Blood White and Blue Read online

  “I said, that’s none of your fucking business.”

  Lucie fixed the stranger with a fierce stare of her own, not allowing the surprise at how much he knew of her to show on her face when he sat back, smiled and slapped the file closed. She was unsettled, anxious and she didn’t like it; her mind looking for a way to take back as much control of the situation as she could.

  “Look, can’t we just get on with the arrest? I’m not in the mood for a round of ‘This is Your Life’.”

  “Nor I in hosting one, and I’m not here to arrest you, although if that remains your preferred option it can of course be arranged.”

  The realisation that no identification had accompanied the stranger’s arrival piqued Lucie’s anxiety further and she sat bolt upright, catlike, ready to pounce as soon as the situation demanded, although the oddly calming smile of the stranger was enough to convince her that such an effort was not immediately necessary.

  “No.”

  “Good. The truth is, I want you.”

  The resentment and anger of the last few days bubbled once more in Lucie’s gut and she raised an eyebrow in warning at the statement.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, not in the Biblical sense, or anything like that,” the stranger scoffed. “There’s a job I need completing, one which I think you might be particularly well suited to.”

  Realisation began to dawn on Lucie, one she met with a pinch of amusement and a healthy dose of scepticism.

  “So, you’re supposed to be a spy, are you?” She grinned.

  “I really prefer to think of myself as a Civil Servant.”

  “Brexit Britain’s own Bond, James Bond?”

  “Actually, my name’s Lake.”

  “Not even James Lake?”

  “Mr. Lake.”

  Lake’s tone had lost its avuncular inflection and Lucie knew that the conversation was now serious, even if she doubted the veracity of his claim.

  “You don’t look much like a spy.”

  “That’s largely the point, Ms. Musilova.”

  “Yeah, but come on. I mean, no offence but you hardly fit the image, do you?”

  “And it’s a damn good job not,” Lake icily replied, “It’s fair to say I wouldn’t have risen to the glories of the Office I presently hold if all eyes in the room turned to me the moment I strode to the bar, dressed in black tie. Believe me, many a state secret is hidden beneath a well-worn toupee, or ‘twixt a cardigan clad bosom.”

  A smirk played at Lucie’s lips, despite her reluctant acknowledgement of the odd man’s logic.

  “Perhaps so, but there has to be a balance somewhere.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, as you’ve just read, I’ve been on military missions, I’ve just been thrown off my ship for nearly feeding a guy to the sharks. No disrespect but you’re no spring chicken; what’s to stop me just getting up and walking out?”

  A raised eyebrow and the slightest hint of a smile, fuelled with just a hint of subtle arrogance, met Lucie’s words and she inwardly questioned her own blitheness.

  “You wouldn’t make it up from your seat.”

  “Oh, really? It strikes me it would be a rather unmatched contest.”

  “Then let’s even the balance, shall we?”

  Lake reached into his inner suit pocket and pulled out a small, short barrelled gun, placing it on the table and sliding it over towards Lucie, who looked at it, frowning; her nerves at the weapon’s appearance mixing sharply with the uncertainty which once more niggled her.

  “As I see it,” Lake began, “you have three options: Prison for attempted murder, and given the current political climate, I’m not sure your ethnic status would garner much sympathy for you in the courts. You take the job I am offering you, and your debt to society will be considered paid in full, or…”

  “Or?”

  “You can pick up the gun and threaten to shoot me if I don’t let you walk out to your freedom. In which case, I give you my word I will not pursue you.”

  Lucie’s brow furrowed at the simplicity of the offer.

  “The gun isn’t loaded,” she cautiously ventured, in response to which Lake retrieved it from the table, pointed it to the ceiling and fired; the noise echoing around the small room, causing Lucie to clasp her hands to her ears and duck as ceiling dust and plaster coated the table in a brief shower.

  Lake returned the gun to the table and offered a half smile.

  “It seems to be working just fine to me.”

