Ugley Business (3 page)

Then I tried to hide my own nails. We can’t all be perfect, can we?

“So,” Maria asked, after she’d settled on the beach towel that protected her from getting stuck to Ted’s vinyl seat in the summer heat, “what have I missed?”

I shrugged. “Got a postage stamp? I’ll write it down for you.”

“That quiet?”

“Pretty much. I went to stay with my friend Angel last night and we thought there was an intruder, but Luke couldn’t find anyone.”

The camera flash bugged me, though. I’d swear it wasn’t lightning.

“Speaking of Luke…” Maria glanced sideways at me, and I refused to bite. “Sophie, what’s going on between you?”

When did everyone get so nosy? When did my love life become so interesting?

Oh, yes. When I finally got one.

“Nothing,” I said, but I’m a terrible actress, I’ll never ever make a good spy, and Maria was shaking her head at me.

“I’ve seen you two when you come to visit. All those little glances, can’t stop touching each other… You wouldn’t fool my grandmother, and she’s deaf and blind.”

“It’s not serious,” I tried, and Maria snorted.

“We’re talking about Luke, right? The only serious relationship he’s ever had is with his SIG.”

This is true. The gun goes everywhere with Luke, and you do not touch the gun. My baby is Tammy. His is his SIG.

“Exactly,” I said. “We’re just having fun.”

“You’re sure that’s all?”

“I’m not made of metal and I don’t have a slide latch, so I’ll never capture his heart,” I said lightly, although I wasn’t joking. Luke is fantastic and we have an incredible time together, but I’m not sure if I could cope with being loved by him. I think my head might explode or something.

We pulled up at Maria’s house and I took her bag inside. The place was light and airy—or would have been had it not been locked up for two months. Luke and I had been round once or twice to check up on the place, stack her mail so that the front door could be opened, make sure nothing was leaking, but it was still mostly hot and airless inside. Maria went around opening windows and brushing dust away with her fingers. Her house, like mine, has lots of secure shutters and locks, but all of them on the inside so as not to look weird. Or spoil the period detailing, as the case is for Maria’s house. I’m not sure a twelve-year-old flat can have period detailing. I have socks older than that.

She was just debating whether to walk to the shop or drive to Tesco for something cold and sinful to drink, when my phone rang.

“Why didn’t you answer before?”

It was Luke.

“I switched it off in the hospital, like a good girl. And then I was driving.”

“You’re a paragon,” Luke said drily. “Where are you now?”

“Maria’s. We’ve just got back.”

“Can you come up to the office?”

Eek. “Both of us?”

“Yes. And—” he lowered his voice, —”try to look respectable.”

“Is she scary?”

“That doesn’t begin to cover it.”

Marvellous. I ended the call and turned to Maria. “All work, no play. We have to go and present ourselves to the new boss.”

“Fantastic.” Maria was wandering upstairs. “Just let me get changed. My clothes smell of hospital.”

She came back down in low-slung jeans and a tight black top that rode up to show the new scar on her stomach. Not respectable entirely, but a clever reminder of why she’d been off work. “Let’s go.”

It only took her about half an hour to lock everything up, and then we were off, rattling up to the nondescript airport business park, where SO17 has its office. The sign by the door reads “Flight Services Inc.”, and once you get past the swipe card entry there’s a normal-looking inner and outer office inside.

Luke was waiting in the outer office, fiddling with the leaves of a pot plant. “I said respectable,” he said, looking me over with an expression of despair.

“This is as respectable as I get,” I said. “Anyway, isn’t Macbeth coming?”

“Yes, but—”

“Next to him I’ll look like a paragon of virtue.”

Macbeth was Maria’s protégé, a huge black man who looked as if he’d be more at home at the door of an exclusive club. He could break through pretty much any lock and, he said, disable a car alarm in two seconds. I fully believed him.

However, Luke did not obviously fully believe me. I didn’t see why. In my mind, denim shorts, a cotton camisole and sandals are very respectable in late June. I glanced over myself. Maybe the chipped polish on my toenails wasn’t too fetching. Or the biro’d shopping list sweating off the back of my hand. Or the cheap sunglasses pushed up into my hair, which was starting to revert back to its usual scruffy blonde.

Luke, of course, was looking immaculate in chinos and a white shirt. Bastard.

“Shall we go through?” he said, gesturing to the closed door that led to the director’s office.

“I feel like I’m on detention,” I said.

“Not yet,” Luke replied ominously, opening the door for us to go through.

