Present Danger

3

Something was holding them up. Their driver tapped his fingers impatiently on the wheel and Beth Davis looked out of the window at the patchy woods that lined the A307 south of Richmond. She had two meetings planned for that afternoon and was wondering if she’d be back in time for either of them.

She glanced at DG sitting next to her. He looked the soul of patience. Typical of him, thought Beth. God knows how many meetings he must have scheduled, yet at the gathering after the service at Charles’s house, he had been a model of tact: solicitous of Charles, polite to the array of friends and relatives he’d been introduced to, never giving any indication that he had pressing business elsewhere.

The car inched forward, tyres churning the slushy piles of leaves in the gutter of the road. ‘Lovely service,’ DG said with a small sigh.

‘The boys read beautifully,’ said Beth, and DG nodded. She went on, ‘It must be awfully hard on them, especially now that they’re boarding.’

‘I think only the eldest is boarding yet. And boarding may be a good thing. They’re kept busy, lots of distractions, all their friends around them. Being at home might be much harder. Too many ghosts; too many reminders.’

‘I suppose you’re right. Still, it will make it more difficult for Charles when they’re both away. Wandering around that house all alone.’

DG gave a small grunt. After a moment he said, ‘Our lot made a good show of it, I thought.’

‘Yes. Thames House must have been seriously undermanned for a few hours.’

‘I didn’t see anyone leaving the service, so let’s hope there were no crises.’ DG smiled, then grew serious. ‘I didn’t see Liz Carlyle.’

‘I did; she was at the church, with her mother. She didn’t go on to the house though. She must have had to get straight back.’

DG nodded and looked thoughtful. Beth sensed what he was thinking – it was no secret that Liz and Charles were close, though no doubt the two of them believed no one else had noticed. But how could you fail to observe their obvious mutual attraction? The way Charles’s face would light up when Liz joined a meeting he was chairing. The rapt look on Liz’s face when Charles was speaking. You would have been blind to miss it.

The couple’s feelings for each other would not have been a problem if Liz had worked for anyone else. But now she was reporting to Charles again, since he had taken over the counter espionage branch, and that’s where matters grew complicated.

It was not an unknown, or even uncommon situation. It was understood within the service that the secrecy of the job made it hard to forge relationships with anyone ‘outside’, and that therefore office romances were inevitable. Joanne Wetherby herself had worked for Charles, Beth remembered, though once Joanne and Charles had started seeing each other she’d been posted – to work for DG in fact, when he had still been a director.

What was expected, however, was that the participants in office romances declare themselves at once, and understand that one of the pair would have to be moved. The power of love might be accepted, but its inevitable impact on working relations couldn’t be.

As far as Beth knew, Liz and Charles had nothing to declare. If anyone had told her that the pair of them sloped off quietly at lunchtime to the City Inn Hotel on John Islip Street, or rendezvoused at the weekend in a West Country B&B, she would not have believed them. Charles was far too upright, too devoted to his wife to do anything like that. And Beth simply couldn’t see Liz in the role of mistress, waiting restlessly by the phone for a call from her married lover. Beth was sure that with these two, there had been no illicit affair. And that was the problem: everything was bubbling beneath the surface.

DG sighed again, this time more loudly, usually a sign that his thoughts were about to find vocal expression. They were in Putney now, about to cross the river. DG said, ‘I think we’ve got a bit of a problem on our hands.’

Beth nodded; there was no need for him to say what the problem was. She waited patiently and at last he added, ‘It could be very difficult for them both.’ He threw up a hand to indicate his own ambivalence. ‘I mean, there’s nothing stopping them now, is there?’

‘I suppose not,’ said Beth.

‘Though my father used to say “forbidden fruit looks less attractive once it’s off the tree.”’

Beth gave a small snort. ‘With all respect to your father, I don’t think the mutual attraction’s going to diminish. It’s other things that will get in the way.’

DG fingered his tie soberly. ‘Like what?’

‘Like guilt, unjustified though it might be. And I suppose the fear that what you’ve wanted so long could finally be yours.’

‘Fear?’

‘Yes. Not that it won’t turn out to be what you wanted, but that somehow you don’t deserve it. They say long-term prisoners are often terrified when their release date approaches. It’s just too much – the prospect of having what you’ve desired for so long is too daunting.’

‘You think it could be that bad for those two?’

Beth shrugged. She was paid to understand people, but had long learned that such understanding was precarious, and never to be assumed. She said, ‘I’d like to think not.’

‘But you’re not sure,’ said DG, and it wasn’t posed as a question. ‘In which case their work will almost certainly be affected. So I think they might profit from a break.’

Beth must have looked horrified, as if he had suggested ordering the two to go off together for a week’s leave in Paris, for he added hastily, ‘I mean a break from each other.’

‘Oh,’ said Beth with relief.

‘Yes,’ said DG.

What now? she thought warily. Personnel and postings were her responsibility, and he rarely interfered directly. But now she could see he had made his mind up. She didn’t want an argument, so she hoped she’d be able to go along with whatever he’d decided.

He said emphatically, ‘I think Liz should be posted – at least temporarily, while Charles settles back in at work. There’s a lot for him to do, you know,’ he said, almost accusingly, as if he thought she might think he was being unnecessarily harsh.

‘Where do you want to put her?’ she asked. Counter terrorism, she imagined. That’s where Liz had been before. Working for Charles when he had been director there.

‘We’ll have to work that out,’ he said, rather to her surprise. If he’d already decided, as she suspected he had, he clearly wasn’t ready to say. ‘It’s got to be something challenging. I don’t want her to think it’s in any way a demotion. That wouldn’t be fair on Liz.’

‘No, though—’ and Beth hesitated. When DG looked at her questioningly, she sighed. ‘She’s going to see it that way, I fear.’

‘Probably.’ DG shrugged lightly. ‘But that can’t be helped. And so long as we make sure her new posting is tough enough, she’ll soon get stuck in. She’s too good an officer not to.’