  Cautiously raising herself, Lucie looked into the eyes of this strange, surely insane man, reasoning that with such apparent instability on display, spy or not it was unquestionably better that if there was a gun in the room, she be the one to hold it.

  Lake looked calmly back, unmoving and seemingly unmoved by his actions of a moment before. The gun, its authenticity proven, lay once more on the table between them, smoke continuing to rise from its barrel and its handle achingly close to Lucie’s fingertips.

  She would have been lying to herself if she said she was not intrigued by the game, for a game this now undoubtedly was. The gun was close, much closer to her than to Lake, who sat back in his chair, between her and freedom, making no effort to inch forward.

  Her mind was made up. Erratic or not, she would take the gun and warn him not to follow her. She would have to quickly find some alternative clothes and hide her hair under something, but after that she could surely take advantage of one of the many ferries steaming away from Southampton docks. Keeping her eyes firmly on Lake, Lucie chose the precise instant to lurch forward, fingers outstretched for the object of her escape.

  Instead of the reassuring grip of cold metal, Lucie felt only the impact of the table hitting her square on the chin, knocking her head – and her- backwards into her chair which almost toppled over with the sudden movement.

  Stunned, she shook her head clear of stars and stood to launch herself at Lake, stopping dead when she saw the gun had slid down the table, which he had raised sharply with an extended leg, and was now pointing nonchalantly in her direction.

  “Let’s call that Lesson One,” Lake suggested as she rubbed her chin and stared angrily back at him. “When your enemy focusses your attention on one thing, always be aware of what else is going on behind their back; or in this case, under the table.”

  “Nice,” Lucie begrudgingly admitted, her ego more bruised than her chin would be but her interest also aroused by this curious and well-prepared man; enough certainly to play along for now. “But if you think this means I’ll work for you, you’re madder than you look. The second you let me out of your sight I’ll be gone.”

  “Yes, well I had a feeling that might be your attitude,” Lake answered dispassionately, opening his folder once more and pulling from it a tattered and dusty A4 envelope, its carelessly stuffed contents bursting through rips and tears at the corners. He tossed it over to Lucie, who caught it, her curiosity awakened.

  “What’s this supposed to be?” she quizzed as she opened the envelope, only for her stomach to sink as though an invisible fist had pummelled into her gut, as she pulled the contents free. Crowning the papers was an ageing, dull photograph, though the eyes of the woman it contained were quite the opposite, their beauty still powerfully evident despite the absence of life behind their stare.

  Lucie’s emotions instantly drove home their advantage, claiming her in a tumultuous avalanche which brought a crack to her voice and tears to her eyes.

  “Bastard,” she croaked through the lump in her throat, her face red with rage as she stuffed the papers, photograph and all, back into the envelope. “You complete bastard.”

  Lake was unmoved, both by her words and the emotional trauma he’d inflicted. Instead he simply picked up the envelope from the table and returned it to his folder.

  “Perhaps I am,” he mused, almost to himself, “but if so it’s at least for the right reasons.”

  He shifted forward, his expression breaking into something approaching earnest, and his voice mirroring the change as he met Lucie’s still wet and resentful eyes.

  “I need you, Ms. Musilova,” he entreated, “and I can’t have you running off on some voyage of self-loathing while there’s work to be done.”

  The sudden sincerity intrigued Lucie, despite her revulsion at his tactics and she returned the look without comment.

  “Complete the task I have for you and not only will your record be expunged, but the case of your mother’s death will be re-opened. I know the desire to know what happened still burns inside, just as it would for anyone. I can’t promise that knowing will make any difference but work for me and I’ll at least help you put the flame of ignorance out.”

  Lucie stayed silent for a moment as she fought back the assault of her emotions. Beneath all of Lake’s charm, his eccentricity, his bluster, here was another man seeking to control her, to manipulate her actions. No better than the scum on the boat, this was at heart just someone else trying to bend her to their will, but this time with a carrot instead of a stick.

  “Ask me.”

