Chapter Text
“This is my second drink.”
There’s an edge to Louisa’s voice as she motions with her head to the half-finished glass of coke-and-something in front of her. That she’s pissed off is reasonable enough.
“I’m really sorry,” Emma grovels as she shrugs off her coat and drapes it over the chair in front of Louisa. She sits down heavily on it with a sigh to match. “I got held up.”
“Taverner?” Louisa asks, to which Emma nods. “Take it she’s still punishing you after your big fuck up?”
Devon and Nick had borne the brunt of the ridicule from the other Dogs for failing to lock down Slough House the other month, but ultimate responsibility lies with her—which Taverner has had no intention of letting her forget. Worst of all, it’s really fucking annoying timing given Taverner’s ascension to First Desk has put her in an otherwise good mood—one that Emma is in no way benefitting from.
Irritated, she shoots Lousia a glare. “If it hadn’t been for your lot—”
“My lot?”
Her heart suddenly sinks a little. “Hang on, have you made up your mind? Have you quit?”
She’s a little caught off guard by how much it brings her down to think this might be a goodbye instead of just a catch up. The sort of nice, straightforward thing normal people do with normal friends. Which was where things, she’d hoped, had been heading with Louisa.
“Nah,” Louisa replies, to Emma’s immediate relief. “No… I’m still making up my mind, I suppose.”
“Sure, yeah,” Emma says, feeling a little stupid for jumping to conclusions. “You’ll be wanting a third?” she asks, nodding at the glass in front of Louisa.
“Oh yeah. Rum and coke, thanks.”
*
Emma’s on her second drink when she decides to broach the thing that’s been playing on her mind for weeks now. Although, it might be a little bit of an understatement to say it’s been playing on her mind when it’s been practically all she seems able to think about lately.
“What do you know about Ingrid Tearney?” she asks Louisa, aiming for cool and breezy and just about succeeding.
Louisa pulls a face. “Well, I ended up in Slough House when she was First Desk.”
Which Emma takes to mean Tearney was responsible for putting her there. She doesn’t know the story—she’d never ask and she’s not sure Louisa would even share if she did—but it must have been a pretty colossal mistake to put someone like Louisa away.
People over at the Park think about Slough House as a sort of purgatory for proper fuckups—the basketcases, the walking liabilities, the sort of people who should never have been recruited in the first place. The butts of countless jokes within the walls of the Park. But if they used Louisa as the poster child for Slough House it’d be far less of a joke and much more of a substantial threat—you can be smart, competent and relatively normal and still land yourself there. It’s something Emma thinks about regularly.
Louisa takes a drink and lounges back in her chair. “A couple of years ago she tried to have us all killed,” she adds, casual as anything.
“What?”
“Can’t really talk about it, but yeah. If you think Taverner is a stone cold, ruthless bitch then you should meet Tearney. She was a real piece of work.”
“Christ,” Emma mutters into her pint. She thinks Louisa’s assessment of Taverner is maybe a tad harsh, not that she has a whole lot in the way of evidence to refute it.
“Why are you asking, anyway?” Louisa asks and Emma takes a second to recall how she’d worded what to say next when she’d been practicing this conversation in her head on the way over.
“Obviously, this is between us—”
“Obviously.”
“—but we keep a log of who comes and goes at Taverner’s place,” Emma says. “And Tearney’s name has been coming up… a lot.”
“Right,” Louisa says, slowly, eyeing Emma a little suspiciously.
“She’ll arrive an hour or two after Taverner gets home after work,” Emma continues, “and then leaves maybe three, four hours later.”
“Old colleagues catching up?”
“Several times a week? Late at night?”
Emma waits a moment or two for Louisa to catch on and watches as her eyes widen when she does.
“Wait, do you seriously think—”
“I don’t know, I’m just putting it out there,” Emma says with a shrug. Of course, that’s exactly what she thinks. And it’d been something of a thrill when she’d first hit upon the idea that Diana Taverner might not be straight.
Which had been a chance discovery. She’d been dropping off a report to Taverner at her home late one evening—an inconvenience that’s meant to be part of her ongoing punishment, although the opportunity to sometimes see Taverner out of her work attire does undermine the point of the exercise somewhat. After she’d handed it over to Taverner on her doorstep—because she’s never invited beyond it—she’d been descending the steps back down to the street when a black Lexus pulled up to the kerb and a woman got out. Tall, handsome, dressed elegantly in a grey twill suit and black polo neck. As they passed each other, she’d briefly glanced at Emma, a hint of curiosity on her face.
When Emma was halfway down the street, she’d looked back over her shoulder to see the door to Taverner’s place open and the woman immediately disappear inside.
The next day, she couldn’t help herself. She pulled up the visitation logs on her laptop and soon found the name—Ingrid Tearney. Former First Desk, Ingrid Tearney.
“Jesus,” Louisa snorts. “Tearney and Taverner? No. No way.”
There’s silence for a moment as Emma gives Louisa time to sit with the idea.
