fic: the greater good, part three.

[belantana]

notes | part one | part two



- - -

PART THREE

Dimitri had never been one for bringing work home. He worked hard, and late when he needed to, but once he was out the doors of Thames House he was a normal guy until Monday morning. Technically, it was forbidden for anyone in the security services to write down even a single innocent-sounding work-related word outside of the grid, let alone bring home files and surveillance photographs and memory sticks of information. Dimitri was probably the only person in the history of Section D to live by that rule.

In the Navy, the idea of working on a rest period was not only considered laughable but seriously insane. Still, the people you hung out with, got drunk with, played cricket with and chatted up girls with, were by necessity your workmates, and Dimitri missed that more than anything.

Long before Section D was finally disbanded, he found himself creating those bonds wherever he could. He'd sacrificed his preference for first-person shooters to play fantasy quests with Tariq. He went to the gym with a couple of guys from Section C, and had morning coffee with Cerys from the art department, who regaled him with tales of the ridiculous things she'd been asked to forge. He signed up for as many weekend courses as he was allowed despite already knowing more and half again than the instructor on automatic weapons, and even once accompanied Ruth to a play before wisely hooking her up with Cerys.

All told, the sight of Dimitri at a glowing computer screen in a darkened room on a Friday night when everyone else had left for the pub would have been mildly alarming to Tariq, Beth, Ruth, Erin, Lucas or Harry. All of whom were gone - Dimitri preferred to lump them together as gone, softening the blow of Tariq and the imaginary person who'd been Lucas. It also reminded him that he really, really shouldn't call Beth, or at least not ever again after this one last time, which was what he told himself every time he found himself scrolling through his phone for her number.

He hadn't planned on discussing Erin and his paranoid theories about her resignation. He hadn't planned on anything more illegal than Beth sitting on his couch and helping him make serious headway into the beer in his fridge, the stack of Six Feet Under DVDs on his table, and maybe a curry. But he'd forgotten that he'd already been making inroads into the beer while staring gloomily at the photos he'd taken home with him, and had carelessly left one on the counter.

Beth zeroed in on it immediately, hungry for the mindless data trawling that she would never admit she missed in her new life of dubious phone taps and the many, many ways to conceal a weapon. Dimitri didn't see any point in hiding the rest from her.

"Levendis," she said in scornful wonder when she'd ascertained that the photos were definitely not family snaps. "Never thought I'd see the day."

"It's not really work," Dimitri muttered. "It probably breaks less protocols to have it here than on the grid, actually."

Beth was flicking through the dozen or so photos that Dimitri had painstakingly picked from Calum's thousands. None showed Rosie, and only one showed Erin - and then she was only recognisable because Dimitri knew in intimate detail how she liked to wear her hair and what her favourite weekend shirt was. The same photo also showed, in equally blurry detail, the peak of a baseball cap and part of the sleeve of a pink dress. Despite its apparent focus on three smiling friends in skinny jeans and oversized glasses, to Dimitri it was the money shot. The only one that showed all three of them together.

Beth flicked past it with only a second's pause, but stopped on a later one that showed the girl in the jeans and short pink dress and the grey shoulder bag that had been only a strip of colour in the money shot. Dimitri had started his search with a slightly shamefaced google of the words 'fairy princess', discovering long wavy blond hair and the colour pink to be the main ingredients. She was cut off at the edge of the frame, looking down - perhaps holding Rosie's hand.

Beth turned to the next photo, then immediately back. "I know her."

Dimitri glanced over her shoulder on his way to the fridge. The main subject of the shot was a goth girl presenting a plate of nachos to the camera with awed reverence. "Didn't think she was your type."

"Not her, her," Beth said, and Dimitri's heart skipped a beat as she stabbed a finger at the fairy princess in the background.

"Sure you do," Dimitri said uncertainly.

Beth made an impatient sound through her teeth. "I drove her home once, must have been six months ago." She glanced up. "She is the target of these photos, right, despite the focus on appalling denim mashups? What's she done?"

