The Mentor

6

‘Mind telling me what the fuck is going on?’

‘Nothing’s going on,’ Aston said. He was heading up Tottenham Court Road to Goodge Street tube station with his mobile glued to his ear, hurrying to beat the rain. The evening was cold and grey, summer already a distant memory. He kept an eye out for a taxi, but it wasn’t going to happen. Taxis in London were like gold dust at the best of times, never mind when the weatherman was promising rain. The other option was to go by bus, but he didn’t have all night. There was only one thing to do. Take a deep breath and just go for it.

‘You’re such a crap liar, Paul.’

‘There’s nothing going on,’ Aston repeated.

‘Excuse me,’ George fired back. ‘There I am getting my coat on, thinking that’s it for the day. But before I can escape my boss is calling me over and telling me he wants me to go and buy a left-handed screwdriver. So off I go and as soon as I get outside guess what the first thing I see is? Wild fucking geese. Hundreds of the little bastards. And I have this overwhelming urge to go chasing after them.’

‘George—’

‘If you tell me one more time there’s nothing going on I’ll break your bloody legs. I swear to God I will.’

Aston sighed into the mobile, well aware he was fighting a losing battle. ‘Look, we can’t talk over the phone. Can you meet me at Highgate tube station?’

‘No problem. I’ll be there in half an hour.’

‘Twenty minutes,’ Aston said.

‘Okay, twenty.’

Aston clicked the phone shut. The Chief hadn’t said anything about going to Mac’s on his own, and he hadn’t asked for clarification on that point. Aston was glad George was coming along; some moral support wouldn’t go amiss. He dipped a hand into his pocket, fingers finding the jagged edges of the key. It felt cold, slightly sinister. He’d worked out when the drop had taken place. On his way to the bar he’d passed the woman from the jukebox couple. She’d been heading towards the ladies and brushed against him. They’d connected for only the briefest of seconds. A quick apology then she’d disappeared into the toilet. Nicely done.

The rain started as he reached the station. Aston jogged the final few steps and brushed the dew from his hair. He paid in cash for a ticket and reached for the change with a shaky hand. Already his breathing was faster than usual, his heart rate rising, and he wasn’t anywhere near the platform yet. Aston walked down the escalator, resisting the urge to turn and run. This was the first time he’d used the Underground since 18/8. Up until now he’d got by using cabs, buses and his own two feet. Still, he had to face the fear sooner or later. Best get it over and done with. The deeper he got the quicker he wanted to move, as though he could somehow outrun those black memories. At the bottom he forced himself to walk to the platform. According to the digital display the next train was due in three minutes. Three minutes! He paced up and down the platform until the train arrived. As soon as he sat down he closed his eyes and imagined himself on a beach on a tropical island – the sun warm on his skin, sand gently scratching between his toes, the waves swishing rhythmically against the shore – just like George had told him to. Amazingly for one of George’s wacky ideas, it actually worked. He could feel the panic letting go: muscles loosening, pulse slowing, his breathing regulating.

George was waiting at the ticket machine. As soon as she saw Aston she walked over and hugged him. And this wasn’t a fleeting kissy-kissy hug, either. She grabbed him and held him close and tight, so close he could feel her heartbeat. ‘How was it?’ she whispered in his ear.

‘Could have been worse.’

She let go and held him at arm’s length, gave him a quick once over. ‘Well, you’re a bit pale – but apart from that …’ She linked her arm through his and led him towards the exit.

George’s most striking feature was the mop of black frizzy hair she constantly bitched about. At the moment it was cut to shoulder length and tied back with a red scrunchy; she’d had it long, had it short, but hated it whatever length it was. At university she’d had a crew cut, a number 1, sandpaper instead of hair. Her mother had been mortified, said it made her look like a lesbian and she hadn’t brought her little girl up to wear Dr Martens and dungarees. More than once she’d told Aston she was the ugly duckling who never quite made it into a swan. Aston told her she was talking shit, but she wasn’t listening. George wasn’t supermodel gorgeous, but she was a long way from scaring the kiddies. She had the most beautiful brown almond shaped eyes, olive skin, and she scrubbed up quite nicely when she could be bothered, which wasn’t very often. Most of the time she dressed down: plain clothes, sober colours, nothing too revealing, nothing that would get her noticed. Perfect for a spy. George didn’t have any trouble attracting men but keeping hold of them was a different matter. They were either too old, too young, or too married. Her love life was a soap opera Aston long ago stopped trying to keep up with.

