Chapter 3

I also found out that the drama group I had seen today was mainly made up of lower-level employees of several embassies, as a relief valve to lower their stress. She told me that Vlad wasn’t overtly linked to the Russians, but he had a lot of friends from all around the Soviet Bloc. It was said that he was an advisor to Todor Zhivkov, the leader of the Communist Party, and had carried that connection through to Lyudmila, pushing the culture and arts to the forefront.

The country was in the process of change, and Sofia admitted that she was scared that the Russians would just roll the tanks in and take over. For now, though, it was a quasi-democracy in its infancy. When Gregor joined us, he showed her his column and she burst out laughing. He wouldn’t show it to me, saying that I could read it in the paper.

“You had better call a taxi for Davina. She’ll never find her way back home, otherwise. Thank you for coming, I’ve felt that I’ve known you longer than a couple of hours.”

I sensed, rather than saw, Gregor shake his head, slightly, and wondered what other things were bubbling under the surface. He was, after all, from his Embassy, and was very likely there when I was training out of the British Embassy. I acted normally, thanked them for a lovely meal, promised to come again, and was ushered out after the mandatory hugs and cheek kisses. The taxi took me back to the apartment where Adrianne would be waiting. Well, he took me to one a street away, and I waited until he had left before I walked to our building.

When I got home, I gave Adrianne a run-down on what I had learned and asked for a pilot script to be sent to me. It was to be a TV show about a young, handsome, prince, longing to be accepted as a man of the people before he ascends to the throne. I particularly asked that there should be paperwork showing that several well-known, beautiful, women had already agreed to be in it. All that remained was to find the young prince. Adrianne went out to make a call on a public phone while I made ready for bed.

Later, the next day, there was a chalk mark on the lamppost across the street and Adrianne went off to pick up from her drop. When she came back, she had three thin sheets of paper with some information on them.

As I had found out, Gregor and Sofia were well known at South Bank, being very helpful to us in the past, and were not considered any threat. Vlad, on the other hand, was well known, but in another way. He had been named as a Russian agent, some years ago, in Bombay. His involvement in the drama club, especially because so many employees of embassies were involved, was a code red situation. I had to sit down after I read that, and then burned the papers and made myself a cup of tea. Adrianne comforted me.

“Davina, I don’t know what you’re going through, because I’ve never been given a code red. I’m sure we can work something out, we can take our time, there’s no hurry.”

“That’s all right. I’ve got a bit of a plan. The first thing is to reel our target in with the script. If nothing else, we’ll get him back to England where he can be properly debriefed. Who knows what he may have picked up and passed along, he would be able to see lots of papers on tables and desks.”

Over the next week I attended a few shows, making notes on likely talent to hide my target in a larger number. Gregor was often around, being the perfect gentleman. I was invited back to his house for dinner but insisted that I treat him and Sofia to a meal, he could choose the venue. So, the next Saturday evening, we met at his preferred restaurant, all dressed to kill and ready to eat.

We were well into the main course when we heard Vlad arrive. His voice carried through the room, and I realised that his cover was perfect. Be so obnoxious that no-one will take you seriously. Interestingly, he was with three others, two girls and Richard King.

The three were all well dressed, as befitting the location, but the girls looked less than elegant. Gregor waited until our plates were taken away and then looked at me.

“Davina, I’m sure that your job requires you to observe people in every situation. What’s your take on those four?”

“Other than the two girls have been paid to be here, I’m not sure what else to say.”

“If I add that Richard is an aide in the British Embassy and Vlad freelances for the Russians. A simple two-word answer, now.”

“Honey trap. Or maybe honey trap reinforcement.”

Sofia put her hand on my arm.

“You are good, Davina. You would have fooled everyone else but us. You have your mothers’ eyes. They can change everything else but the only way to hide those eyes would have been with coloured contact lenses. They’re not the best for long term insertion. You’ve done nothing wrong; the main thing is what you plan to do about your mole and our pain in the butt. Don’t tell us, we want to react as if we didn’t know what is to come. Just remember us to your parents when you see them, We were all good friends for many years, but we haven’t seen them for about two years.”

“Then you’ve seen them after me. The last time I saw them was while I was in the university, during the winter break. They were only home for two weeks. That was close to four years ago.”

We finished our meal and rose to leave. Of course, we couldn’t go without Vlad calling out to us.

