by Eva Hudson
“Uh-huh.”
“And the pedicurist?”
“Never came back from her lunch break. Don’t worry, we’re all over that one. Got two detectives talking to every spider expert in the country.”
A uniformed constable, soaked through to the skin, ran up the stairs. “Seen Faulkner?” he asked, a little out of breath.
“Not for a few minutes,” Cath answered. “Can I help?”
He nodded. “Got a witness. Says he saw him being pushed.”
“Right then, better come with me.”
Cath led the PC into one of the offices, leaving Ingrid to eavesdrop on the receptionist’s increasingly difficult conversations with clients. Heavy footsteps on the stairs broke her concentration before two men barreled into the reception area. Both white, both not nearly drenched enough, one trim and tall, the other less so. She recognized the shorter man from somewhere.
“Who’s in charge here?” he asked no one in particular.
The reception was busy with forensics officers and distressed employees and the endless ringing of cell phones. Nobody else noticed them. He raised his voice. “I said who’s in charge here?”
Ingrid glared at him. His accent was upper crust, his skin was papery, and his gray hair had started to thin. His suit was sober and his shoes highly polished. The shoes, that was the connection: he’d been at the Albert Hall reception. Ingrid swallowed, then picked up her helmet and walked slowly out of the lobby and down the stairs, her heart pounding so hard she felt her ribs move against her jacket.
She was almost certain he hadn’t placed her—the motorcycle courier look was an even better disguise in the pouring rain—but it was still safest she left. She’d been suspicious at the Shostakovich reception, but now she was sure: the man in the polished shoes was a spook. A spy. MI6 probably. And he was about to make DI Faulkner’s job one hundred percent harder.
12
That evening, Ingrid ran quickly along the south bank of the Thames. She was going to be late, but if she kept up her pace, she shouldn’t keep Carolyn waiting more than ten minutes.
At Westminster Bridge, the horde of tourists thickened, crowding outside the London Aquarium and its accompanying fast-food outlets. Her pace slowed from meaningful to frustrating as she dodged her way through the gelatinous crowd. God, how she hated tourists. No more so than when she was mistaken for one.
She spotted Carolyn and pressed the screen on her new Apple Watch to stop the clock. The 4.3-mile run from her apartment in Maida Vale had taken a little over twenty-eight minutes. She sneered at the tiny square screen. Not good enough. She wanted to get back to under six minutes a mile and hoped her new gadget would give her extra motivation.
“Hi. Sorry I’m late.”
The two women embraced, Ingrid breathing heavily as her body recovered.
“And sorry I’m sweaty.”
“Still doing parkour?”
Ingrid led her toward the ticket office. “Sadly not. Injured my shoulder last year.”
“How?”
Ingrid was reluctant to answer truthfully in case it got back to Marshall. But then she thought, What the heck. “Falling out of a moving car.”
“Sober?”
“Totally.”
“Fool.”
“Thanks. Did you eat already?”
Carolyn shook her head.
“Then do you want to get a ticket for later and go grab something?”
“No, I wanna go up. See this city.”
Ingrid bought two rides, and her distaste for tourists and tourism surfaced again. Twenty-six pounds. Each. It was a pity Carolyn was no longer a minor.
“So, there are two things I’ve been dying to ask you,” Carolyn said with a smile. Ingrid would happily lay five bucks on both questions. “One, who are you dating, and two—”
“Who is Marshall dating?”
“How did you know?”
“It’ll be all that Quantico training.” Ingrid tapped her nose.
The line wasn’t as long as Ingrid was expecting. Six thirty was when tourists headed to TGI Fridays or McDonald’s.
“Well?” Carolyn pressed.
“Shall we get the answers over and done with? No one, and I don’t know. Don’t want to know either.”
“Really.” Carolyn pouted. “That’s no fun.”
