The Invisible Amateur (3 page)

Normally, Amelia
had a book to read when on long journeys, but she had opted against
that form of entertainment this time around. Without knowing why
she was going to London, she preferred to keep an eye out for
potential threats and knew a book would absorb too much of her
attention. If she read, it would suck in all her focus until she
forgot the world around her. As a teenager she'd even missed a stop
and had to backtrack once. To keep herself from being tempted to
read, she hadn't even brought anything with her.

By the time she
got to London the only result was her boredom, over-brushed hair
that hung in neat lines down her back, and a far too intimate
knowledge of the woman across the carriage's love life. Nothing of
any importance had happened, and Amelia regretted her decision.

The pit of her
stomach still felt tense and uncomfortable, but she was bored of
that as well. It made no sense to be this nervous when it could
easily be Myron's way of testing her. In both his and Sebastian's
line of work it was useful to be calm. The seriousness could be
designed to teach her to manage her emotions and responses to
potential threats without there being one to her physically. But,
of course, it could equally be any number of other tests. In
reality, she was clueless.

As she exited the
station she looked for a road name to get her bearing. She soon saw
one, but realised it didn't help. She couldn't remember the name of
the hotel. A gasp escaped her lips as she tried to search her mind
for the information. Not once that morning had she thought about it
or how to get there.

In the middle of
the street, she closed her eyes and tried to picture the map she'd
looked up. She remembered something about a marble archway just off
to her right and needing to head away from it, so she walked to the
junction and turned to put it behind her. As she past the
Cumberland, she began to piece together the rest of the directions,
although the hotel name still eluded her.

She kept walking
past several roads and then past a semi-circular road to her right
with another land mark she recognised. The Marble Arch Synagogue
was her cue to turn right at the next junction and head down
another road that took her in front of the hotel. At least, she
hoped she'd remembered that much correctly.

When she got to
the next junction, she saw a large amount of green trees a few
hundred metres away and hoped that was the square just beyond her
hotel. Keeping her head high and her jaw firmly shut, Amelia kept
walking, hoping she appeared to know where she was going.

A hundred metres
on she exhaled in relief when she realised the canopy on the other
side of the road was her hotel. The sign saying '
Radisson
blu
' welcomed her into a bright and shiny foyer with several
reception desks at the far end. A man stood to one side with a name
plaque in his hands. It had her character, Edward Dalton's full
name written on it. She raised her eyebrows a moment before walking
over to him.

“Mrs Dalton?” he
asked.

“I think so,” she
replied, knowing that sounded vague and hoping he wouldn't take it
the wrong way. Myron hadn't said anything about her being booked in
under a different name.

“You're here to do
research for a book, I understand, Mrs Dalton?”

“Yes, I'm looking
forward to getting started,” she said and gave him a relieved smile
as he summoned a bell-boy to take her case for her.

“Brilliant. Your
first client is already here, sitting out on the garden terrace.
Why don't you go straight out to him and we'll get your room sorted
and bring your key to you in a moment.”

“That sounds
wonderful.” She headed in the direction he'd indicated with his
fingers and tried to look like she knew what she was doing and had
expected this from the beginning. Inwardly, she was hoping this was
Myron and she'd get some answers.

As Mycroft drank
his tea and waited, he continued to organise his small team of
retired agents. Not everyone he'd approached had answered his
messages requesting their assistance, but he didn't want to ask too
many people. The more who knew what he wanted them to do, the more
chance the wrong people would find out. He did know his current
field agents couldn't be trusted, so he was asking men who'd
retired but still felt loyal to him. Very few of them would be
loyal to anyone else now they were out of the game. Mycroft had
looked after them well over the years.

If he could,
Mycroft would work alone on every situation that required his
expertise, but he couldn't keep an eye on Amelia, investigate Mr
Delra, and find out why their monarch was making deals with
terrorists alone. Someone would need to help him and his younger
brother.

For now, he'd left
Sherlock looking into the Russian coins. It was an inconspicuous
way his younger brother could find out more about Mr Delra, and
Mycroft could deny knowledge of it. It wouldn't be the first time
Sherlock had disobeyed him and looked into a situation without
Mycroft stopping him. That meant other people would need to keep
Amelia safe.

Tom had already
updated him on her morning's progress and it hadn't been as swift
as he'd have liked or expected from her earlier advancement. Most
of the time, Amelia was an amazing example of a human being,
especially when he considered what most were like. However, every
once in a while she displayed the exact feminine characteristics
which he abhorred. The emotional clouding of judgement and a caring
attitude that made her hesitant in acting.

Tom had picked up
on this caring attitude and how it had held her back. She'd been
unwilling to risk hurting him and therefore made herself less
effective in combat. It was yet another reason that right now he
wished he'd never agreed to teach her.

Just as he was
thinking this, he realised she was late. Her train had pulled into
the station on time. Mycroft had checked. It would have taken her
exactly six and a half minutes to walk from the Marble Arch tube
station to the hotel and another two to be sent through to the
terrace by the hotel staff. By now she should be sitting in front
of him.

He arched his
hands together and considered the possible events that might have
delayed her, other than her own stupidity. If he needed to act to
keep her safe already, he couldn't afford to delay working out what
might have happened and assessing the options for their
likelihood.

Just as he was
deciding someone must have picked her up in a car between the tube
station and the hotel, movement from the doorway caught his eye. He
blinked a couple of times, the only outward sign that he was
struggling to process the feelings within.

