The FF

On Rhapsodies

"So, Mr Shah. What makes you think you'd be at all useful here at MI6?"

"Well, I'm a genius."

". . . Would you care to prove that?"

"Everyone thinks I'm schizophrenic. So, naturally, ergo I must be a genius."

"That's not how it works-"

"I speak French!"

"A lot of people speak French. My six-year-old speaks French."
"Um, I-I also invented my own language."

"I'm sorry?"

"Khorosan: it's a mix of Russian, Latin, Japanese and Arabic. I invented it for swearing and to look exotic."

"No, I mean, why would I care if you have your own language? Unless a person or a people of interest use it to communicate valuable information, it's worthless."
"See, you say that but what would happen is that I teach it to them and then they'd use it to talk to me and tell me their secrets because I'm so charismatic."

The interviewer leaned back, took off her glasses and pinched her brow.

"Can you give me an example of you being charismatic?"

"Someone once gave me their lighter and I didn't even ask for it."

"..."

"Like, I didn't even look at them. I was at a party and was fumbling with my cigarette and the sheer gravity of my presence drew someone to me."

"..."

"Effortless."

The interviewer braced her hand and gave up and left the room. Ilyas was left sitting in his chair, ho-humming, staring out the window and overlooking the Sunday morning traffic. He paused, leant his gaze askew to better hear the murmur from behind the wall. Annoyed, bursts, aggravated by the futility, lack of faith: all good signs for a promising romantic comedy. Alas, love interests don't still have acne at twenty-nine.

She re-entered the room with definite look on her face of rising above it. Eyes lazily narrowed, lips pursed drawing in little air and shoulders just a touch tense. Conclusion: fed up and professionally hiding it. She scanned her table for a piece and paper and took her time to do it. Found, she looked up, looked and a lone smile popped on her mouth.

"Well, Mr Shah. Thank you for your time and for coming down. Someone will contact you within the next two weeks about what happens next. In the meantime, remember to be discrete. I'm required to remind you of the document you signed on beginning this process which I have here," she thumbed the paper, "and you know the rest." She leaned back and exhaled into her chair. "Thank you," she pointed out.

"Right, yeah, of course." Ilyas got up, grabbed the armrest as he hoisted himself, leaning off his dead leg blitzing in pins and needles. He heard the interviewer quietly scoff. The door got nearer as he haggled with his feet to get there. As he turned the handle, he paused. He held the handle an eighth way down and turned back. "Just out of interest," he began.

"Yes?" she boredly obliged.

"Was it you or your partner who suggested the affair?"

"Excuse me?"

"Just to ask. It's difficult to research successful affairs. You only hear about the failing ones and they're not worth any note. A fling, a few years. A fancy at doing something adventurous for once. Lazy, giddy, eager to be caught, show off. Hollow and laughably propped up. More work than a marriage they soon realise. I'm sorry, I don't mean to judge; I only ask to sate my own curiosity."

"I don- sor- how did you- what?"

"Ahh. So it was him then."

A moment to recollect and she resumed herself. "Mr Shah. Why don't you take a seat?" Ilyas did, sitting snugly and upright, cross-legged, leaning on the rest as he scratched his nails against his jawline. "Care to explain your-"
"Gladly. Your lack of indignance cinched it. You weren't offended, you were confused so you're not harbouring any guilt. Therefore the affair wasn't your idea. I can tell you're married by the faint untanned stripe on your ring finger, a tan you perhaps earned on holiday in Castille. Few parts of the Mediterranean left where it isn't indelicate for Her Majesty's Secret Servicemen, excuse me, Servicewomen to holiday. You still have a slight trill and bounce in your accent. As an operative, you pride yourself on blending in and so, naturally, you took on the garb of a native. Possibly to compensate for the lack of interest from company. Or was it lack of company? No: some burst capillaries around the eyes. You've over-rouged your cheeks but missed near your hairline. Of course you did, you were checking how red your eyes were. Binge-drinking for a week and then snap back to tee-totalling. What would make someone that rash? Probably knowing that your husband's decision to open up the marriage was a poor cover to spend more time with his mistress who you've suspected about but dismissed as a silly fling from last Christmas. Of course you think the idea's atrocious but you never really married him for him. Mid-thirties and needing a domestic life as advised, he'd do. Still, it'd be nice to have something other than work to go along with. But you couldn't find anyone. Old boyfriends would be too much of a hassle. They'd think it was something a bit more long-term. You don't know enough people for anyone to make it past the shortlist. There's an attractive shopkeeper near the bus-stop at the south entrance which you make a point of using to prevent anyone from thinking you're from Bethnal Green. But he's too naïve and surely a liability. So . . . how many? One one- night-stand and then, bored? But you're above boredom. Boredom's for self-indulgent invalids. So, back to work except now there's a niggling doubt. You've made the concession to not pry into your husband's love life out of, what, respect? Was this the most you were willing to play into the thing? Let him have his secret? But that's clearly balderdash. It's press week and anything can happen now. But above all, you do this for a living and that annoys you: an oblivious moron knowing something you don't."

She stayed staring at Ilyas, her mouth a finger's width open and eyes tensely reassessing him.

"You're completely wrong."

"Sorry, what?"

"None of that is true. I am having an affair, yes, but none of anything else you said was right."

"Wait, but- your finger, your body language, your burst capillaries!"

"I don't have burst capillaries from drinking; I have bad skin you arsehole!"

"Oh, um." He fidgeted with his cuff. "Well, this is embarrassing."

"Yeah, it should be." Neither of them said anything. "I think you should leave now."

"Right, yeah." He went to the door and turned the handle. As he opened it and left, nothing happened, and he went on down the hallway. He was expecting her to have one last sign-off, some cute dismissal saying, hey, maybe he should write bad detective fiction but perhaps the kind of people who work at MI6 don't think like that.

Bad detective fiction. Yeah. His life was bad detective fiction.

. . .

His life was bad detective fiction.

* * *

And so, like all true detectives, he stood out in the open rain walking down the Embankment, smoking cheap cigarettes, insouciantly watched the people go past him and hated the only place he could call home. His last case before he could retire: infiltrate the Pakistani government by himself and single-handedly take down the FF.