Ingrid wanted to ask if Carolyn was seeing anyone, but the idea—despite the evidence right in front of her—that Marshall’s kid sister was old enough to date was so preposterous she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. She still thought of her as a little girl standing next to the TV and singing along to Katy Perry with a Playmobil microphone, tossing her long dark hair and wearing pink hot pants. She also remembered, with a smirk, the look of utter horror on Marshall’s mom’s face when she heard the lyric ‘I kissed a girl and I liked it.’ Carolyn still had the long dark hair, but her features had developed, pushing outwards from her soft skin to show the world a sharp nose and a defined jawline.
“Does your mom know about the nose ring?”
“Oh, sure. Doesn’t mean she likes it.” Carolyn slipped her arm inside Ingrid’s. “She doesn’t think much of my tattoos either.”
“You’re kidding?” Ingrid’s eyes were wide with disbelief. “You got a tattoo and Meredith Claybourne didn’t die of a heart attack? Right there and then?”
“I know, right? Mom’s a lot more chilled out than she used to be.”
Ingrid raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“I mean, obviously, she’s still a Bible-thumping, gun-toting Republican—”
“She’ll be voting for Banner, then?”
“She can’t wait. But she also knows Modern Family is properly funny and not, you know, like totally heretical.”
Ingrid remembered the outrage when Meredith and Preston had found out her and Marshall had taken an apartment together out of wedlock. It was probably fifty percent of the reason why she’d accepted his marriage proposal.
“So what’s it of, the tattoo?”
She looked sheepish. “Maybe I’ll show you when we’re indoors. It’s a bit cold, isn’t it?”
“Welcome to London, kiddo.”
Carolyn scrutinized her. Ingrid couldn’t tell if her use of ‘kiddo’ had been interpreted as affectionate or patronizing.
“You might need to buy a decent coat. You can’t go round in that all winter,” Ingrid said, feeling the collar of Carolyn’s blue denim jacket.
“I got a trunk of stuff coming by sea. Till then, I’m just going to freeze.”
They came close to the front of the line and realized that the pods on the London Eye never actually stopped. They would be boarding a moving target.
“So who was the last guy you dated?” Carolyn asked while not making eye contact.
Ingrid showed their tickets to the inspector and he welcomed them forward. “Why do you care about my love life so much?”
“Dunno. It’s fun.”
They stepped carefully into one of the glass oval capsules.
“I’m not sure I’d call dating fun.”
“Then you’re doing it wrong.”
An older man pushed his way in as they were leaving the ground. One of their fellow travelers—there were twenty-five people allowed in each pod—helped him as he stumbled. He didn’t seem grateful enough. Probably embarrassed. One of Ingrid’s phones buzzed in her jacket pocket. She patted it and reminded herself: right hand, regular phone; left hand Natalya’s phone. It was her own phone. If it was important, it would buzz again.
They started their ascent, and the other tourists crammed in at one end to get the best view as they slowly inched up over the Thames.
“Do you want the whole tour-guide thing?”
“How long you been living here now?”
“Four years, give or take.”
“Then I expect expert commentary. What’s that?”
“Oh, come on, you know that one!”
Carolyn was pointing at Big Ben. “Do you know what
we can see when we reach the top?”
“On a clear day you can see Windsor Castle, apparently.”
Carolyn shrugged.
“But I imagine that’s in daylight. It’s about fifty miles west of London, at a guess.”
“You do know your shit.”
Did Carolyn Claybourne really just say ‘shit’?
Other passengers started taking photographs, most of whom either forgot their flash was on or didn’t know how to turn it off. They were going to end up with images of their own reflection marred by a very bright light. Ingrid pointed to the few landmarks she knew, including the stretch of the Southbank where she’d once chased down a bag snatcher back in the days when she could still do parkour. Ingrid’s phone buzzed again. This time she took it out of her pocket. It was a message from Marshall.
Is C with you?
“Did you tell your brother you were coming out with me tonight?” Ingrid asked without looking up from her screen.
“Dunno.” Carolyn was staring at her own phone and not the increasingly panoramic view of the city.
“Should you have?”
“Um…” Carolyn wasn’t really listening, so Ingrid messaged him back.
Yes. Curfew?