Karen Hanson sat at her desk, dressed in an expensive grey suit, her dark hair in a perfect chignon, her manicured hands holding a heavy Parker pen. Her age was hard to tell; she looked like one of those women who was very careful with herself and therefore could be anywhere from thirty-five to fifty-five.

Maria and I exchanged glances. Now I sort of wished I wasn’t wearing five-year-old denim shorts and five quid sandals.

“Maria de Valera and Sophie Green,” she said, looking up at us in the right order. How did she know that?

Oh, yeah. File photos. Right.

“I’m the new director of SO17. My name is Karen Hanson, you can call me Karen if you want or One if you’re more comfortable with that.”

One was our old director. His name was Albert, but we figured One had a more Bond-ish sound to it. Plus it was easier to store him as One in my mobile, with everyone else as numbers according to seniority. He was shot and killed not long after I started working for SO17.

“I’ve been in Saudi for six months working undercover for a sheikh suspected of connections with Osama Bin Laden. In case you’re wondering, he was cleared. I’ve trained with the SAS and been with MI6 for ten years. I am married with two grown-up children who have no idea that I’m not the oil company executive I have always told them I am. The existence of SO17 came as a surprise to me, and it must continue to be a surprise to everyone else. I expect total complicity in keeping this organisation top secret, as well as your full loyalty and cooperation. Do you have any questions?”

I barely had any brain functions left. This woman was my own personal nightmare.

Maria raised her hand, a clever move that showed off her scar. “Will SO17 be getting any additional funding?”

Karen Hanson shrugged. “I will try to secure some extra funds, especially in the light of your recent activities, but MI6 has plenty more things to worry about than your pay packets.”

“I didn’t mean pay packets,” Maria said with a cut-glass smile, and I took a very small step back, “I meant
funding
. For equipment. Weapons. Surveillance. Perhaps someone to man the lab?”

“I will do that,” Karen Hanson said. “I am a qualified doctor.”

What a surprise.

“Miss Green,” Karen Hanson clipped, and I jumped. “You have nothing to say?”

“Not right now,” I said cautiously.

“Nothing wrong with keeping quiet.” She shuffled some papers, and I wondered what they actually were. Did everyone in a high-powered position have papers to shuffle when they want to change the subject? Was it one of those things you learn in management school? “Now, a new job just came in. Surveillance and possible personal protection.”

“You mean bodyguarding?” Maria frowned. “With all due respect, Mrs. Hanson, SO17 doesn’t take on contract work.”

“Does SO17 want to be paid?” Hanson asked waspishly. “Then SO17 takes on contract work. It’s not a breach of security, the client already knows of our existence. Her parents were agents.”

Even though her own kids didn’t know of the agency? I glanced at Maria and saw she was thinking the same thing.

“When do we meet the client?” Luke asked. He’d been standing to one side, evidently having exhausted all other questions and arguments this morning.

“Agent Five is escorting her in. They should be here any minute now.”

“I thought I was Agent Five,” I said in a small voice.

“No, you are Agent Four,” Karen Hanson said dismissively.

Ooh, a promotion. Probably because the old Four is currently serving a life sentence, having shot the old One, as well as several other people. I started hoping the number wasn’t jinxed.

We stood there in silence for a bit. Then, “Did you show her the lab, Luke?” Maria asked.

“First thing,” Hanson said, before Luke could speak. “I’m impressed.”

“Shame it was ordered to the spec of the person who shot your predecessor,” I said idly.

“And why should that be a problem?” Karen Hanson’s eyes, which I hadn’t noticed before, were pale blue and horribly penetrating. She swung her gaze on me, and I took another step back.

“Well, because she was a psycho,” I mumbled.

“You think that usage of the lab will turn me into a psycho?”

I looked helplessly up at Luke, but he was trying not to laugh. No help from him, or from Maria, who was avoiding eye contact with everybody.

“I think that someone as unbalanced as Alexa clearly was, was not likely to have installed a lab that could have been used for wholly sane purposes,” I said. “The cattle prods alone are a sadistic and rather unnecessary addition.”

I caught Luke’s eye and he gave me a mock-serious nod, as if he agreed completely.

“And the manacles,” I added, looking straight at Luke to see if he’d bite. And apparently he’s not perfect, because he did bite.

“You didn’t think they were sadistic last week,” he murmured.

“No,” I said, “not them. You, maybe.”

Maria had one hand to her mouth and the other on her flat stomach, trying not to laugh. Karen Hanson’s eyes swung between me and Luke like a blue searchlight.

