I, Spy? (14 page)

I shrugged. “Well, yes, things have been easier…”

“Airline profits have gone down drastically in the last few months,” One went on, looking at some figures on his desk. “The company’s losses are in millions. After September eleventh, of course, things took a bit of a dive but all the low-cost airlines rallied through.”

This was true. A lot of the larger airlines had pulled out of Stansted, leaving it to holiday carriers like Air 2000 and the likes of Ace, Ryanair and Easyjet. For some reason, people didn’t seem as afraid of terrorist attacks when they’d only paid fifty quid for their ticket.

“Ace was doing very well, making a lot of money. Now it’s a PLC, of course, anyone can have a share of that money, but recently the shares have been going down in value. All these delays, inconsistencies, a lot of complaints have hit the news and there’s been very little to counter that. David Wright has made no secret of the fact that he’s interested in Ace in a big way. He already has a lot of shares in the company, but he’s looking to buy more.”

“And with share prices dropping so suddenly you think something’s up,” I said. “You think he’s sabotaging the airline so he can get it cheaper.” Clever bastard.

“Bingo,” One said.

“But,” I said, “he’s not the one in charge of it all?”

“No. Wrightbank is owned by David Wright, but not controlled by him. Insiders have long speculated there’s someone else pulling his strings, but no one knows who. We knew he had links with the Brown twins—he served a few months inside with one of them once.”

I stared. “David Wright was in prison? What for?”

“Petty theft,” Luke said. “A long time ago. His cellmate was one Neil Wilkes—the man you followed down the baggage belt.”

“Brown Two.”

“Yes. His brother is Thomas Wilkes. They’re known counterfeiters. They can forge anything—money, credit cards, passports…”

“Hence their fake names.”

“Yes. Now they’re both safely behind bars, but neither will say a word about who they're working for.”

“They could be working alone,” I said. “Who says they have to work for someone?”

“They’ve never done it before.”

“I’ve never pretended to be an air hostess before,” I replied sharply, “but I did yesterday. First time for everything.”

One smiled. “The crew were quite disturbed. One of them filed a report when she returned. The police brought it to us.”

Aw, crap.

Luke was laughing. “She said she was never convinced you were a trainee and she was sure your warrant card was fake.”

“Which one was she?”

“Her name was Kerry something…”

Ha! Kerry was the least helpful of the lot. And the stupidest. She’d told me she’d been on the crew for “seven months, since December”.

It’s April now.

“She was just jealous of my natural ability,” I said loftily.

“Ace also had a record number of complaints about you from passengers,” Luke said, grinning.

“Oh, well, passengers,” I dismissed. But hey, at least they’d noticed me.

“Anyway,” One said. “David Wright is booked on the afternoon flight back from Rome. He should be landing at 1745. Luke, will you see him off the plane?” Luke nodded. “And Sophie?”

I looked up helpfully.

“Go home and get some sleep. You look wretched.”

Cheers.

Luke followed me out. “Guess you must be tired,” he said, “all that travelling and shopping and socialising.”

“I wasn’t socialising.”

“So you went back to your passenger’s room on business?”

I couldn’t help a smile. I wondered what Harvey had thought when he came back out and I wasn’t there. Or if he’d noticed. Or if he was still on his bloody “cell phone”.

“No, that was personal.”

Luke scowled at me, and I turned away, grinning. I was just getting out my keys when another car pulled up, one of those special disabled cars, and Alexa opened her door.

“Hey, the traveller returns.” She smiled. “Nice trip?”

“Not bad.” I shot a look at Luke, who was still scowling. “You want a hand with that?” I gestured to the wheelchair she was reaching for.

“No, I’m good.” I watched in amazement as she lifted the wheelchair over from a well where the passenger seat should be, set it on the ground by her door and opened it up. Then she moved a lever that rotated her seat outside of the car and tipped herself into the wheelchair.

“Very impressive,” I said.

“Had a lot of practice.” She grabbed her handbag from the footwell and pushed the seat back inside, locked the door and started wheeling herself up the ramp into the office. I marvelled at her upper arm strength.

As she disappeared inside, One appeared in the doorway. “Luke, Sophie,” he said. “I’m glad you’re still here. I just took a look at those photos you sent.” He nodded at me. “You got one of his diary. I’m glad to see someone else uses a good old fashioned paper diary and not a bloody Palm Pilot.”

