Claire and Lexa ate in silence. Neither of them wanted to revisit the incident with the hoodies and the clown. They were both too sure that they had acted correctly while simultanaeously being conscious that they had somehow failed. But the incident hung over them like a cloud, making it impossible for them to talk about anything else.
"Mmmm", she said, "A message".
"What?" said Lexa.
"A message. Someone's sent me a message on the backup phone. Oh, it's just one of those one's saying you've got voicemail".
She dialled a number and listened as the phone gave her the message.
"It's… the manager of the Cartwright Friendly. She wants me to ring her, says she needs to tell me something. Oh, and her name is Joan".
"It's too late to ring her now", snapped Lexa irritably.
"I know", said Claire back, annoyed at Lexa's stating the obvious. "I'll ring her tomorrow".
"Don't ring her from our hotel", said Lexa. "We don't anyone being able to track us back there".
"I'm not going to, I know the drill".
"I was just saying".
"Yeah sure. Look, I'm not a complete idiot and I am able to remember my training".
"Well then you wouldn't be talking in such a loud voice".
"No louder than yours".
Lexa did not respond. They went back to eating their food in silence while the giant portrait of Princess Diana smiled down beatifically at them.
* * * * * * *
Norbert Shunter looked up from his copy of Jiggle to see Claire and Lexa coming back into the hotel. They ignored him. They looked like they were ignoring each other too. He thought better of saying anything to them, after the bollocking he had got last night. Anyway, he did not like them anymore. His latest theory was that they were lesbians, but not the sexy kind of lesbians, the other kind. He went back to the more pliant contents of his magazine.
After breakfast next day Claire and Lexa went for a walk in the park to ponder their next move. Things were still uncomfortable between them.
"I think I will call back the Cartwright Friendly woman", said Claire.
"Why?" said Lexa.
"To see what she has to say", said Claire, who felt that this was the obvious reason why you returned a call to someone who had left you a message asking you to ring them.
"Well what do you think she's going to say?"
"If I knew I wouldn't need to ring her", she snapped.
"She's just going to try and trick us. I think she's working for them. The student said she was there when they took Ryan away".
"We don't know that. It could have been another woman".
"What other woman could it be?"
"I don't know, some other woman in the hotel. Anyway, we don't know that the student was telling us the truth".
"He was right about the moustaches".
"He might have known about the Grieg people and their moustaches, and just thrown in the detail to make his made-up story sound more convincing".
"But why would he lie to us?"
"I don't fucking know", said Lexa. It was her turn to snap now. "Why does anyone ever lie? But we can't do this job if we assume that everyone is telling us the truth all the time".
"Well I'm still going to ring her".
"For fuck's sake, Rebecca", said Lexa, who seemed to only use Claire's codename with an inflection that suggested extreme irritation. "What if she is working for them?"
"What harm is a phone call going to do?"
"I don't know, but what good will it do? If she thinks we're onto them she'll just feed you some bullshit to confuse us. Or trick you into revealing how much you know".
"I won't reveal anything to her. And even if she is working for them and trying to bullshit us, hearing what she comes out with could still be useful to us".
"No it won't".
"Oh stop being so negative! And stop treating me like shit just because I helped that stupid clown last night".
"That's got nothing to do with this", said Lexa, who was nevertheless stung by the reference to the previous night's excitement. "Though what you did then was wrong. You're showed a serious lapse of judgement, just like you are now. Don't call that woman".
"Look, Alison", said Claire, repaying Lexa in kind and talking in a tone of steely determination, "I can do whatever I like. Perhaps I should remind you that I was put in command of this mission? So if I decide to do something, we do it".
"It's a mistake. You're putting our mission in jeopardy".
"Your objections are noted. Now shut up".
"But – "
"Look, do you want to be reported for insubordination when we get back home?"
"I would like to get home, when this is all over. I'm worried that you're going to put us in danger of finding ourselves stuck here".
"That's for me to decide", said Claire, icily. "Now be quiet while I make the call".
Lexa glowered at her but said no more. She chafed at many of the restrictions imposed by the Organisation, but ultimately she understood the importance of discipline, particularly in the field. Claire's decision might be the wrong one, but their ability to function as a team relied on her obeying the decisions of her superior.
Claire took out the special mobile phone, turned it on, and dialled the number.
"Hello, Joan? This is Rebecca. You have something to tell me?"
A moment of silence while she listened.
"I understand. So where do you propose we meet?"
She listened some more.
"I don't think that would be wise. In fact, it would be best if we met somewhere else entirely. Somewhere a bit more public".
Claire paused while waiting for a response. Lexa felt that irritation experienced by anyone hearing just one half of a telephone conversation.
"No, I've a better idea", Claire said, after the other woman had apparently been speaking for some time. "Soho Square. This afternoon, at 3.00 pm. Right, see you there".
She hung up and turned off the phone.
"Well?" said Lexa.
"She said she had something to tell me. She couldn't tell me over the phone, so she wanted me to come to the Friendly. I said no, so she suggested Russell Square. I reckoned that anywhere she suggested was too dangerous – she might have cased it out. And anyway, Russell Square is a bit too near the Friendly. So I said Soho Square".
"Where's Soho Square?"
"In Soho, obviously". Claire relished the opportunity to state the obvious. Near Tottenham Court Road. Just south of Oxford Street. It's a small square".
"I still don't like it. What if it's a trap? We'd be putting our head in a noose".
"We won't be putting our head anywhere".
"What do you mean?"
"I'm going to meet her on my own".
Lexa was flabbergasted. "Have you finally taken complete leave of your senses?" was all she could bring herself to say.
"Not at all", replied Claire, smiling. "I'm going to meet her in the square. You're going to keep watch. First sign of trouble, you ring me and I scarper. It's an open square, plenty of roads leading off it into the rabbit warren that is Soho. They'll never catch me".
"Jesus, I don't know…"
"Don't worry, Lexa", said Claire, deliberately using her colleague's real name. "I have every confidence in you".
Lexa went along with Claire's wishes, feeling that she did not really have any alternative. The plan they worked out was a simple one. They would arrive separately to the square, Lexa first and then Claire. Lexa would be wearing a wig to disguise herself and make it less likely that the woman from the Friendly would recognise her. She would sit at an outside table at a café that looked onto the square, pretending to read a book but actually scanning the square for any sign of trouble. Claire would arrive later and make her way to the centre of the square. If all went well, she would meet the woman and hear whatever she had to say. If there was any sign of anything untoward, Lexa would text Claire to abort the meeting, or ring her if the situation was desperate.
As the time of the meeting approached, Lexa made a last attempt to talk Claire out of the meeting, but she remained adamant. And Lexa was secretly not disappointed. The game was afoot and her blood was up. She was getting high on the adrenaline now, feeling tense and jumpy and yet super confident and capable. She felt alive. This, she realised, was why she worked for the Organisation – not to sit at a desk and process information, not to meet grubby sources and hear their lies, but to do put herself in the way of danger and live to tell the tale.
She found an outside table at the café and sat down. After ordering a coffee and a slice of chocolate cake, she pretended to read. Glancing around her, everything looked normal, but who knew what lurked beneath the surface. Here we go, she thought.
21/11/2011 – 22/11/2011
An inuit panda production
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