Trust No One Read Online Free PDF

Getting over a messy break-up, want a new start?’
    â€˜Something like that,’ she said. ‘Though I don’t know what business it is of yours, or why you’ve been snooping into my private life. Who the fuck are you?’
    This was more or less the legend that had been established for her. She’d split up with a partner down south, pretty acrimoniously, and was trying to start afresh up here.
    â€˜Never mind me, love. More to the point, who the fuck are you? Who is Marie fucking Donovan?’
    â€˜I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’
    â€˜Haven’t you, love? Where’ve you been for the last couple of days?’
    She hesitated, working through the implications of this. She’d been given no brief about how to play the American trip in relation to her supposed cover story. She hadn’t envisaged any overlap between the two. So the smart bastards were putting her on the spot. They’d set her up beautifully to trip over her own feet.
    â€˜What business is it of yours?’
    â€˜Just got back on the 7.05 arrival from Washington DC,’ the man said. ‘We watched you walk into the arrivals hall. Nice luggage.’ He made the last phrase sound mildly salacious.
    â€˜You’ve been fucking following me?’
    â€˜Question is,’ the man went on, ‘what were you doing taking time out, right in the middle of setting up this new business of yours? And why Washington?’
    â€˜Who the hell are you?’ she said. ‘The provisional wing of the local enterprise agency? What’s this all about?’
    â€˜Thing is,’ the man said, ‘we’re not sure you’re what you seem to be. We’re not sure your little story hangs together.’
    â€˜What little story?’
    â€˜This little tale of splitting up with your partner, making a clean break. All that bollocks.’
    She began to rise to her feet. ‘I don’t know what you want. But you can’t just keep me here.’
    â€˜We can do what we like, love, until we find out a bit more about you. We get nervous about people coming into our territory, you see.’
    â€˜Your territory?’ she said. ‘What is this? The Wild fucking West? I’m buying a printing franchise, for Christ’s sake.’
    â€˜So you say. It’s just that we’ve got an interest in that business of yours. It has a bit of history.’
    She felt a sudden unease. The print franchise was an established business, used by a previous officer operating in the same area. She’d queried whether this was good practice, whether there was any risk that her predecessor had been compromised. She’d been told that, on the contrary, it made life easier. Simpler to take over an established business than to build one from scratch. And, far from being compromised, her predecessor had credibility as a wheeler-dealer who could supply goods – vehicles, people, documents – that others couldn’t. He’d been withdrawn from the field only because he was suffering from health problems. A recently-diagnosed heart condition, she’d been told. She was beginning to understand why that might be a problem in this line of work.
    The story they’d put about was that he was taking early retirement, and that Marie was an associate in the same line of illegal business. That she was buying into more than just the print shop. All it needed was for her predecessor to effect a few introductions to the right people and she’d be off and running.
    Shit, she thought. Maybe this wasn’t an exercise after all. Maybe it was for real.
    If so, she couldn’t imagine that this was just their way of making the introductions, short-circuiting the usual social niceties by bundling her into the back of a sodding van. If this was for real, they’d already sussed out who she was. And that meant that she wasn’t likely to leave this place alive.
    Jesus,