Splendid Isolation Read online

  Table of Contents

  Legal Page

  Title Page

  Book Descripton

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  New Excerpt

  About the Author

  Publisher Page

  Splendid Isolation

  ISBN # 978-1-78430-856-8

  ©Copyright Helena Maeve 2015

  Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright October 2015

  Edited by Sue Meadows

  Pride Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Pride Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Pride Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2015 by Pride Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN

  Pride Publishing is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.

  Shadow Play

  SPLENDID ISOLATION

  Helena Maeve

  Book three in the Shadow Play series

  Old spies make dangerous hostages.

  A prisoner at the tender mercies of the British Secret Intelligence Services, Manuel has to believe that trading freedom for protection was his only hope of avoiding payback for his crimes. Yet his checkered past is neither forgiven nor forgotten. Every day, Manuel is tasked with providing his handlers new intelligence about the bloodthirsty power players he once served. And if he refuses, there are consequences.

  In charge of Manuel’s debriefing is Cole, a high-ranking Section officer whose history is intimately intertwined with Manuel’s misdeeds. He has made it his mission to unearth Manuel’s secrets, however long that takes. He will break Manuel because it is necessary. Avenging a broken heart has nothing to do with it.

  But time is not on their side. When Manuel’s former employer targets the safe house where he is imprisoned, his usefulness as an asset is called into question. As old passions awaken, both Cole and Manuel discover that letting go of the past may not be as easy as they’d hoped.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Model 48: Smith & Wesson Holding Corp.

  Dear Abby: Universal Press Syndicate

  Renault: Groupe Renault

  Land Rover: Tata Motors

  The Magus: John Fowles

  BBC Radio One: British Broadcasting Corporation

  Ken: Mattel, Inc.

  Volkswagen: Volkswagen Group

  The Sopranos: Chase Films, Brad Grey Television

  Inspector Gadget: Buena Vista Pictures

  MacGuyver: CBS Television Distribution

  BMW: Bayerische Motoren Werke AG

  Time Out-London: Time Out Digital Ltd.

  Suspicion: RKO Radio Pictures Inc.

  The Anarchist Cookbook: William Powell

  Smith & Wesson: Smith & Wesson Holding Corp.

  Chapter One

  Nothing could beat the view—fog over the channel, tufts of scraggly dogwood lustrous with dew in the middle distance. A few early-riser seagulls drifting along on a squall in the dishwater gray sky.

  Even with the electric fence tucked neatly into the tall hedgerow, it was a breathtaking sight.

  Manuel wrestled the covers off his legs and propped himself up against the headboard as quietly as he could. If his minders realized he was awake, the day would start that much sooner. He wanted to cling to these precious moments of solitude when no demands were made on him, no questions barked in his ear.

  He rubbed an absent hand into the meat of his thigh. Atrophy was part and parcel of his present circumstances. Perhaps today they would deign to allow him a run around the grounds. Or, if not that, then a slow, shambling walk. They could tag along, shadowing his steps like bodyguards. At least one of his handlers looked like he’d benefit from a little exercise.

  Below, window shutters crept open with a telltale squeak. Silas, waking up.

  Manuel closed his eyes and embraced the quiet sound. Down the hall, the woman who never talked would be mouthing her prayers, her lips moving furtively over Our Father as though she feared being told to stop.

  Their strange, secluded prison was made up of people far more dangerous than Manuel. Yet the steel cuffs around his wrists and ankles were reserved for him and him alone. He knew this because the first week of his time at the Cottage, Silas had ventured into his room in the night.

  The security breach had caused quite the commotion among their minders. Sternly worded lectures were audible through plaster late into the day. No one saw fit to inform Manuel of any measures taken to ensure Silas would not be visiting him again. He was almost disappointed when his nutjob cellie failed to slip through their handlers’ hands for a second time.

  Nefarious intentions on his part were unlikely. There were days that Silas barely remembered his own name. He certainly didn’t seem to know who Manuel was.

  Most didn’t. Manuel had worked years to preserve his anonymity.

  One skinny white boy and it all amounted to nothing.

  He flexed a foot in the restraints, jangling the ankle cuff. Come on. I’m ready. He didn’t have long to wait.

  The knock on the door meant that it was Arthur pulling the early shift.

  “I’m up,” Manuel called out. The walls were thin here and the plumbing clanged like beaten drums.

  Falling asleep was a far more difficult task than waking.

  Arthur greeted him with a placid smile. “Good morning, Mr. Sosa. Sleep well?”

  He had a strong West Country accent, thick enough that Manuel occasionally found himself imitating it without meaning to. He knew that Arthur spent the nights when he was on duty paging through vintage car magazines. His father owned a Model 48, an old junker they were both striving to put to rights on the weekend—apparently without much success.

  “Like a babe,” he lied. It wasn’t so much that no one cared to hear him blather on about his nightmares. If anything, they cared too much.

