She’d left her jiu-jitsu kit back at her Crystal Palace flat. Much as she loved going to her jiu-jitsu club and honing her martial arts skills, she’d decided to put that on hold for the time being. She didn’t want to keep her jiu-jitsu gear in her undercover flat in case someone hostile ended up poking around in there and found it; when it came to undercover work, she thought it more advantageous to keep her self-defence capabilities concealed from the criminals she was working with.

As she unpacked her stuff, she reflected on the transience of undercover life and wondered if she’d ever properly settle down. She couldn’t imagine living a conventional domestic life, and she wasn’t sure she wanted one anyhow.

She took out a large tub of Quality Street that her mother had given her for Christmas. In a small concession to homeliness, she pulled off the lid and upended the whole tub of sweets into a large ceramic bowl that had been standing empty on the sideboard next to the front door. She immediately picked out one of the red ones, unwrapped it and popped it in her mouth. Fudge. Yum. Her favourite.

Throwing herself down on the sofa, Bailey began to go through the identity documents Frank had provided, chewing on the fudge as she did so. She flicked through the passport, the driver’s licence, the credit card, the gym membership and the other various bits of identification that supported her cover identity as one Bailey Sharpe. As well as the credentials, she had the laptop, and of course she also had her second mobile phone which she used purely for undercover operations.

She briefly contemplated changing the ringtone on her undercover phone to one of her favourite eighties pop classics but then thought better of it, figuring it was a safer bet to remain with the boring default ringtone instead. On an undercover job you never knew what kind of delicate situation you might be in when your phone rang and the wrong type of person just might get offended by your taste in ringtone, with potentially detrimental consequences.

She examined the photo on the driving licence. She was wearing a particularly sullen and shifty expression, which, combined with the scar on her face, made her look appropriately villainous. She smiled to herself, pleased with the result. She ran the tips of her fingers over the embossed letters of her new name. Bailey Sharpe. Yet another new identity to immerse herself in. There had been so many by now that she’d lost count.

New Year, New You, she thought.

7

‘Spyros!’

Bailey jerked awake. Breathing hard. Her heart beating furiously. The sheets soaked in sweat. Her nostrils filled with the smell of her own burning flesh fused with the sickly aroma of clove smoke. That name on her lips…

With the agony of the torture still uppermost in her mind, she instinctively ran her hands over her body to check her injuries. But there was no blood now, no raw wounds. Not any more. Just the hard raised ridges of the scars made by the straight razor and the rough patches of the burn marks made by the glowing tip of a clove cigarette.