“Gregor, thank you for that review, it made people come and see the show, and even made them talk about it. Boris was in heaven, explaining his thinking, or lack of it. Davina, so nice to see you, again. I believe that it may have been your insight and experience that helped Gregor, he hasn’t written something so considered for years. Have you found anyone to take back to England?”

“Well, I have a few in mind and I’m getting a pilot script sent to me so that I can talk to one of them with a solid offer.”

“That’s wonderful, I hope that the prospective star isn’t one of mine.”

I looked at Richard when I replied.

“Why is that? Surely there are some in your drama group that are good enough for the wider world.”

“I couldn’t have my actors leaving. I’m their parent, and they are my family. They all have their place and I’ll never let any leave.”

As we were talking, both girls had left the table to go to the toilet. As we turned to go, Sofia suggested that we should take advantage of the toilets as it was a long way home. Gregor headed for the gents while we went through our door and into an anti-room. Going into the inner sanctum, we were confronted with the vision of a girl snorting coke off a hand mirror, while the other was doing her mascara.

“Getting ready for the rest of the evening?” I asked.

“You need to have a bit of a buzz when you spend the night with Vlad,” one said. “At least I might get a couple of orgasms out of it. Scarlet is going to have to sleep with Limp Dick. Vlad pays well, thank goodness, even if it is in almost useless roubles.”

“Does he go off the boil with all that drink?”

“No, it gives him a lift and then he’s off and snoring. You don’t leave, though, as he wants more when he wakes up. I always carry a good book in my bag. That, and a few glasses of his excellent vodka, helps me work through it.”

That night, I asked Adrianne to get me a powerful sedative, one that would dissolve quickly in vodka. Two days later, when I saw Gregor again, he told me that Richard wanted to speak to me. It was lucky that I had received the script. It was almost good enough to be on television. Richard had given Gregor a phone number, which I knew was in the embassy, a breach of security. I rang him and we made an appointment for him to take me to dinner the following evening.

We met at a café, not far from the theatre. He was a self-centred half-wit, but good looking and very good company. I could tell why the other girls had given him a chance. Tonight, though, his mind was on his future, rather than conquest. We talked about the theatre and the various parts he had played. At the end of the meal, I gave him my card and the script. I left the café and found a taxi to take me close to home, as usual.

Of course, the card only had my UK contact numbers and I hoped that he would ring them to verify I was who I was supposed to be. I expected that someone, on the other end, would butter him up. It must have worked because he contacted Gregor to set up another meeting. This time it was somewhere across town. I expect that he was trying to keep it from Vlad. I saw his tail when he arrived, but he was too caught up in himself to see it.

We talked about the show, and why I thought that he would be perfect for it. I promised to get a contract sent to me so he could sign it before he left. He asked me not to say anything to Vlad. I was certain that I saw someone across the road, taking pictures with a long lens. I let him leave first and sat while his retinue followed. I was sure that Vlad wouldn’t do anything without being certain that one of his spies was bailing out. He may just let Richard go and call it quits, but I didn’t think that he could just sit back.

A week later, Adrianne had a message that Richard had given notice at the embassy. Two weeks after that, they fished his body out of the lake in the Aerogara Park. He had been brutally beaten and they had virtually ripped his face off. One down, one to go.

In the meantime, I had been working with three other aspiring actors, signing them on and ensuring that they were going to be made welcome in the UK, with genuine roles to go into, as long as they could leave Bulgaria. I looked as if I was preparing to leave, and Gregor organised a party in my honour. It was a nice evening, even Vlad came along and acted a bit quieter than usual. He was one of the last there and came up to me.

“Davina, I can’t let you leave without experiencing a night with the best lover in this city. I won’t take no for an answer. Act normally and my friend, over there, will keep his gun in his pocket.”

I said goodnight to the others and Gregor told me to be very careful. I went out to Vlad’s car and his driver opened the back door for me. We were driven to a secluded house while Vlad made sure that I knew where I stood. By the time we arrived, my nipple was already sore, and his finger had already buried itself in my slit.

He pulled me into the house and up to his bedroom.

“Get naked, bitch. Tonight, you’re mine to take. Have a drink if you want something to take the edge off. I’ll be back in a few moments, and you’d better be in bed with your legs apart.”

He left me and I quickly poured myself a vodka and then dropped two of the sedatives into the bottle, where they dissolved. A sip of the good vodka and I was out of my clothes and on the bed as he came back, carrying a couple more bottles of vodka. He looked happy that I had followed orders. He finished my drink and poured himself a big one as he started taking off his clothes. He downed that in one huge swallow, then got himself naked. When I saw what was pointing my way, I smiled and ran my finger over my, already wet, vagina.