Dimitri took the photos back. "Who is she?"

"She's - " Beth paused; apparently her new career also had protocols " - somehow related to an employer I had. A job I ran back in May. Ex-MI5 guy." She paused again. "Could've been April. Or March."

It made no sense. Dimitri glanced at the photos again. There were no clear shots of the girl's face.

"What the hell, Beth," he said, almost angrily.

"I'm serious! You think I'd forget someone with hair as fantastic as that? I've wanted hair like that since I was six years old, and here it was wasted on the head of some sulky little brat. What was her name... nope, can't remember. She'll be on service records though, as a dependent."

Dimitri's head was swimming. "Really?"

"Sure. If Tom still is. If they haven't expunged him I mean, and burned his file and buried the ashes under an oak at midnight or whatever witchcraft they have for purging traitors."

"Her father's a traitor?"

"Not the blow-up-the-government, Russian-spy kind. Just the ordinary old disillusioned-with-the-system kind. Come to think of it, I don't know if he ever told me her name, or said he was her father. I think he was pretty annoyed with her showing up out of the blue."

"Right," Dimitri said. "Well, thanks."

"No problem, boyo. Got any other cases you need solving? I charge by the hour." She gave him her coy little Mona Lisa smile.

Dimitri handed her another beer. "Tell me everything."

- -

"You couldn't even be bothered to change out of your uniform?" Maisie asked.

Wes gave her a disdainful look. "How many people on this train do you think know where my wretched hellhole of a school is?"

He was right - he'd attract far more attention out of uniform on a Monday morning. Maisie had piled her hair on top of her head in an attempt to pass for eighteen. The train was heading in the opposite direction to the commuter flow and no one gave them a second glance.

Maisie checked her phone. "I'm meant to be in double Lit now."

"You're welcome."

"Say that again when you're doing A-levels at a new school," she muttered. "You're so sure this couldn't wait til next weekend?"

Wes didn't dignify that with an answer. Maisie had skipped school for it; she knew very well she couldn't wait til the weekend either. It was nerves making her petty. She didn't know what it was making Wes the opposite, but his haughty silence was driving her mental. Three hours ahead of them and she was already about to explode.

"Bet your father didn't have to spend so much time on trains. Bet he had a chauffeur-driven Mercedes for this kind of shit."

"My father once blew up a train," Wes said offhandedly.

"Oh please. I think I'd've heard of that, unless he was the underground bomber."

"Never said it was in Britain."

As if on cue, the brakes started to screech and the train slowed, taking over a minute to come to a full shuddering stop. Maisie turned to look out of both windows. Acres of terrace houses, but not a station in sight. Static on the train's PA system. People started groaning before the driver had even spoken.

Wes was playing a game on his phone, fingers moving so quickly Maisie couldn't help staring. She realised he was as tense as she was.

Twenty creeping, insufferable minutes before the train started moving again, and then it was only to limp at walking pace to the next station where everyone streamed out onto the platform. "Right," Maisie said, attempting to regain control of her frustration. "Do we wait for the next train, or the coaches?"

"Neither," Wes said coolly. He nodded. "Her."

"Who?"

"Her." He grabbed Maisie's arm and dragged her after a woman who was heading towards a waiting car. "I heard her on the phone. She lives in - 'Scuse me, ma'am?"

Ma'am, Maisie scoffed internally, what century are we in, but she took over when the woman turned around. "Sorry to - how far are you going?"

She'd settled, for some bizarre reason, on a French accent, and felt Wes eyeing her in surprise, but it worked. English children don't beg lifts from strangers, not outside of Enid Blyton.

"My host brother and I are going to miss our connection if we have to wait for the coach," Maisie continued, pulling an apologetic face, and the woman made comforting noises and ushered them into the backseat of her car.

The woman, as it turned out, had been an exchange student in France herself, and it took Maisie a fair amount of mental gymnastics to construct an identity under her questioning, based nearly wholesale on the student from Normandy who'd been in her physics class in Manchester, though she changed Francois to Celestine. She found, to her relief, that it kept her mind occupied for the duration of the journey, and before she knew it they were pulling up to the station.

