Page 30 of The Spy Who Loved Tea

Too weak. Too weak. Too strong—the world warped into a fishbowl nightmare.

There. A pair of heavy black frames, men’s style, with thick lenses that snapped the world back into focus. She could see the individual letters on the chart, the dust motes floating in the air, the precise edges of everything around her.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The frames were too large for her face, giving her the look of an eccentric professor. Her hair was wild, her face smeared with soot, her cardigan singed and torn.

She looked deranged.

Good, she thought. Deranged is underestimated.

Now for the weapon.

She searched the shop methodically, looking for anything that might serve. Screwdrivers—too small. The heavy refractometer stand—too awkward to carry. A bottle of lens cleaning alcohol—potentially useful, but not decisive.

Then she saw it.

Tucked into a cardboard box beneath the counter, labeled “Lost and Found” in neat handwriting, was a walking stick. Not just any walking stick—an ebony cane with a heavy silver handle, worn smooth by decades of use.

Mr. Henderson’s cane. The one he had complained about losing at the fête. The one his father had brought back from Rhodesia. The one that was “heavy enough to brain a rhinoceros.”

He must have left it here, not at the fête, and here it had sat, waiting.

Vera picked it up, tested its weight, gave it an experimental swing. The balance was perfect—weighted toward the head for striking power, but not so heavy as to be unwieldy. The silver handle was shaped like a snarling lion, its mane forming a natural grip.

“Thank you, Mr. Henderson,” she whispered. “I’ll return it when I’m finished.”

She left a ten-pound note on the counter for the glasses and slipped back out into the night.

The Lark’s End railway station was a relic of the Victorian age, reduced now to a single platform and a ticket machine that had been “temporarily out of service” for the last five years. A wooden shelter provided minimal protection from the elements, and a hand-painted sign announced the next train to London: five-fifty AM.

Vera arrived at five-thirty-five, approaching from the footpath that ran behind the station rather than the main road. She positioned herself behind the old signal box—long since decommissioned—and watched.

The platform was not quite empty. A handful of early commuters had gathered for the London train: a tired-looking man in a rumpled suit clutching a coffee cup, a young woman with oversized headphones scrolling through her phone, an older gentleman with a newspaper tucked under his arm. They stood in the loose, disconnected clusters of strangers who had no interest in conversation at this hour.

At five-forty-one, a black Range Rover pulled into the small car park.

Julian emerged, dressed in a sharp navy suit—commuter camouflage, the uniform of a thousand anonymous businessmen who rode this line every day. He carried a leather briefcase in one hand and moved with the unhurried confidence of a man who believed he had won.

He didn’t look back at the glow on the horizon where the mill still burned. He didn’t scan for threats. He simply walked to the platform and positioned himself near the far end, away from the other passengers—a man who valued his privacy.

Arrogant, Vera thought. He thinks I’m dead. He thinks he’s untouchable.

That was his mistake.

She waited until the distant rumble of the approaching train began to vibrate through the rails. Then she moved.

The newspaper bin near the shelter was metal, rusted, filled with old flyers and discarded coffee cups. More importantly, it was positioned near the cluster of waiting passengers none of whom were paying it, or her, any attention.

Vera crouched beside it, shielded from Julian’s view by the bulk of the shelter. She pulled the bottle of lens cleaning alcohol from her pocket—she had taken it from the optician’s after all—and poured it over the papers inside.

She produced her lighter. A small flame. A simple action.

The papers caught immediately, sending a column of smoke and flame shooting upward.

“Fire!” Vera screamed, her voice cracking with theatrical panic. “Fire! Help! Someone help!”

The effect was immediate. The young woman yelped and stumbled backward, yanking out her headphones. The businessman dropped his coffee, the cup splattering across the platform. The older gentleman grabbed the young woman’s arm and pulled her toward the car park, away from the flames.

“Get back! Everyone get back!” the older man shouted, taking charge with the confidence of someone who had probably been a middle manager. “Someone call the fire station!”