Part Three
"What are you doing?"
0-0-0
"Jo," Zaf ventured into her room without turning on the light. "Jo, are you ok."
He got no response, so carefully stepped over the various articles of clothing on her floor until he reached her bed.
"Jo." He poked her. "Jo wake up, are you okay?"
"I was until you woke me up," came the bitter response.
"Right. Sorry. I was just checking to make sure you hadn't died or anything."
"I'm fine," Jo said irritably. "Now go away and let me sleep."
0-0-0
"Jo," Zaf came into her room again some hours later. "Jo, you aren't comatose are you?"
Again, no response. Zaf wearily picked his way across the floor and poked her.
"Jo?"
Still no response. He shook her. She didn't wake up.
"Bugger." Zaf said, wiping sleep from his eyes. He pulled out his mobile and called Adam.
"This'd better be important mate," Adam yawned sleepily into the phone.
"Adam, I can't wake Jo."
There was silence on the other end of the line as Adam raked his brains for a coherent thought. "Right, have you poked her?"
"Yes."
"Shaken her?"
"Yes."
"Turned on the light?"
"No, should I do that?"
"Yes."
"Okay." He turned on the light, still nothing.
"Nothing," he said to Adam.
Again, Adam was silent. "Check her breathing. I'll be over in five minutes," he said. "And I'll call the medic on my way."
Four minutes and twenty three seconds later Adam arrived outside Zaf's flat, carrying Wes on his shoulder, followed closely by an ambulance.
"She's through here," Zaf said, as they burst through the door. The medic team went first and Adam trailed close behind.
0-0-0
"For God's sake Zaf, could you not have shaken her a bit harder?"
"How was I supposed to know she was that heavy a sleeper?"
Adam threw himself back onto Zaf's sofa. Wes muttered a protest at being disturbed and turned over on his side. Adam thought about following suit and sleeping, but the adrenaline was still buzzing in his veins. He needed to relax.
"Well, at least she's all right I suppose. Any chance of a quick drink?"
"Yeah, sure."
Zaf poured them each a measure of whiskey. His arm was quavering. He dropped the bottle onto the counter and laid his hands on either side of it, steadying himself. It wasn't just his hands which were shaking now, his entire frame was shivering.
Adam stood up and walked over to him.
"Are you all right mate?"
Zaf nodded. Then he looked around him, as though checking that the ambulance crew were really gone.
"I was really worried Adam," he said quietly. "I don't know what I'd do if...if…"
Adam laid a hand on one of his shoulders.
"It didn't happen. She's fine. She may be a bit angry at you in the morning for over-reacting, but hey, better safe than sorry."
Zaf composed himself. He downed the whiskey and poured himself another. Adam picked up his own and sat back down on the couch. He felt unexpectedly tired. The couch was comfortable. He put his feet up and his glass down and closed his eyes for a second.
"Will I get you both sleeping bags?" Zaf asked. Adam opened his eyes slowly.
"No, I'm not staying. Not fair on Wes."
He swung his legs off the sofa.
"I'd better not have that drink after all. Call me in the morning," he said. "If Jo hasn't killed you."
0-0-0
"How are you feeling?"
Zaf opened one bleary eye to see Jo standing at the foot of the bed. She'd turned the light on, and it was burning straight into his retinas.
"Hung-over," he groaned, regretting drinking those three whiskeys he'd poured for himself and the one he'd poured for Adam.
"Good, I'm glad. Have you any idea how embarrassing it is to be woken up by an ambulance team?"
"I can't say I do, no," he dragged himself out of bed. "I know how embarrassing it is to feel like a chump after calling one though. What time is it?"
"Half-five."
Zaf groaned again and threw himself back on the bed.
"What did you wake me at this time for?"
"Revenge is a dish best served early. Briefing's at eight, see you then."
She turned off the light and left the room, smirking. He wouldn't sleep.
0-0-0
"…GCHQ have been monitoring the phone calls made in Gabrielle's saloon, most of them by Gabrielle herself, and have given us a list and profiles of the recipients. The calls themselves were in Irish and they're working on translating them now. Ruth, I want you to check each person carefully for some clue as to what Gabrielle and May are up to."
"Any idea what I'm looking for Harry?"