"Are you sure you two will be okay?" the woman asked. "Maybe George and I should wait with you - "

"Oh no, Mrs Judd, you've been too kind, thank you so much."

"Celestine," Wes smirked as the car pulled away, and she shoved him. It was the same high she got from tailing someone through the middle of London; she could feel her skin flushed, her fingers prickling with adrenalin. She thought again of the mysterious woman she'd invoked in Malcolm and Wes's memories - was this what she did all day?

Wes ducked into the toilets at the station and changed out of his school uniform. Maisie's high lasted until the corner into Tom's street. It was lined with trees and she couldn't see the house yet, but she knew that something wasn't right. She fell silent, then started to walk faster. Wes followed. She had a moment to marvel at how quick he was now to trust her instinct.

They were still a hundred metres away when she started to run, and then she staggered to a stop, out of breath from something other than the brief exertion. Wes didn't have to ask her which house was Tom's.

"Jesus," he breathed. "Maisie - "

But nothing came after. There was nothing to say.

- -

"What makes you so sure she'll be here?" Beth asked as Dimitri rang the doorbell.

"Nothing."

It was partly hope, and not much at that. Dimitri didn't remember having ever skipped school so he could hang out at home, but with the scant information they had about Maisie Simm he didn't know where else she could be. The principal at Maisie's school had been no help - he had too many serial truants to worry about a new girl.

"She's probably skiving off with some guy behind the bike sheds," Beth said helpfully. "Or stealing stuff down the shops."

"Sounds like you had a great time at school."

"Oh, I did. Except for when I was actually at it."

Dimitri rang the bell again. He knew Beth had already followed through the same logic as he had - three rings would mean she wasn't home, and with a quick reconnaissance for inquisitive neighbours they could feel free to invite themselves in. He'd already scoped the deadlock - solid-looking, but one of the first kinds that his crash course in dubiously legal skills had taught him to pick. It had clearly been a while since a spy had lived in this house.

"That explains a lot," he said belatedly.

Beth rolled her eyes and leant on the doorbell in reply.

To be honest Dimitri felt a little nervous at the idea of going through a teenage girl's room. He tried to imagine Beth as a teenager and felt worse. "Right," he said. "You check the back and I'll - "

The woman who opened the door had clearly been asleep - checked pyjamas, bare feet, messy hair, the works. "Oh," said Dimitri. "Sorry to, er, intrude."

He sneaked a glance at Beth, who was looking equally backfooted. For some reason the possibility that Maisie's mother would be at home hadn't crossed either of their minds.

The woman put one hand on her hip. Her other hand was bandaged, stained with something that could have been blood or food. "What do you want?"

"Ellie Simm?"

"Yes."

"We're hoping to speak to Maisie."

Ellie narrowed her eyes. "She's at school. Who are you?"

Dimitri showed the warrant card Cerys had made up for him a few weeks back. Ellie barely glanced at it; Dimitri wasn't optimistic enough to believe it was because she trusted him implicitly.

"May we come in?"

"No. What do you want with Maisie?"

"She's done nothing wrong," Beth assured her. "Perhaps if we came in - "

The woman considered them for another long moment, then rubbed at her face tiredly. She opened the door and let them into the hall. They clearly weren't getting any further. Dimitri didn't know Tom Quinn but he must've been a right arsehole, to make this woman so fiercely suspicious.

"Do you work nights?" Dimitri asked, to be sociable. The hall was bright but bare, as if still waiting for knick-knacks and framed photos to be unpacked. Dust had collected along the skirting.

"And days. I run a restaurant. What do you want with Maisie?"

"We think she may have seen a suspect escaping after an assault. We have her on CCTV near the site."

"How do you know it's her?"

"It was just outside the City Library," Beth lied smoothly. "The staff recognised her in the footage."

Dimitri could've sworn he felt Ellie soften a fraction at the thought that Maisie had been studying. He mentally congratulated Beth - the library membership being the only other piece of information they'd been able to glean from Maisie's records.

