AI The wine glass slid as I pivoted with the tray, tipped like a coin on its edge, then steadied when a hand caught the stem.
Rory.
My name landed with the weight of a thrown stone. I looked up at a face I had not held in years and did not recognise until the mouth tilted into the old, reckless half smile.
"Eva."
"So you remember me."
"You caught the glass."
"You were always terrible at balancing acts."
"Only when you turned up."
We stood too close by the end of the bar, my elbow brushing her lapel. The tray wobbled again. Silas glanced up from polishing a tumbler without lifting his head, a flick of hazel, a ringed knuckle tapping the oak. The fine grey in his auburn hair made everything in the room feel older by a notch.
Eva released the glass and stepped back. The movement brought her into the low amber light. The change hit then, clean and ruthless. Gone was the girl with ink on her fingers and paint on her jeans. In her place, a woman in a tailored black coat with narrow shoulders and a throat bare of jewellery, a sharp British cut to her hair that left her ears exposed. She looked like someone who had learned to walk in carpeted corridors. The only wildness left sat in her eyes, darker than memory, rimmed with a sleepless sheen.
"Table or bar," I said. "Pick your battlefield."
"Booth," she said. "Far side."
"Still a strategist."
"I had to be," she said.
I slid the tray on to the counter and moved down the line, past the map of Prague with its pinholes and charcoal smudges, the black and white photographs of men in hats with their mouths pinched shut against their secrets. The Nest smelled of lime and old wood, of beer wave and polish. The hum of conversations ducked as we walked. The green neon above the door seeped in and made islands of light on the floor. Eva walked like someone expecting a collision, hands free, eyes working. Every near-touch with a stranger sent a flick of distance across her face.
We slid into the corner booth. The leather creaked. A photo of Fleet Street hung crooked above her head, a war of typewriters and hats. Silas sent a drink with a nod through a boy with sleeves rolled to his forearms. He didn't ask what we wanted. Two short whiskies arrived, glasses square as knuckles. Eva looked at them without moving.
"You on the wagon?" I said.
"I audit wagons for a living," she said. "Water."
"She's gone posh," I said to the boy . "Water for the corporate citizen."
He left with a grin that did not fit his face yet. Eva rested her hands on the table. No ring. Fine tremor in the left hand, barely there, a moth on a string.
"I came to say sorry," she said.
"No hello, no how are you, just an apology you rehearsed in a cab," I said.
"I stood on Dean Street for ten minutes," she said. "I almost left."
"You told me to come to London," I said. "Remember that. The call at midnight. 'Pack a bag, Rory. Do not tell him. Come tonight. I'll meet you at the station.' You didn't show."
"I watched you get on the coach," she said. "I watched from the barrier."
"Were you hiding under a hat."
"I was hiding behind a man who would not let me move."
I touched the small crescent scar on my left wrist before I could stop the hand. It itched when I felt trapped. She watched the movement, and something in her mouth softened, a flinch you would miss if you blinked.
"You were there that day," I said. "The swing set."
"You bled like a saint," she said. "I used my T-shirt for a bandage. White with blue stripes."
"Your mother told me to be more careful," I said. "She looked at me like she'd caught me stealing."
"She was better at Latin than love," she said. "Do you live upstairs."
"For my sins."
"So I found you where I left you."
"You didn't leave me," I said. "You ran faster."
She did not pick up the whiskey. She reached into her coat and took out a card. I watched her move. Everything tidy. The card had her name and the name of a firm with a lobby of glass and men in suits who wear serious watches. I did not take it.
"Compliance," she said. "Internal investigations."
"Corporate snitch," I said.
"The word is 'counsel,'" she said. "It's a living."
"It is a good living if you do not think too hard about the people who drown," I said.
"Everyone drowns," she said. "Some of us wear better shoes when we do."
"Still poetic when cornered," I said. "Tell me why you are here, Eva."
She held my eyes and did not blink. "I did not come to play old games."