The address was written in a careful copperplate script: 23 Farley Road, Crouch End. Underneath was a mobile number. They shared an umbrella that was too small to cover both of them, George jiggling it about to keep them dry. A young couple heading home after a long day. It was an act they’d got down to a fine art. They could do everything from the young lovers cruising through a hormone OD and desperately in need of a room to the long-married couple who wanted to stab each other. It wasn’t hard. From the word go they’d been comfortable with one another, so comfortable that every now and then the MI6 rumour mill would crank out a story. Officially their relationship was strictly platonic; unofficially there’d been one blip.

The incident was never talked about. To celebrate the end of the IONEC they’d gone out with the intention of getting annihilated, and reached their objective in style; even by their standards it had been a big night. Next morning Aston had woken up in bed with a mega hangover, and George lying next to him. They were both naked, and from the hazy flashbacks Aston kept getting, the state of the bed, and the fact his dick felt like it had been pounded with a mallet, it was apparent they had done more than sleep. Aston couldn’t put his finger on why it felt wrong. It just did. Like sleeping with your sister or something. When he closed his eyes all he could see was an albino boy with bad teeth playing the banjo. George felt the same. After an awkward discussion they decided the best way to deal with the situation was through denial.

While they walked, Aston told George about his meeting with Kinclave. ‘You know,’ he said in conclusion, ‘I’ve been working for Mac for – what? Almost three years? Not only did I not know he was married, until tonight I didn’t know where he lived. Shit, I don’t know anything about him.’

‘Not true,’ George said. ‘You know what he wants you to know.’

It took fifteen minutes to get from Highgate station to Farley Road. The rain was hammering down now, slick on the pavements, rivers raging along the gutter. Number 23 was a red-bricked Edwardian semi-detached with bay windows on both floors. The front garden had been concreted over and a brand new X-type Jag was parked there. All the curtains were closed.

‘I don’t like this,’ George said as they walked up the narrow path.

‘Join the club,’ Aston replied.

Underneath the porch, he shook the loose raindrops away while George collapsed the umbrella and brushed the rain from her frizzy hair.

‘Why do I let you talk me into shit like this, Paul? Answer me that, eh?’

‘I didn’t exactly twist your arm.’

‘Just open the bloody door, Paul, before I bottle it and go home.’

Aston slipped the key into the lock and turned it. The door opened easily on well-oiled hinges.

‘If it’s all the same with you,’ George said, ‘let’s stick together. None of this “let’s split up so we can get the place searched twice as quickly” crap.’

‘Fine by me.’ Aston wondered if he looked as wired as George. Probably. His stomach flip-flopped as he entered the house, his heart felt too big for his chest. He pushed the door shut, locking them in, flicked on the hall light. This wasn’t the first time he’d broken into a house, but that didn’t make it any easier. He swallowed involuntarily.

‘What exactly are we looking for?’ George asked.

‘Search me. The Chief was a bit vague on that score. “I just want you to have a quick look around, check everything’s in order, that sort of thing”.’ Aston gave a reasonable impression of Kinclave’s Etonian drawl.

There were three closed doors leading off the hallway. Aston pointed to the door at the end of the hall. ‘Right, we’ll start there.’

The door led to a cosy, tidy farmhouse kitchen. There was slate on the floor and lots of oak: dining table and chairs, a large Welsh dresser filled with knick-knacks and crockery. A sign above the Aga proclaimed that the kitchen was the heart of the house. Maybe once it had been, Aston thought. It was easy to imagine this kitchen full of life and laughter and sunshine. The big window overlooking the tangled, overgrown garden faced east and would have caught the rising sun, holding onto it until well past midday. Yes, once this had been the heart of the house. Not anymore, though. Whatever life had breezed through these four walls was long gone.

‘Notice anything strange?’ George asked.

‘Like what?’

‘You know, Paul, for a spy you can be pretty unobservant at times.’ She pointed out the bowl of furry, moist fruit sitting on one of the work surfaces, the flowers decomposing in a vase on the kitchen table.

