“So, Father, which hymns would you like me to practice for Sunday?”
Relieved, Father Harper cleared his throat and skipped to usher her upstairs to the chancel where the large pipe organ from Ingram & Co. basked in the colors of the stained glass window on its right hand side. The sun was glowing against the church windows, transporting Nina back to a time she was not fond of at all. Memories prodded at her mind, but she denied them as she denied the doctrines enforced upon her inside this very old building as a child.
“I’m sure it will not take you long to master our organ, Nina,” Father Harper chirped, unusually delighted to have her back in his church. “There has been some damage to some of the stops, but our dirge will not need to utilize that part of the instrument.”
“Your dirge?” she asked.
He smiled apologetically. “Aye. I’m afraid we will be needing you to play… for a funeral.”
Nina caught her breath. “Excuse me?”
The preacher looked terribly embarrassed and she could see that he was afraid she’d abandon her assistance at the news. “I did not know myself until this morning. I do hope that you will not change your mind about playing for my service?”
Nina was hesitant. She hoped this was not his old bait-and-switch method to get her back into the church's talons. But looking at his face, it was clear that was not what he’d intended. Father Harper was quite sincere, in fact.
“I thought you had Mrs. Langley for those types of services, Father,” she sighed, crossing her arms across her chest. “I can do a Sunday service — this once — but I don't do funerals. I don't like them. I detest funeral ceremonies. You know this.”
“I understand,” he started to explain, but Nina cut him off. “Then get Mrs. Langley to do this one. Please.”
“I would, Nina, but, you see,” he hesitated, blinking profusely as he searched the floor with his eyes. “Regrettably, it is Mrs. Langley's funeral I need you to play at, my dear.”
Nina was stunned at the news. Her arrogance was disarmed instantly and she was thankful that the snobs in the pew had not heard their conversation.
“I'm so sorry to hear that, Father,” she responded, sounding contrite.
Chapter 7 — Call to the Past
Ex-MI5 agent Jonathan Beck was the type of operative who had no problem hiding in plain sight. In fact, his method of tracking was just so — overt. Through fourteen years of working for Her Majesty's Secret Service, Beck had learned that the most obvious of foes often stalked in shadows and lurked in the tracks of the quiet night. Those who did their nefarious deeds in the cover of dark or the obscurity of shaded places were often the most prone to suspicion.
He had always preferred to be visible, an active and pleasant participant in whatever little universe he was infiltrating. It served him well when the proverbial feces hit the fan too, because he would be just another face in the crowd, without being perceived a stranger. Without the label of outsider, Jonathan could easily join the mob of astonished onlookers to the very operations he facilitated.
Dr. Nina Gould would be one of his easiest assignments thus far, he reckoned, because she had no social support system and she was by no means close to her neighbors, isolating her beautifully from those who could have made alarm had she gone missing. He had been watching her for a mere three days and yet she had only spoken to two individuals, if you counted the big orange cat at home. Beck found her fascinating to watch, not only because she was beautiful, but because she had such a peculiar way of doing things.
It was a pity, he thought, to disrupt the life of such an engaging woman for the sake of ensnaring someone else, but that was what he was paid to do and he had a reputation to keep. Times like these made him second guess his choice of career since he had resigned from the government, although the atrocities he had to perform and accept did not dwindle in magnitude against that which he was paid to do when in service at MI5.
Jonathan had only three more days to deliver David Purdue or the woman to Joseph Karsten and the Order of the Black Sun, otherwise he would surely join the fate of the billionaire explorer. Either way, Beck had no choice in what was to come. Walking down the main street he visited the florist, the butcher, and the local soup kitchen before having lunch at one of the diners, claiming that he was moving to Oban and looking for the best neighborhood to buy a home. The latter was Beck's favorite lie of all, making him seem nice and helpless while he charmed his way into the hearts of the people here.
It didn’t take him long to get invited to church after he beguiled the owner, Mrs. Hennessey, at the diner. Jonathan Beck had a special smile that exuded confidence and resourcefulness, the very two things mercenaries never lacked. He played his apple pie, dimple-cheek role splendidly to move closer to his prey. Beck sat sipping his Earl Grey in the diner, peering through the large window beside his table, the sea breeze bringing in saline air to the glass and making it hard to see through in detail. Looking at the passers by who each had their own mundane agenda for the day, he could not help but revel at the remarkable ease with which Dr. Nina Gould had strolled right into his web.
When the rather observant priest had spotted him, Beck had just tapped Nina's landline, gaining access to all communication running via the line, including her e-mail correspondence. He had also managed to hack into her cell phone service provider to locate her while sending all call information to his assistant at his office in Paisley, just a few miles south-west of Glasgow.
Maria Winslet, Beck's assistant and current lover, was running his covert office and keeping track of all digital and satellite taps he managed from several of his assignments, most of which involved merely basic intelligence gathering. Still, he kept her involvement secret from all his clients as a fail-safe for both of them. If he went missing there would be someone who knew who he had been dealing with, leaving a trail to rescue him from. At the same time, keeping her a ghost would not only protect her against the bad people her partner worked for, but also cover their bases in case they had to flee for their lives. Even without Maria's watching eye, though, Dr. Gould's presence made their mission easy.
But he was not prepared to share his windfall with his employer; oh no, because that would diminish Karsten's appreciation for him. It had to have looked like a feat of grand difficulty to have apprehended Dr. Gould. For now, he was going to bide his time until night when he intended to bag the pretty academic. He knew that she was at the church and that after this she would head home, a delightfully uneventful life that suited him perfectly.
“So, Dr. Gould, have you been playing long?” one of the snobs asked. She was a tiny, mousy creature with large brown eyes, not unlike Nina's own. Her name was Sylvia Beach and she’d fallen into the Oban Bitch Society by accident when she married the mayor's personal physician, Lance. Before that, she’d been an intern at Edinburgh's stately Napolitan Medical Research Facility, a prestigious organization for the education of the next generation of medical specialists. Nina guessed that this was where she’d met Lance Beach while he’d been on one of his lecturing tours in 2012.
“I started piano lessons when I was eight, but I haven’t played much since I was fourteen.” Nina felt obliged to participate in the impromptu conversation. Sylvia was an unintentional shrew. It wasn’t her fault that she’d ended up playing for the fishwife league. “But I confess that I’ve forgotten most of the pieces I used to play by second nature.”