Beautiful Beast (Gypsy Heroes #3)(113)

I nodded, but I was confused. It seemed an impossible task. First that such a man would be interested in me and second that I would be able to keep him on such a tenuous string. It was more likely that sexual relationships between covert deployed officers and those they were employed to infiltrate and target were not officially sanctioned or authorized, but I could read between the lines. What he was really telling me was that Crystal Jake would lose interest in me as soon as he had had me! And that was why I was not to sleep with him.

‘If you cannot get to Crystal, then suck up to one of the brothers. You sure you’re up to this task, Strom? It’s not going to be a quick or an easy one and you’re going to have to keep your wits about you.’

‘Never been more sure of anything, sir,’ I replied firmly.

‘By the way…’ His eyes flicked to my nails, bitten to the quick. ‘You’ll need a new set of nails.’

‘Yes, sir.’

When I came out of Mills’ office I saw that the other officers were gathered around Mark’s desk. Mark was the man who had taken my form that first day.

‘A piss,’ he was saying, as he put his feet up on his desk.

Ah well, more testosterone-fueled posturing, telling stories of jobs gone by and bragging about who had brought in the biggest cache of guns or drugs: the usual dick swinging contest. I noticed that Robin was not around.

‘Who wants some tea and biscuits?’ I called out.

‘Sure. Get us a round,’ someone shouted. The rest of them laughed. The mood was jolly, as it usually was around there.

I smiled brightly. I went into the kitchen and made them all tea, just the way they liked it. I brought it out and handed them their mugs.

‘One sugar, two sugars, milk, black.’

Then I went to my table and noticed that since I had been gone the filing system had gone to pot again. I was gathering all the files that had not yet been properly categorized into a pile in the middle of my desk when I heard the first howl of fury. I looked up calmly. Mark was looking at me with a murderous expression. He had spewed the coffee all over his desk and some had spilled onto his precious Ralph Lauren trousers. Two others looked like they had had a sip of their tea, too. The others were warily putting their mugs down.

I dumped all the files back into the cupboard and smiled at them. Surprised. For a group of people that were always taking the piss out of others they had turned out to be pretty thin-skinned.


I had used salt instead of sugar.





SEVEN


Robin grinned at me. ‘If you want to bag a tiger you need the right equipment. You need a whole new set of clothes, bank account, the works. We need to create a package your targets cannot resist.’

‘Ready when you are,’ I replied, with a fierce thrill of excitement.

‘First, we’ll have to install you in a rented flat.’

And that was how I came to be sharing a flat in South London with another UC officer, but she was never there as she had her own ‘other’ life. Then for four months Robin and I painstakingly constructed my alibi and cover story.

‘We usually use our real Christian names,’ he said. ‘If someone from your old school recognizes you from across the street the hope is that they will simply call out your Christian name.’

I nodded, but I had pushed all my friends away after Luke died.

‘Do you have a name you’d like to assume?’

‘Hart,’ I said immediately. ‘Lily Hart.’

‘Right, time to apply for a passport dating from three years back and a driving license.’

‘Why would a runaway have a passport?’

‘Because she toyed with the idea of dancing in Amsterdam?’

They arrived in less than a week. Both fake passport and DVLA issued driving license had been created in collusion with the appropriate governmental departments and were good for travel and if I was stopped by the police. Using those, I opened bank accounts and applied for credit cards.

Robin took me to lap dancing clubs so I could watch the girls, the way they behaved, and how they interacted with their customers. I saw them rub their naked flesh against men and I thought I had cringed inwardly, but Robin must have sensed my discomfort.

‘The most important thing I learned, first and foremost,’ he said quietly, ‘was that whatever I was doing, I had to always remember that I was a police officer.’

I turned to him. His face was unusually serious.

‘Don’t allow yourself to get psychologically mixed up. Always keep what you are doing and who you are separate. At the end of the operation you will ditch all the physical trappings of your undercover alter ego, the hair, the clothes, the people you have befriended, and return to your own normal world.’

‘Is that really possible?’ I asked, surprised.

He looked me in the eye. ‘You have to. If you don’t maintain the line between the job and who you really are you will become a wreck. For example, if you find yourself in a position where you have to take a drug then you have to come out of that personality as soon as possible and tell your handler, in your case DS Mills. And if necessary you will have to go for counseling.’

‘Will I have to take drugs?’ I asked worriedly.

‘No, we will put it into your cover story that you’ve had a very bad experience, nearly died, et cetera, and no longer touch the stuff.’