On Trial

by Zanna Mackenzie

  Tentatively, I push open the door to the staff kitchen, hearing the clatter of pots and pans as I do so.

  Standing before us, nonchalantly stirring the pasta sauce we started preparing before our little trip to the marina, is the last person I expected to see.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Charlie!” Before I know it I’m across the room and in his arms. It’s been too long. He pulls me closer and I stand on tiptoe for a kiss.

  A kiss which goes on, and on, and on…

  “So this is the famous Charlie,” Esme says with a laugh.

  Crap. I forgot Esme was still in the room. Reluctantly, Charlie and I step apart.

  I do the introductions. “Esme meet Charlie. Charlie meet Esme, a fellow support officer trainee for the agency.”

  Charlie nods a greeting and smiles. “Good to meet you, Esme. How’s the final assignment case going?”

  I playfully bat him on the arm. “You’ve just turned up here out of the blue and you’re straight into asking about our assignment! Typical! What are you even doing here? I thought you were working on a case overseas.”

  “I was, but the case is solved, so now I’m here. I asked James where your assignment was taking place and got myself up to Cumbria.”

  Frowning, I step back. “Much as I’m pleased to see you, I’m not allowed any help with this assignment from you. That would be cheating. You do know that, don’t you?”

  “I know. I know.” Charlie holds up a hand in a gesture of surrender. “It’s OK. I promise I won’t interfere. I have approval from James as your trainer as well as official permission from the agency assessor guys running this op to be here, so you’ve nothing to worry about on that score. You know I’d never do anything to jeopardise your job prospects with the CCIA. Now, are you two hungry? I think this meal is about ready.”

  Charlie starts dishing up the food and I join Esme at the table. He places a plate in front of each of us before putting down his own plate and taking a seat. “You can tell me all about what caused you to half cook a meal and then disappear off into the night.”

  “Well, we had this idea that…” Esme starts to say.

  “Don’t tell him!” I squeal through a mouth half full of pasta. “He won’t be able to resist getting involved in the case.”

  “I promise I will not interfere, comment or get involved,” Charlie replies, a solemn expression on his face.

  “Well, we’re working with this guy, a recently qualified agent, called Mitch. He expected us to cook him dinner,” Esme says. “Can you believe that?”

  Charlie nods, smiles, but doesn’t say a word.

  “We thought he was up to something because he seems reluctant to keep us involved with what is going on with this assignment. He went off on his own and we thought he’d gone back down to the marina, so we abandoned dinner and went to see if he was down at the boat dock again,” I explain.

  “And was he?” Charlie asks.

  “Yes, he was,” Esme chips in. “He didn’t find anything though.”

  “Except for the two of us spying on him,” I add.

  Charlie glances at me, concern in his gorgeous blue eyes. “And then what happened?”

  “Esme put him in an arm lock and told him to stop leaving us out of the investigation.”

  “What?” Charlie says, almost choking on his food.

  Esme shrugs. “OK, maybe I shouldn’t have done that, but he deserved it. Special agent or not, he’s a creep and a chauvinist.” She puts down her spoon and leans towards Charlie. “Do you think I’ll end up in trouble?”

  “I think, in the circumstances, you’ll probably get marks for not putting up with any bull, and for insisting he keeps you both in the loop on this assignment. The agency wants people who can think for themselves and stand up for themselves. You should be fine. You didn’t actually hurt him, did you?” he asks cautiously. “There’s issuing a, shall we say, friendly warning and there’s going too far.”

  “He was fine,” Esme says, with a wave of her hand. “Just damaged pride and male ego, that’s all.”

  “We were wondering if he might be a plant,” I say. “You know, the agency sent him to work on this case to test how we get on with somebody like him. He could be an extra challenge. Have you ever come across an agent called Mitch Hargreaves?”

  “I thought I wasn’t supposed to be helping you out,” Charlie replies with a cheeky wink.

  “Well, it’s not helping out as such. I’m just asking if you know the guy,” I wheedle.

  Charlie finishes his meal and leans back in his chair. “No, I honestly don’t know the guy.”

  “So, we still don’t know if he’s really obnoxious or just pretending to be,” Esme sighs. “Ah well, hopefully he’ll have a better attitude from now on.”

  Together we clear up, wash the dishes and tidy the room. Are we being checked for how we look after the space we’re assigned to stay in whilst solving the case? Who knows, but we might already be on dicey ground after Esme’s manoeuvre, so keeping this place spick and span could prove to be even more important now.

  “Well, I need to phone my mum,” Esme surprises us by saying as she heads for the door. “So, I’m going to go to my room and give you two lovebirds a bit of privacy.”

  As soon as she’s out of the room Charlie whizzes me round in a twirl and plants a kiss on my lips. “I’ve wanted to do that for the past hour.”

  I tug him towards one of the sofas tucked in the corner of the communal staff kitchen cum lounge and we cuddle up together. “Where are you staying? Here at the hotel?”

  “No, I’m staying at a bed and breakfast in Delamere. Only people involved with the assignment are allowed to stay at the Roseby, so I’m banished to town and a smaller, and much less grand, establishment.”