"When was this?"

"Saturday the twenty-eighth," Dimitri put in, before Beth could founder.

"Well it wasn't her. She was in Manchester."

Dimitri's heart sank. He shared another glance with Beth, but her expression was resolute: I know what I saw. "Are you sure? Saturday, about two weeks ago?"

"It was her best friend's birthday. She'd been excited about it for weeks."

"Are you sure?" Beth pressed again, a little too far. Ellie's gaze sharpened.

"Why would she lie?"

"Perhaps if she could give us a call," Dimitri said, passing over one of Cerys's fake cards. "Just to clear things up officially."

Ellie took the card without a word. Dimitri hesitated. He knew Beth was right, when she'd said there was no way they could ask about Tom Quinn without blowing their hastily constructed cover, and besides, Beth was so certain he wasn't involved. But he still -

Now he had both women glaring at him. Dimitri ducked his head and they made a tactical exit.

- -

Wes took Maisie to the same tearooms where she'd sat with Tom, and bought her a coke with a fiver he probably hadn't earned. Maisie was shaking, the caffeine not helping. She sifted through the pile of magazines on the counter, looking dumbly for a local paper, as if that would explain what had happened.

Wes was trying to call Malcolm. She could hear the recorded voice over the line: the number you have called has not been recognised. Please check the number and -

"Let's go back."

Wes eyed her. "You're sure?"

It was vaguely touching; he was clearly unused to dealing with someone else's emotions in this way. Maisie thought, unexpectedly, of the homesick boy who shared his room at school. "Yes," she said.

The house wasn't as badly damaged as she'd first thought. The fire had taken out the front two rooms, but the rear looked intact. She checked the street for prying eyes, then jumped the fence and went around to the back, not waiting to see if Wes followed.

The house was long empty, that much was obvious. The back door had been forced, the wooden jamb splintered where the lock had been smashed in. Could've been the firemen. Could've been anyone.

She slipped through the opening. The kitchen and the front room, where she'd sat with Malcolm, were nearly unrecognisable. Black and sodden with rain through the sagging roof, or was it from the firemen's hoses still? How long had it been? She could still smell the smoke, but the ashes were greying.

Broken crockery in the kitchen. Warped furniture, a half-burned chair crouching on two legs. The painting of the sea was intact, hanging crookedly on a smoke-darkened wall, a pale square behind it where it had been dislodged. The contents of the cupboards had also survived, the thick doors scorched.

Back on the street, an elderly neighbour was ostensibly watering his garden, waiting for them. "You kids should stay out of there," he said sternly. "It's not safe."

His geraniums, a distracted corner of Maisie's brain noticed, weren't in much better state than Tom's had been. "What happened?" she asked.

The neighbour shrugged. "Electrical fault, the firemen said. Mrs Davies got the place rewired last year before she sold, but - " he shrugged again, "these old places, you never know." He was looking at them curiously, Maisie knew, her blank shock, folded arms, but her brain was numb and her tongue thick in her mouth.

Wes stepped up. "We used to live here," he said. "Yonks ago. Was anyone inside?"

"No, luckily. Always away on work he was. Overseas somewhere."

"Do you know where he's gone?" Wes asked nonchalantly. "We had some things hidden under the floorboards, maybe he took them."

"No idea, sorry."

"What about the dog?" Maisie interrupted.

The neighbour peered at them suspiciously. She'd blown Wes's story now, but she didn't care.

"Bolted for the hills, I think."

Wes nudged her. "We should get back."

"Yes," she said. "I - thanks."

The neighbour said nothing, but she could feel his eyes on her back all the way down the street.

- -

Dimitri was on night surveillance, which meant no one expected him on the grid until eleven or so, at which time he was expected to write up a detailed report of the nothing which had once again happened at Golyubev's apartment. Ten minutes in, he was fantastically bored.

He went down to Registry to pick up some files he didn't really need, then pretended to forget one and went back, a manoeuvre which was rewarded by running into Cerys on her way downstairs for coffee.

