The mountain led us out of the front door and to a well-hidden car down the road. Silently, I climbed in the back as he shifted into gear. Shay sat herself down on the passenger seat, curled up like a teenager being picked up by-

“Is he your dad?”

She chuckled, moved the rear-view mirror to look at me. The driver slapped her hand away and moved it back. “He wished.” She took out her phone, the screen illuminating the car. “This is Fox. He’s just a bit… protective.”

“I have a right to be.” Fox spoke for the first time, and he did so with a thick Northern accent. “You were-”

“I was fine.” I could see her typing, probably sending a message to that Carlyle. “I orchestrated my own rescue, didn’t I?”

Fox’s eyes flicked to me briefly. “That the guy?”

“Yeah, Aiden.” She tucked her phone away. “He does IT, so-”

“His data was useful.” Fox agreed.

“We got him?”

“Yeah.” His eyes darted back to me, kindness peeping through for the first time. “You got out just in time.”

And something inside me settled. “I know.” I relaxed into the seat. “Thanks.”

I don’t remember much from the trip there, but the house they took me to was massive. I don’t know much about architecture, but even I can tell the structure is at least three hundred years old.

The porch light was on.

Fox parked the car near the front door, and she got out with a deep sigh.

“If he stayed up…”

“He did.” Fox took a black backpack from the boot and closed the ranks as we walked to the door. “Made me wake him when I left.”

“And Peter?”

“Thinks you’re chasing a lead up in Oxford.”

“Good.” She turned the knob, seemed to be bracing herself before she opened it. “Let him.”

The door opened to a grand hall, the classic manor picture with double stairs at its centre. Just inside the door, clad in cotton pyjama bottoms, a ratty shirt and a thick housecoat and holding a cup and saucer, was Carlyle. I recognised him immediately. He was taller than I’d imagined, his hair a bit shorter, his face shaven, but those eyes. Those eyes pierced me even if they only swooped over me. They were a river of ice, a shock to the system. Shay didn’t seem bothered by them.

“Tea?”

She took it. In the brief moment before she took a sip, I could look into the cup. Dark, no milk. Noted.

“How are you?” His focus seemed to be fully on her. Everyone’s was. She seems to have that effect on people. Small. Unassuming. The gravitational centre of any room.

“I’m good.” She half-shrugged. “Need an extra room for Aiden.”

“There’s a West wing room set up.” Carlyle took the saucer back. “We figured you’d bring back a stray.” Finally, his gaze landed on me for longer than a second. “There’s chamomile and some Lunesta on your nightstand. Please sleep.”

“I’ll try.” There was something in her tone of voice, almost a solemn promise, even though it seemed like such a simple exchange. It wasn’t until much later, after many middle-of-the-night calls, that I realised how simple it really wasn’t.

Carlyle seemed to be satisfied with it, and he focussed more on me. I shook his hand, he introduced himself. I told him my name. He turned on his heel and I followed, off to the West wing.

The room was nice, the bed was soft, but I lay awake for hours, wondering whether my life would ever be the same.

(It wouldn’t.)

I remember waking the next morning and making it to the kitchen, finding Carlyle, Fox, and a man I didn’t recognise. He had chestnut brown hair and as he stood to greet me, I noticed he was about as tall as Carlyle. When he turned to me, I noticed he had the same eyes, too.

“Ah, Aiden.” He shook my hand, “Peter Carlyle Junior.”

“Pleasure.” Nothing about him suggested he was the kind of person that they needed to protect, but he did seem to be the only person in the room that had had a decent night’s sleep, and that would probably come in useful.

“A pleasure.” I took the liberty to get myself some coffee and peered into one of the pans Carlyle had cooking. He seemed to make a full English, baked beans and fried tomatoes and all.

“Help yourself.” He smiled at me. He seemed to be in a good mood, relaxed, completely comfortable. As if last night was normal, as if picking her up from some dilapidated factory at thee in the morning was a weekly occurrence.

Fox seemed a lot more relaxed, too. He was watching me passively over the rim of his mug, more sizing me up than glaring me down. There was something in him that I recognised, a steel core I’d seen in some of my colleagues, a rock-hard resolve that only came after having stared into the abyss and walked away.

I sat down next to him and had my breakfast.

“The files you sent me were very valuable.” Fox swirled the last bit of his tea at the bottom of his mug. Casual. Okay, it was clear that the landlord and his son were in on whatever was going on. “You could’ve sold them.”

