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Chapter Fifteen: Waxing Lyrical

Nathan glanced at his reflection in the mirror and finally caught sight of the beard he'd hitherto only felt. A thick, tawny scrub of growth now sprouting over half of his face that made him look as though he'd taken a step down the evolutionary ladder. Bringing one hand to his chin, he tried to probe his way through the coarse hair to find what lay beneath. Only, seconds later, to have Olly smack that same hand away.

"Hold still," Olly gently chided, readying the scissors. "We'll cut the worst of it off and that'll have to do until you're home."

Dropping his hands to his lap, he instead toyed with the towel that now covered his knees. It wasn't just that the hospital lacked for male grooming facilities. It was the warfarin coursing through his veins, turning his blood to rusty water, that made shaving too dangerous. Every evening, a plump and friendly Indian nurse came to his bedside and shot another dose of this souped-up rat poison into the space between his navel and pubic bone. The fluid burned as it transitioned from syringe to flesh, causing his eyes to water. As if some old instinct kicked in at that moment, Nathan always curled his toes and lay back in the bed as though waiting for the high to come. But it never did and he always felt short changed.

"It hurts," he moaned, meeting Olly's gaze.

The other man sighed heavily. "How can it? I haven't even done anything yet."

"Not that. I mean the injections. They hurt."

Olly paused just as he was about to snip away a chunk of beard and rolled his eyes. "Sometimes, you are such a baby. Now stop talking or I'll cut your chin."

Silently, he seethed against the insult and glared up into Olly's face. He was standing behind his chair, leaning round and now cutting away at the brittle hair. Nathan could see how tired he looked. Days of worry, sleepless nights, still stuck in the safe-house they had been allocated and sad that they would probably never return to their old home. The strain was showing. Dark eyes made all the darker by the rings under them, glittering fever bright under the harsh hospital lights. He frowned in concentration now, silent with his jaw clenched.

Nathan wondered what was going on his head. Olly never asked questions. He never demanded to be told anything. Maybe he knew what the answer would be; maybe he already decided he would be better off not knowing. But he rolled with the punches and now had the black eyes to show for it. He, Nathan, felt a twinge of guilt curl inside him. But his job was so secret he suspected even his sense of guilt over it was now classified information. Like everything else, he kept it to himself.

While he cogitated, Olly kept steadily cutting away at the beard. Frowning still, lining his brow deeply. Nathan studied that expression, trying to gage how this impromptu barber's session was going. Good or bad, he couldn't tell. But there were a lot of cuttings falling as silent and dark as London snow onto the towel on his lap. After what seemed an age, Olly took a step back and regarded him like a painting in the Louvre. The frown remained.

"Oh," said Olly, at length.

Nathan waited, growing more concerned by the minute. "Oh?"

"Mm," replied Olly. "Just, see for yourself."

Nathan hesitated, bracing himself for what he was about to see, before reaching for the hand mirror.

"Oh dear," he greeted his reflection. "Well, you never claimed to be a barber."

Some bits were cut down to the skin, other bits looked altogether untouched. A patchwork, tufty mess of bristles that made him resemble one of the shouting crackheads who seemed to assemble outside their local branch of Tesco.

"What about leg wax?" Olly suggested.

Nathan shrugged, putting the mirror down. It was late now, it would have to wait until morning. But it wasn't as if he was planning on going anywhere.

"Leg wax, on my face," he replied, at length. "It's basically the same principle, isn't it? What could possibly go wrong?"

That decided, Olly helped him back into bed. There was still no word on his release date, which meant the endless hospital days remained stretched out in front of him like a bleak and infinite horizon. By the time he was settled against the bank of pillows, the clock had struck the end of visiting time and they bid their farewells.

"Kiss Fidel for me," said Nathan.

Olly grimaced. "That sounds so wrong on so many levels." But the grimace faded into an expression of sadness. "You take care of yourself, yeah?"