  “What?”

  “All this bollocks with the gun, the file, trying to twist me whichever way you want me to twist, fuck all that. If you want my help, ask me for my help.”

  Lake’s posture relaxed as the half-smile returned to his face.

  “I have a problem,” he said simply, “will you help me?”

  “You forgot to say please.”

  “Don’t push it.”

  Lucie returned the half smile, glad to see the balance of power tip at least a little back towards her.

  “So, what’s this job you have for me?”

  Lake’s mouth spread into a full grin for the briefest of moments, before being instantly replaced by a serious frown.

  “A threat has been received, Ms. Musilova,” he began. “A threat against a leading figure on the Government benches.”

  “So why does that affect me? Surely stuff like that’s par for the course?”

  “Well yes and no, this case is a bit different.”

  “How so?”

  Lake narrowed his eyes and looked back at her with an expression of utter seriousness.

  “Because this time the threat has come from a ghoul.”

  “A ghoul?” Lucie laughed out loud in incredulity. “You mean like a ghost?”

  “I do indeed,” came the mirthless response. “A Ghost from Prague.”

  THREE

  A short time later, the unlikely duo had been ushered into Lake’s car by the waiting chauffeur and were heading out of Southampton in the direction of London, while the eccentric man expanded the briefing, punctuated by the occasional curse articulated at the less aware of the morning’s rush hour drivers.

  The car itself was nothing special, in fact quite the reverse. An ageing Rover 214 SEi, in British Racing Green with grey trim was their carrier; a car which the bland suited driver described as a ‘classic’ but which to Lucie’s mind served better to emphasise Lake’s point about the value of the unexpectedly unspectacular in his field. As the car merged onto the A27, Lake, reclining in the back seat next to Lucie, was ready to explain the reasons for his supernatural warnings of earlier.

  “You’ve heard of Alexander Huxley, I presume?”

  Lucie nodded, turning her head from the window towards him.

  “The defector? He was the British operative in Prague during the sixties who fled the embassy and joined the Hard-Line Communists against Dubček when the Russians invaded.”

  “Top of the class,” Lake acknowledged. “What isn’t so well-known is that there was another operative in Prague at that time who was captured and tortured by the Communists before eventually being released, apparently alongside Huxley. After a long career in the intelligence services, that operative entered politics and is tipped by the Press to shortly become a significant figure within the government.”

  “Who?”

  “Sir Geoffrey Hartnell,” Lake answered immediately, the fierceness of his gaze at once assuring Lucie of the severity of the consequences which a lack of secrecy on her part would bring.

  “Oh yeah… he’s quite pro Europe isn’t he?” she quizzed.

  “Quite so. He’s in his seventies now,” Lake explained, “but he’s as energetic as ever and he’s hugely respected on the international scene; he’s one of the few politicians we have left we can say that about. With Brexit turning out to be the catastrophe it is, he’s widely seen as a steadying influence on the Ship of State. He currently Chairs the European Affairs oversight committee and has been extremely critical of the government’s vacuous approach to everything European since that damn referendum was called, but despite that, the PM is under pressure to hand him the Foreign Office Brief at the impending reshuffle. God knows we need someone competent in there handling things.”

  Lucie soaked up the information as a thousand questions began to form in her mind.

  “Everyone knows that MPs and Public Figures on every side of the Brexshit argument have been getting death threats from all manner of numpties and keyboard warriors ever since the referendum was called. What’s different about this one that’s got your knickers in a twist?”

  “Primarily who it came from, and how it was delivered,” Lake responded, frowning a little at the coarseness of his companion.

  “Not just an anonymous e-mail or letters cut from newspapers, then?”

  “I’m rather afraid not.” Lake’s frown deepened, accompanying the deeper seriousness in his tone. “This one arrived in the Diplomatic Bag from Prague, written under the government’s own headed notepaper and signed by none other than…”

  “Alexander Huxley,” Lucie finished. “I suppose it’s reasonable in a way; resentment at the elevation of a colleague while you find yourself in exile. Shit like that could really eat at someone I’d imagine.”

