‘That’s empty rhetoric and you know it.’
‘Do you know what Jane looks like?’
I thought again of the photograph I found of her on the first night I slept with Zac. I’d searched for it several times since, without luck. ‘Yes.’
‘Then you know you resemble her. Same height and build – you’re a couple of centimetres taller, but not much. Same colouring, that unusual strawberry blonde hair you both have. Doesn’t that disturb you?’
‘Having a preferred type isn’t a sign that a man’s a psychopath and a murderer.’
‘Holly. I need to ask if Zac has ever done anything to hurt you.’
‘Of course not.’ I tugged Zac’s parka down at the wrists. They were slightly red and swollen, from where he’d pinned them above my head the previous night, one of those fine lines that you sometimes crossed during sex, when you were carried away. ‘But despite the fact you obviously disagree, rather than rescue me from him you want to send me back in.’
‘I’m confident there’s nothing I can say or do right now to keep you away from him. You don’t want to be rescued. So, given that this is where we find ourselves, it would help us a great deal if you would keep an eye out.’
‘No.’
‘You don’t need to do much. We can start small. If you come across any objects of Jane’s, tell us about them in as much detail as you can. Give them to us, if at all possible.’
‘It’s pointless. Not just because I said no and I mean it. Zac doesn’t even have any of her things.’
‘You might still stumble on something. We’d like to know of any communications Zac makes, especially if they are connected in any way to Jane. Who are his contacts? How does he get in touch with them? Email? Text? Phone? Laptop? Does he have any social media accounts? Maybe under a user name that people wouldn’t link to him? What trips does he make? If he ever happens to leave a device powered on you might be able to look. See if you can guess his password. Pay attention to where he’s going, who he’s meeting, if anyone ever visits him at work …’
‘Those are disgusting things to do to someone you care about, someone who’s trusted you and let you into their life.’
‘Do what you are comfortable with, then. What you can. You understand Zac. You’re intimate with him. You see the ins and outs of how he operates in ways we can’t.’
‘The answer’s no.’
‘It won’t kill you to think about it, and to be gently watchful while you do.’
‘Again … no.’
‘Let me ask you something.’
‘What?’
‘Did you ever tell Zac you tried to join us?’
‘No. Why would I?’ My voice cracked. ‘It was humiliating. Do you ever consider what it means to someone to work so hard to try to join you, to want to devote herself to that, to protecting her country, and then to discover she’s not good enough?’ I was surprised by my own honesty, by my nakedness and exposure.
‘I do. And it was wise of you to keep it to yourself. Did you tell anyone else?’
‘Only Milly and James and Peggy. As I disclosed when I applied.’
‘Again wise – I suggest you keep it that way. But just in case you change your mind about doing this for us, let me explain a bit more about how it can work.’
‘I’m not going to change my mind. I’ve said no so many times in the last few minutes I’ve lost count. No means no these days.’
‘I know that. I respect that. But it won’t hurt you to hear me out. It doesn’t obligate you to do anything. I’ve come a long way to see you – you can at least listen.’
‘I don’t remember guilt and emotional blackmail as part of the recruitment script.’
‘Well they are. Can you give me a few more minutes?’
All I gave her was a shrug, but she seized on it with a pleased nod.
‘Good,’ she said, and though I punctuated her sentences with shakes of my head, she told me that my identity would be protected, and that any written records would not be available except to a small number of those who needed access, and that any information about my own wrongdoing would not be acted upon.
‘There is no wrongdoing. Because I haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘We know that.’ But still she went on, telling me about the secret channels through which I could contact her to pass information. And I couldn’t help but listen, because the tradecraft she was describing, the basic techniques for surveillance and communications, fascinated me too much to stop her altogether or simply leave. She told me how to speak through classified advertisements, and about a dead letter drop she would set up near the bench where we were sitting. She mentioned a safe house, in case I ever needed to get away quickly.
‘You really have wasted your time and wasted your breath,’ I said, when she finally stopped.
‘We’ll see.’ Without another word, she got up to retrace her steps along the path, vanishing as suddenly as she appeared. She moved silently, and I realised that the rustle she’d made when she first approached was no accident. Nothing Maxine said or did ever was.
Two and a half years later
Bath, Tuesday, 2 April 2019
My head is filled with the little girl who visited the hospital yesterday. Each time I try to explain away her appearance there, I fail. I look over my shoulder, half-expecting to see Zac.
I am on my morning run. The route is already in my bones. My body moves along it without effort, though I barely slept last night. Hearing Peggy and James’s voices comforted me, but agitated me too. For so long, I have had to hide myself from the few people in the world I love, all the time fearing that Zac would turn up. Now, there is a high probability that he has, as well as the distinct possibility that he dragged a wife and child along with him.
But I am not going to sit around waiting for them to pop out at me again. Or for him to. I added Eliza to my telephone contacts last night. ‘Madam likes to be up early,’ she had said, ‘and my husband’s usually out before the sun, so call any time.’ I grab my phone from the pocket in the waistband of my leggings and use a voice command to do just that.
As we speak, Eliza clatters breakfast things and tries not to sound stressed, while Alice chatters in the background. We arrange to meet in the park for a quick coffee tomorrow morning, before I go into work. ‘Getting Alice out early into fresh air would be good,’ she says. There is a screech from Alice, and a crash of what sounds like glass onto tiles. ‘As you can hear.’ Eliza breaks off, though she hurriedly promises to bring the coffees.
I put the phone away and speed up. The sun is cutting through the pre-dawn mist and the bluebells are out already. Despite the two miles I have already run, and the call, I am not at all out of breath. I had to work hard to get this strong after it happened.
I turn into the disused railway line, going faster still, then enter the first tunnel. The dimness swallows me. The air seems still and dead, and smells of damp. Soon, though, the motion sensors begin, the flashes and sounds activated by my movement – Milly would love this. A circle of blue light surrounded by a white halo blazes at me from a window-shaped cut-out in the wall of stone, then a blast of violin music that is louder than my breathing as I speed up. But the tunnel is filled with ghosts, as if Eliza and Alice brought them along to the hospital and released