Nathan noted the weariness again, inwardly concluding that it was him who should have been in the hospital bed at this point. Still, he raised a wan smile. "I'll see you tomorrow. And don't forget that wax!"

That night, Harry dreamt he was hitchhiking to the Gettysburg Address; there was something urgent he needed to tell Abraham Lincoln. But what that was he never did find out; he awoke confused and mildly amused long before he could deliver the message. Several hours later, Ruth was regarding him carefully over the breakfast table with a glass of orange juice in hand, as he relayed his dream.

"Maybe you were telling him not to go to the theatre," she suggested. "That would have been rather urgent."

Harry shrugged and laughed. "I'd like to think it was something along those lines."

The truth was, he had had enough of saving the hides of politicians in this lifetime, never mind the ones from eras long gone. Especially one with such a pivotal role in shaping the future of his greatest pain in the arse. Back in the day he had even taken a bullet for Margaret Thatcher. What if he had died back then? He supposed it didn't matter, because it hadn't happened. But if he was going to die for a politician he wanted it to be one of the ones everybody loved and admired. So, that would be none of them then, the little brain-voice reminded him.

"Anyway, never mind Abraham Lincoln. You need to worry about William Towers," said Ruth. "If you get the truth out of Weston, this morning, you have to be prepared for Towers being more deeply involved in this than we realise."

Harry drained what was left of his morning coffee and pondered what had prompted her to say that. Intuition? Or maybe she was simply becoming just as cynical as he was. It wasn't the first time she had mentioned and he was beginning to wonder if she'd ironed his black leather murder gloves last night. Either way, he clung to his initial assessment that Towers had simply blundered into the arms deal, hungry for a cheap and easy supply of military hardware for their nation's cash-strapped forces. Anything was better than going cap in hand to the Saudis again. But nothing excused dealing with criminals supplying ISIS with one hand and a legitimate government with the other.

First things first, he thought to himself as they prepared to leave for the Grid. Weston had been left to cool off in the holding cells overnight. Usually, when that happened, they returned to a veritably Pandora's Box of surprises. Some were as frightened as children locked in a dark closet; others were waiting behind the door with a makeshift garrotte at the ready. Some were just broken and singing like canaries, which was great in principle. But often they were spilling information like a broken damn and anything useful was lost among the deluge. It was never easy.

By the time they arrived, Ros was waiting, perched against the edge of Lucas' still empty desk. Stern as a Victorian school ma'am, she wore her knee length pencil skirt and crisp white blouse. Black leather knee boots added a certain no-nonsense air of authority to her stride.

"Is it show time, yet?" she asked, by way of greeting.

Harry shrugged off his coat and straightened his tie. "Yes, I think so."

Ros responded with barely a flicker of a smile, before turning and heading towards the interrogation suite. Ruth, meanwhile, remained at Harry's side. Before she could take her place, he touched her elbow to still her.

"I want you to visit Nathan later and brief him on what's happening," he said. "He's being left in the dark and I don't like it."

Ruth smiled, a show of approval for his idea. It seemed he was learning as much from her as she from him. "Good idea, Harry. I'll head over at about ten-ish."

That settled, Harry followed in Ros' wake towards to the interrogation suite. A different one, this time, in another part of the building. He always found that using different suites unsettled the detainee, kept things completely unfamiliar and unpredictable. In their line of work, it never paid to be second guessed.

However, there was only so much variability between rooms. As such, Harry and Ros found themselves settling into another bleak, grey box of a room with the same solitary bare bulb swinging from the middle of the ceiling. Weston was already there, kept under lock and key with a guard on the door. A guard who ostentatiously rattled his keys and let them in, following a silent nod from Harry. It made the atmosphere more prison-like. All this psychological warfare excited him.

"Mister Weston," Harry greeted their guest. "I trust you found our hospitality suite to your liking?" he paused, reading the other man's reaction. After a moment of blank staring, he added: "Maybe not. That is a shame."