I had to hide a smile. He sounded like my dad, the world’s biggest technophobe. He wills his laptop to break down all the time so he can complain about how unreliable it is.

“He has the Buckman Ball written in for tonight,” One went on.

Luke sighed.

“So you two are going to go. I’ll get you some tickets and e-mail you the aliases.”

Luke nodded and they both looked at me.

“What is the Buckman Ball?” I asked meekly.

“In London,” Luke said. “A charity ball. Big celeb presence. Very boring. So far I’ve been every year for the last three years tailing someone. Why do they all go to the Buckman Ball?”

One did a palms-up. “Beats me. But you two are going. Get your tux out. Get,” he looked at me, “your ballgown out. Luke, wear a wire. Sophie, this way.”

Luke got in his car and drove off. I followed One back through into his office where he opened a filing cabinet and took out a collection of small, high-tech things.

“This has a long-range radio frequency so we’ll be able to pick up what’s going on from here,” he said. “But you’ll need to hide this away somewhere,” he held up a bulky transmitter, “so may I suggest nothing too clingy? This here,” he handed me a tiny grommet, “goes in your ear so you can hear Luke, and he can hear you. We can also break into the loop from here if we need to talk to you.”

I gulped and took the device. “Exactly how posh is this thing?”

“The Buckman Ball? Gets coverage in
Tatler
. Madonna’s on the guest list.”

Jesus.

I drove home with my head whirling. I owned nothing suitable. Nothing at all. For the last charity bash Chalker’s band had played at I’d worn my Monsoon standby, but it was both dated and clingy, not to mention far too obviously inexpensive for such an occasion. I knew my mother would have nothing suitable. Her idea of designer was the Marks and Spencer “Per Una” range.

Angel, I knew, would have lots of stunning things which she’d lend me in a second, but I’d hardly be able to get my left leg into any of her dresses. It was a shame, because her mother used to have some fabulous stuff, and it would be very cool to turn up in something IC Winter wore thirty years ago. Vintage, yah?

I got home and stared at my wardrobe in misery. Then I got out my phone and called Angel, just to see if she had put on a few stones in weight and gained several inches in height and felt the need to go on a shopping spree.

“I need a ballgown by tonight,” I said. “A real, proper Oscar frock, and I have nothing. I don’t suppose you have any cousins my size?”

“Sorry, honey,” Angel said with real regret, because she totally lived up to her name, “I don’t have any cousins at all. I could give my friend Livvy a ring if you like? She’s quite tall.”

I’d met Angel’s old boarding school pal Livvy, who’s actually Lady Olivia Something-Toff. She was my height, yes, but she was also a size eight. She had a sort of permanent stretched look to her.

“No,” I said dejectedly. “It’ll never work.”

“I could lend you some jewellery, though,” she offered. “So long as you tell me where and why you’re going and who with?”

I couldn’t lie to Angel. Well, not a lot.

“I can’t tell you,” I said. “I’m really sorry, but I can’t.”

“Why? Is he married or something?”

Bingo.

“Erm, yes. So you can’t tell anyone, either.”

“Oh my God, Sophie! You bad girl!” Angel said, but she said it admiringly.

I think.

I put down the phone and my Nokia rang. Luke.

“Did One give you the wire?”

“Yes, although I don’t know how to work it.”

“I’ll show you. You want me to come over?”

“No, I can figure it out. I’m quite capable.”

There was a little silence, as if both of us were working out what was wrong with that statement.

“I’ll figure it out,” I repeated. “Look, I have to find a ballgown by tonight—what time does this thing start, by the way? And how do I get there?”

“I’ll pick you up.”

“Where is it?”

“South Kensington. Gray’s Hotel. Just by the tube station—”

“Great! Then I’ll get the tube.”

There was another pause. “You’re going to travel on the London Underground in a ballgown?”

“Sure,” I said defensively, “why not?”

Luke sighed. Then he laughed. “Okay, fine, I’ll see you there. Nine o’clock.
Don’t
be late.”

“I won’t,” I said, offended, and as I put the phone down wondered why I had turned down his offer of a lift.

Then I remembered making out with him in the car and thought about how good he’d look in a DJ, and decided I’d made the right choice.

I spent the rest of the day cleansing and exfoliating, and dying my hair—it wouldn’t do to let Wright recognise me from Rome—and trying to think of what to wear. The only designer piece I had was my Gucci frock, and that was a short, cocktail kind of thing. Not a ballgown by any measure.