“I’m not going to ask,” she said, the very tiniest hint of a smile touching her lips.

“We’re not going to tell,” Luke replied, his smile more overt.

Maria turned her face away, shoulders shaking.

Thankfully, at that moment the outside door opened, we heard voices, then the inner office door swung open and Macbeth walked in, immediately filling the room.

“Agent Five,” Hanson nodded. “Did you have any problems?”

“Yeah. Had to go back for sunglasses,” he said, voice deep and rumbling, barely betraying a smile. Macbeth seems big and scary, but underneath he’s a bit of a pussycat. A pussycat with claws, mind. Maybe what Tammy wants to be when she grows up.

“This,” Hanson said to us all, “is our new client. Angelique Winter,” she added, as Macbeth stepped aside, Angel appeared, looking pale and fragile, and I felt lightheaded.

Thoughts and shocks crowded into my head, everything from
Angel knows we exist
to Angel’s
parents were agents?

And then,
maybe she really does have a stalker.

And then,
she knows I’ve been lying to her.

Karen Hanson had started talking, but she stopped when it became clear no one was listening. I wasn’t paying attention to anything, my gaze rooted on Angel, my mind whirling.

“Sophie?” someone said. “Soph? Are you all right?”

It was Luke, touching my arm, lifting my chin and turning my face to his. I wrenched my gaze from Angel and let it linger on Luke.

“I—I’m—”

“You’re SO17?” Angel squeaked.

“We are,” Luke said. “You know about SO17?”

“My parents…” Angel began, and trailed off.

“Her parents were both agents,” Karen Hanson supplied.

“IC Winter was a government agent?” Luke said in disbelief.

“You’re IC Winter’s daughter?” Maria stared.

“IC and Greg Winter were both agents,” Karen repeated. People tend to forget Angel’s dad. He was a bigger earner than her mum, but not half as famous. “She in MI6, he in MI5. Both had a lot of useful contacts.”

There was a long silence. We all stared at Angel.

“Well,” Maria said eventually. “Bugger me.”

Macbeth looked her up and down thoughtfully.

“The stalker,” I said to Angel, recovering. “Is that why you’re here?”

She nodded. “It’s been going on and on. That’s why I asked you to stay. I’m frightened to be alone. I—I didn’t tell you about the dropped calls, the letters, even e-mails. I got a call from someone who’s writing a biography of my mum the other day. She said she’s getting harassed by some guy—or it might even be guys. There’s something he wants, but he never says what.”

“And you can’t think of anything it might be?” Maria asked. “No debts or anything?”

Angel shook her head. “Not that I know. Everything was in the black when they—when I—it’s all clear.” She looked up at me. “How long have you been a secret agent?”

“Two months.”

“Since—oh my God, since you went to part time, since that thing with the baggage belt—” she clapped her hand to her mouth.

“It’s okay.” Luke grinned. “The thing with the baggage belt was what got Sophie hired.”

Angel shook her head. “Wow.”

“So, what,” Maria asked, “are we supposed to be guarding her?”

Hanson shot her blue gaze at Maria, who didn’t flinch. “You, Agent Two, are off active duty until I am satisfied that you are totally healed.” Maria opened her mouth and Karen held up a hand to head her off. “You will stay here and investigate possible perpetrators via the computer.”

Maria glared at her mutinously and muttered something foreign under her breath. She has grandparents from all four corners of Europe, and speaks the languages accordingly. But apparently so did Karen Hanson, because she returned Maria’s glare with a cool glance, and replied in the same language. Maria burned, but said nothing.

I was
scared
.

“Agent Four,” Hanson said, and Luke had to nudge me. “You will guard Angel at work. Be her shadow. Notice everyone who notices her.”

I couldn’t help an eye roll.

“Is there a problem with that?” Hanson asked me crisply.

My main problem was that I didn’t want to work Angel’s twelve hour shifts. “Well, have you seen Angel lately? Everyone notices her.”

Angel blushed prettily. Karen Hanson gave me a glacial smile. “Then you will have to be vigilant.”

I made a face at Luke, who grinned. Vigilance is not my strong point.

“Agent Three,” Luke looked up at the summons, “your time will be divided between personal protection at Angel’s home when she is there, and background work at the airport if it is needed. You still have your green pass?”

Luke nodded and took it out of his pocket to show her. All airport workers have a security pass, mostly for purposes of identification and to get in and out of the car park, but if you work airside you need it for access. The pass, along with its individual PIN code, can get you in and out of all the doors that your specific job requires. Passenger service agents like Angel and myself have green passes, which access most areas. Police, and by extension Luke and me, have red security passes, which access all areas.