  “Quite,” Lake agreed. “But arriving in the Bag suggests that the writer has an accomplice within our own walls who shares his resentment, if indeed the threat is genuine.”

  “Can’t the Embassy look into that?”

  “They are,” Lake assured her, “in as much as they can. They aren’t really equipped to conduct an investigation of that sort, and of course no-one is likely to put their hands up and admit to posting the threat.”

  “Or to working with Huxley…” Lucie mused.

  “Well that’s the other problem,” Lake explained, a note of worry accompanying his words, “Alexander Huxley is dead.”

  The revelation startled Lucie into a seated attention.

  “Dead?”

  “As the proverbial Dodo,” Lake confirmed. “Hartnell was sent to retrieve him during the Velvet Revolution in ’89, but by then he’d already been killed by his KGB handlers, presumably to prevent any chance of re-capture at a time when the Communists were at their most vulnerable.”

  Lucie continued her assimilation of the data, her mind rushing through variables and possibilities as the ageing car bumped uncomfortably on.

  “So, either the whole thing is a hoax,” she pondered aloud, “which given how the threat was received is unlikely, or else someone with more knowledge of the case than is publicly known is wearing ‘Alexander Huxley’ as a mask to revenge him from beyond the grave…”

  “Those are both workable hypotheses,” Lake agreed as they drew ever closer to London, “ones which you’ll be considering with your new team shortly.”

  “Team? I thought this was a job for me?” The thought of working with others was anathema to Lucie, her sudden enthusiasm for the case dipping at the news.

  “Your unique experiences and skills will prove essential to us, I’m sure,” Lake answered, ignoring the irritation in her words, “but so will those of the others.”

  Lucie sighed in frustration. “So, I’ll just be another suited and booted drone with an MI6 name tag?” she spat contemptuously.

  “We’re not ‘Six’,” Lake corrected.

  “MI5 then.”

  “No.”

  Puzzlement added itself to Lucie’s frustration and she pressed on.

  “Then what the hell are we?”

  Lake turned to her and twisted his mouth into the annoying ‘not-quite-a-smile’ of his, clearly relishing his new subordinate’s current frustration.

  “We are the Security and Intelligence Service for Cross-Boundary Affairs,” Lake smirked.

  “The what?”

  “The ‘Overlappers’, Ms. Musilova.” Lake returned his stare to the window as the car continued on its way. “The ‘Overlappers’.”

  Lake said little else during the journey and for the moment Lucie was content for that to be so, as the silence was at least preferable to another smugly delivered drip of information and Lucie’s own thoughts contained much to occupy her for the rest of the trip.

  The whir of unbalanced wheel bearings began to plague Lucie’s ears just as the ancient vehicle pulled into the kerb outside a graffiti coated row of takeaways in a part of Camden Lucie didn’t recognise. Lake and the chauffeur immediately stepped out from the car, somewhat to Lucie’s surprise, who nonetheless followed suit.

  “Don’t tell me this is your office?” she frowned at Lake, who stood outside what was evidently once a fish and chip shop but was now hauntingly empty, save for the remnants of kitchen equipment visible behind the street art adorned windows.

  “Oh no, no, no,” Lake answered, shaking his head. “This is your new home.”

  As if on cue, the chauffeur dropped Lucie’s bag on the pavement next to her and she looked from it to Lake to the building with an almost murderous incredulity on her features.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” she exhaled, “a bloody chippy?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Lake retorted, I wouldn’t ask you to live in a fish bar! There’s a vacant flat above it you can get to around the back.”

  The assurance offered little comfort to Lucie, whose resentment continued to grow.

  “I already have a flat,” she protested, reliving her anger at the difficulties of securing tenancies in the hostile environment of a Britain still wrapped up in its distrust of anything foreign that wasn’t served in pint glasses. “It’s in Manchester. That’s where I live.”