Every time he'd
seen her she'd had her hair tied up out of the way in a bun or
braid of some kind. Today the chestnut locks tumbled, yet still
neatly, around her face and the shoulders of the deep green outfit
she wore. Her cheeks were flushed from both the cold and exercise,
and she had a little sparkle in her eyes that appeared the moment
she saw him. The combination made him pause for breath. She'd have
fitted neatly in his study and not looked out of place, in either
colour or style, and the thought stopped all other threads in his
mind. A few seconds later he had gathered the dropped pile back
together again, and the blip was in his past.

“My, my, what a
surprise to see you here,” he said, getting up and shaking her
hand. She smiled and allowed him to steer their meeting. “Why don't
you join me for tea, Mrs Dalton?”

“That would be
wonderful.” She sat in the seat opposite him and gave the waiter,
who'd swiftly appeared, her order. The over-excited greeting had
been for the benefit of the few other guests within the terrace
area more than anyone else, so he dropped the pretence now she was
sat.

“I think I need to
learn my way around London,” she said, before he could speak. Her
eyes flicked up to his face while he watched her, but they couldn't
remain on him while he stared. It made him feel a little better.
She knew she was late and was aware it displeased him.

“You followed all
the other instructions precisely?” he asked, although he knew she
had. She nodded to confirm.

“But I do have a
question.” Now she looked at him, and Mycroft knew she was studying
him for a reaction as he would study her, but he gave her
nothing.

“Not now. Maybe at
the end.” He hoped she was intelligent enough to realise the maybe
had a condition. It would depend on her performance over the next
half an hour. She had some redeeming to do.

“Tell me what you
see out there,” he said a moment later and motioned to the people
in the small garden nearby. She raised her eyebrows at him and then
turned her body to look outwards. He rolled his eyes at her lack of
subtlety but didn't expect her to notice.

For several
minutes she remained quiet, studying the people. She didn't even
notice when the waiter brought her drink. As this continued, he
wondered if she was going to tell him anything, but she eventually
looked back at him.

“The couple on the
left. They've had an argument. Not a big issue, more a sort of
bicker over a small detail. I think it's more important to her than
him. She's more angry and he's more worried about looking after
their small child.” She looked to him with slightly wider eyes, and
he recognised the unspoken question. She wasn't confident she was
right. Hoping she would get going a bit quicker, he gave her a
slight nod.

“The woman by
herself who is feeding the birds is sad about something. Either her
childhood or something attached to it. She keeps getting a wistful
look.”

He nodded again
when she glanced his way but frowned at the same time. These were
only snippets of the whole picture and not quite the things he'd
wanted to know.

“Over there,” she
said, pointing and speaking before he could tell her she wasn't
doing it right. “Business man in the dark suit. He just got a
promotion and probably a raise. He's phoning someone to let them
know the good news.”

Mycroft snorted at
this and she stopped. Immediately, the interested and excited look
vanished from her face to be replaced with the same worried,
unconfident, wide eyes she'd had earlier. She rotated her body to
face back in his direction.

When he shook his
head and sighed his disapproval she lowered her eyes and took a sip
from her tea. An awkward minute ticked by in silence as he felt the
familiar regret well up within him. No one had ever come close to
his level of intelligence.

“Will you tell me
what I missed?” she asked, breaking through his angry thoughts.
“That way I will know what to look for another time.”

If he hadn't
needed to continue, Mycroft would have got up and walked away, but
she needed to learn or she wouldn't survive what was coming. Out of
necessity, he opened his mouth and told her what he'd seen.

“The couple have
argued over what to feed the girl. The father is feeding the girl
chips and the mother is not happy about it. Personally I don't
blame her. He's very unintelligent, you can tell by the way he
controls the girl and simply ignores his partner instead of having
a conversation. They're unmarried but engaged. See the ring on her
hand, but none on his.”

While he spoke
about them Amelia looked at them again, trying to see what he saw,
her eyes darting to every feature he mentioned and drinking it in.
There might be some hope for her to learn, but he knew his patience
would be tried by the attempt.

“The woman on her
own recently miscarried a child. In between throwing bread she
occasionally strokes her stomach, which is a shape befitting
someone who was pregnant. She hasn't lost all the baby-weight yet
and her skin hasn't tightened where it was stretched. Frankly, she
could have covered that up better.”

“It must have been
recent, then,” Amelia said. He could hear the sadness in her
tone.

“It was,” he
snapped.

“Sorry, please
continue.” She looked outside again.

“She's married to
a soldier and he's not here at the moment. The bag she has the
bread in is from a shop on one of the bases, but you're right that
this is attached to her childhood. It's not a shop in London. She
grew up here and is staying with her parents until her husband is
back. She's also left-handed, probably creative. That's harder to
tell from this distance.”

He paused a moment
and then looked at the business man Amelia had pointed out. She
followed his gaze.

“He's a lawyer,
and did not get a promotion, but he provided a colleague with
evidence that won a case. He was too concerned at the start of the
conversation for it to have been a possibility without risk. Too
young to be a fully fledged lawyer and taking cases of his own, and
if he was winning his own case he'd have been in court to find out
if he won or not.”

Mycroft snapped
his mouth shut as soon as he'd finished saying the last letter.

“Wow, that was
amazing.” She looked at him with wide-eyed wonder and he blinked in
surprise. His anger seemed to have melted off her entirely. “Can I
try again?”

He blinked at her,
not quite believing what he was hearing. Most people, when
confronted by his anger and disappointment, didn't ask for a second
opportunity to make it worse. He nodded and motioned to another man
who'd just sat down at the far table.

This time, as she
studied, she flicked her eyes over a lot more, trying to do more
than read his body language. It took her longer than it had the
first time, but on this occasion when she turned back to him, she
had a brighter look and rattled off what she knew without
hesitating.

Once she'd
finished speaking, he put down his tea cup and sighed.