Page 22 of The Spy Who Loved Tea

Watson yawned, displaying every one of his teeth.

“Your confidence in me is overwhelming.”

She finished her tea and set the cup aside. The light outside was fading, the sky turning from gold to purple to grey. Another hour and it would be properly dark—dark enough for what she had planned.

Vera rose from her chair and went to the Welsh dresser. She retrieved her field kit from the false bottom: lock picks, flashlight, pepper spray. She checked each item methodically, the way she had done a thousand times before.

Watson watched from the armchair, his eyes tracking her movements.

“Guard the house,” she told him. “And this time, try to look intimidating if anyone breaks in.”

Watson began washing his paw, supremely unconcerned.

Vera pulled on her dark coat—the one with the Kevlar lining—and tucked her equipment into her knitting bag. She caught a glimpse of herself in the hallway mirror: a slight, grey-haired woman in sensible shoes, carrying a floral tapestry bag.

She looked like someone’s grandmother.

She smiled. It was not a warm smile.

“Right,” she said to her reflection. “Let’s go to war.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

The old mill sat on the ridge above Lark’s End like a rotten tooth against the darkening sky. It was a looming structure of black timber and crumbling brick, its water wheel long since jammed with debris and creeping ivy.

Vera approached from the east, moving through the waist-high nettles that had colonized the abandoned farmland. She was grateful for her sturdy trousers; nettles were a nuisance, but they were also an excellent deterrent for casual hikers and curious teenagers.

No one came up here anymore. The mill had been condemned for twenty years, ever since a section of the roof collapsed during a storm. The council had put up warning signs, strung chains across the access road, and promptly forgotten about it.

Which made it the perfect location for a covert operations centre.

Vera paused at the perimeter fence. It was chain-link, rusted and sagging in places, but topped with fresh razor wire that glinted in the last light of dusk.

Interesting, she thought. No one protects a condemned flour mill with razor wire unless they’re grinding something other than wheat.

She circled the fence until she found what she was looking for: a gap near the ground where the chain-link had been pushed up, probably by a badger or a fox. The gap was narrow, and getting through it required her to lie flat on her stomach and wriggle forward with an undignified squirming motion that her joints protested loudly.

Pain is just information, her instructor at Hereford had always said. Right now, the information was that she would be feeling this tomorrow.

She emerged on the other side, brushed the dirt from her coat, and took stock of her surroundings.

The mill loomed ahead, its windows boarded up, its timbers black with age and rot. But light seeped through the cracks—faint, artificial light that had no business being in an abandoned building.

And there was sound. A low, steady hum. A generator.

Someone was home.

Vera moved closer, keeping to the shadows. She reached the main building and pressed her ear to the brickwork. The hum was louder here, vibrating through the old stones.

She circled to the side entrance—a heavy wooden door that had been reinforced with a steel plate and fitted with a modern keypad lock. The lock glowed softly in the gloom, a small green light indicating it was armed.

Old building, new security. The contrast was telling. Someone had invested serious money in this location.

Vera examined the keypad. She pulled out her UV light and shone it across the buttons, looking for the telltale smudges of finger oils.

The numbers 1, 4, 7, and 9 showed the heaviest wear.

She tried a few combinations: 1-9-7-4. Nothing. 4-7-1-9. Nothing. 9-4-7-1. Nothing.