  “Hip’s still bothering you?” Arthur asked, noticing his wince. “Doc’s coming in today. Maybe he’ll give you something…”

  “Maybe.”

  Arthur was a young man with a lifetime of surprises ahead of him. At his age, he still put faith in higher authority.

  Manuel decided against dispelling that illusion. He swung his feet over the edge of the mattress once free, savoring the sensation of muscles stretching, his soles bare on the hardwood boards.

  It was doubtful that Arthur, a lowly gofer in the agency’s sprawling operation, understood why he needed to be fettered in sleep. To his credit, he didn’t ask.

  Manuel stared at his back as Arthur peeled back the gauzy curtains and let in the sun.
/>   It wouldn’t take much to break his neck, steal his keys and hightail it out of this godforsaken place. Arthur wouldn’t even hear him coming. He wasn’t armed.

  Youth, while occasionally a challenge, wouldn’t be enough to save him.

  Temptation awakened instincts Manuel hadn’t used in years. He made no move to rise. Section had tasked disposable, easy-to-replace personnel with his daily handling. Arthur’s death wouldn’t make a dent in their schemes.

  Might mean we never see that Model 48 refurbished, though.

  “Think a shower’s in order,” Manuel decreed. “See if hot water doesn’t ease the ache.”

  “Oh, all right. Remember to—”

  “Leave the door open?” Manuel smiled wryly and scratched at his whiskered jaw. “Yes, I know.”

  The rules weren’t made by the Cottage staff, but they did enforce them religiously.

  No one talked about the blue-haired girl they had wheeled out in a body bag six weeks earlier, courtesy of a loose, jagged piece of oak floorboard. Oversights came with the territory. Some percentage of loss was unavoidable.

  Manuel banished the thought as he stripped off his synthetic, buttonless pajamas and slid carefully under the trickling showerhead. Water pressure was a joke so far from the basement pump, but it was still marginally preferable to cold showers in a Colombian jail.

  For one thing, Arthur had gone and bought him brand-name toiletries—all except a razor and nail scissors—and towels that smelled pungently of cherry blossom detergent. For another, Manuel was permitted a modicum of privacy as he scrubbed himself down and rinsed off the night’s terrors in a waterfall of white suds.

  He caught a glimpse of himself in the narrow mirror squeezed over the chipped sink. The smattering of stubble on his cheeks and chin had darkened to a proper, salt-and-pepper beard. The lines around his eyes had deepened, too—though that might have been a trick of the light.

  His ink seemed washed out and gray on skin that remained a dark olive-brown.

  He had grown soft over the past seven months.

  “A couch-to-bed routine’ll do that to you”, he told himself sharply, his voice lower than a whisper.

  Even convicts enjoyed the benefits of exercise, yard time. Recreation. To qualify as one, Manuel would’ve had to come before a judge just once in his life. His crimes would have to be displayed before a jury of his peers.

  Truthfully, he was more of a refugee in hiding. Vanity was not a vice he could afford.

  “Ready?” Arthur called from the bedroom, craning his neck. This was the one respect in which he showed any laxity in his duties. He didn’t seem comfortable watching Manuel’s morning ablutions, so he busied himself with tidying up in the bedroom or stripping the bed, with the understanding that Manuel would do nothing reckless while his back was turned.

  It was a blessing.

  Manuel tucked the loose end of the towel and sucked in a deep breath. There would be other showers. Other days to enjoy freedom of movement. “All done. You can come in without fear of being scarred for life.”

  With an apologetic smile, Arthur secured Manuel’s wrists to the steel bar drilled into the tile wall and had him sit on the closed toilet lid.

  Once a week, the razor came out. Manuel had never made a grab for it. He was somewhat flattered that two hundred and fifteen days into his voluntary stay at the Cottage, top brass still didn’t trust him not to slit his veins. His record must have been more fearsome than he realized.

  “So, there’s this girl,” Arthur started as he plugged in the electric trimmer.

  “Annie?”

  “Ah, no.” Arthur flushed to the tips of his jug ears.

  Manuel snorted. “Heartbreaker.”

  He made himself sit perfectly motionless as Arthur mowed down the week’s growth of beard along his cheeks and neck. The similarities to a real barbershop were few and far between, but the illusion of pampering brought back memories of Havana, of music droning low on an ancient wireless as he lay back and let Pedro make him into a new man.

  “It’s not like that,” Arthur protested. “Annie’s looking for someone more… For someone… You know.”

  “Her loss,” Manuel decreed, moving his mouth as little as possible.

  Arthur tilted his head this way and that to shear down his neck. He was more meticulous than most. Manuel sometimes wondered if he hadn’t missed his calling by joining the SIS.