“I didn’t.” I had a feeling he was going somewhere with this whole thing, but I had no idea where.

“Because Shay told you to send them to me.”

I frowned. “She’d help me get out.” Did she?

“Did she?”

Peter leaned against the counter on my other side, effectively cornering me in the open room. He seemed relaxed, but with his height and standing in front of the overhead light, he couldn’t help but loom. “Shay’s going to offer you a position here.”

Well, that was a bit of a leap. “Really?” I glanced back at Fox. “Why’d she do that?”

He put his mug down and shrugged. “She likes you.” Something buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled out a battered iPhone. He tilted it, shielded it from me as he typed.

“She’s going to be very charming when she offers you.” Peter stole a piece of toast from my plate. “You might not even notice you’re being talked into something.”

Carlyle chuckled at the stove. “That’s how we got here.” He gestured around the room, “All of us. No joke.”

“You can all leave at any time.” From the steady confidence in her voice, I was expecting her to look all smooth and suave and well-put-together, like the others. I had a vision of her leaning against the doorpost, maybe a bit sleep-ruffled but all in all charming and-

Well, the point is, she wasn’t.

She was barefoot, her toes flexing against the cold doorstep. She was leaning against the frame, but it seemed to be more for support than for poise. Her hair was loosely tied away in a bun, with wisps pointing in all directions, and she seemed to be drowning in the shirt she was wearing. Her pyjama was still poking out from underneath.

She looked like living death. I wasn’t sure how that was going to charm me into working for her.

Beside me, Peter straightened and marched her way. “You were not in Oxford last night.” The thunder crossed his face only briefly, insincere, and he caught her as she moved away from the door. “The hell did you do?”

“I punched a bear in the liver.” She groaned as he deposited her on a stool. “He didn’t like it.”

Peter almost laughed. “You need to stop assaulting people.” His hands seemed to move on their own, making sure she was steady before he stepped away. “Coffee?”

“Please.” She slumped, shrunk. Even the glint in her eyes seemed muted. If it wasn’t for her face, I’d never guess this was the same woman as the confident rock of defiance I’d met the day before.

Carlyle plated some eggs for her. “Do you need something?”

She shrugged with one shoulder. “There isn’t a drug you can give me that’ll make me feel better.” She looked up, “Thanks, though.”

He pulled out an orange bottle of pills, anyway. “Take the edge off?”

She chuckled, a tired, broken sound. “Are you trying to convince me to take opioids?”

He shook the bottle. “Just one.”

“You are a drug dealer.”

“I’m not making you pay.” He handed her the plate, shook out a pill, then paused. “Number?”

She sighed. “Six over eight.”

He shook out another. “Come on.”

She held out a hand. “I bet you used to be a drugs dealer, in secondary.” She frowned, “You’d’ve been really bad at it, though. You’re terrible at peer pressure.”

“Works for you.” He watched like a hawk as she swallowed them down, as if she’d make them disappear if he’d blink.

Something was definitely going on. Something I’d probably have to look into, some other time.

For now, Shay changed the subject, by turning to me and eyeing me up.

“What do you do?” She scraped her throat, “I mean, officially, what did you study? Because you’re not an interrogator.”

I frowned, slightly nonplussed by the question. I hadn’t expected to walk into a job interview, that morning. “No, I-”

“Not even a little bit. You’re terrible at it.”

“Hey.” I didn’t feel insulted, not even a little bit. “I studied IT down in Edinborough.”

She paused, seemingly caught up in something I said but moving on from it. “What’s the base salary for someone like you? Forty? fifty?”

There was a beat, and I realised it was a serious question. “A hundred.”

“Forty-seven half.” Fox showed his cracked screen, a job site up, the average shining bright yellow.

She nodded, considering. “How old’s your kid?”

“Elisa is four.”

“Right, so-”

“Charlie is three months.”

“You have-” She frowned, obviously rearranging her information on me in her head. I didn’t realise at the time how rare that look was, the befuddlement of being caught wrong-footed.

Peter nearly choked on his tea as he laughed at it. “You missed an entire kid.”

She chucked a piece of egg at him, and she didn’t miss that.

“Fifty thousand.” She decided, “It should be reasonable.”

I nodded. It would be.

“Great!” She smiled, “I’ll have Stafford set up a contract.”

It wasn’t until I was headed home, hours later, that I realised I literally had no idea what I was

signing up for.