"Not yet. Run a link analysis to see if these people have anything unusually common in their backgrounds. Malcolm, any progress on making those bugs work?
Malcolm shook his head, "I can't tune out the noise of the hairdryers. I've never had to bug a hairdresser's before. We've tried noise-compensation, filtration, boosting the power amongst a myriad of other possibilities – none of them work."
"This is ludicrous. MI 5, bested by hairdryers? Make them work Malcolm, we must know what's being said in there. In the meantime Jo, I want you to stand as near to conversations as possible. Ask questions, drop hair rollers, whatever it takes to be near enough the dialogue that we can hear it via your mike. Adam, any progress to report?"
"We wrote May's CV together yesterday evening in the playground, and I've given everyone a copy of it. Bear in mind that it could be totally or in some respects fabricated, but I don't think it is. Hopefully the details will throw up some links with the people who've been in contact with them recently. I also think we should check out their neighbours, they may be involved somehow."
"I've already started it," Ruth said. "There's just one or two who I need to do more detailed checks on."
Harry smiled appraisingly and Ruth glowed happily. Adam let them have their moment before he continued.
"Over the course of our meeting it transpired that Gabrielle and May live downstairs from an old ex-navy nut-job who occasionally sweeps the building for bugs. As far as I could gather he uses a 70's device. Malcolm, any chance he'll pick up the cameras we've hidden in their apartment?"
Malcolm looked concerned, "Did she say what type of detector it was?"
"No, only that it was old-fashioned, about this big," Adam made a shape the size of small tissue box with his hands, "and black."
"Nothing else? Markings? Dials?"
"No, and I couldn't exactly ask without arousing suspicion. I don't think she knew what make it was, to be honest. She doesn't strike me as the technical type. She could hardly type two-fingered. I only got as much out of her as I did because I told her I'd never seen a bug-detector before."
"I could send somebody in," Zaf suggested. He looked peaky and tired. It was the first time he'd spoken all briefing. "Check it out, see if it's a threat."
"It probably won't be," Malcolm said. "70's devices aren't generally sensitive enough to pick up our new cameras."
"All the same," he added after a moment's reflection. "It might not be a bad idea to replace it with a decoy until the operation is over."
"One more thing," Adam said. "May quit her job in the coffee shop. She should be calling around to sort out references today but we need a tail on her whenever she leaves the building. I've arranged to meet her again at lunch-time at the playground. On a more personal note she doesn't appear to have many friends in London, and there seems to be some sort of trouble between her and Gabrielle at the moment."
"What kind of trouble?" It was Jo who asked.
"Rows. Gabrielle apparently yelled at her for quitting her job. Gabrielle has her wrapped around her little finger. May will do anything for that woman."
"Commit an act of terror even?" Harry questioned. Adam shrugged. Harry turned to face Jo, who was video-calling from her temporary abode. "Jo? You met her. Is she capable of blowing up London?"
"She certainly didn't reveal any radical tendencies to me." Jo dipped her head, scraping her hair back into a pony-tail as she spoke. "Though I did observe that May seems to value their relationship more than Gabrielle. I've been thinking Harry, there's something funny about the cupboard. I'm going to take another look at it later if I can. And I think you need to check Gabrielle's customers for unusual activities and backgrounds."
"Good idea. Ruth, another job for your capable hands I think. Use the CCTV footage from the saloon and see if any of the customers have a dodgy past."
Finally, Harry turned to Zaf.
"Next time Jo gets concussion, you will check that she's not just sleeping before calling in the ambulance won't you?"
Zaf nodded meekly, too tired to even contemplate a witty retort.
"Excellent. Good work in the cafe by the way. And now that everybody is fully briefed I expect the matter to be resolved by lunch-time. Do I make myself clear?"
The team nodded and gathered up their files to go. Adam paused, blocking the doorway.
"So there wasn't a message concealed in the plays then Harry?" he asked innocently.
"As you damn well know Adam, no, there was not. And don't you have work to do? Because I can find some for you if you like. And it won't involve any plays."
Adam ducked out the door quickly.
"They were good though, weren't they?" Ruth, as always, was last to leave the room.
"Yes," Harry admitted begrudgingly. "They were all right."
0-0-0
Deborah was standing at the reception when Jo arrived at the saloon shortly after nine. She smiled broadly as Jo walked in.
