He’d seen her several times at his favorite coffee shop on Saturday mornings, where he would enjoy a cappuccino and hislatest book. She would already be there, working on a laptop, oblivious to the movements around her.
Then one day, she arrived after he had. She took a seat at the table next to his and drank her drink.
“What are you reading?” she asked.
That simple question had been his downfall.
He told her about the book, and she told him that she was a writer, working on her first novel. He was instantly intrigued.
Over the following months, they became “friends”; eventually, she had asked him to have dinner at her flat.
The last thing he remembered from that night was sitting on her sofa and taking a sip of wine. Then he was waking up in his own bed at home, all alone.
He was still trying to figure out what had happened when he received the first of many visits from Leonid Bronsky.
At that initial meeting, Bronsky had given Pryce a packet filled with glossy photographs. Each featured Pryce with a frightened-looking woman. She was naked, tied to a bed, and—according to Bronsky—was underage.
The pictures would have ruined not only Pryce’s career, but also his perfect, quiet routine.
“Or you could become a double agent for me,” Bronsky had told him.
Pryce really hadn’t had a choice.
He thought he’d finally escaped that hell several years ago, when Bronsky had suddenly been recalled to Russia.
Pryce’s life had gone back to normal, and he had even begun to think Bronsky had forgotten about him.
It turned out, that had been too much to hope for.
When the Russian finally called him again, all the anxietyPryce had felt when he’d first met the spymaster returned like a sledgehammer to the gut.
As much as he’d wanted to hang up right away, he quietly accepted the task of verifying Dame Felicity’s death, in the hopes that Bronsky would forget soon about him once more.
Unfortunately, confirming her death was not as easy as it sounded. And the best answer he was able to come up with was “maybe.”
He was contemplating how he was going to tell Bronsky this, when his phone began ringing. It was from a blocked number.
Too scared to answer, he let it go to voicemail.
A few seconds later, his mobile rang again, the same message on the screen.
Pryce took a deep breath and answered, “Hello?”
“Gordon,” Bronsky said. “I was beginning to think you were ignoring me.”
“Of course not. I-I was, um, in the loo.”
“Ah, then my apologies for disturbing you.”
“It’s fine.”
“Do you have an answer for me?”
“Nothing definitive, I’m afraid.”
“That is very disappointing.”
“I did find out that her funeral will be held on Saturday,” Pryce said, hoping it would be enough to placate Bronsky.