‘No one’s currently living here,’ she said. ‘This kitchen hasn’t been used for Christ knows how long.’ George marched over to the fridge and yanked the door open. The smell of rancid milk floated heavily through the kitchen. She lifted out the carton and read the sell-by date on top. ‘My guess is that he hasn’t been here for the best part of a month.’

‘That’d be around the time Sophia died.’

‘So where’s he staying?’

‘More to the point, why isn’t he staying here?’

‘Too many memories, perhaps,’ George suggested.

‘Perhaps,’ Aston agreed, unconvinced. And now that George had mentioned it, he could sense the emptiness that filled the kitchen. There was an air of neglect, a whispering sense of things lost never to be found again. And it wasn’t just the kitchen. He’d noticed it when he’d stepped into the house; noticed subconsciously but it hadn’t registered because he didn’t have a name for it. And now he did: abandonment. Like a sunken ship, this house had settled into the silent dark loneliness.

The next door along the hall led to a small study. This was obviously Mac’s domain. There were no pictures on the walls, no personal touches whatsoever. The room was as anonymous as its owner. A thin layer of dust had settled across the room, coating the top of the filing cabinet and clinging to the screen of the monitor. Aston went over to the filing cabinet and pulled open the top drawer. Empty.

‘I’m going to try the next room,’ George said. ‘The sooner we get out of here the better. I’m getting really creeped out now.’

Aston thought about reminding her of the ‘let’s stick together’ speech and decided not to. She was a big girl. He stared into the empty drawer, hand on the handle. Strange. He heard George’s anxious footsteps moving down the hall, heard her open the next door, the click of the light switch.

‘Paul,’ she shouted. ‘Get in here now. You’ve got to see this.’

The filing cabinet drawer clanged shut and he ran along the hall. George was blocking the doorway, and he stopped behind her, placed his hands on her shoulders.

The front room was really two rooms separated by a wide archway to create a large open space. Before Sophia’s illness had taken over this had been the lounge and dining room. High ceilings, worn wooden floorboards, colourful paintings on the white walls, trinkets and ornaments arranged on the black painted mantelpiece, a multicoloured rug in front of the fire, framed photographs lining the bookcase. The room was filled with dozens of personal touches. Female touches. If the kitchen was the heart of the house, this room had been its soul.

An upright piano was pushed up against one wall and covered with a white sheet. The piano must have belonged to Sophia. Aston couldn’t imagine Mac tinkling the ivories; cracking his knuckles before launching into a Mozart concerto, or bashing out some barroom blues. No, he couldn’t see that one at all. Bedpans and packets of pills sat on top of the piano. A vase of mummified roses jostled for space, the heads brittle and black and scarred with a memory of crimson.

The large metal-framed hospital bed dominated the room, neatly made up with clean white sheets. A shower cubicle with waist-height doors had been built into one corner. It was wide enough for the lightweight plastic wheelchair that sat forlornly next to it. The Chief was right, thought Aston, it was impossible to imagine what it was like. One by one all those things you take for granted stolen away: unable to wash or feed yourself, the indignity of wearing nappies. And the worst part was that your brain worked as well as ever, throwing up memories of how things used to be, monitoring the decline, that slow slip-slide towards the grave. Motor Neurone Disease was worse than any curse. Nobody deserved to die like that. Please, Aston thought, when it’s my time make it quick. His attention was drawn to the piano again. How insensitive was that? Why hadn’t Mac moved it out of the room? That would have been the decent thing to do. Instead it was just sitting there, a constant reminder of one more thing Sophia had lost.

On the table next to the bed was a water jug and a small framed wedding photograph. Aston picked up the photo, called George over to take a look. Mac was smiling in the photo. Actually smiling. He wasn’t grinning, or doing that sanctimonious smirk of his. No, this was an honest-to-God million-dollar beamer. For once in his life Robert Macintosh looked happy. Time had been kind to this incarnation of Sophia; in her younger days she must have been stunning. She looked radiant in the photo, glowing with health, and Aston wondered when it had been taken. A few years ago, judging by the suit Mac was wearing. There was no hint of the disease that would ravage her. She was wearing a simple blue silk dress and carrying a posy of flowers that exploded with colour. Simple countryside flowers, dandelions and daisies mostly, were woven into a small tiara that sat on top of her long golden hair. A fairy princess on her wedding day.

George took the photo, held it up to the light and studied it carefully. ‘She was pretty.’