"I'll shout you one," Dimitri offered.

Cerys narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

"So I can drug you and find out your secrets." When she didn't find that funny he tried again. "For rescuing me from the dragon."

That earned him a smile. It was hard to imagine a less dragon-like Section Head than Peter Eames, and in the moments when his grief for others was at saturation point, Dimitri was surprised to realise that he missed Harry too.

"How's Erin?" Cerys asked, blowing on her scalding coffee.

Dimitri hadn't been to see her again, not until he had something concrete. He didn't think he could stand her pitying look if she thought he was just being paranoid, and neither could he stand upsetting her if it turned out that he was. What was he hoping for, anyway? Erin discovering she'd been played and deciding to rejoin the service out of principle? They wouldn't put Section D back together in her honour; likely as not Dimitri wouldn't even be working with her. And was that what she really wanted? He remembered her easy smile the last time he'd seen her, the calm relief at her decision.

"She's good, actually," he said finally, truthfully. "Who'd've thought the service made people so miserable?"

Cerys huffed in reply. Dimitri had been happy befriending her because she was a safe ten miles from his type, but something about her horse-like features and dyed red hair was alluring to him today. Christ, Levendis, you need to get out more. Or out of here.

"That's exactly what Mark said," Cerys added. "Well, what Hannah said that Mol said that Mark said. Cheery bunch of gossips, aren't we."

"Who's Mark?"

"He was my best customer. Undercover in three different groups at once, kept me on my toes with demanding paperwork for one or the other or all three at ridiculously short notice." She shrugged, setting her earrings jangling. "Kind of quiet now he's gone."

"Gone where?"

"Dunno. To spend more time with his kid, I think he said. Didn't even know he had a kid."

"Huh," Dimitri said, cleverly.

"Actually there's been a rash of them lately. Marie Shepherd, too. Maybe it's the weather."

"A rash of what?"

"Surprise resignations. That's what we're talking about, right?" She picked the mushy apple from her pastry and ate it piece by piece. "I wish I could up and leave sometimes, just like that."

"Why don't you?" Dimitri asked.

She wrinkled her nose. "Why don't you? My overdraft, my mortgage, the sodding dog. It's the most depressing thing ever but how am I going to feed my dog if I don't commit fraud for a living? Where are you going?"

"Forgot, er, a meeting."

Dimitri headed back up the stairs three at a time rather than waiting for the creaky lift. Because people don't just forget about their overdrafts, not just like that. Not unless something forces them to rearrange their priorities.

A frustrating and nearly suspicion-raising hour later - "You're telling me you forgot another file, Levendis?" - before Dimitri thought to tell the dragon that he'd been seconded for an internal audit - "Good man, we must all suffer under bureaucracy's yoke" - Dimitri had two more dates and locations for Calum, and two more possibles. Calum, to his credit, offered no comment on the tenuous link between them. He took a sly glance around the grid and then called up his illegal software.

"You can't be more specific with the dates?"

"Nope."

Calum shook his head. "Then you're in for a hell of a search."

"Yep." Dimitri leaned closer to the screen. "But this time I know what I'm looking for."

- -

Maisie didn't remember much of the train ride home. She left Wes at the station with some sort of mumbled farewell. The idea of going home appalled her; to have to pretend to Ellie that everything was fine when she could still taste the ashes in the back of her throat. For some reason it was the painting which kept coming back to her - the innocuous coastal scene, pale white sky, stormy horizon.

Perhaps that was why she took so long to notice the man following her.

At first, still struggling with the memories, she thought that it was Tom, and stood stupidly staring. He didn't look at her. She spun around and walked back the opposite way. He didn't follow. Stupid. She was imagining things.

A minute later she saw him again. She stopped at a bookstore and browsed the stands, hearing her heart loud in her ears. He went straight past without even a glance. She lingered longer, flipping blindly through the display of Penguins. There - he'd stopped at a cafe half a dozen shops down, examining the menu.

