‘Why?’
‘Why am I looking into it?’
‘No. Why is this company interested in messing with the Families?’
Lydia shrugged. She told herself that this was just a normal conversation. That Maddie wasn’t, at this moment, admiring her reflection in the surface of the Sabatier meat cleaver. ‘I don’t know. There’s probably money to be made. Or it might be fear. Of what we could do as a combined force.’
Maddie snorted. ‘Yeah, I don’t see that happening.’
Lydia thought of the Pearls and the Foxes and the Silvers and the Crows all standing shoulder to shoulder on the field of war, a common purpose, and felt herself smile. Which was wrong, of course. She shouldn’t be smiling. Was it part of Maddie’s power that she had used some sort of mind control? It occurred to her that she could be like an animal walking into the slaughterhouse, being calmed with a soothing word from her handler. She squeezed her coin in her hand and tried to focus. ‘Agreed. But I guess not everyone knows that. From the outside, it must feel threatening.’
‘Good,’ Maddie said and smiled.
For a second, Lydia saw her cousin as she had been. In that moment they could have been back at a family party, sneaking away together to eat cake and avoid the grownups.
‘I know you’ve been looking for me,’ Maddie said, and the illusion disappeared.
‘I’m scared of you,’ Lydia said. ‘When I’m scared of something I like to know where it is.’
‘I’m not an it.’
Lydia wanted to say ‘prove it’ but she didn’t want to goad Maddie.
‘You need to stop,’ Maddie said.
‘Okay.’
Maddie shook her head. ‘I mean it. You’re going to get yourself hurt.’
Lydia had a wild urge to laugh. Safety tips from the knife-wielding assassin. She still couldn’t get a read on Maddie, couldn’t feel Crow from her at all. It was creepy. Her mind expected it and the absence made her feel off balance. She wondered if Maddie knew. Before she could phrase the question, Maddie had turned back to the glass doors and was sliding them open. ‘I’m taking this,’ she raised the cleaver.
Lydia didn’t know what to say to that, so she kept her mouth shut.
Maddie slipped through the gap in the doors and didn’t look back.
* * *
Fleet had been at the gym and was shower-fresh and relaxed when he arrived at the flat. The bullet wound in his shoulder was healing well and his work seemed to be at least fifty per cent less annoying than it had been, which made Lydia happy for him. There was a very small part of her that wished he was still being driven mad by management bullshit so that he would stop being a copper entirely, but it was a very selfish part and she liked to pretend it didn’t exist. Besides, there were times when Fleet’s badge came in handy. This, however, was not one of them.
‘So, there’s this thing,’ Lydia began.
‘Okay,’ Fleet said, looking guarded. ‘Why do I feel as if I should be worried?’
‘You know Mr Smith said that he was trying to find an assassin?’
‘The one who shot me?’
Lydia appreciated that he didn’t say ‘the one you killed’.
‘No, not Felix. He’s a local contractor. Was a local contractor.’ Lydia found small glasses in the kitchen and brought them through. She poured a couple of generous measures of whisky and handed one to Fleet. ‘Mr Smith was talking about someone who had been working for the service. Someone who had gone rogue. They thought she had something to do with the death of the MP in Greece. The one who paved the way for Alejandro’s political rise.’
‘She?’
He was quick. Lydia took a slug of her drink and willed Fleet to do the same. He didn’t. Just looked at her steadily.
‘How do you know it’s a woman?’
‘I’ve met her,’ Lydia said in a rush. ‘It’s Maddie.’
For a second or two, Fleet didn’t move. Then he nodded. ‘Okay. Tell me.’
Lydia finished her glass of whisky and told him about Maddie summoning her to the roof of the hospital. About how strong she was. How she had an order to kill her and had been going to make it look like Lydia had taken a swan dive. How she had changed her mind.
‘When was this?’
‘Couple of weeks ago,’ Lydia said.
The tension in Fleet’s face went up a notch. His warm brown eyes had gone flat and unreadable. Lydia wasn’t sure if it was concern or fury. Probably both.