Aston looked curiously at her for a moment. On the surface George’s comment had sounded like a compliment, but it had seemed forced, like she was saying it because it was the expected thing to say. Then again, they were both strung out, and he was probably overanalysing.

‘What?’ George said. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘No reason.’

‘If you’ve got something to say, then say it.’

Aston plucked the photograph from George, put it back where he found it. ‘Someone got out of bed on the wrong side today.’

George sighed. ‘Sorry, Paul. It’s just that being here in Mac’s house like this … well, it doesn’t feel right, know what I mean?’

‘I know exactly what you mean.’

They climbed the stairs together, side by side, neither willing to take the lead. The haunted house vibe had infected Aston, got him on edge. Every creak elicited an uncomfortable extra fraction of a heartbeat to add to his already racing pulse, every pipe groan got him sweating a little more. They reached the landing and worked methodically through the rooms. The first door on the right was the bathroom: gleaming white porcelain, an old-fashioned bathtub supported on four spindly legs, and a brass shower head. The next door led to a spare bedroom: functional furnishings and little in the way of personality.

His fingers brushed the handle of the door at the end of the landing and that was enough to get the electricity crackling. The hairs went up on the back of his neck, on his arms. A quick glance at George told him she felt it, too. He was rational, they both were, but sometimes you had to admit you couldn’t explain everything away with science and logic. And right now his thoughts were anything but logical. They were the thoughts of a child who needed the wardrobe checked one more time for monsters despite the fact it had been checked half a dozen times already.

The door swung open, and in the light sneaking past them he saw the silhouette of a woman. His first thought was that it was Sophia’s ghost. An irrational thought, but that didn’t make it any easier to shake off. Behind him, George let out a tense gasp. He quickly flicked on the light, convinced it must be an optical illusion – ghosts didn’t exist; there had to be a rational explanation – but the woman didn’t disappear in the glare. If anything she became more solid. As Aston’s eyes adjusted, and he was able to see what was going on, he gave a nervous laugh. It wasn’t Sophia’s ghost, but what he saw wasn’t any less disturbing.

‘This is totally fucked up,’ George muttered, taking the words from his mouth.

Mac had turned the bedroom into a shrine. What Aston had thought was a ghost was a mannequin. He moved in for a closer look, George at his side. The mannequin was dressed in the same blue silk dress from the wedding photo; the wig was made from real hair, the soft, fine strands wound into a shoulder length French plait. There were dead flowers in her hair, and Aston guessed this was the same tiara Sophia had worn to her wedding. The dandelions and daisies were crisp and fragile, the colours dulled by the passing years.

Every spare surface was covered with candles, some in holders, some in saucers, but most welded in place with melted wax. The wardrobes and drawers still held her clothes, and Aston swore a hint of her perfume remained in the air. An ivory handled hairbrush and hand mirror sat gathering dust on the dressing table, where perfume bottles were lined up like soldiers, all the labels facing out. The bed was immaculately made up: razor sharp creases in the linen, the pillows fluffed up and placed with military precision. One wall was covered in photographs, all Blu-tacked neatly in place; a scattering of pictures had fallen off and lay on the floor. The pictures had been taken all over the world, the light and architecture changing from photo to photo. Here, the bright sunshine and tall skyscraper backdrop of Singapore. There, the dull light and severe Tsarist palaces of Moscow. Japan, Italy and Austria. New York and Paris. And in all of them Sophia was smiling and happy, radiating health and without a care, completely unaware of the disease waiting to strike her down, not knowing that she was living on borrowed time.

‘Well, they certainly got around,’ George said, gazing over his shoulder at the photos. ‘Seems Sophia had money as well as looks.’

‘Who’s to say Mac didn’t pay for all the travelling?’

‘You’re kidding, right? You’ve seen what we’re paid. You don’t get into this line of work for the money.’

Aston stooped down and picked up one of the photos from the floor. It was older than the rest, and Mac was in it, too. Behind the smiling couple, an antiquated big wheel loomed, the same big wheel from the picture in Mac’s office. Aston had always assumed that he had it there as a souvenir of his time in Vienna. Holding the photo he realised there was probably more to that picture than he thought. They made a good-looking couple. Sophia had a soft, innocent face and slim body, a feline beauty that complemented Mac, who, with his corn-coloured hair and piercing blue eyes, had more than a touch of the Robert Redfords about him.