  “How did your last case go? Everything OK?” I ask, snuggling closer whilst reminding myself I need to keep focus and not get distracted by Charlie turning up here.

  “Yeah, it turned out to be pretty straight forward, hence me getting a chance to come up here to the Lake District and check in with you for a spot of quality time.”

  I chew nervously on my bottom lip. “I’m amazed they haven’t got another case lined up for you already.”

  “It probably won’t be long before they call, so I was kind of hoping we might be able to make the most of what time we do get.” Charlie leans back and rests his feet on the coffee table in front of the sofa. “Like I said, I promise not to get in the way of your assignment, but I thought we could perhaps grab just a couple of hours together. If you have to dash off in the middle of the night for your investigation then fine, I totally get that, but in the meantime…” He edges closer and leans down to nuzzle at my neck. It always makes me go a bit gooey when he does that.

  I force myself to put some physical distance between us. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to leave the hotel and stay at your bed and breakfast. I doubt it. I think I have to be around the Roseby or at least out at a place connected to the investigation, at all times. Anyway, we were only given twenty-four hours to solve this case, so, right now, I should be scribbling yet more notes and figuring out where we go next with the investigation with Esme and Mitch.” I meet his gaze and regret tugs inside of me. Much as I’d love to head off to Charlie’s bed and breakfast, or lead him back to my single bedroom, I know I can’t. “I’m serious about this job, Charlie. Working for the agency, it’s what I want to do.”

  He nods his understanding and eases a little further away from me. “I know you are. And I’m certain you’re going to pass this assignment with flying colours and be working alongside me on my next case. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here. It’s not fair on you. I just missed you.”

  Grabbing his arm I push to my feet. “I know. I missed you too. Charlie, sorry, I want you here, I want some time for us, I honestly do, but right now I’m…” I let the sentence drift off, unfinished.

  He frowns and stands up
. “Right now, you’re what?”

  “Scared,” I admit, with a rush of breath. “What if I fail? What if I manage to complete this assignment but I’m not good enough, so they don’t offer me a support officer job? What if…”

  Charlie takes both my hands in his. “Amber, you’ve got to stop thinking like this. You’re good at this kind of work. You can do this and you will be offered a job at the end of this assignment. I know you will. Now, I’m going to get out of your hair so you can concentrate on the case, OK?”

  I nod, freeing my hands so I can give Charlie a goodbye-for-now hug. “I just hope you don’t get a phone call from the agency and get sent off on another case before I complete this assignment. These past few months it seems as though the timing is always wrong. When I’ve had a brief break from training you’ve often been off working on a case somewhere. We haven’t managed to see much of each other.”

  “We’ll get some decent quality alone time soon.” He plants a kiss on my cheek. “Right. I’m off. I’d say sleep tight but I suspect you’ll be up most of the night going over your notes and planning your next move.”

  A weak smile finds its way to my lips. He knows me so well.

  “Try to get some sleep though, huh? You want to have a clear head for tomorrow for the rest of your investigation.”

  With that Charlie walks away, closing the door behind him.

  Sugar.

  We’ve barely seen each other these past few months and he finishes a case and comes straight up here to see me and what do I do? I give him a kiss and send him on his way. Pretty much, anyway. Ah well, we don’t have long to complete this assignment, so hopefully he will still be around once this is all over and we can grab some much-needed holiday together. Fingers crossed.

  Right now, I need to get back to the job in hand.

  As I open the door to my bedroom, Esme appears across the corridor. “Where’s Charlie? I thought you two would be making the most of your time together.”

  “He left. He’s staying at a bed and breakfast in town. We agreed I needed to focus on the case right now. So, he’s gone.”

  “Wow. You’re a stronger woman than me,” she replies. “If I was in your shoes I’d have dragged him off to my bedroom by now!”

  “The thought did cross my mind,” I say with a smile, as another flicker of regret surges through me. “That is, I mean me dragging him off to my room, not you.”

  “Of course,” she says, her face mock serious. “So, your room or mine? I think we need to get our heads and our notes together so we can plan our next move and get the case of the kidnapped bride solved ASAP.”

  “My room then,” I say, opening the door. “Got your notebook?”

  “So, what do we have so far?” I ask, settling myself on the edge of the single bed in my room.

  “Not very much,” Esme says, flicking through her notebook. “What do you make of the bridesmaids? That Connie could be a suspect, you know, if she’s mad about the whole losing out on the work promotion thing.”

  “True.” I check my own notebook. “Then there’s Poppy’s ex-boyfriends. Leon Black and David Smith. I suppose we could ask the HQ support guys for a background check on them. Wouldn’t Mitch have already got that in motion though? And if he has, will he actually bother to share the information he gets back from them with us?”

  “Especially after I practised my wrestling moves on him,” Esme replies, failing to stifle a giggle. Then she pulls a face. “Sorry, we need to gets serious here, don’t we?”

  “Let’s call agency support about the background check. There’s a special telephone number in the information pack we were given at the start.” I find the number we need to phone and the case details we need to quote to ensure everyone at HQ knows this is a fake case, an assignment we’re working on.

  I dial the number and someone answers straight away. “Agency administration, Lydia speaking. How can I help you?”