‘And you’re telling me now,’ Fleet said in an extremely careful way. ‘Interesting.’
Lydia fetched the whisky and poured another shot into her glass. She held up the bottle but Fleet put his hand over his glass.
‘She threatened Emma. If she got the idea that the police knew, she might have… I don’t know.’ Lydia wasn’t going to say the words out loud.
‘Is Emma all right?’ He asked immediately and Lydia felt a rush of love and gratitude.
Lydia nodded. ‘Paul put his brothers onto her.’ She wished she could grab the words out of the air.
Fleet had definitely flipped to anger, now. ‘You told Fox?’
Lydia skipped over that tricky detail to the main event. ‘Tonight, I was at Charlie’s, training, and she turned up.’
‘Wait… What? You saw her today?’ He took a step closer, raking her body with his eyes. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘No fighting,’ Lydia said. ‘She didn’t even threaten to chuck me off a roof.’
Fleet did not seem ready to joke about it. His hands were bunched into fists and there was a muscle jumping in his jaw. Lydia watched him take a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘What did she want?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe just to chat?’
‘Jesus Christ, Lyds. I can’t… You can’t keep being so… Flippant. This is serious. You could have been hurt. You could have been killed. She could have…’
‘I am aware,’ Lydia said, draining her glass.
‘You should have told me,’ Fleet said.
‘I’m telling you now.’ She should be being conciliatory. Apologetic. Part of Lydia knew this, but it wasn’t a large enough or loud enough part to override the idiotic rest of her brain. ‘Did you want to order takeaway? Or we could raid the cafe kitchen.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ Fleet said. ‘I’m going to head home.’
‘Don’t be like that. Let’s talk about it.’
‘So now you want to talk?’ Fleet shook his head. ‘Ignore me. I’m just… I need to process.’
‘Okay,’ Lydia said. She understood that impulse. He wanted to go and sort his head out. Then he would come back and they would talk it through properly and everything would be fine. Everything had to be fine.
* * *
An hour later, the pressure sensor outside the flat told Lydia she had a visitor. She recognised Fleet’s shape through the obscured glass and got a hit of his particular signature, a bonfire on a beach, a warm salt-tinged breeze ruffling through palm leaves.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said as soon as she opened the door.
Lydia stepped into his arms. ‘Me too.’
After a moment, Fleet pulled back slightly. ‘I’m ready to talk.’
‘We should make up properly first,’ Lydia said. Mostly out of the need to be naked with Fleet but also, partly, to put off the talking part.
Jason was on the sofa, the laptop sitting innocently next to him, waiting for them to pass through before picking it up again.
Lydia was towing Fleet by the hand, but he stopped and stared at Jason and, for a moment, Lydia thought he could see him. He had glimpsed him once but hadn’t mentioned seeing him again.
‘New laptop?’
‘That’s my old one,’ Lydia said.
He stood for a few seconds longer, frowning in Jason’s direction.
Lydia watched Fleet staring and then she squeezed his hand. ‘You see him, don’t you? Jason.’
‘Jason?’ Fleet glanced at her quickly and then back at the ghost.
‘Hi,’ Jason said, waving in an exaggerated way.
‘Did he…’ Fleet swallowed, grey showing under his skin. ‘Did he just wave at me?’
‘Yep,’ Lydia said. ‘If you’re going to pass out, please get on the floor. I don’t want you to knock yourself out.’
‘I’m not going to faint,’ Fleet said, but he didn’t sound sure.
At that moment Jason flickered and disappeared.
‘So,’ Lydia said. ‘That’s my flatmate. His name is Jason. He makes a mean hot chocolate. And he died in the nineteen eighties.’ Murdered on his wedding day. By Charlie. But Lydia decided not to say that bit out loud. She didn’t know where Jason went when he disappeared or whether he became invisible and could still hear her. She had decided long ago that was a hornets’ nest she would prefer not to kick. It was easier to live with a ghost if she decided that he couldn’t become invisible and hang about without her knowledge.
‘You know its name.’