I’d almost given up and was just getting my Monsoon dress out when I got a text from Ella.
Wht u doin 2nte?

Going somewhere I shouldn’t with someone I shouldn’t
, I replied miserably (see, I have predictive text).
You got a designer ballgown I can borrow?

She rang me immediately.

“Designer ballgown, someone you shouldn’t be going out with?” she cried as soon as I picked up. “Honey, what are you not telling me?”

“He’s married,” I said (no point in making a lot of lies). “He invited me to some ball thing tonight, it’s really posh and I don’t have anything to wear.”

“Blow him off! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this!”

Ella is a nanny and lives vicariously through me and her other friends. She spends her days changing nappies and driving around in a pointlessly large Land Rover, picking her charges up from poncy schools and ballet lessons.

“I—well, it’s all kind of sudden,” I said, truthfully.

“Are you sleeping with him?”

“Not as such.”

“Oh, come on. What’s the point of seeing a married man if you’re not getting sex? Jesus, Soph, did I teach you nothing? Anyway, can’t you sting him for a ballgown?”

“He’s sort of unavailable,” I improvised. “I’m meeting him there.”

Ella sighed. “Okay,” she said. “How much time do you have?”

“I have to leave here at eight, very latest.”

“Come over at three. Her Ladyboat’s going to the spa. We can raid her wardrobe.”

Ella’s employer is a very nouveau bitch called Crystal who used to be a stripper but is now the wife of an equally nouveau shipping magnate who got knighted recently. They have two young children who rarely see their parents. Normally I’d say this wasn’t good for the children, but I’d met Sir and Lady Tasteless and now believed that the very best thing for these kids was if they never met their parents.

Besides, their father probably wasn’t Sir Darren anyway.

So I got in Ted and rolled up the zen-raked gravel of Sir Darren’s awful mansion just after three. He was out of the country on business (trans, shagging his secretary in Mauritius) and she was at the spa (getting botoxed). Ella had just picked the kids up from school and set them to doing homework (the cruelty! I never had homework ‘til I was at secondary school, and I never did it then). She pulled me upstairs to her Ladyboat’s dressing room and I stared in wonder.

“Look at all the pretty colours!”

Ella grinned. “Half of ’em never worn. She still hasn’t cottoned on to the fact that real celebs don’t actually buy their clothes, they just borrow them. Anyway. Where’s this ball thing, then?”

“Kensington.”

“Oh, very nice.” She paused, pulling the cover off a blue beaded thing. “Not the Buckman Ball?”

“Erm, yes. Why?”

“Jesus! Her Ladyboat’s been trying to get invites to that for years. She donates bloody billions to the charity—”

“What is the charity?”

“I dunno. Some children’s disease, or an AIDS foundation or something fashionable. No one gives a damn about the charity, Soph, it’s all about profiling.”

She kept badgering me about my married man, and I kept saying I couldn’t say. “It’s really complicated,” I said about a hundred times. “I’m trying to break it off…”

“But he keeps inviting you to posh things. Hmm.”

Eventually, terrified I’d get caught, I grabbed a luscious Donna Karan dress and scarpered.

“What will you say if she notices it’s missing?” I asked through Ted’s window.

Ella shrugged. “It’s at the cleaners.”

“She ever worn it?”

“Don’t think so. I’ll tell her one of the dogs got in there and peed on it. I’ll think of something. I’m still mad at you for not telling me about this bloke before,” she added. “At least tell me his name?”

“Luke,” I said, without thinking, and Ella beamed.

“Good name. Biblical.” She waggled her eyebrows at me. “I’ll see you later, yeah?”

I nodded and drove away gratefully. Ella had also outfitted me with shoes and a gorgeous gossamer wrap. I figured I was good to go.

The hair dye hadn’t taken well, so I redid it when I got home. I figure my blondness is too ingrained to be covered by one shot of Clairol. When I washed it out, my barnet was deep, deep brown. Jesus. I looked like a total goth with my pale skin. Time for some bronzer.

By the time I was finished, I felt like I should have been sprayed with fixative. I taped the fully charged transmitter to my garter (yes, I own a suspender belt) so it was hidden by the petticoats of the skirt and fixed the microphone to the underwiring of the dress.