The first time was like being rolled on by a horse, one with the tackle of a stallion. I can’t say much else about it, except that there was no foreplay, no afterplay, but I enjoyed the play itself, and had more than one orgasm. Two glasses of vodka later, he was on his back with me straddling him. I have heard some saying that riding a dolphin is a sensual experience. This was like riding a whale. One that grunted when he finally came, and then started snoring as he deflated while still in me.

It was now time to get to work. Still naked, I went to find a bathroom and clean up. Then I dressed, putting the heels I had been wearing into my big bag, and putting on the pair of ballet flats I had brought with me. I quietly opened the door and crept around the house, finding his driver sleeping in another room, but no other staff.

Back in the bedroom, I emptied the opened bottle of vodka over the bedsheets, then opened another to make sure Vlad was well soaked. I had a very short candle in my bag, lit it and put it on the pool of vodka in Vlad’s belly button. If the flame didn’t ignite the fluid, it would ignite the vapour. That done I wiped all the surfaces I could remember touching and carefully got out of the house. I walked for miles, ducking into the shadows as fire-engines raced past me.

When I was in the outskirts of the city, I flagged down a wandering taxi to take me to the railway station. There, I made use of the toilets and tidied up. Slipping my heels back on, I went out to the taxi rank and got the driver to take me home. He asked me how my night had been, so I told him that it had turned out badly, due to my boyfriend being less than good in bed.

Next day, I contacted Gregor to thank him for the party, and to let him know that Vlad had handled my body, so I had got out of his car at a traffic light.

“It’s a good job you did, Davina, Vlad died in a very hot fire in his bed last night. It was a tragic accident with vodka and a candle. The police are already happy that it was an accident. I’m sorry to see you go, it’s been a pleasure to see how you work. I believe that you’ve achieved everything that you came here to do. On a lighter matter, my government has already advanced me a good sum of money to take over the running of the drama club. Perhaps, when you come back, I can show you a performance worth watching. Sofia sends her love, look after yourself, you are going to make your parents proud. Goodbye.”

Adrianne and I were back in London that night, being picked up as we left the plane and driven to a secure place for our debrief. We were taken through every day, while a recorder was running, and, after midnight we were allowed to go off for a sleep. The following day, they had a statement for each of us to look through and sign. Then we spent two more days going through it all again, adding bits that we had forgotten, as well as more detail, especially about the activation of the code red. No comments were made as we progressed and all the interrogators were men, who looked as if they were getting hot under the collar when I gave them the whole sex scene, blow by blow and thrust by thrust.

On the third morning, we were told to dress to see Helen and were driven to South Bank, with our luggage, where we were escorted to the door that led to the inner sanctum. There, the escorts wished us well and we went in to see what Helen had to say.

She was sitting at her desk, Gloria to one side. We were directed to two chairs in front of her. After we had sat, she tapped two large files on her desk.

“Welcome back. I must say that as I heard of what was going on in Sofia, I was worried that you wouldn’t be able to carry out your directive. Yesterday, Gloria and I read your reports and you have pulled off one of the slickest operations I’ve seen in years. Not only did you force the Russians into killing one of our embassy staff, but you also staged an accident that took out two of theirs without anyone guessing that you had been at the scene. On top of that, our actor’s agency has told me that all three of the actors you sent to them have genuine talent. With this one behind you, we can use Davina Holdsworth again. She now has a genuine back-story that can be verified.”

Gloria was nodding and then added.

“Not only that, but ten minutes after leaving here you had identified our watcher, then identified a suspect in several rape cases, allowing our tail to get the credit. That case is now a slam dunk, his fingerprints match some taken from nearly all the crime scenes.”

“Did the female officer get into trouble for hitting him in the nuts?”

“Well, I believe that she got a public warning, but also a private commendation. Our young agent learned more from getting dropped than he would have if you had allowed him to follow you. It’s made him more determined to try harder. He had a habit of underthinking his tasks, and wasn’t ready for you, having been ordered to ride the rails, to duck into the Grosvenor for lunch.”

“Right!” said Helen. “You two will get a few weeks rest, go off and enjoy yourselves. Then I want to see you back here to take on another operation. Have you any questions?”

I looked her in the eyes,

“I have one simple question.”

“And that is?”

“Where are my parents?”

“Ah. What do you know?”