Ingrid put her phone in her right pocket and watched as Carolyn tapped speedily on her screen. The kid was smiling. Ingrid’s phone vibrated and she checked it. 10 p.m. That was fine: Ingrid needed to be home by 11 p.m. at the latest for a conference call David Rennie had scheduled.
What were they thinking? Ingrid looked again at the young woman in front of her. Carolyn wasn’t a kid anymore. You can’t give a nineteen-year-old a curfew.
“Someone from home?” Ingrid asked, indicating the phone.
Carolyn’s eyes narrowed. “No.”
“College?”
“Not exactly.”
Ingrid stood beside her and studied Carolyn’s screen. “Who’s that?”
“Damon.”
“Boyfriend?”
“No.”
“But you like him?”
Carolyn looked up at Ingrid as if she was stupid. “It’s not like that.”
Ingrid was clueless.
“It’s Tinder.”
“Ah. Of this I have heard.” Mostly through newspaper headlines about naïve and beautiful young women being lured into traps by evil men. “So do you swipe right or left? Which is the good one?”
Ingrid watched Carolyn swipe left, sending Damon off into the dating wasteland. Another young male face appeared on Carolyn’s screen. Another left swipe. Then another. “Um, Carolyn. You might want to look at the view?”
The teenager pressed a button on her phone, and the screen blacked out. “Sorry. It’s kind of addictive. I think being new in town means I’ve got a lot of interest.”
Ingrid found herself forming the words ‘does Marshall know you’re dating’ but stopped. From her years in the VCAC, she knew you don’t gain a vulnerable young person’s trust by invoking the name of their parent. Or their intensely protective older brother.
“So there’s no one back in Charleston? No boy with a broken heart?”
Carolyn pulled a face. The one that said ‘duh.’ “Tinder isn’t only about hookups. It’s a really sweet way of meeting people when you’re in a new place. Maybe just someone to go to a movie with. Someone who isn’t Marshall.”
Fair point.
“What about people from college, though? Aren’t you stumbling across commitment-free sex every time you take a new class?” Ingrid thought she was very adult mentioning sex to Carolyn.
“Not when you study inorganic chemistry.”
There was no answer to that. Ingrid gave Carolyn a nudge and pointed out St Paul’s Cathedral, which had come into view in the east. “Recognize that?”
“Looks like the Capitol. Obvs I know it isn’t.”
“Obvs.” Ingrid felt a buzz in her left pocket. Natalya’s phone. She didn’t touch it.
“So you’ve never been on Tinder?” Carolyn asked.
“Nope, no, I haven’t.”
“Match.com? OK Cupid?”
“No, none of them.”
“You really should.”
“You’re assuming I want to meet someone.”
“Don’t you?”
“Not like that.”
An alert on Carolyn’s phone illuminated the screen. She ignored it and pursed her lips. “I guess you’re not short of offers. You are kind of gorgeous.”
“I’m in my running gear!”
“Yeah, but you got the legs for it. I should take up sport while I’m here.”
Ingrid was about to suggest she could play soccer with her and Cath, but decided against it. Carolyn’s phone—permanently cradled in her limp hand—flashed with yet another alert. “UCL must have sports facilities. Be a good way to meet people.”
Carolyn turned round and looked out at London. “Is that another city over there?”
“That’s Docklands. Still part of London. Though it does feel kind of like Canada, sort of bland and corporate. And big.”
“And what’s that?”
“Oh, that? That is the ugliest damned building in the whole damned world. They call it the Walkie-Talkie.”
“I think it’s kinda awesome looking.”
“Wait till you see it during the day. It’s like a CB radio from the Dukes of Hazzard.” Ingrid paused. “The old TV series, not the movie.” The evening was a bit misty, and visibility was disappointing.
“Where do you live?” Carolyn asked. “Can we see that from here?”
“Um.” Ingrid scanned the heart monitor skyline and got her bearings. “No, I don’t think so. I’m north of here, northwest. Maybe when we get to the top, we’ll see something I recognize.”