"You look much better today Joss. Did you sleep well?"
"Reasonably well thanks."
"Good, good. All set for a hard day's work?"
"As set as I'll ever be."
"Does that hurt?" Deborah gestured at the purple-black lump on Jo's forehead.
"A bit. Not much, I've had worse."
Deborah scrutinised the bruise closely.
"It probably looks worse than it is," she decided. "Here, let me take your bag and coat, you go put the kettle on."
She helped Jo out of the second arm of her coat and hung it up in the closet behind the counter, fixing the collar and sleeves as she did. She also dropped Jo's bag in before shutting the door. She had to shut it several times before it stayed close. Like everything else in the saloon the door needed to be fixed.
"Do you take milk or sugar?" Jo asked.
"Just milk please."
Jo opened the small staff fridge at the back of the saloon. She shook the milk carton, it was next to empty.
"There's no milk, will you have your tea black?"
Deborah pulled a face.
"No, I'll pop around to the shops and buy some. If anyone comes in or phones to make an appointment while I'm gone take their name and number and tell them I'll get back to them."
"I could make the booking if you like," Jo offered.
"Thanks sweetheart, but you don't know the rosters yet. Just take their number, there's a good girl. Back in a minute."
Jo waited until Deborah was gone before swinging into action. The door of the fuse-box slash junk cupboard opened smoothly, the hinges had obviously been oiled in the recent past. She felt around the edges of the door frame. Outside the cupboard was wooden, but inside it was metal.
Just then an urgent voice broke radio silence.
"Subject is returning, repeat, subject is returning to shop."
Jo stuck her head out of the cupboard just in time to hear the bell over the door ring as Deborah walked back in.
Deborah strode swiftly down the shop. "What are you doing?" It wasn't a question, she was demanding to know. A suitable cover-story failing her, Jo opted for an almost truth.
"I wanted to see if there was something in the cupboard I could have banged my head on. I remembered hearing a clang when I hit my head and wondered if it was my imagination."
Deborah continued to stare down suspiciously at her. Jo tried a change of tact.
"Did you get the milk? That was quick."
"I forgot my purse."
"Oh. Would you like me to go get it?"
Deborah did not respond. The bell over the door rang again and Jo looked up to see a woman standing by reception. Saved by the bell.
"I have an appointment for half nine?" the woman said, though she didn't sound too sure about it.
"I'll be with you momentarily," Deborah called back. "Would you care to take a seat?" She offered her hand to Jo and pulled her to her feet.
"The cupboard is metal, it has a wooden fronting on it to make it fit in with the decor," she said. "You shouldn't poke around too much in this place by the way. Stuff has a tendency to fall on people's heads."
With that she strode up to reception, where the uncertain woman continued to stand. Jo was left wondering whether she had just received a thinly veiled threat, or a piece of advice.
Deborah pulled Jo's coat out of the closet.
"Go get milk will you?" she asked mildly as Jo walked up the shop. "Here's some money, the shop is around the corner."
She handed the coat and the money to Jo.
"Be sure to get a receipt," she called as Jo walked out the door.
0-0-0
"What the bloody hell was she doing there?"
The surveillance officer working with Zaf in the van outside Gabrielle's Saloon was skimming through the previous night's CCTV camera footage. He'd paused the video on a shot taken outside Jo slash Joss's flat. There, bold as brass, stood Deborah knocking on Jo's door. The time at the bottom of the screen read 17.52, ten to six.
"Play that for me," Zaf said, leaning over the officer's shoulder. He unfroze the screen. Deborah knocked on Jo's door, and when she got no response she knocked more insistently. Jo still didn't answer. She couldn't because at that time she had been sleeping in Zaf's flat. After two minutes Deborah gave up and walked out of the shot.
The officer cut to the car park. Deborah got into her car and drove away at 17.56.
"Show me that again," Zaf said. "Start when Deborah pulls into the car park."
They watched as Deborah's small, practical car drove around the underground car park before parking almost directly beneath the camera they were watching from. She stepped out of the car, picked up her bag and locked the car behind her. They watched her walk up the stairs. She had a small piece of paper in her hand which she examined as she moved. She then walked out of shot and back into the original frame they had seen her in, outside Jo's door. Again, she knocked, knocked again and waited two minutes before turning, leaving and walking back to her car.