  When he was satisfied, Arthur tapped the trimmer clean on the edge of the sink, brushed Manuel down with the corner of a clean towel and reached for the razor. He used a cheap, disposable shaver. It was off-brand, too, but on the higher end of the generic grooming paraphernalia, which had Manuel suspecting it was of the same sort as Arthur used on his own baby-soft cheeks.

  Pedro would sooner have died than stoop so low.

  If Manuel’s memory served, he had.

  “Hypothetically, if you wanted to ask someone out,” Arthur mused, “how would you go about it?”

  That he thought Manuel’s input held any value spoke volumes.

  “Depends. How well do I know this someone?”

  “Well enough,” Arthur said, scraping the blade down his jaw. “You see her often.”

  “Assuming she knows me back and I’m not simply stalking the poor girl, I would…ask if she wants to have dinner.”

  “I was thinking a movie.”

  Manuel cautiously shook his head. “Dinner. You want her looking at you, not Brad Pitt.”

  Was he still the chief heartthrob? It had been a while since Manuel was in touch with pop culture. There were no magazines in the Cottage. No newspapers. Nothing with any dates or reader submissions so as to avoid any risk of coded messages being sent to the detainees.

  “And don’t forget flowers,” a voice said from the doorway.

  Arthur flinched so badly he only narrowly avoided shaving off part of Manuel’s lip when he straightened.

  “Mr. Cole! Agent. Sir.” His blush went from a warm pink glow to splotchy scarlet. “I-I was just—”

  “Seeking my professional advice,” Manuel finished for him as he twisted at the waist. He locked down all sense of embarrassment at being caught indulging his jailer, half-naked and cuffed to the wall. Nudity was a weapon. Cuba had taught him that.

  “I wasn’t aware you moonlighted as Dear Abby.”

  Manuel smirked. “Wouldn’t be the first time I surprise you… Isn’t this a little early for you?” The question was pitched lightly, but beneath the thin veneer of mirth was a heftier challenge. Why are you here?

  In the six weeks since his unconditional surrender, Manuel had been interrogated by men and women who introduced themselves solely by their surnames. No one offered him their ranks, but it was understood that they existed somewhere in the murky mid-level bulk of the institutional pecking order.

  The top dogs had better to do than pry information out of him and the grunts? Well, they were tasked with shadowing him every moment of every day and making certain he was in no position to chance a prison break at night.

  The likes of Cole, with their suits and their shiny leather shoes, didn’t set foot inside the Cottage. Interrogation was beneath them.

  “I’ll be downstairs when you’re done,” Cole replied, neatly sidestepping the question.

  “Put the kettle on, will you?” Manuel called after him. If the noose was about to be tightened, he wanted to squeeze out every last perk before they were all stripped away.

  Poor Arthur looked a little green around the gills as he returned to his task.

  “Flowers’d be a good idea,” Manuel added, at length.

  “You think?”

  “Sure.” It pained him to admit, but Cole had made a successful career out of stating the obvious. He had always said that people like them were doomed.

  He was right.

  * * * *

  Once shaved and dressed, Manuel dutifully trooped down the stairs, escort in tow. The contents of his makeshift wardrobe didn’t include bes
poke, Saville Row suits, so he made do with a pair of slacks and a cardigan over a white shirt.

  The coast was frigid during this time of year, but the Cottage had decent central heating. He could have done without the cardigan, if he didn’t feel like he needed layers to make up for the lack of a more suitable carapace. A bulletproof vest would have come in handy, too.

  He was vindicated in his choice when Cole swept a measuring glance over him, eyebrows arched in surprise.

  “Do I look dowdy?” Manuel wondered aloud.

  Much to his dismay, Cole recovered quickly.

  “I expect you look exactly like you wish to look. Tea?” he offered. He cut an incongruous picture standing there in the farmhouse kitchen, surrounded by cherrywood cupboards and cast iron skillets suspended on metal hooks.

  Had the instruments been pliers and saws, Manuel wouldn’t have had such trouble reconciling the Cole he knew with the one placidly stirring milk and sugar into two cups of Earl Grey.

  “I’ll, um, be right outside,” Arthur managed stiltedly.

  “Yes, thank you.” Cole slid one cup onto its saucer and nudged it to the edge of the counter, within easy reach of Manuel. “Don’t fret. It isn’t poisoned.”

  “I’d be disappointed if it was. Ruining good tea…surely that’s the gallows for any proper Englishman.”

  “Irish,” Cole corrected.

  The distinction didn’t merit a response. “Why are you here?”

  “Dorset is a beautiful county.” Eddies of steam curled around his pale face as he took a sip of his tea.

  Not for the first time, it surprised Manuel to discover how little Cole had changed. Yes, the gray at his temples was a little harder to ignore these days. And perhaps he wasn’t quite as frenzied as Manuel remembered. But in a broad sense, he was the same man. Girlish brown eyes crinkled when he smiled, his aquiline nose drooping over the rim of the cup like the fine point of a knife.