Gallian guards recognised Aubrey and George, but some earnest discussion was needed before Caroline was admitted. Captain Bourdin was alone in the small, sunny room, which smelled of disinfectant and soap. He stood dolefully by a bloodstained hospital trolley. ‘The infirmary opens to the courtyard,’ he said without any preliminaries. ‘He produced a pistol and threatened his way out.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought he’d be in any condition to run anywhere,’ George said, pointing at the bloodstains.
‘That is true,’ Captain Bourdin said. He was despondent, and Aubrey wondered if he’d be looking for a new job. A shooting in the embassy, and the miscreant escaping soon after? It wouldn’t look good on a curriculum vitae. ‘He had a confederate waiting in a van outside. It drove, at high speed, past our guards.’
‘Sounds as if your gatehouse might need some strengthening,’ Aubrey said.
Captain Bourdin shot him a sour look. ‘The gatehouse is to prevent people getting in. We did not think we would have to prevent people leaving.’
‘This escape,’ Caroline said. ‘How long after Mattingly spoke to the prisoner did it occur?’
‘This is Miss Hepworth,’ Aubrey explained to the puzzled Captain Bourdin. ‘She belongs to the Directorate.’
‘Mattingly,’ Caroline repeated. ‘She did speak to the prisoner in the infirmary, correct?’
‘That is so,’ Captain Bourdin said slowly.
‘And she also spoke to him before the shooting incident. This would tend to indicate a suspicious level of familiarity. If the prisoner had assistance in his escape from inside the embassy, I know in which direction I’d be looking.’
‘Elspeth?’ George said. ‘She was the one who told me which direction you’d gone, old man.’
Caroline’s observations had Aubrey thinking. He’d often wondered at the frame of mind needed to work in the security services, where suspicion was a natural state of affairs – but he could see how it was necessary. In a world where deceit and falsity were prized skills, who could be trusted? Was anyone what he or she seemed?
If Elspeth had been talking to the cultural attaché before the shooting, and if she had been responsible for his pistol being unreliable, then her talking to the same cultural attaché – after she’d shot him – might be curious.
She could have been doing some extra interrogation, he thought, but it rang false, even to him.
He remembered her brown bag. Clearly, it was large enough to hold more than one firearm.
By the look in Caroline’s eyes, she had followed the chain and arrived at the same conclusion Aubrey had. ‘Miss Mattingly supplied the pistol the attaché used in his attempt to shoot me. And, most probably, the one he used to escape,’ he said. ‘She is an enemy agent.’
Captain Bourdin scowled. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure enough that I’d advise you to prevent anyone from leaving.’
‘Ah.’ George held up a hand. ‘We may have a problem with that. She’s left already.’
‘Left?’ Aubrey said. ‘Why? Where?’
George grimaced. ‘On reflection, I may have had something to do with that. I couldn’t find a cup of tea anywhere, so I went looking for her. She wasn’t in the coding area and I remembered her mentioning her friend in the library. I found my way there, but with no sign of her, I thought I’d see if I could borrow one of those Gallian romance novels she was talking about.’
Everyone stared at him. ‘Romance novels,’ Captain Bourdin repeated. ‘You wanted to read a romance novel?’
George shrugged. ‘I have a Gallian friend who enjoys them. I thought I’d see what all the fuss was about.’ He shrugged. ‘Her letters talk about dark brooding looks and whatnot. Piqued my curiosity.’
‘But you don’t speak Gallian,’ Aubrey pointed out. ‘Or read it.’
‘Thought I’d give it a go, old man. Might impress Sophie, just having a crack at it like that.’
‘But you couldn’t,’ Captain Bourdin said. ‘Not here, not in our library. We do not have these romances you speak of.’
‘I found that out quite promptly,’ George said. ‘Your library is a technical library. Lots of stuff on Gallian history and law and the like. Not much light reading.’
Aubrey’s heart sank. Elspeth’s duplicity was becoming clear.
‘No stories, no fiction at all,’ Captain Bourdin said.
‘And that’s what I told Elspeth when I ran into her,’ George said. ‘Come to think of it, she look a little flustered, and she didn’t unfluster, if you take my meaning, when I asked her about the romance novels.’
‘And that’s when she remembered that she’d been called back to headquarters?’ Caroline asked, one eyebrow raised.
George grinned. ‘She said she’d just received a message, if that’s what you mean. She told me that we’d all catch up back there.’
‘She knew she’d made a false step,’ Aubrey said. The detail about the romance novel had probably appealed at the time, but it had brought her undone. For an instant he pondered why she’d wanted to show a romantic side to her nature, but he veered away from that as far too dangerous.
He was still having trouble imagining Elspeth as an enemy agent. He recalled her infectious good spirits, her provocative challenges ... She was attractive, he couldn’t deny that, but now he was starting to question how calculated her persona had been. The little touches on the arm, the outlandish dash she displayed, had him warming to her before he knew it. She was unlike any young women he knew, which was no doubt part of her appeal. With a chill, he wondered who else knew that.
If she were a Holmland agent, she was a deeply embedded one, one whose actions indicated that Aubrey was a person of some interest to Holmland Intelligence. She was ruthless, too, underneath the carefree surface. He doubted that the cultural attaché had agreed to be shot. His surprise at the malfunctioning pistol tended to indicate that he was only aware of part of the plan. He’d been told to assassinate Aubrey, not knowing that he was a dupe whose real role was to make Elspeth Mattingly a hero – and to make Aubrey hugely grateful to her.
With a demeanour designed to please on top of heartfelt gratitude, Elspeth Mattingly would be a bosom companion to Aubrey Fitzwilliam, close enough to be privy to whatever Aubrey knew and then to feed it back to her Holmland masters.
He grimaced at that prospect, but he was sure there had to be more. He imagined Elspeth accompanying George and him on missions, where she’d be relaying plans to the enemy in secret. He saw her teasing him, keeping him delightfully wrong footed, making sure she spent time with him, enough time to be introduced to his family.
Oh my. Aubrey closed his eyes for an instant as the possibilities hit him.
If she played her part well enough, Elspeth Mattingly could meet the Albion Prime Minister, and have access to him in private, unguarded circumstances.
The plan showed all the hallmarks of deep deviousness and complex planning. It fairly smelled of Dr Mordecai Tremaine. A plan that was undone by George Doyle’s looking for Gallian romance novels. As soon as that happened, she was quick enough to see that she was undone – and that others would put two and two together quickly enough to make her position untenable.
Thank goodness for George, he thought, not for the first time.
‘So she did not plan to leave,’ Captain Bourdin said, interrupting Aubrey’s thoughts. ‘It was spontaneous.’
‘I think she wanted to stay.’ Caroline glanced pointedly at Aubrey. ‘Having embedded herself in the Directorate, I’m sure she was going to do her best to gain the trust of those around her. It would mean she could be privy to sensitive information useful to our enemies.’