"Shame," I said. "I liked those games. You cheated with a straight face."
"I came to tell you something you do not want to hear," she said. "I owed you that at least."
"Talk."
"Evan is back in London."
The air thinned in my mouth and went sharp as penny vinegar. The whiskey smelled heavy, a winter coat.
"I thought he was up Chester way," I said. "I thought he left after... after."
"After you ran," she said.
"After you stood behind a man who would not let you move," I said.
Her jaw worked once, then stilled. "The firm took on a client last year," she said. "Property. Shell companies. A man in the middle who calls himself a fixer. I found your name in a due diligence folder, a photograph from outside your restaurant in Chinatown two months ago. The men I work for like to know where their liabilities drink. I closed the file and told myself it was nothing."
"So you saw me and stamped it with 'nothing,'" I said.
"I told myself that," she said. "It helps you sleep when you name the wolves."
"How did you get from telling me to come to London to watching me on a CCTV printout," I said.
"I took a job," she said. "My mother got sick. The rent went up. The old ideals did not pay the pharmacy. You know how the story plays."
"I know how stories are told to make the teller feel clever," I said.
"I did not come here to be forgiven," she said. "I know your father would insist on a hearing. I do not want one."
"My father would ask for evidence," I said. "Royal Courts style. He would point at the burden and call it yours."
"The burden is mine," she said. "Evan knows you are in London. He asked about a bar in Soho. He asked about the man who owns it."
We both looked across the room. Silas stood at the till, one hand on a stack of notes, the silver signet ring catching the amber light. He felt the look, because he lifted his head, made a small gesture toward the back like the effortless wave of a conjurer.
"He has long arms," she said.
"Silas," I said. "Not Evan."
"I know who you mean," she said.
"How does Evan know about the Nest."
"The man who pays me hired a man who owes a man a favour," she said. "Names in a ledger. A chain you can pull until your arms go numb. Your bar sits on routes. People meet here. Some of them do not go home."
"I bring prawn chow mein to men who forget to look up from their desks," I said. "You make me sound like a keystone."
"Do not be naïve," she said. "You were never good at it."
"Say the bit you have not said," I said.
She looked down. Her nails were neat and pale and squared off like little documents. She put both hands flat on the table. The tremor in the left hand returned.
"The man who would not let me move," she said. "It was not a lover. It was a handler."
The room went quiet without moving. The jukebox at the back clicked as if it had swallowed a coin.
"MI5," I said.
"Not all acronyms carry weight ," she said. "It was a little unit that watched bigger units eat. They wanted Evan and the men he ran with. They used me, because I could get you to move."
"And you did," I said. "And then you left me at a coach station with a suitcase and a number that never picked up."
"I picked up, Rory," she said. "He was on the line. He listened. I bought your silence with mine."
"You could have told me," I said.
"He would have cut my life to ribbons," she said. "He could still do it. He does not need a warrant to destroy a person. He needs a phone and a helpful clerk."
"And now you sit in my bar and talk like a witness," I said. "You do not get to be both."
"I cannot be anything else," she said. "Look, I can offer this much. Do not go back to your flat tonight. Do not walk alone. If Silas has a room you can use that does not have a window, use it."
"You heard what he is called," I said. "Spymaster. He is not famous for his curtains."
"The walls here keep stories," she said. "Yours would be safe for one night."
"Why come now," I said. "Why not write a letter. Why risk being seen." I let the last word sit there. It was a lit match. She watched it burn.
"He told someone to follow you," she said. "A boy on a scooter waiting outside the Golden Empress. A woman with a good coat who never chose a drink. They are not his only eyes. He wants to see if you will run to anyone. He wants to see who catches you."
"So do not catch me," I said.
"Too late," she said. "I already reached."
"How did you even know I was here," I said.
"Old habit," she said. "I turned a corner and walked into the past. I hate London for that."
"London returns your things when you stop wanting them," I said.
She reached for the water when it arrived and did not drink. She touched the rim with her finger. The tremor steadied. She did not look at Silas when he came to our table, because she knew what you do in rooms like this.