"Where's the piece of paper gone?" the officer asked suddenly. He rewound the tape eagerly. "See, there it is in her hand the first time she knocks…" He zoomed in.
The paper was no longer visible in her hand.
"And now it's gone," he said triumphantly. The second officer in the van, a svelte red-haired girl recently out of training, stood up to have a look.
Zaf swore. "We have to warn Jo," he said. "Where's Deborah now?"
"She went to the shops to buy milk," the red-haired girl said as she sat back down at her post, just as Deborah walked swiftly around the corner on her way back to the saloon.
The girl panicked. "What do I do?" she screeched.
Zaf grabbed the mike from her.
"Subject is returning, repeat, subject is returning to shop," he said urgently into it. He then tore the cable of the girl's headphones out of the sound-board so they could all hear through Jo's mike what was going on in the shop.
"What are you doing?"
Deborah sounded very angry. As Jo blustered her way through an explanation Zaf grabbed the red-haired girl by the shoulder, and handed her a miniscule earphone.
"Put this in your ear and go in there and distract Deborah," he said.
"I can't do that, I'm not a field officer!"
Zaf looked her firmly in the eyes.
"We have to warn Jo. Go in, pretend to be a customer and I'll tell Jo to leave while Deborah is distracted. Kevin, talk her through it."
Kevin picked up the girl's abandoned headset. She looked over at him desperately.
"Why can't Kevin do it?"
"Because it's a woman's hairdressers. Now go!"
Zaf pushed her out of the van. She stumbled across the road and into the saloon.
"Say you have an appointment for half nine," Kevin directed her.
"Uh, I have an appointment for half nine?"
Deborah looked up at the girl. "I'll be with you momentarily, would you care to take a seat?"
"Don't sit down," Kevin advised. "She'll serve you quicker."
Deborah helped Jo to her feet. She spoke to her tersely, before moving to serve the red-haired girl. Jo stood still, a gormless expression on her face.
"Jo, get out of there quickly, we need to talk," Zaf hissed down the microphone. Startled out of her reverie Jo walked quickly towards the door. Zaf didn't wait to hear the rest of the conversation. "Get Susie out," he said to Kevin as he exited the van. Kevin nodded.
"Say your cousin booked you the appointment…" he was saying as the van door closed.
0-0-0
"Adam, I've checked out those last few neighbours. The man with the bug detector who lives above them has a history of paranoia, and he's been to jail a few times since leaving the navy. Nothing serious, well, unless you consider petty theft serious."
Ruth passed him a mug shot of the man, taken before his third three-month stretch in jail.
"Apart from him, a recurring link between the neighbours seems to be that they're Irish, not all of them of course but several are. Gabrielle and May's next door neighbour is a woman called Denise, she has a boy slightly younger than Sean."
She gave him a photo of Denise and her son, presumably taken at long-distance though zoomed in enough that Adam could read the writing on the boy's school bag.
"Ted Crilly and Robin Baskin live on the floor below them, they're flatmates. Their neighbour Charlotte O'Neill lives alone, apart from a hamster called Marvin."
More photos were produced. Even one of the hamster. Ruth was nothing if not thorough.
"Finally, and I think most importantly, the woman two floors up is called Oona Tóibín. She's thirty-two, lives alone, works from home and appears to be a friend of Gabrielle's. She was also on the list of visitors to Gabrielle's hair saloon."
Ruth dropped a picture of a woman with peroxide blonde hair on top of the others. Adam picked it up.
"Why is she so important?" he asked, memorising Oona Tóibín's face. And hair.
Ruth bit her lip anxiously, "I'm not sure I should tell you this yet, because I'm waiting to hear back from GCHQ, but I think Oona Tóibín may recently have been involved in the disappearance of a dissident Irish Republican from our jails."
"How recently? I don't remember any disappearance."
"Before I was posted to Section D, sort of recently. Not really that recently I know but about five years ago there was a clean up job, wiping all the information about this prisoner escape. It was all very hush-hush but I remember the name Tóibín coming up. Toy-bean. It isn't a very common name which is why it sort of stuck with me."
"What do you need GCHQ for?"
