She had become Marie Donovan, businesswoman, and had been coming to grips with the financial and legal implications of the mundane printing and reprographics franchise that she’d be taking over. She’d had dealings with the bank, with the solicitors, with the franchise owners. The ground had been prepared for her, but then she’d been on her own, a new starter still finding her feet. The business people she was dealing with no doubt thought she was an idiot, a would-be entrepreneur without a clue. But, from their responses, she guessed that they’d encountered such characters many times before: deluded halfwits who wanted to stick their life savings or redundancy pay in some ridiculous business fantasy. It was no real skin off their nose whether she succeeded or failed, so long as she had the necessary funding today.
But after the first stumbles, it hadn’t been too bad. She’d been surprised how quickly she got into character. She’d also been surprised at how quickly she’d begun to enjoy it. It was a new challenge, a new way of thinking. A whole new life.
That was why she’d been annoyed and bemused when they’d dragged her out of her preparations to attend that bloody conference. A last chance to be yourself, they’d said. Enjoy it. Right.
And now, after two days of being herself, they’d sprung this on her. She didn’t even know what game she was supposed to be playing. Presumably she was back in character, back to being Marie Donovan, tinpot entrepreneur. But if so, who were these jokers supposed to be?
‘We know who you are, Donovan,’ the figure behind the light said softly. ‘We know what you are.’
She knew she had to behave just like the fictional Marie Donovan would behave in these circumstances. Except of course that the fictional Marie Donovan, if she were real, would never find herself in these circumstances.
But how would she respond? Fear, of course, and bewilderment. But also anger. Donovan – the businesswoman Donovan – was as feisty as the real one, accustomed to battling her way through a man’s world. Even with a pistol being waved at her, she wouldn’t take any crap.
‘What the hell is this?’ she snapped. ‘Who are you people? You can’t just drag people off the street—’
‘We know what you are,’ the voice said again. ‘We know what your game is.’
‘I don’t know what the bloody hell you’re talking about. How do you know my name?’ She allowed a small tremble to creep into her voice during the last sentence. Donovan might be feisty, but she’d still be terrified in this scenario, however much she might try to hide it.
The man behind the light was leafing through a sheaf of documents. She leaned forwards, peering, trying to see what he was doing, who he was. They’d blindfolded her when they’d taken her out of the van, and she’d seen nothing till the light had been shone into her face. She wondered whether she might recognize the voice. A colleague? Someone from the training team? She estimated that the van had driven for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, but she had no idea where they were, and she’d seen nothing that would give her any clues.
‘Just moving into the area,’ the man said. ‘Taking over a print franchise. Making your way in the world. What’s the story, then, love? Getting over a messy break-up, want a new start?’
‘Something like that,’ she said. ‘Though I don’t know what business it is of yours, or why you’ve been snooping into my private life. Who the fuck are you?’
This was more or less the legend that had been established for her. She’d split up with a partner down south, pretty acrimoniously, and was trying to start afresh up here.
‘Never mind me, love. More to the point, who the fuck are you? Who is Marie fucking Donovan?’
‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’
‘Haven’t you, love? Where’ve you been for the last couple of days?’
She hesitated, working through the implications of this. She’d been given no brief about how to play the American trip in relation to her supposed cover story. She hadn’t envisaged any overlap between the two. So the smart bastards were putting her on the spot. They’d set her up beautifully to trip over her own feet.
‘What business is it of yours?’
‘Just got back on the 7.05 arrival from Washington DC,’ the man said. ‘We watched you walk into the arrivals hall. Nice luggage.’ He made the last phrase sound mildly salacious.
‘You’ve been fucking following me?’
‘Question is,’ the man went on, ‘what were you doing taking time out, right in the middle of setting up this new business of yours? And why Washington?’
‘Who the hell are you?’ she said. ‘The provisional wing of the local enterprise agency? What’s this all about?’
‘Thing is,’ the man said, ‘we’re not sure you’re what you seem to be. We’re not sure your little story hangs together.’
‘What little story?’
‘This little tale of splitting up with your partner, making a clean break. All that bollocks.’
She began to rise to her feet. ‘I don’t know what you want. But you can’t just keep me here.’
‘We can do what we like, love, until we find out a bit more about you. We get nervous about people coming into our territory, you see.’
‘Your territory?’ she said. ‘What is this? The Wild fucking West? I’m buying a printing franchise, for Christ’s sake.’
‘So you say. It’s just that we’ve got an interest in that business of yours. It has a bit of history.’
She felt a sudden unease. The print franchise was an established business, used by a previous officer operating in the same area. She’d queried whether this was good practice, whether there was any risk that her predecessor had been compromised. She’d been told that, on the contrary, it made life easier. Simpler to take over an established business than to build one from scratch. And, far from being compromised, her predecessor had credibility as a wheeler-dealer who could supply goods – vehicles, people, documents – that others couldn’t. He’d been withdrawn from the field only because he was suffering from health problems. A recently-diagnosed heart condition, she’d been told. She was beginning to understand why that might be a problem in this line of work.
The story they’d put about was that he was taking early retirement, and that Marie was an associate in the same line of illegal business. That she was buying into more than just the print shop. All it needed was for her predecessor to effect a few introductions to the right people and she’d be off and running.
Shit, she thought. Maybe this wasn’t an exercise after all. Maybe it was for real.
If so, she couldn’t imagine that this was just their way of making the introductions, short-circuiting the usual social niceties by bundling her into the back of a sodding van. If this was for real, they’d already sussed out who she was. And that meant that she wasn’t likely to leave this place alive.
Jesus, what was she thinking? Of course it was just an exercise. She was allowing them to play with her head. This was another of Winsor’s fucking tests. Physical assault, threat, psychological torture. Let’s see how she copes with that little lot.
‘What history?’ she said. ‘What are you talking about?’
The man suddenly leaned forward, his features finally becoming visible to her. He was no one she recognized.
‘Don’t you understand, love? We know who you are. We know who you work for. Do you get it now, bitch?’
There was a venom in the final word that shocked her. Christ, she thought. I was right. It’s not a fucking exercise. She began to push herself to her feet, her mind racing.
‘I don’t—’
The man pushed the table violently against her, knocking her back into the seat. ‘Sit down.’ He leaned towards her, the pistol back in his hand. He was tapping the barrel gently against the tabletop as if he didn’t quite know what to do with the weapon. ‘You’re going nowhere. You’re going to tell me all about your undercover work. You’re going to tell me who else is undercover. You’re going to tell me who’s a grass. You’re going to tell me every fucking thing I want to know.’