Trust No One

‘Well, perhaps one day.’ Winsor looked at his watch, as if he were already losing interest. ‘And what about you?’

‘Me?’ She wondered momentarily whether he was enquiring about her own artistic prospects.

‘Yes.’ Winsor was beginning to pack up his papers. ‘Why do you want the job? What made you apply for it?’

Another good question. She’d had an answer all prepared – opportunity for career development, new challenges, a desire to step outside her own comfort zone, all that kind of nonsense. But Winsor’s nonchalant query had, presumably as intended, caught her off guard and she found herself blurting out something closer to the truth.

‘I don’t know. I suppose I feel in a bit of a rut. A bit passive. Time’s getting on. The big three-oh next year. I just want something new. I want to take more control.’

He was barely looking at her, struggling to fit the stack of files into his briefcase. ‘At work or at home? The rut, I mean?’

She paused, aware now that she was saying more than she’d intended. ‘Work, I suppose. I’ve spent the last year doing intelligence analysis. Crunching data. Spotting patterns. It’s important work and I’m pretty good at it, though I say so myself. But I don’t think it’s making the most of my talents. I want a bit more control over what’s going on. I want to make things happen.’

He finally snapped shut his briefcase and looked up, his expression suggesting that he’d taken in nothing of what she’d been saying.

‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘Always good to take control. That’s very interesting. As I said at the start, this session isn’t really part of the formal interview process. I just like to have an informal discussion with candidates before I put together the detailed feedback on the psychometrics. Gives me a bit of context.’

And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything, Marie told herself. Winsor had protested just a little too much about the unimportance of their conversation. She hoped she’d struck the right balance – alert enough not to let anything slip, but not so tense that she seemed phony.

The whole thing had been like that. Two days of interviews and exercises. A traditional selection panel with four stern-faced senior officers asking a series of apparently random questions. A series of role-playing exercises, supposedly with other candidates, that had left her feeling slightly wrong-footed. She’d suspected from the start that not all the participants were genuine candidates. Some of them would be plants, there to observe or to throw additional spokes into the wheel. Or perhaps that was just paranoia. Either way, it felt like appropriate preparation for whatever this job might throw at her.

‘As I say, I’ll be giving you some formal feedback on the psychometrics this afternoon. After that, you’re free to leave. And we’ll be getting our heads together to make the decision. We should be able to let you know tomorrow.’

‘But you really think I’m in with a chance?’

Winsor looked momentarily embarrassed. ‘Well, I’m not in a position to say for sure. Obviously, it’ll be a collective decision. But, yes, on the basis of what I’ve seen, I think you’ve a very good chance.’

There was an expression in his eyes that she couldn’t read. As if, she thought, he couldn’t be sure whether or not he was giving her good news.

There was a bright light shining in her eyes, and she could make out no more than the outline of the man sitting opposite. So they weren’t afraid of clichés, she thought. An interrogation scene from an old war movie. We have ways of making you talk, Britisher.

It had been a surreal experience. At the airport, with the pistol held against her, she’d climbed into the back of the van. It had clearly been prepared to accommodate passengers, although the rear compartment was enclosed and windowless. There was a row of seats bolted to the chassis, and an interior light. All the home comforts you’d need if you were being kidnapped at the crack of dawn by a bunch of apparent lunatics. Behind her, she’d heard the sound of the rear doors being locked.

Her initial, instinctive reaction had been panic. That was why she’d tried to run, unthinking, her mind still fogged by lack of sleep. It was only when she’d seen the pistol pointing unwaveringly at her that she’d realized the truth.

It was a test, of course. A fucking exercise. Part of the training. If she’d been more awake, she might have expected it. Even the trip to Washington had probably been part of it. She’d seen it as an odd intrusion into her supposedly sacrosanct training schedule, and wondered why they’d been so keen for her to attend. The conference itself was genuine enough, of course. In fact, that was just bloody typical. The Yanks were keen to have a Brit there and had apparently funded her travel and expenses. The Agency had been its usual opportunistic self, killing two birds with one bloody great transatlantic rock.

The aim had been to destabilize her, presumably. She’d spent the last two months in character, preparing in a controlled environment for the experience of going under-cover. They were giving her an identify, a legend, that would enable her to blend unobtrusively into the local business community, building on the reputation established by her predecessor in the area. Their key targets were themselves local businessmen, running criminal networks in the shadow of apparently legitimate commercial operations. The plan was for her to work in the same shadowy hinterland.

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.’