He set his briefcase down at his feet while Ros cut straight to business. From inside her breast pocket, she withdrew a small pen drive and plugged it into a small notebook computer she had carried in with her. For now, she opted not to open any files. Each file, Harry suspected, was a card up her immaculately tailored sleeve, to be played only when she deemed the time was right.

"Why did you attempt to kill our agent?" she asked, briskly.

Harry noted how she left no room for doubt over whether Weston did it or not. Weston, however, was not falling for it.

"I didn't."

Harry had already withdrawn a file from his briefcase and proceeded to lay out a series of photographs. Each one was time stamped in sequence, each taken from a CCTV camera located above a nurse's station at Nathan's hospital ward. They showed clear and pristine images of Weston glancing over the counter, at one point even looking up at the camera as if wondering if it was switched on or not. If Harry stacked the images again and flicked them, he thought it would be like one of those old moving stick cartoons.

"If you didn't try to kill him, why were you so keen to visit him in hospital? Couldn't possibly have been to finish the job off, could it?" He asked.

Weston shrugged. "Could have been anyone-"

"You asked for him by name," Ros cut in. "The nurses confirmed it and logged it."

She then opened one of the files: a photocopy of the log book in question. It was something in place as a precaution, keeping an eye on who entered and left Nathan's hospital room and, more to the point, who was trying to get in. She turned the screen to face Weston, so he could see the evidence for himself.

"So, I ask again, what is your connection to our agent? He doesn't know you, so why were you there?"

"No comment."

So, they were back to playing this game. Harry sighed and Ros rolled her eyes, each preparing to dig their heels in. But Harry wasn't prepared to wait. He made a point of asking the same re-phrased question over and over again. Each time he was met with a blank, automatic, "no comment".

Finally, he let silence descend and discreetly gestured for Ros to do the same. While she pretended to be preoccupied with something on the laptop screen, Harry got up and stretched himself out. His aging bones clicked into place, breaking the silence, before he brought his briefcase to the far end of the room, behind Weston's back. He checked, making sure Weston wasn't looking and slipped off his shoes, then spent a few more minutes letting the silence spiral. In only his socks, he stole back up on the suspect and slammed his briefcase down hard on the table, completely out of the blue. Weston jumped so far out of his seat Harry feared he'd have to scrape him off the ceiling tiles. Meanwhile, Ros continued gazing placidly at the laptop screen.

"Did you hear that?" she asked, nonchalantly.

"Talk!" Harry bellowed in the man's ear, refusing to play along with Ros' banter.

His patience had snapped, breaking their suspect's resolve. Weston was sweating by the time he sat back down. Pale and clammy, his grey eyes darting frantically about the room. His breathing was heavy, laboured.

"I can't tell you anything-"

"Oh, don't give me that," Harry retorted, now pacing the space behind Weston's chair. "You were at that hospital and you can begin by explaining why. Did John Carlton send you? Did you go of your own volition? Speak!"

"You were willing to speak last night," Ros pointed out. "Have you gone off us since then?"

Weston glared back at her, a sneer curling his lip. "You could say that, love. You should have listened when you had the chance."

Ros smiled back at him beatifically. "Well, you can't just swipe left and make us go away, so you'd better talk and get this little farce over and done with."

A standoff developed during which no one spoke. Harry waited, poised mid step, for the suspect to start.

"You need to speak to John Carlton," he said, eventually.

"We intend to," Ros assured him. "Now, tell us what you know."

Yet another silence descended. But this time, it was Ros whose patience snapped. She nodded towards the door, gesturing for Harry to step outside.

"He's really starting to piss me off now," she snapped, once they were safely out in the corridor.

She expressed Harry's own thoughts. For a moment, he began to suspect that leaving Weston to stew overnight could have been a fatal mistake. "I was rather hoping this would be over before noon," he admitted.

