I appeared to be standing inside someone’s parlour. Quiet, comfortably old-fashioned, with padded chairs and chunky furniture, and more doors leading off to other rooms. Fresh flowers in vases, nice prints on the walls, and a pleasantly patterned carpet underfoot. A little old lady was sitting in a chair, knitting something shapeless, her gaze far away. She wore a baggy sweater over a simple dress, and big fluffy slippers. Her hair was grey, and tightly curled. Her face looked well-worn, but not unhappy, with bifocal glasses pushed right down her nose. In front of her chair stood a simple coffee table, bearing a computer laptop chattering importantly to itself. The old lady didn’t appear to be paying it any attention.
I armoured down, so as not to alarm her. My torc would still conceal me from the room’s surveillance systems. The old lady looked at me, smiled vaguely, and put her knitting down in her lap, to give me her full attention. The computer kept working on its own.
“How nice,” she said, in a pleasant, slightly reedy voice. “A visitor! I don’t get many visitors, these days. Just Commander Fletcher, and he only ever wants to talk business. Let me see now . . . Yes! You’re Eddie Drood . . . Nice to meet you, Eddie. I’m Gemma Markham. They call me the Big Ear. I was hoping for something a little more dramatic, but . . .”
I got it immediately. There was only one way she could have known who I was so quickly.
“Hello, Gemma,” I said. “You’re a telepath, aren’t you? There is no device, no great computer, just you. Listening in on everyone with your mind.”
“That’s right, dear,” she said. “Would you like a nice cup of tea?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” I said.
I pulled up a chair and sat down opposite her, as she poured me tea from the china service set out on a side table. She offered me a plate of bourbon biscuits too, but I declined. Molly’s got me watching my weight. No wonder the Commander didn’t allow anyone else in here . . . Gemma and I sipped our tea and chatted politely. The Drood secret agent and the telepath who could overhear everyone in the country. In the most secret room of an underground bunker. Some days I love my job.
“Are you here to rescue me, dear?” said Gemma, blowing on her tea to cool it.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Do you need rescuing?”
“Do you know, I rather think I do. Not that I’m in any danger, you understand. Everyone has been very kind. But I’m not allowed to leave these rooms. Not ever. It’s a nice little flat, very comfortable, I’m sure, but it’s not what I agreed to.”
She told me her story. Gemma was the Big Ear, and always had been—a telepath powerful enough to listen in on every person in the country. She didn’t need to read or hear their communications; she plucked the thoughts right out of their heads. The Government told her they needed her to find terrorists, to stop them before anyone could get hurt. So of course she volunteered straightaway. Because she was of that generation who understood duty and responsibility. But life at Lark Hill turned out to be very different from what she was told.
She agreed to spy on dangerous people who presented a real threat to national security. People with murder on their minds. But once the Government had her firmly in place, locked away in her hidden rooms, deep underground . . . they changed the deal. They told her they wanted her to listen in on everybody. On all the ordinary, everyday people. So they could find out who the troublemakers were. People who opposed the Government, or didn’t believe the things the Government wanted them to believe.
“And they weren’t just talking about illegal things,” said Gemma. “It was all politics, and not rocking the boat, or making waves. Or drawing attention to things the Government didn’t want people to know about. Well, I wasn’t having that. I couldn’t defy the Commander and his own private army, but I could reach out to people who were in danger and warn them.”
“So . . . you’ve been the leak, all along?” I said.
“Yes, dear. It seemed the right thing to do.”
“You really can hear everyone?”
“Oh yes . . . My mind has become ever so much stronger since they introduced me to that machine. The one on the table there. I listen