been married, what her husband had died of, where he was buried, how often Leonard came to see her, what his New York apartment had cost (you could buy Scotland for the same amount), who his clients were, and what he’d had for breakfast.
In my village, if you walked into a teashop and asked for directions to someone’s house, they’d stare at you until you went away. Community spirit is not big where I come from, which is kind of sad, really.
I thanked her, paid my bill and left her a tip, and sauntered down Main Street, enjoying what felt like winter sunshine. The air was cold and clean and felt good filling my lungs, especially after the thick congestion of New York City. I was used to living in a pretty place, but this town really was good to look at. Like a jigsaw puzzle I used to have as a kid of a street filled with pumpkins.
Don’t think about home, don’t, don’t …
I turned down Mason Street and looked for number 166, as I had been advised. In a street of tall, pretty New England houses set well back from the road, it was another tall, pretty New England house, set well back from the road. It was all very Crucible-ish. I half-expected to see women in Puritan bonnets carrying milk pails down the street.
I straightened out my clothes, ran a hand through my hair, and put on my best hopeful smile.
The lady who answered the door was probably not a huge amount older than my parents, but boy did she look it. You know how some people will be forty-five forever, and some people have already been forty-five forever? Well, Belinda Marple was probably born in her sixties. She had the look of someone who was never, ever young. Her grey hair was neat, her carpet slippers were dainty, her glasses were on a delicate chain around her neck.
She smiled at me like the sort of little old lady who has ‘burgle me’ written across her face.
‘Mrs Marple?’ Immediately I had the Miss Marple theme tune in my head. Dammit. ‘Hi. My name is Alice Robinson. I was looking for Dr David-John – he was an old friend of my father’s, and I was hoping –’
But she was shaking her head.
‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘I’m afraid you’ve missed him. He goes out fishing, you see, whenever he can. He loves the peace and quiet after the bustle of the city. He really won’t be back until quite late. Oh, but now what am I thinking? Won’t you come in and have some tea?’
English manners aren’t dead, I thought, feeling very kindly towards this sweet lady, they’ve just relocated. New English manners, so to speak. An update.
‘No, thank you,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to impose on you. Would he be in tomorrow?’
‘Well, he might. What will it be, Wednesday? He might. I tell you what, dear, why don’t I get him to call you when he’s home?’
I gave her a card from my hotel and thanked her and walked away, wondering what would have happened if someone had turned up and asked the same of my grandmother. She’d probably not have even opened the door unless she was expecting someone. One does not last very long in certain parts of Sheffield if one simply opens the door to any passer-by and invites them in for tea. I could have had a gun in my bag.
Matter of fact, I do have a gun in my bag.
I went for a walk around town, appreciating it from all angles, and when I arrived back at my hotel near the airport it was getting dark. I’d have had something to eat somewhere in East Penobscot, but I really didn’t think there was enough cash in my wallet for that.
I could fleece someone for money, but I’d get caught. You need to practice at that sort of thing. Dammit, where was Jack when I needed him?
I wandered disconsolately down to the hotel bar and sat on a sofa by myself. A waitress came over but I shook my head. ‘Nothing for me, thanks.’
Wonder what they’ll make of all this back at Stansted Airport? Will my boring book-selling job still be there for me? The amount of security checks they go through at the airport, just so you can have an airside pass … They’d never let me back in with something like this on my record.
If I got back at all.
No. Bad Sophie. Bad brain for thinking that. It will all be okay, and fine, and I’ll get home and Luke will make up with me and my boss will forgive me and possibly offer me a rise for all the emotional hardship I’ve suffered (yeah right) and everything will be rosy.
I paused to briefly consider the delicious irony of what had got me into this whole mess in the first place. Trying to get back into the world of espionage, because I’d been feeling bored and unfulfilled again. Well, scratch that. The British Secret Service can do very well without me, I’m sure. I’ve had about all the excitement I can stand for one lifetime.
Bookselling was beginning to look really, really attractive.
There was a group of people at the next table to me, talking and laughing, all in suits, businesspeople waiting for the next flight in the morning. Their table was festooned with drinks, some full, some spilled, all alcoholic. I sat and listened to their loud, self-important chatter for a while and consoled myself that at least I hadn’t sold my soul to big business.
Then they all got up, gradually and loudly, and wandered off either in the direction of their rooms or the toilets, and one of the women left her bag behind.
The good girl in me nearly jumped up and cried, ‘Did someone leave this here? Should I hand it in?’
But the bad girl kicked her in the head, stamped on her neck and quietly picked up the handbag, and walked out.
With someone else’s handbag.
Just walked up to my room, got my coat and scarf, emptied the contents of her bag into mine, then went and caught the bus into town.
Christ. I’m a Grade A thief.
Go me!
There only appeared to be one bar in town, but it advertised food, so I went in, feeling very bad-a
ss, and ordered a pizza and beer. I don’t know what got into me. I don’t even really like beer. But I sat there, feeling moody, while the bar filled up and gradually emptied, and I got steadily drunker on beer that was too cold to taste of anything.
When you go into an English pub, people glance around to see if you’re a local, and if you’re not, they go back to their pints and their depressed talk of football and rain. In America, if you walk into a bar, people look at you. Waitresses offer you food. There are no horse brasses on the walls, but flags from local football and baseball teams, moose heads, signed baseball cards, old-fashioned adverts for beer and cigarettes.
God, I wanted to go home.
Somebody walked over to the juke box and selected Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms album. I love this album, and the first gigantic chords of Money For Nothing cheered me up no end. But then we got into Your Latest Trick, and the bluesy saxophone lulled me into misery again. The bar quietened down, I ordered another beer and considered asking for a bourbon chaser. In my head I felt like a Noir detective, sitting in a trashy diner, smoking away …
Wait, no smoking in Maine. Damn.
Anyway, there I was, a gravelly Noo Yoik accent narrating my misery. The weather outside was cold, as cold as my heart. Inside I was too frozen to care. The cops were on my tail and they weren’t the worst thing. Wilde was after me, and sooner or later she’d catch up. She was a femme fatale if ever there was one. Everyone who met the dame bought it. De Valera had betrayed me and I was all on my own with a case that refused to be solved.
I took an imaginary drag on my imaginary cigarette. Far away across the ocean, the man I loved was sitting watching late-night movies on TV with his good friends Jack, Jose and Jim. He’d started smoking again, depression and failure heaping up on his shoulders. He was clutching at straws as much as I was. I didn’t even know if he cared for me any more, or if he’d turned traitor and was even now handing me over to the cops.