Together, they wandered down the passage way and took the opportunity to clear their heads. It was claustrophobic in the interrogation rooms, even for them. If he looked through the pods, he could see that Ruth's desk was now Ruthless, she was away to the hospital already. Lucas was talking on the phone, pacing in front of a large screen reeling off the headlines. Jo was tense, waiting for the word to move in on Carlton and Tariq was engrossed in his computer screen. All was as it should be, but for Weston's ongoing standoff.

"Maybe we should bring in Lucas," said Ros, calm now. "He can do mean and menacing as well as us both combined."

But Harry was hesitant. Bringing in someone else so soon felt like an admission of defeat. But before he could ponder the issue much further, the man himself caught his eye and gestured for him to come over. Lucas covered the mouthpiece of the phone as Harry entered through the pods again.

"It's Ruth," he said. "She's calling from the hospital; something's happened to Nathan."

Without asking him anything, he took the phone. "Ruth, is Nathan okay?"

"Harry, I don't know exactly how it happened. The nurses are in there now," she said, worriedly. "I'll come back and brief you fully-"

"No," he interjected. "Stay there and call back as soon as you find out what's happening."

"Harry! Wait!"

With no further ceremony, he hung up the phone and tried to quell the flicker of nerves that had suddenly assaulted him. After being repeatedly stabbed, anything could go wrong. Some internal damage had suddenly ruptured inside their Junior Case Officer, some overlooked perforation had suddenly made its presence felt. He could feel his blood run cold as he met Lucas' gaze.

"Roll up your sleeves, you're joining the party," he informed the other man.

"As you like it, boss," replied Lucas, taking Harry's suggestion to heart and rolling up his shirt sleeves. Prison tattoos appeared darkly from beneath the neatly pressed cotton.

From just beyond the pods Ros watched them approaching, looking concerned. "What's happened?" she asked once they were reunited.

"There's been some sort of complication with Nathan," Harry replied. "Ruth's going to stay with him and keep us informed. Which means we have even less time to waste on this oxygen thief. Lucas, when you get in there be your finest brooding, menacing self, okay? Guards! Dim the lights for us."

Lucas grinned, suppressed a laugh but made no verbal reply as he got himself into character. After another minute, the three of them were back in the interrogation suite. Lucas took up position at Weston's left hand side, Harry to the right. Both of them loured over the man, dark and threatening as storm clouds. Ros, meanwhile, sat calmly opposite Weston, legs crossed and arms relaxed along the armrests of her seat. She fixed Weston with a cold, calculating look.

"Let's try this again, shall we," she began. "Start by telling us why you tried to kill our agent and who gave you the order."

With both Lucas and Harry leaning over him, Weston didn't know where to look. His gaze darted left and right, trying to watch both men and Ros all at once. It was playing with his mind and Harry could tell. Meanwhile, both he and Lucas kept silent and perfectly still, but poised like they could strike at any moment. Weston swallowed hard, causing Lucas' knuckles to whiten as he gripped the edge of the table. A moment later and the lights dimmed from outside, plunging the interrogation room into semi-darkness. He was weighing up his options, slowly coming to the right decision.

"It was Carlton," he finally admitted, voice low as though trying to muffle the fact that he was turning his coat. "The other one knew too much. Suleiman had told him too much."

Ros cleared her throat. "That would be Sharaf Suleiman, who was murdered barely minutes after informing our Agent that Securitech had sold a dirty bomb to ISIS. The same dirty bomb that killed a number of SIS agents in Iraq."

"I had nothing to do with that," Weston protested, still trying to keep both Harry and Lucas in his line of vision. Even in the glutinous shadows, Ros could see the sweat beading on the man's brow as he continued to talk. "Suleiman's own people took care of him. But it was them that informed Carlton this other chap knew about Securitech's deal with ISIS. Now, I want a deal."

Harry's stance stiffened. "For your information, our Agent's condition has deteriorated. You could yet be facing a murder charge."