“What neighborhood are you in?”
“It’s called Maida Vale.”
“Is it nice?”
“Yeah, really.”
“Is it near Marshall’s place?”
“You’re out in Ealing, right?”
Carolyn sighed. “‘Out’ being the appropriate word. It’s like being in another state. I bet we can’t see Ealing, even from the top.”
“It’ll be over that way.” Ingrid pointed in a general westerly direction. “How is it? With Marshall?”
Carolyn crossed her arms and thought before answering. “I can see why you dumped him.”
“Hey, it wasn’t like that—”
“Don’t know how you were with him for so long. He’s such a—” she searched for the right word “—tosser. That’s what people at school would say. He’s a tosser.”
Ingrid was fairly sure Carolyn’s grasp of Anglo-Saxon swear words wasn’t yet fully developed. “You going to move out?”
“You offering?”
Ingrid smiled. “If I had a spare room.” Right at that moment she was very glad she didn’t have one. The thought of living with someone after so many years on her own was seriously unappealing. “Maybe you’ll find a roommate at college. Someone who doesn’t study inorganic chemistry. Have you put that in your Tinder profile?”
“Yeah, bigging up my nerd attributes.”
“Show me.”
Carolyn pulled her phone away.
“Go on. You want me to join a dating app. Show me how it’s done.”
As London circled slowly behind them, Carolyn talked Ingrid through her profile. In the first photo she was sitting in a beach café in a bikini top. The shades, apparently, were a mistake and she needed a photo that showed her eyes. Then there was an action shot. Skateboarding. Then a group shot, designed to show she had a social life, followed by a very obvious selfie taken after she’d made herself up for a previous date, plus one of her on a stage under a spotlight from when she’d performed at a Moth event. The phone in Ingrid’s right pocket buzzed repeatedly. She checked the screen. International. She had to answer.
“Ingrid Skyberg.”
“This is Agent Rennie.” Even though he was in the same city, the call had been routed
through his US phone network, anonymizing his number.
“David, hi.”
He explained he needed to bring their conference call forward to ten thirty. She told him it wouldn’t be a problem and hung up.
“Oooh, David,” Carolyn said in a prom-queen drawl. “Who’s David?”
“A colleague.”
“You like him.”
Ingrid said nothing.
“Oh, David, hi.” Carolyn was mocking her. “You do like him.”
“He’s a colleague.”
“Marshall was a colleague.” Carolyn snatched the phone out of Ingrid’s hand.
“What are you doing?”
Carolyn walked up to one of the women who’d been eavesdropping. “Would you please take a photo of us?”
By the time their pod touched back down to earth, Carolyn had decided the picture of the two of them should be the third photo on Ingrid’s Tinder profile. Somehow she’d let Carolyn install it on her phone and search her photo library for appropriately seductive images. The teenager counseled her that using an image of her playing soccer and one of her next to her motorbike might send the wrong signal. It was also Carolyn’s suggestion the description should focus on what she was offering rather than what she wanted.
“Well, that’s good, because I have no idea what I want.”
In the end they settled for: Ingrid, 35. Can’t cook, can’t sew, can’t sit still. Knows how to order takeout and then run it off in the morning.
Ingrid figured she would learn how to edit it later.
13
Ingrid arrived home shortly after 10 p.m. with Chinese takeout and a six-pack of beer. She needed some kind of alcohol to act as a decompression chamber between Carolyn’s teen exuberance and getting her head into work mode. She opened the cutlery drawer to find there were no forks. She opened the dishwasher to find she hadn’t put it on. For weeks. And the plates and cutlery were too gross to contemplate, so she fished out the wooden chopsticks at the bottom of the take-out bag.
Ingrid set up her laptop on the small table in the corner of her living room in preparation for her video call with Agent Rennie. The whirrs and whispers of the city squeezed their way in through the gaps in her windows. The bass of next door’s TV vibrated through the wall like a distant train. She popped the cap off her bottle on the edge of the table, like her dad had taught her to do with Pepsi when she was a kid.