“I know that I’ve hardly ever been with them since I was born. My nanny was my mother, my teddy was my friend, my schooling was my interest. I only knew them in two, or three, week blocks, about twice a year, until my last year in university. Since then, the agency has been my parents, and has kept me busy almost every day since. If my time in hospital is considered sick leave, I think I would have about two months or more in recreation leave. Gregor told me that they and the Bonds were close friends but haven’t seen them for a good two years. If they’re in deep cover, I won’t ask any more, but I would like to know if they’re alive.”

“All right, I think that you deserve to know. Two years ago, they were given the job to take a large quantity of bullion to a ‘friend’ in one of the African countries. The gold was hidden in the chassis of a camper van, and we have been able to track their travel as far as Abuja, in Nigeria, where the camper was found in a ravine, minus the gold. The vehicle had been partially burnt out, but we could tell that none of their belongings were missing. We recovered their weapons from their hiding place. We can only come to two conclusions. The first is that they were murdered, and the bodies remain unfound. The second is that they went rogue and have, somehow, stolen two tons of gold and spirited it away. All this has no bearing on you, as you have had no contact with them. It’s one of the reasons we spent so much time running you ragged. If you had been in on it, you may have tried to disappear to join them.”

“Wow” whispered Adrianne.

“Wow, indeed, young lady,” Gloria grimaced. “Those two had been the best agents we had for a long time. The thought of them going rogue is just too much to think about, but the alternative is almost as bad. We keep a watching brief on your sisters, Babs, but I very much doubt there would be any contact there. If they don’t turn up in another five years, you will inherit it all, as Barry, of course, but that’s easily circumvented. Their wills that we have on file state that you are their only beneficiary. We don’t want you to have this on your mind, just keep it in the back of your head and see if anyone you speak to, in the future, can throw more light on things.”

“What is my role in this?” asked Adrianne.

“The two of you are a good, no-nonsense team,” stated Helen. “We will keep you together as long as we can. What I suggest now is that the two of you spend a month in your old home, Barbara. You can take the time to relax, but we want you to scour the place, to see if you can come up with any leads. It will yours, eventually, so we have no problems with that. I will tell you that we did put a team in, at the time, and they found nothing. Maybe there could be something that’s not there, that should be there. Anyway, Gloria will give you your usual identifications. We will be in touch if we need you. Now go and relax, that was a masterful job you did. Oh, keep the Davina luggage and papers, you never know when you may need them.”

We retrieved our own paperwork, and I packed my original outfit into the case. I felt a little different now I wasn’t acting as Davina. She had class and good taste, while I was still in the learning stage. I trundled my case back down to the car, then we were off to Adrianne’s place to pack our other cases for a month at my home.

It was a little way to the north-west, outside a village. It sat in a good size block, not acreage but big enough to feel secure. I was happy to see the garden looking reasonable, as I had expected to see it with two years of growth. I retrieved the key from its hiding place under the flowerpot, and we went in, and I turned off the security system. Inside it did look uncared for, with plenty of dust and several spider webs.

Our first job would be to make sure that our bedrooms and the kitchen were cleaned, so I went to the cleaning cupboard. Properly equipped, we started with the kitchen and that took an hour to get it so we could eat without inhaling dust. Then I showed Adrianne where she would sleep, in one of the bedrooms my sisters had used. That took another hour, this time with some extra searching, as well as transporting my sister’s old clothes into the other sister’s room, out of sight.

We brought in her luggage, and she put it away while I investigated the master bedroom. Seeing that the house was mine to use, I decided that I would sleep here. I had started on the cleaning and had changed the bed before Adrianne came to join me. Together, we finished the cleaning, and the searching. Then I got my two cases up and opened them on the bed. This room had his and hers walk-in robe, so I took down all my mothers’ things and added them to the other side, also emptying the drawers and putting her things in with my fathers. I then filled up her side with my things, keeping the Davina outfits separate.

When we had finished that, we took the car and went to a local pub for a meal. Of course, you can’t just walk into a village pub without being asked who you were. I told them that I was Barbara Bond, a result of my father playing away from home, and that Adrianne was my lesbian lover. The fact that we were living in the Bond residence caused a stir, and several locals said that I certainly had the Bond looks. There were even a few comments about ‘that poor little sod, Barry, a child needed more family than he got’, and that’s when I discovered that my nanny was still around.

When we got back to the house, a local policeman was waiting for us, wanting to know who we were and that we were not squatters.

Marianne Gregory © 2023