"We'll see to it that you go down for life," Lucas added, his voice a low rumble. "What sort of a deal do you think we want to make with you? After what you've told us we can throw you to the dogs, mate."

Ros watched the discourse with feigned disinterest and inspected her newly manicured nails appraisingly. "The only deal you'll be making is how difficult we decide to not make your life. So tell us everything and we might just let you walk out of here."

The trap had closed and Weston could finally see that there was only one way out. The final barrier fell.

"Carlton paid me to do it through a fake website, accessible only on the deep web," he said, eliciting a gratified smile from Harry. "I set up as an assassin for hire and we used that to transfer large sums of money between shell accounts, sometimes in the form of coins – an online currency."

Ros opened up her laptop files again, showing screenshots of Weston's fake website. "You mean this one?"

Weston nodded. "We used that site to try and set up some other guy. I forget his name, but another of you lot. Someone who had a bit of a history. Carlton thought if we could pin the blame on him, then MI5 would be too internally conflicted to come chasing us down."

He meant Lucas, who didn't so much as bat an eyelid. Only a muscle clenching in his jaw betrayed any sign of anger. Otherwise, he maintained his stance, glowering over their trembling suspect. Harry's glare hardened, his eyes onyx-black and furious in the semi-darkness.

"You tried to make out that the fake assassin's website was actually the property of an MI5 agent you tried to frame?" asked Ros, seeking clarity. "So you could also pin the blame for the ISIS bomb and the murders on him or her."

Once more, Weston nodded. "It was Carlton. He planned it all. I-"

"You just went along for the ride," Lucas cut in.

"Yes-"

"But you weren't in the passenger seat the night you tried to murder our Agent," Harry cut in. "It's too late to play the innocent now."

They had what they needed, for now. As Lucas stood up straight again, he walked past Weston's chair and kicked out hard at the legs and sending the man sprawling backwards. Harry barely glanced over his shoulder at the sight.

"Careful," he said, making a note to wipe that from the CCTV footage. "You'll do yourself a mischief."

Ruth picked up her pace as she approached the pods. All down the street, where she had left the car, she had been trying not to burst out into fits of laughter in public. With one hand clamped over her mouth, she crossed the Grid and knocked on Harry's door. But the sight of his grave expression sobered her as she entered, taking in an equally grave Ros and an exhausted Lucas.

"How's Nathan?" Harry asked, getting to his feet.

Lucas smirked, but looked away. Meanwhile, Ruth tried not to laugh again.

"Oh, Harry, you should have seen it," she said, taking the one vacant seat. "He got leg wax all over his face, clogging up his ears, and then howled the house down when they tried to pull it off."

Harry was agape, blanching rapidly. "What?"

"I did try to tell you, Harry, but you hung up on me," she protested. "He's on warfarin, so he can't shave. Instead, he tried to wax his beard off."

Lucas snorted like a donkey, shrinking into the corner as though avoiding Harry's ire. He failed, as the boss glowered at him.

"You knew!" Harry shot at him. "You let me think he was bloody dying of some internal injury… You let me deploy strong arm tactics on a suspect-"

Finally, Ros joined the fray. "Oh come on Harry, admit it, it was funny and it was worth it."

"I really wish I'd seen it, though," Lucas sighed. "So, did the leg wax work?"

"Did it work?" Harry repeated, askance. "I'll go down there and tear it out myself if it bloody didn't. I honestly thought the little shit was about to die!"

Insult was added to injury as Ros joined in the hastily suppressed laughter. "All's well that ends well," she managed to say between stifled laughs.

In an effort to ease Harry's embarrassment, Ruth tried to change the subject. "So, Weston talked then?"

Lucas grinned. "You could say he was waxing lyrical."

Harry huffed indignantly. "Shut up. All of you, shut up."

Thanks again for reading, reviews would be lovely if you have a minute. Apologies again for the long delay.