When I got involved with SO17, it was through Luke, who was working undercover for Ace as a PSA using the alias of Luca, a flirtatious Italian. He’d dyed his hair brown and wore contact lenses, and his accent was authentic enough to confuse genuine Italians.

I saw Angel looking at Luke curiously, and when he showed her the pass, her mouth dropped open.

“You’re Luca?”

He nodded.

“The whole time and that was you? Sophie, did you know?”

I nodded.

“Wait—you are really Sophie, aren’t you?”

I laughed. “As far as I know.”

“Agent Five,” Hanson turned to Macbeth. “I understand that security is one of your specialities.”

Huh. Wish I had a speciality.

Macbeth nodded, smiling widely, and Hanson went on, “You will be responsible for securing Angel’s property and guarding it when she is absent. Be discreet, this goes for all of you.”

I closed my eyes for a second. Macbeth, as big as at least two normal people with the demeanour of someone who’s going to cause you immense physical pain; me, five foot ten with my blonde hair and big boobs (I’m sorry, but I get noticed); and Luke, who is basically one giant pheromone. Not exactly what you might call covert.

“You will all need copies of this,” Karen Hanson gave us each copies of Angel’s roster. “Four, your schedule has been changed accordingly. You will be on checkin when she is, and at the gate when she is.”

I nodded.

“Let’s recap. Two?”

“I’ll be here doing Internet searches,” Maria said gloomily.

“Three?”

“At home when Angel’s at home. Maybe sometimes at the airport too.” Luke looked pissed off at this, and no wonder—he’d got the longest hours. But then he was the most highly qualified.

“Four?”

“Angel’s slightly larger shadow.”

Karen cracked a smile at that. “Five?”

“At home when she ain’t there.”

“Right. There is to be a firm crossover. She doesn’t escape your sight. Understood?” We all nodded. “Then off you go. Mission starts immediately.”

She picked up her pen and started writing again and we all turned to go like dismissed schoolchildren. Then something occurred to me.

“What if Angel wants to go out? Shopping, or to the pub or something? Is she going to be quarantined?”

Karen Hanson smiled. “Well done, Four. And since you’re so observant, you can escort her whenever she leaves the house.”

Luke grinned and pulled me out of the room before I could complain.

“And that’s what you get for being concerned,” I grumbled as he shut the door.

“It’s very sweet of you,” he kissed my forehead. “Well. Angel. Where do you want to go?”

“What am I, a Sim?” Angel said. “I need to go home. And think about all of this.”

“So I guess I’m coming with you,” Luke said.

“And I need to do some shopping later,” Angel said.

“So that’s me, too.”

“And I need to come and secure that chapel of yours,” Macbeth said. “Who has air-con?”

Ted didn’t, so I drove him back to Angel’s alone, trying to think, while Macbeth took his latest motor, an Alfa 159, and Luke drove his undercovermobile, a silver Vectra. Angel got in Luke’s car, judging it to be the safest, but not by a huge margin. I think she was more shaken than she let on. She had said once before how she hated guns. Now she knew she’d be travelling with one wherever she went—or if she was with Macbeth, with half a dozen.

And she wasn’t the only one who needed to think. I had to fit into my head not only the global knowledge that IC and Greg Winter were spies—not an actress and a songwriter, but
spies
, like me (well sort of)
—
but that Angel knew about SO17. I didn’t have to lie any more. I could tell her about me and Luke. I could talk to someone about it all.

Despite the hot, still air inside the car, I felt myself breathe easier.

Back at Angel’s house, all was chaos. Macbeth had driven off somewhere unknown to gather some security equipment of dubious legality, and was now drilling holes in the ancient stone of the church, fitting enough microphones and cameras to cover a talk show. The electric drill droned on and on and there were wires everywhere as he connected everything up.

Luke went around checking locks on doors and windows and told Angel to get metal shutters fitted to them all. Angel protested loudly that this was a fifteenth century church and that she wouldn’t be allowed because of its Grade I listing, but Luke paid no attention.

“Do you want someone to break into your house?” he asked, and Angel made a face.

“Well, no, but—”

“Get the shutters. They’ll roll back into the wall—”

“But the walls are ancient!”

The argument was stopped by Macbeth, who came in and said to Angel, “You should get some shutters on these windows. Fifteenth century glass ain’t cheap to replace.”

