more than that, they’re not saying.”
For a moment he simply sat in silence, absorbing that fact, thinking, She shot herself. But before that, she called me. Why did she call me?
He reached for the key to start the car. “Did you see any paparazzi hanging around?” he asked Lucy.
“No,” she said.
“No, me neither.”
CHAPTER 5
THEY ARRANGED TO meet in a coffee shop in Islington, close to where they used to make contact on another job.
It was funny, thought Shelley, how you never really left your old life behind. You just added to it, like the old masters reusing a canvas. You painted over it, but it was still there underneath all those layers, and at some point it would make its presence known again.
Already installed at a table, wearing a pinstriped suit and looking incongruous among the yummy mummies and retirees, was his appointment: the man from MI5, Simon Claridge. He was slouching a little, reading the Daily Telegraph as he sipped his coffee, but he looked up as Shelley turned from the counter and made his way across the coffee shop. “Hello, Shelley,” he said.
Shelley placed his coffee down, removed his newsboy cap, and dropped it on the table, running fingers through his hair and dragging his scarf from around his neck.
Claridge watched it all with a half-smile. “Looking good there, Shelley,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “In fact, you’re looking like a man who’s enjoying a well-earned rest in the company of the beautiful Lucy.” He laid his Telegraph to one side and pulled up his chair, ready to talk.
“Careful,” replied Shelley, “or I’ll tell her you said that.”
Grinning now, the MI5 man held up his hands. “I beg you, anything but that. How is she? Well, I hope?”
Claridge knew Lucy, but they hadn’t seen each other since the three of them had worked together to bring down the Quarry Company, a sick hunting-game organization that had murdered their friend and comrade Cookie.
After leaving the Regiment, Shelley and Lucy had retired to their cute Stepney Green terrace in order to look after their dog Frankie and cook up ideas for their fledgling PSC.
Cookie, however, had fallen on hard times and taken to living on the street. Then a bunch of blokes with too much money and bad taste in high-powered weapons hunted him down and killed him for sport. The Quarry Company. The bastards had killed Frankie too.
After taking down the Quarry Company, Shelley and Lucy had to spend time on the run—just over a year—until Claridge had been able to assure them that the coast was clear. With that they’d returned home to resume their lives, which meant renewing attempts to get the business off the ground. Their low-profile period, while proving to be a wonderful holiday, hadn’t exactly done much to advance their plans in the PSC department.
“She’s fine,” Shelley answered. “Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Yeah. Mostly.”
“I see, and what about you?” asked Claridge. “How’s life treating you?”
“Well, you know,” shrugged Shelley, “can’t complain.”
“Hmm, not much of an answer, is it? Okay, but if you were to complain, what would you be complaining about?”
Shelley felt one side of his mouth lift in what he knew would be a somewhat wintry smile. “I guess things could be a bit more comfortable. Financially, I mean. It’s not like the work is flooding in.”
Claridge nodded. “And that’s why Lucy is ‘mostly’ fine?”
“She misses life in the forces more than I do. She’d be happier back in Iraq, I reckon, as long as she had something to keep her occupied.”
“And you’ve got nothing in this country to keep her occupied?”
“Like I say, the work isn’t flooding in.”
Claridge frowned. “The last time we spoke, I told you that if you had difficulty finding work then you were to get in touch. Now you tell me that you are having difficulty finding work but that’s not the reason you got in touch, is it?”
“I like doing things on my terms,” sighed Shelley. “As soon as I start accepting work from someone, even someone I trust, I’m surrendering that luxury. I stop being the one who says yes or no, and I start being the one who says ‘thank you, I’ll do it.’”
Claridge rolled his eyes. “Welcome to the real world, Shelley. It’s called commerce. And really, it’s no great hardship. You decline work if you don’t like the sound of it, wait for something more suitable to come along, and if you put a few noses out of joint doing that, well, who cares, frankly. None of