‘Not it. He. Jason. He’s my friend.’ Lydia was going to explain that Jason was also her partner and that he was extremely handy when it came to internet research requiring hacking, but she thought that might be a revelation too far. Fleet still looked a bit queasy.
He looked at her for a moment. ‘I thought it was more a… I don’t know, casual haunting thing. One of your… Side effects. Of being…’
‘A Crow? Seeing Jason is a side effect, I guess. And I have made him stronger. He wasn’t able to touch things before, and he disappeared a lot, but now he can make me coffee.’
‘That’s…’ Fleet ran out of words and the pause stretched on.
‘Weird? Handy? Amazing?’
He nodded, a trademark sunshine smile appearing. ‘All of the above.’
* * *
Lydia poured them both a stiff drink and waited for Fleet to take the conversational lead. She was still wary of how much he was able to process in one lump. She was a lot. She had always been a lot and her life just kept getting stranger.
Finally, Fleet drained the last of his whisky and spoke. ‘So. We need to leave London.’
‘She’s been working as an international assassin, I don’t think it would make a difference.’
‘Witness protection. New identity. You know the drill.’
‘I’m not leaving,’ Lydia said.
‘This is serious, Lyds. You’ve got no choice. I would come with you,’ Fleet said. A beat. ‘If you want me, that is.’
‘I’m not leaving,’ she repeated. She was not having this conversation.
‘She is going to kill you,’ Fleet said starkly. His expression bleak. ‘I can’t stop her. You can’t stop her. You need to hide.’
Lydia met his gaze. ‘She was there to do a job. When she discovered it was me, she chose not to do it. I don’t think we should be so quick to assume she is going to top me.’
‘What if Mr Smith ups her fee? Offers her something she really wants? And that’s assuming she’s in her right mind. She’s not normal, Lyds, we have no idea what she’s going to do.’
‘I’m not normal, either. Does that make me an unpredictable psycho?’
He frowned. ‘That’s not…’ He stopped. ‘We’re not talking about you.’
‘I’m not hiding,’ Lydia said. ‘So we need a new plan.’
* * *
Out on the terrace, whisky bottle and glasses on the table and the fairy lights on, it could have been a normal social occasion. The three crows which were perched on the railing watching them were a little unusual perhaps, as were the house sparrows which were sat along the roof line. A magpie flew down and stood on the table, eyeballing Lydia like it was trying to tell her something. ‘I know,’ Lydia said to it. ‘I’m an idiot. Warning received.’
The magpie tilted its head and half-flew half-hopped over to the railing to join the crows.
‘At least the birds agree with me,’ Fleet said easily, pouring them generous measures.
‘Hey,’ Lydia complained without conviction. She was just glad he was here. No amount of crazy seemed to be too much for Fleet and the small part of her that had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Fleet to realise that Lydia wasn’t alluringly mysterious, that she was just strange, broke free.
‘Here’s the thing,’ Fleet said. ‘I know you don’t want to trade with MI6, but I don’t think we have a choice. We need to find out what is going on with Mr Smith’s department. We need to know if there is an official kill order out on you or whether that was off the books.’
‘Are there official kill orders? I thought all of that was clandestine.’
‘There are books and then there are books,’ Fleet said. ‘Someone will know something.’
‘How will it help, though? To know if it’s just Mr Smith or goes further?’
‘So that we know who to trade with to get it rescinded. The only way to stop Mr Smith going after you is to make you more valuable alive.’
Lydia put her glass down so quickly she was surprised it didn’t smash. ‘I’m not working for him. That’s the whole point…’
‘Not for him, but what about for MI6?’
‘No,’ Lydia said flatly.
‘Okay, not working for, but what about working with? Helping with enquiries? Being a useful contractor from time to time? Isn’t that worth your life?’
Lydia was about to say ‘no’. She was nobody’s weapon. Nobody’s tool to be taken out of the box and used, but Fleet wasn’t finished.
‘Isn’t that worth Emma’s safety? Her life?’
Lydia glared at Fleet but it didn’t make him any less right. Hell Hawk.