"I can't get the digital files, they were wiped by my friend who is very, very efficient at that sort of thing. But they usually keep hard copies of everything, and this friend of mine owes me a favour. I asked her to meet me for coffee…"
Adam nodded thoughtfully. "Good work Ruth. I'll have a look through the rest of these files, see if I can't come up with something."
0-0-0
"Do you think my cover is blown?" Jo asked Zaf as they left the shop together. He'd told her about what he'd seen on the CCTV footage. She looked concerned.
"I don't know. But she seemed very angry when you poked about in that cupboard. What was in there?"
"Nothing extraordinary. There was hairdryers, rollers, old magazines and some bottles of dye amongst other things. Hairdresser stuff, you know. The cupboard itself has a metal lining. Tin I think."
The fact that Deborah had arrived outside her flat was niggling her.
"What was she doing there?" she murmured. "And how did the paper disappear?"
"The first thing I can think of is that some footage is missing, but there's no time difference at the bottom of the screen. I'll send it to Colin to have a look at."
"Jo," he turned to look at her. "There isn't enough evidence yet to take you out of this op, but I want you to be careful. I think there's far more going on here than meets the eye."
Jo nodded, "I think so too. And I'm always careful Zaf."
Zaf let his eyes flicker over her forehead in response. Jo sighed.
"Ok, so I'll be more careful from now on."
0-0-0
Susie was still smiling when Zaf climbed back into the van, which he took as a good sign. "Good job Susie," he said in a congratulatory tone. "We'll make a field agent of you yet."
"Do you really think so?" asked Susie, delightedly. "Gosh it was fun. Did you see me talk to her? Kevin saw me, didn't you Kevin? I was good wasn't I?"
Zaf exchanged looks with Kevin, who rolled his eyes. Zaf smirked but Susie babbled on, unaware of the exchange. After a minute or so, he decided she'd babbled long enough.
"Shh!" he said dramatically, pointing at the live footage from inside the hairdressers. "I think something's happening." Susie closed her mouth instantly, staring intently at the screen. On it, Jo put a cup of tea down beside Deborah.
"That's it?" Susie cried in disappointment.
"Shh!" Zaf said again, seriously this time. Susie shut up.
"Is there enough milk in that for you?" Jo asked Deborah.
Deborah glanced at the cup. "Thanks petal, that's plenty."
She sipped the tea, and Jo sipped hers too.
"Where's Gabrielle?" Jo asked suddenly.
"She has Fridays off," Deborah replied, flicking through one of the magazines they kept for customers. "That woman is unnaturally skinny," she said, pausing on a picture of some celebrity or other in a bikini. " 'Get your bod bikini-fit in four weeks.' I wouldn't want a body like that if you paid me. What issue is this anyway?" She checked the front cover. "June. Well that figures." She closed the magazine and threw it back on the stack.
"Yes, Deborah takes Fridays off. It's only fair I suppose, she works nine hour shifts most days to keep this place afloat."
As far as Jo could see, Gabrielle tended to spend most of her time on the phone during those shifts, but she didn't argue. Instead she turned her attentions to that fly-away comment of Deborah's the day before.
"Remember you said, yesterday, that Gabrielle loves Sean deeply. And then you were going to say something else, but you didn't. What were you going to say?"
Deborah shifted her weight onto her other foot.
"I don't recall saying anything of the sort," she said.
"That was a lie," Kevin murmured, as though he was afraid Deborah might hear him over the traffic and through the side of the van.
"You did," Jo insisted. "Just before we got in the car."
"No I didn't," Deborah insisted right back. "Now go sweep the floor like a good girl."
Jo reluctantly disappeared down the back of the shop to fetch a sweeping brush. Zaf picked up his phone and called Adam.
0-0-0
Juliet wore a pitch-perfect face of severity.
"It's been a week Harry, why haven't we got a concrete case against our lesbian lovers yet?"
Harry sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"It's not that simple, we've been encountering difficulties."
"Such as?"
It took every ounce of restraint left in Harry to not bellow, what the hell do you care you old trout?
"Such as operational difficulties."
"Really? Why thank you for elaborating Harry. The question is, can your merry men resolve these difficulties anytime soon or shall I be forced to step in and take over this botched operation?"
Harry had had about enough.
