‘Why did you have me followed?’
This was very delicate. ‘You have to trust me. There’s only so much I can say.’
He saw her hackles rise as the other eye opened.
‘
‘I promise you, it’s not—’
There were practically sparks coming off her now. ‘You had no right to do this, Major Ross!’
‘I assure you, it was for your own g—’
‘Get out!’
She found a small, embroidered cushion on the bed and flung it at him with force.
Hector withstood the cushion, but not her fury and refusal to cooperate. It was obvious he wasn’t going to get anything out of her if he kept feigning innocence. Besides, the whole situation was so odd he really didn’t know quite how to handle it. Hostile forces and deep-cover sleeper agents he could manage, but complicated women in sensitive positions who suddenly started dressing up . . .
‘I don’t think you’re an enemy agent,’ he said quietly. ‘You were seen somewhere you weren’t supposed to be. Questions were raised. The simplest thing was to get someone to check what you were up to. He had no idea he’d end up saving your life.’
Joan glared at him furiously. ‘He was tracking me! Don’t make it sound as if I should be grateful!’
Hector shrugged. ‘When he started following you, it was more out of curiosity than anything. But you must admit, a junior secretary at the palace who hides wigs in a suitcase and dresses up as a little old lady in the ladies’ lavatories at Victoria Station . . .’
‘What do you mean, “junior secretary”?’ Joan cut in. ‘I’m Her Majesty’s assistant private secretary! It’s a totally different thing!’
Hector sighed. This perhaps hadn’t been the moment for a throwaway remark. It wasn’t at all relevant to what they were talking about.
‘Ignore me.’
‘No! What do you mean?’
It was a detail, but he sensed he’d get nothing out of her if he kept on avoiding her questions. And this one was at least easy to answer. He held up his hands. ‘Your new title may be a different thing, but one wouldn’t know. You look like a typist, you go to every length to be treated as one, and then you’re angry when you are.’
‘No, I don’t!’
‘You wear dowdy serge suits and sensible shoes.’ He’d been brooding on this for a while. ‘You have a typewriter on your desk, for God’s sake! You told me so yourself. You type up memos and do the filing. You take work from the real secretaries and are surprised when they treat you with suspicion. No wonder they’re confused. I would be.’
‘I . . . I’m just . . .’ Joan struggled for words, and he saw how white-faced she was again. She was still in physical pain, which he’d forgotten momentarily, and he suddenly felt an absolute heel.
‘Anyway, that’s beside the point,’ he amended. ‘The fact is, you work with classified information, and you’re currently running around London in fancy dress, and going to highly sensitive places. Who are you doing it for? And who—’ he was relieved to come back to the nub of the issue at last ‘—is trying to kill you?’
Joan looked dazed.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, quiet again. She shook her head. ‘I honestly don’t know.’
Finally. At least they could have a proper conversation.
‘What were you doing at the Artemis Club?’ he asked more gently.
She gave him a sardonic smile. ‘If I was doing something I shouldn’t, I couldn’t possibly admit it.’
‘Who are you working for?’
She raised an eyebrow, gathering her forces. ‘Well, officially it’s the Queen.’
He waved her response away. ‘Yes, we know that, but who
Joan smiled. ‘You have to trust me. There’s only so much I can say.’
Hector reluctantly admired her loyalty. Whoever she was protecting, it was someone important. Someone in a hole.
‘The part about where someone tried to kill you . . .’ he reminded her. ‘You really do have to trust me a little too.’
She regarded him for a long time, thinking.
‘All right,’ she said at last, ‘there’s an individual at the palace who’s concerned about what happened on the night of the Chelsea murders. I was trying to find out what the staff at the Artemis knew, but it didn’t amount to much.’
‘You mean what they knew about the movements of the suspects?’
‘Yes.’
‘And another individual?’ he suggested. It was starting to make sense now.
‘I can’t say.’ Her frank stare was a silent admission.
Hector sighed. Was that all? ‘It doesn’t explain why—’
‘I know!’ she said, interrupting him. ‘I mean, I didn’t find out anything more than you must already be aware of. The staff were bandying it about pretty freely. Why go for me the next day? Why not any of them? I assume they haven’t been threatened?’
‘Not to my knowledge, no,’ Hector agreed. ‘There must be something else.’
Joan put a hand over her eyes. He was about to ask her another question, but she motioned him away. It wasn’t rude this time: he could tell she was thinking. So he fussed around her quietly, removing the soup tray and straightening her blankets. He was as invested in her progress as she was.