Chapter Eleven
The sun was out and the sky was blue, and Lydia felt a darkness in her heart which made her want to set fire to things.
‘You’ve got nothing to worry about,’ Fleet was saying as they approached the columned exterior of the Tate Britain. ‘You don’t have to agree to anything. Let’s just see what we can get without promising anything. She wants to cultivate a source as much as we do.’
Lydia clenched her teeth and squeezed her coin in her fist. She didn’t want to be a source. She didn’t want to be anywhere near another bloody spook. When she thought of Mr Smith the rage rolled over in a hot wave of fire. She knew this was unhelpful, but she couldn’t help it. It wasn’t that he had proved to be untrustworthy, it was the extent and breadth of that untrustworthiness which burned. She had misread the situation, the relationship, the man, and that had shaken her more than she would ever admit.
Inside the gallery, there was the usual hushed air of people appreciating art. The walls were pastel tones and the ornate white cornice was a foot deep. Two women stood in front of a bronze sculpture of a man grappling with a python. The figure had extremely impressive musculature and Lydia didn’t blame them for their intense interest.
Fleet was walking slowly, looking at the art as if he were any other visitor. Lydia emulated him as best she could, but her mind wouldn’t stop racing. She was in partial fight-or-flight mode and had been since meeting Maddie on the hospital roof. She knew it wasn’t sustainable, this level of hypervigilance. She would crash and burn.
‘See the brushwork, here,’ Fleet said, pausing in front of another dark and dreary oil painting. He took her hand and squeezed it and she felt the message. Be calm. Unclench your jaw. At least standing still meant she could stop counting her strides. Her footsteps were audible on the parquet flooring, despite the sturdy soles of her DMs and it had become an obsession since they had walked into the large room. Lydia forced herself to look at the painting.
Her heart stuttered. The painting showed a terrified horse, brought to the ground with its head twisted back to stare, wide-eyed and panting at the lion biting its back. The lion looked faintly comical, but the horse’s fear was palpable.
‘George Stubbs.’ A woman with salt-and-pepper hair and red-rimmed glasses had stopped next to Lydia, her gaze focused on the canvas. ‘He was obsessed with the subject for over thirty years. Created
at least seventeen works which depicted horses being frightened or attacked by lions.’
Fleet nodded. ‘Ms Sinclair. I know you wanted to meet Lydia.’
Lydia had now met two members of the secret service to her sure and certain knowledge. Mr Smith had first appeared at her gym and later as a courier, looking completely at home in both guises. It was only once she knew his role that she saw him in a suit. Ms Sinclair, on the other hand, was wearing a complicated amount of grey-toned, layered separates and she looked like an art critic or a professor of something vaguely trendy. Scandinavian studies, perhaps. Or film.
‘Very pleased to make your acquaintance,’ Sinclair said, glancing at Lydia before resuming her study of the art. ‘Apologies for not bringing you into the office. It’s easier this way.’
‘I wouldn’t have come,’ Lydia said, and Fleet squeezed her hand. Warning her to play nice, no doubt.
‘I always wonder what started it,’ Sinclair mused, her eyes roving over the painting. ‘After all, lions aren’t exactly common in England.’
‘Maybe that’s what attracted him,’ Fleet said. ‘The lure of the exotic.’
Sinclair looked at Fleet approvingly. ‘Exactly so. People fear what they don’t understand, but they adore the novel.’
‘Is that what I am?’ Lydia was already fed up with this covert shit. Why wouldn’t spooks just get to the point? ‘A novelty?’
‘Hardly,’ Sinclair said. ‘Crows have been of interest since the service was first created.’
‘What is it you want?’ Lydia said. ‘In return for the information I require.’
She looked at Lydia properly, then. ‘You grossly misunderstand the nature of this meeting. I am merely considering an exchange, we are a long way from discussing terms. Didn’t your uncle teach you the art of negotiation? First the introductions, then you give me something to create good faith, then you sweeten the pot and then, maybe then, I will consent to a mutually beneficial deal.’
The Shadow Wing Page 9