The Consultant - NaNoWriMo2021

Chapter 7

'Well done Fin; you are making excellent progress, this is very encouraging indeed.'

I had imagined Duncan sitting at a desk high in the instantly recognisable SIS headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, poring over state secrets and being served coffee in paper thin china cups by a silent assistant. In fact, I could barely hear him over the racket in the background.

'What is all the noise? Have you got a crafty side-line in construction?'

'No, nothing like that Fin; I'm on my way somewhere, it's just very noisy around here.'

'So you're happy with the way things are going?'

'Very. It seems like you are getting close to Professor Hamilton which is good; try to have a search around her office when you meet with her okay? Time is ticking on this Fin. We can't afford another attack and the chatter is already increasing again.'

'I have to be honest Duncan.' In fact, however I look at it I was being far from honest with anyone right now. 'I don't see it myself. She seems perfectly reasonable to me, and definitely doesn't give off any weird vibes. She's a busy professor who's passionate about her work; I don't see how she could be the consultant.'

'Fin, you have to be more open-minded; less naïve. They don't wear badges and have a secret handshake you know, they're not Freemasons.' Duncan chuckled to himself, though I sensed he had made that joke before, presumably on every new associate he worked with.

'Okay, I get it,' I murmur. 'I'll see what I can find and keep you posted.'

The call was terminated without any goodbyes, and I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes before I was due to meet with Aubrey. I pulled out my phone and texted Felix for the third time.

F. need urgent consult. pls call I stood waiting, willing the phone to buzz but as before, there was no response. Did he know? Did he know about SIS, had I said something when we were together? Or had he spoken to Aubrey and learned that I was coming to the party? This was a nightmare and it was only going in one direction; downhill.

Aubrey's rooms take me quite by surprise. I know about her research on animal philosophy, but her rooms leave no doubt about where her opinions, and her sympathies lie. There are endless pictures of animals; oil paintings, cartoons, comic strips, sculptures; even the tapestried cushions on the sofa have cats on them. As she welcomes me in, I notice a set of framed portraits on her desk, lined up against a horse-shaped lamp. I peer at them but I don't recognise all of them, but any fool would pick out Gandhi, Einstein, Nikolai Tesla and of course Plato and Da Vinci.

'Do you see the connection?' she asks, handing me a mug of tea.

'Personal heroes? Role models? Free thinkers? Men of principle?'

She laughs; a full bellied effort with her head back and her shoulders shaking.

'My, you are an earnest one; so keen to get the answer right. Tell me, is that because you have to know everything and can't bear not to understand, or because you need affirmation that you know the answer and have pleased me?'

I pause, unsure of what to say. This is a different Aubrey from the one I was speaking with hours earlier; definitely more mercurial but with an alarmingly prescient sense of my psyche. It's true that I cannot bear not to know what is going on, not just on the surface, but at the heart of the issue. My father and I are very alike in this regard; on the rare occasions when we are together, he will reference a newspaper story and ask me what I think is really going on. He has this ability to read five articles and then somehow connect the dots, to explain to me how each one informs the others, and how the instigator of those articles is manipulating the public by drip feeding information on their own terms, to achieve a specific goal. Sometimes, I wonder if this why I am so committed to becoming a spy; the obsessive need to know the truth about things, and not just be one of the sheeple.

My mind is racing; trying to calculate the best answer. In the end, I feign embarrassment, as though she has caught me out.

'Perhaps it is true that I am a bit of a people pleaser,' I respond shyly, knowing full well that in fact I am quite the opposite.

'I guess I always wanted to be the popular one, but had to make do with being the clever one.'

Aubrey regarded me for a long moment.

'You don't have to worry about that here; we are friends now and you don't have to pretend anymore. I suspect that beneath that meek exterior, lies the heart of a caged lion, and I intend to release it.'

I give an embarrassed snort; good luck with releasing my caged lion.

'I'm just happy you agreed to help me Aubrey, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.' With that, she took a sip of her tea, and pulled over the books and papers that she had gathered, and we spent the next two hours ploughing through Babylonian philosophy.

It was only toward the end, as we were packing up that things got interesting again.

'Do you think that animals are sentient Fin? Do you think they were revered by the ancients because they could sense that they have feelings and emotions?'

'You know I do, I've always thought that, in fact I think that there is so much that we have lost in our modern world, especially our relationship with the natural world.'

Aubrey fixes me with her piercing expression. She seems to be pondering a decision.

'There is a little group of us, some students, some faculty. We meet occasionally to discuss these kinds of issues; sentience in nature; how man has anthropomorphised animals but in a simplistic manner; my puppy is sad, this lion wants revenge etc. We also talk about flora, not just fauna and I think you might enjoy it. Perhaps it will be the thing that allows you to realise your true passion, because it's obvious to me from the last two hours, it's not ancient Babylon. Would you like to come along next time? We meet again on Monday.'

Was this my way in? It would be a chance to get close to her; see her outside the boundaries of the academic world; maybe it would yield something useful.

'I'd be honoured. Thank you.'

She finishes packing her papers and holds the door for me as we leave, en route to her car to go to the party.

'By the way, the portraits. Did you figure out the connection?'

I hadn't, and it annoyed me intensely, but as I begin to confess, I am struck by inspiration.

'They were vegetarians. All of them. That's the connection.'

She smiles as she flicks off the light and locks the door.

'Very good Fin. I can see that you have potential. The sentient world of nature needs people like you. I think this might be your calling.'

Beyond her vague spouting about the natural world, I had no real clue about what I was getting in to. Is there such thing as a vegetarian terrorist? Whatever. Right now, I'm more anxious about the party. As we getinto her car though, something curious occurs to me. When we left her rooms, I had dropped one of my books and we had both bent to pick it up. Our hands had touched as we reached it at the same time, but it had not occurred to me until now that there had been no reaction. I had been touched inadvertently by another human being, and there had been no effect. This was the first time since Alex's death.

We travelled in silence; each lost in our own thoughts, and I considered what it all meant. Perhaps she was different to other people. Maybe she had hoodwinked me to the extent that I was kind of hypnotised? Or perhaps I was just so focused in the mission, that everything else faded away. I couldn't tell, but I knew it meant something. I would just have to figure out what. For now though, I had to get through the party without blowing my cover, either with Aubrey or with Felix. This would be a challenge.