"Ladies," he said. "Is the whiskey wrong, or are we pretending to abstain so we can leave fast."
"I cannot drink until I leave," Eva said.
"An honest liar," Silas said. "You always knew where to find them, Rory."
"Eva used to know how to pick locks," I said. "Now she picks firms."
"Everyone improves," Silas said. He leaned on the back of the bench with his good leg angled just so, the bad one hidden in the shadow. The signet ring made a soft click against the wood. "We have company."
"Now," I said.
"Two in suits with a fold you do not buy on the high street," he said. "One by the door with a phone he does not intend to answer. They have not decided if they are thirsty."
"How did they find me this quick," Eva said. Her voice shrank, clipped down to its skeleton.
"You arrived like a flare," Silas said. "People see things. They tell me. I listen. You have a good coat and a bad conscience. It screams."
"I can leave," she said.
"No," I said.
"We go to the back," Silas said. "Walk like you own shares."
We slid out of the booth. The move returned me to the bar's body, the shoulder brushes, the heat of pints pulled, the faint citrus where the lime skins stacked. The floorboards gave back a low moan. On the walls, the old maps held routes my feet knew by instinct, grey rivers and pale roads with names like scars. A black and white photograph near the toilets showed a woman staring at a man who stared past her. I had always liked that one.
The bookshelf at the far end looked like a statement piece, mismatched spines that hid the hinge. Silas reached up and took down a battered green atlas with Wales in big letters. The shelf gave a small sigh and eased out. Cold air kissed my knuckles as the seam opened. He moved like it was practice, every step the same length, every breath the same size.
"How many times have you done this," Eva said.
"Enough that I can do it with a drink in my hand," he said.
We slipped into the narrow corridor. The wood smelled of dust and old glue. A low light showed a room at the end with a table and two chairs and a kettle that had seen worse years than ours. Photographs lined this corridor too, but these were private, faces without frames, corners curled. A man with blood on his shirt looking straight at the camera as if he had decided not to blink ever again. A child holding a paper crown. Prague, I thought, though I had never been.
"Rory," Silas said. "Tell me you did not invite this."
"She found me," I said.
"She always did," he said.
"I do not need an inquest," Eva said. "I need a door that locks."
"We lock from the inside," Silas said. "But nothing truly locks in this city."
He closed the shelf behind us. The green neon bled slightly through the crack like sea light. The low room swallowed our shapes. I felt the bar's hum through the boards. My heart tried to keep time.
"You are safe for a breath," he said.
"One breath," I said.
"Make it count," he said.
Eva stood in the centre of the room and lifted her hands as if about to show proof. The tremor had gone. She looked at the kettle as if it were a relic.
"I do not know if I came to warn you or to be seen doing it," she said. "Both things taste the same in my mouth."
"I will brew," Silas said. He moved to the corner where an old plug sat in an older socket. He made everything ordinary on purpose. It was a trick I recognised.
Something clicked on the other side of the shelf. Not the soft click of a mislaid coin. The wet, toothy sound of a key that should not fit finding a way to fit. The little hairs along my arms rose like the sea before a ferry passes.
"Visitors," Silas said. He did not look at the shelf. He took his hand off the kettle and let it hang, as if checking his wrist . The signet ring caught the low light. He curled that hand into a fist that would not show a shake even if it wanted to.
"You cannot be serious," Eva said. She moved a step back and met the table with her thighs. The old wood groaned.
"Shh," I said.
Breath held. The corridor murmured as if someone spoke into their sleeve. Then the shelf jerked hard. The hinge made a noise like a bone coming out of place. A strip of bright bar light knifed through, thin and white. I saw a sliver of a face in it, an eye that did not blink, a man in a suit whose tie had a pattern too tight to be chosen by himself. The wood split upward with a sound like a snapped oar.
"Now," Silas said.
We turned as the shelf blew inward and the hidden door stopped being a secret at all.