  “Oh, hello,” I check my scribbled notes to remind myself what I need to ask. This is my first time talking to agency support and nerves flutter inside of me. “I’m calling about case three thousand and forty four.”

  I can hear fingers tapping across a keyboard before Lydia replies. “Ah. Yes. I see. Please confirm who you are and the nature of your enquiry.”

  “Trainee support officers Amber Reed and Esme Hughes. We are on final assignment for the CCIA, prior to being considered for roles with the agency. We are investigating the case of the kidnapped bride and would like to request details on a man called David Smith,” I answer, coming over all formal.

  There’s silence on the other end of the line. She’s probably waiting for more details. There must be hundreds and thousands of men called David Smith. She’ll need more information to pin down the man we want background details on. “He lives in London, works for his family’s business, which we think is called Hammond and Astor.”

  “That information has already been requested for your case,” Lydia replies instantly. “Special Agent Hargreaves has all of the details.”

  Of course he does. The only problem is he’s unlikely to want to share that information with us. “Would it be possible for you to tell us the details as well, please?” I ask, anxiety flickering away inside of me. We can’t let Mitch shut us out of this investigation.

  “Why would I need to do that?” Lydia replies, and I can hear the frown in her voice. “You are aware that you and trainee Hughes should be working as part of a team on this assignment with Special Agent Hargreaves?”

  “Er, yes, but there’s been a bit of a breakdown in communications.”

  “Then I suggest you address that breakdown immediately,” Lydia replies curtly. “Have a nice day.”

  The line goes dead and I click my phone to end the call.

  “What?” Esme asks eagerly. “What did they say?”

  “They won’t give us the information because they’ve already given it to Mitch. I explained there was a communication glitch in that department and they said we need to address that matter.”

  “Hell,” Esme mutters, flopping back against the pillows of my bed. “This is all some test within a test, isn’t it? They’re going to make me grovel to Hargreaves, apologise for my behaviour and play nice so he’ll co-operate with the investigation.”

  I nod. “Looks that way.” I check the clock on my phone. “It’s well past nine o’clock. Shall we go and knock on the door of his room now or shall we just go through our own stuff on the case and wait until morning to tackle Mitch?”

  “We don’t have time to wait until the morning. We’ve got a deadline. How about we venture into the hotel and see if we can find anyone else to interview first? If we can find out anything useful we might be able to trade info with Mitch. That will put us in a stronger position to get him to co-operate. What do you think?”

  I scramble to my feet, grabbing my notepad and pen. “Sounds like a plan.”

  The doors between the staff quarters and the posh hotel all have keypads for which we have not been given the codes. “We’ll have to go to the hotel’s front door,” Esme says. “Unless you know how to disable a keypad lock.”

  I shake my head. “Sorry. Charlie would probably know how to do it but I don’t.”

  “Well, as you sent lover boy packing and we can’t utilise his breaking and entering powers for the greater good, we’ll have to go outside and round to the front entrance.”

  “We’re not allowed in the front entrance of the hotel though,” I say, remembering how James had shepherded us all round to the staff entrance when we’d arrived. “Though that was before we were appointed as the investigation team for this case. If we say we’re CCIA, then they’ll let us in, right?”

  “Definitely.”

  Time now: 21:45

  Time to deadline: 20 hours and 15 minutes

  The autumn evening air smells even more of damp leaves now. I shiver in the chilly breeze as I follow Esme around the side
of the hotel. At the front entrance we try the door but, as suspected, it’s locked. Typical. I spot an intercom devise and press the button.

  “Hello?” a disembodied voice echoes around the limestone floor of the entrance portico.

  “Hello! Er, we’re part of the team sent to investigate the kidnapping and need to get into the hotel so we can interview a few people.”

  “Somebody will greet you at the door,” the voice says.

  Yay! We’re in!

  “Ladies,” a man in a suit says as he opens the door.

  I step forward but he holds a hand up to stop me. “I’ll need to see your identification before I can let you in.”

  I exchange glances with Esme. “We don’t have any official identification.”

  “We’re trainees,” Esme adds. “So we haven’t been issued with CCIA documentation yet.”

  The man clears his throat, looking uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, in that case, I cannot let you into the hotel. Good evening.”

  He steps back, closing the door in our bemused faces.

  “Seriously?” Esme shrieks. “They’re not going to let us inside? How are we going to be able to investigate the case if we can’t get into the hotel? That’s crazy!”

  “Mitch will have CCIA identification with him so they’ll let us in when we’re with him…”

  “Which doesn’t help us now,” Esme says, finishing my sentence.

  “Guess we’ll have to come up with a plan B then. Let’s see if there are any other doors we can try.”

  We make our way around to the other side of the building, following the signs towards the car park. There must be a door from there into the hotel, surely?

  Esme suddenly grabs my hand and drags me behind some bushes just off the path.

  I stifle the urge to call out as I stumble and dive behind the damp shrubs. “What’s going on?”

  “People in the car park,” Esme explains, pointing around the bush.

  “OK, but why does that mean we have to hide in the garden?” I brush a bug from the knee of my jeans and it leaves a smudge of mud. Lovely.