"It would help if we knew what we were looking for Juliet! You swan in here and put me on some bloody wild goose chase for all I know. Unless I'm told what this is about right now..."
He left the threat hanging. Juliet said nothing, merely continued to stare haughtily at him.
"For Christ's sake Juliet, why are my men even involved in this? We haven't got a whiff of a threat to national security yet. All we have is a meagre amount of money stuffed into a few bank accounts. The special branch could handle this one!"
Juliet considered her next words carefully.
"What I am about to tell you is strictly classified Harry." Harry pulled a face, Juliet continued unabated.
"We got a tip off, from Irish intelligence."
Harry snorted. "Irish Intelligence? Don't make me laugh Juliet."
Juliet was not laughing.
"I'm deadly serious Harry. They warned us of an imminent attack on our country, specifically naming Gabrielle and May as their prime suspects. The last thing this country needs is the Irish intelligence bleating 'told you so' at us after the event. Therefore, we need to get to the bottom of this and soon. I'm giving you the rest of the day to get your hands dirty Harry. If your men haven't managed to find our terrorists by then, then I'm stepping in and this operation is going to be done my way."
0-0-0
Adam studied his computer monitor. He was watching May and Gabrielle's apartment. It was quarter past ten in the morning and May was still in bed. In the room next to her Gabrielle was asleep on a chair next to Sean's bed, her face stuck to a book of fairy-tales. May had gone in during the night and found the two of them like that. She'd felt Sean's forehead, brushed a small curl off his face and draped a blanket over Gabrielle before curling up in her own bed and reading for a while. She was asleep now, breathing regularly as Adam watched. Occasionally her head would twitch back into the pillow. It was this tiny twitch Adam was examining intensely, the files in his hands forgotten.
His phone rang. It was Zaf.
"Adam I need some checks done on Deborah Langley."
"Not now, I'm busy. Ask Ruth." He hung up.
"210, 211, 212…" he counted under his breath. "213, 214, 215 –" May's head twitched.
There was a small analogue clock on the bed-stand beside May; its third hand was just about visible ticking, though whatever way the clock was angled he couldn't read the time. Adam watched it tick, counting under his breath.
"213, 214, 215 –"
As he suspected would happen, the second hand jumped at the same instant that May's head twitched. Adam grabbed his phone from its cradle and dialled Colin, who picked up immediately.
"Colin here. What can I do you for?"
"Colin, we need to switch off the surveillance in the Lovebird's flat and reboot immediately."
Colin was professional enough to not straight away ask why. He hastily started the reboot. Adam could hear his keyboard tapping over the line.
"Can I ask why we're doing this?" The tapping never stopped for a moment.
"Because somebody is feeding us a loop."
"A loop?.. Impossible. Picture should be back in a few seconds."
There was a tense moment of snowstorm on Adam's screen. When it cleared he could see May in the kitchen and Sean in his bedroom, but Gabrielle was no longer sleeping by Sean's bed.
She was gone from the flat.
Sound filtered through from the surveillance team outside the complex as the new feed reached them. They had obviously been receiving the same loop as the Grid.
"Bollocks!" one of the team swore loudly. "Mockingbird, we have a serious problem. Lovebird One has flown the Nest, repeat, Lovebird One has flown."
"Well don't just sit there, find her!" Adam barked uncharacteristically into his mouthpiece. "Whatever she's doing must be important if she needed to give us the slip!"
0-0-0
AN: So there you have Part 3. Only 28 'said's in this chapter, you'll be glad to note. Thank you again everyone who left suggestions at the end of my last chapter : )
Part 4 is more or less complete, but I now find myself in the difficult situation of trying to write Part 5. As you have probably not noticed, but will if you visit my profile, I have never finished any story ever (unless a one-shot, and it's kind of hard to not finish those). This is generally because once I reach the last chapter I tend to lose my nerve, thinking 'this is woeful shite and nobody will understand it'. My stories nearly always become contorted and overly complicated, something I have tried (and probably not suceeded) to avoid in this one. However, I ask you to bear with me while I try to round things off. Hopefully you will not be disappointed.
Motivation and reassurance to keep plodding on is, as always, appreciated though if you have a minute or two (points nicely to Review button).
So, fingers crossed, Part 4 coming soon.