Angel then got into a conversation with Macbeth about fifteenth century glass, about which he appeared to know an astonishing amount, and Luke stretched back on the sofa and looked up at where I was leaning over the balcony of the baron’s gallery, watching it all.

“You okay up there?”

I shrugged and nodded.

“Bored?”

More shrugging. More nodding. I was too polite to say, “Yes, out of my mind.”

“Want me to come and keep you company?”

Before I could shrug and nod again, he’d disappeared under the gallery and started up the narrow stone staircase that winds up to the gallery. It’s a big space, twelve feet by nearly thirty and open to the room below, although there are heavy drapes that can be pulled across for privacy.

Luke straightened up as he came through the low doorway and regarded me with his head on one side as I sat on one of the guest beds.

“What?” I said.

“You look hot.”

“Hot as in sweaty and exhausted, or hot as in—”

“Hot as in,” Luke said, smiling lazily. “Although I could make it sweaty and exhausted, if you want.”

I rolled my eyes. “Angel and Macbeth are down there.”

“So? We’re up here.” He started towards me slowly. “We could be quiet.”

“The hell.”

“Okay, they could listen in.”

I smiled. “No, Luke.”

He put on a hurt face. “No last night, no this morning. Come on.”

“Tonight?”

He nodded. “You’d better—”

Oh, shit. “No, bugger, I’m going home for tea. I promised.”

Luke scowled. He pulled me to my feet and kissed me, long and hard, the sort of kiss that didn’t usually end with me still being clothed. And this was no exception: Luke already had my shoulder straps pushed down to the point of indecency.

He only stopped when Angel belted out a dirty whistle, to the accompaniment of Macbeth laughing.

“Get a room,” she called up, and I blushed.

“We’ve got one,” Luke called back. “Your guest quarters aren’t very private, Angel.”

“You shouldn’t be standing by the edge.”

He looked back at me. “She’s right, you know.” He pulled me back over to the bed. “Over here’s better.”

“I am not having sex with you while there are other people listening in!”

He made a face. “Spoilsport.” He glanced back at the door to the stairs. “What’s upstairs?”

“Upstairs?”

“Yeah. The stairs go up as well as down. Angel?”

“We can still hear you.”

“What’s upstairs?”

“Delicate things.”

“I think it’s storage,” I said.

“Storage is good.” To Angel, he said, “We’re going to have a look around.”

“Okay, but don’t break or, you know, stain anything.”

Blushing hard as Luke laughed, I let him pull me up the tiny spiral staircase and into Angel’s attic.

Jesus, it was like a treasure trove. All of IC’s dresses were stored here in garment bags, the windows totally blacked out so the fabrics wouldn’t fade in the sun. Greg’s guitars were all here, too—the Gibson Les Paul, the Fender Strat, the Hoffner violin bass, the Simon & Patrick—boxes of music, sheet and vinyl; memorabilia, movie posters and concert tickets; boxes and boxes of photos.

“Jesus,” Luke said.

“I know.”

“We can’t have sex here.”

“We can’t?”

“It’d be sacrilege.”

I stared. “Sex in a church doesn’t bother you, but sex in full view of Greg Winter’s Gibson is sacrilege?”

“Hey,” Luke said severely, “he wrote ‘Heartswings’ on that guitar.”

Men.

Instead of getting sweaty, we got dusty instead, looking through all the boxes for something that Angel’s stalker might want. But we didn’t find anything. Or rather, we found lots of things. The guitars alone were worth about the same amount as my flat. The piano downstairs in the south aisle, the one Greg had used to write the mega-famous “I Don’t Know Why”, had been valued in the millions. Looking under some old cardboard boxes, I found a safe.

“That could be interesting,” Luke looked at it.

“You going to break into it?”

“No,” he went to the stairs and yelled down, “Angel, can we look in your safe?”

She didn’t answer and he went farther down to yell over the gallery. She called something back up and he reemerged in the doorway, shaking his head.

“Women.”

“What?”

“The combination is her birthday.” He frowned. “Do you know it?”

“Do I know my best friend’s birthday? No.”

He gave me a look, and I rolled my eyes. “Of course I bloody know.” I gave him the full eight digit number and the safe rolled open.

We stared.

“Jesus,” Luke said.

“I know.”

“Fuck me.”

“Later.” I reached in and took out a velvet case. “Recognise this?”

He frowned at the diamond bracelet. “Should I?”

“And this?” I took out a necklace that probably had about the same worth as the entire village.

“That looks familiar…”

“I wore it to the Buckman Ball. Had to get it professionally cleaned before I could give it back.”