She dug out her phone and called Wes, but he wasn't answering. She started a text, I think there's someone fol- but what was she doing? She needed to keep moving.

There was a group of backpackers at the front of the bookstore, arguing over which map to buy. She waited until they were leaving and slipped out between them, following them as far as the corner before ducking down a side alley and across to the tube station. Down the stairs, back up the escalators at the opposite corner. Don't turn around. Watch in windows, reflections.

She'd never been on this side of the tail before. She divided her concentration - planning ahead, looking behind, marking faces. London unfolded before her a street at a time, safe zones and dangers marked clearly in her mind. It was exhilarating how easily it came. Almost like part of the game, if she could forget what she and Wes had seen.

She caught a bus and then another. When it started to rain she ditched her red umbrella and bought a black one for two quid. Finally she ended at the library and sat at the upstairs reading area where she could see the whole street. The man was nowhere to be seen.

Heart jackhammering in her throat, she tried Wes again, then texted him in capitals, WHAT'S GOING ON. Only then did she realise that she didn't know where he was headed. Was he planning on making it back up to school tonight? He'd probably be out of range if he was. Surely he couldn't just turn up at his grandparents'. Did he have other friends in London, someone like Malcolm who he could stay with no questions asked?

It was raining again when she left the library an hour later. As a final move she left the black umbrella in the stand and snatched up someone else's at random. It was only once she had it open outside that she noticed it wasn't as grey and drab as she'd thought, but had a rich blue sky with fluffy clouds painted on the underside, and a meticulously carved heavy wooden handle. She'd stolen someone's heirloom umbrella. Whoops.

The train back to Shepherd's Bush was crowded and delayed. Wes was still ignoring her. She tried to read but the swaying carriage made her sick.

She was halfway across the common when she saw him again.

Her heart froze in her throat. It couldn't be. Come on, Maisie, stop it. But the dark blue jumper, the cropped hair, the lithe swagger: she was certain it was him.

The common was deserted. Ellie's voice flashed through her head - don't walk through the common after dark. But it wasn't dark, and she could run faster than any rapist. She cut off the path and towards the main road, the wind tugging at the heirloom umbrella. She checked over her shoulder. He didn't even bother to disguise the manoeuvre this time. He strode purposefully off the path and after her.

The houses were dark and imposing, but the road was busy. She could flag down a car. Could she? No. They were going too fast and it'd give him time to catch up. She kept walking along the road. No need to run. He was a hundred metres behind and if he started chasing her she'd run up to one of the houses, bang on the door and scream. Perhaps she should confront him - what the fuck are you doing? Where the fuck are Tom and Malcolm? Make a fuss. What could he do to her, in broad daylight? Nothing. But she knew it would take more courage than she had.

The newsagent's on the corner. She could see the lights from here, the Coca Cola OPEN sign on the pavement. Yes. She'd stay in there for hours if she had to; call Ellie if she had to, despite the row that would follow. She'd borrow money from the clerk and get a taxi right to the front door of the restaurant if she had to.

She knew she shouldn't keep looking but she did again, hearing her breath loud and alien in her own ears. He was still a way behind; she'd make it, even if she had to drop everything and sprint.

There were people outside the newsagent's as she approached. A man hurrying home with plastic takeaway bags, a newspaper held over his head. A jogger with bright green plastic headphones, oblivious to the rain. She couldn't help it, she ran the last few metres, grabbing the door handle like it was the safe zone in playground chasey. It stuck in her hand. She dropped the heirloom umbrella and wrenched at it with both hands. The whole door rattled in the jamb. The sign was out, the lights were on - but the door was locked.

She spun around. Now she was off the main road, the houses dark and shuttered. The man still wasn't hurrying but he didn't need to.

The woman jogger had slowed and was watching her. Frustrated nearly to tears, Maisie waved at her to stop. The woman tugged her headphones off.

"Sorry," Maisie said, "it's just - that creep's been following me."

The woman took hold of Maisie's arm. "I know," she said. Her fingers were like a vice. "Get in the car, Maisie."

- - -

part four