The more Emma’s sat with it herself, the more irrational she’s felt. The hours she’s wasted combing the internet for anything she could find about Tearney in an attempt to piece together a picture of her. But information is frustratingly scant and there are only a handful of pictures, none particularly recent—unlike Whelan, Tearney must have ascribed to the more traditional view that the Service’s command should ideally neither be seen nor heard.
All Emma really knows for certain is that Tearney is a woman worthy of a whole lot of Taverner’s attention. And that knowledge has been churning away for weeks within the pit of her stomach, acidic and seemingly indigestible.
“There were rumours,” Louisa says eventually and immediately shakes her head. “Well, not exactly rumours—you know the makeup of the Park, full of public schoolboys deeply weird about women in power.”
Something Emma understands all too well. “Rumours about Taverner and Tearney?” she asks.
“Yeah, stuff about the tension between them not just being due to the fact that they fucking hated each other—which they definitely did, mind you. Like I said—not really rumours, more like the stuff of fantasy.”
“Yeah, sounds it,” Emma nods as she pushes down a thought that maybe she’s just as bad as the very men who make her skin crawl. “But if they hated each other so much then why are they spending so much time together now?”
“Fucked if I know,” Louisa shrugs and drains the rest of her drink. “Why are you so interested in who Diana Taverner is maybe fucking, anyway?”
As much as she likes Louisa and hopes there are more trips to the pub together in future, she can’t imagine a world in which she’d open up about that. Not to Louisa, not to anyone, really.
“I don’t know,” she shrugs, “maybe I just want to gossip and I don’t have anyone else to do that with?”
“Right,” Louisa appears to accept, “well if we’re gossiping I’ve got some stuff about Lamb and Catherine Standish that’ll make your toes curl. Gonna need another drink, though—same again?”
*~*~*
“Today’s briefing notes ma’am,” Josie says as she hands over the folder. “The updates you asked for from the Foreign Office regarding Belarus are at the top, and IT have flagged something in relation to your home address.”
Diana’s eyebrow arches. “My home address?”
“Yes ma’am, unusual access to visitation logs.”
Diana flicks through the pages until she finds the document from IT. Ever since the Park’s systems were crashed by the Libyans, IT’s been instructed to flag even the smallest of anomalies. She reads through it and, yes… rather unusual indeed.
“Thank you, Josie,” she dismisses as she scans over the document again, making absolutely sure she’s certain about what’s laid out in front of her. Which, of course, she is.
How very interesting, she thinks.
*
Getting called into First Desk’s office is enough to put the nerves of even the most senior members of the Service on edge, but having First Desk knock on your door is a different matter entirely.
Which Diana understands all too well, and it’s why she’s rapping the door to Emma Flyte’s shoebox of an office and barely bothering to wait for a response before she opens it.
“Ma’am,” Emma says, suitably surprised as she instantly shoots up from her seat.
“Do sit, please,” she commands with a wave of her hand and sits herself down opposite Emma, who she’s almost certain has just gulped.
It hasn’t escaped her notice, this past year, the way Emma’s so desperate to please.
But the thing is, Diana only really cares for results—she’s a lot less concerned with the process to get there. So all those extra hours she knows Emma puts in, her attempts to endear herself, the sheer effort she goes to each and every day doesn’t count for much at all in her books if the end result isn’t what she wants. And so far, Emma’s been rather disappointing when it comes to delivery.
But one thing she hadn’t accounted for—not until today—was that there might be another reason why Emma tries so very hard.
So, she’s decided to throw a small bone to see if, and how, it’s picked up.
“I’ll have that report over to you within the next hour, ma’am,” Emma blurts out before Diana has a chance to say anything.
“Oh, don’t worry about that, there’s no urgency there” Diana says. Emma’s brow creases slightly and only then does Diana remember earlier in the week, in a fit of irritation, demanding its prompt turnaround—a slightly unnecessary addition to Emma’s already overloaded pile of work.
She picks up a paperweight off Emma’s desk and tests the weight of it in her hand. “It’s a Friday evening, I imagine you have more interesting places to be than here.”
Her eyes flick up just in time to see Emma’s own widen.
“I, um, no—no, ma’am,” she practically stutters.
“Oh come now, an attractive woman like yourself… a bit of a waste, don’t you think?”
And there it is. The pink flush forming around Emma’s collar, the almost—but not quite—imperceptible hitch in her breath when the compliment registers. Her mouth opens to say something, but closes a moment after. If she’d whimpered, Diana wouldn’t have been all that surprised. She doesn’t know what to do with herself, poor thing.
Diana won’t push any further. Not tonight.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” she says as she gets up to leave. “Have a good weekend, Emma.”
A parting shot: she’s never addressed Emma by her first name before and it has exactly the intended effect. Emma chokes out a weak ma’am in response and Diana heads back to her own office, a smile on her face and a familiar high coursing through her body as an idea begins to take shape in her mind.
*~*~*
It’s been a long week and it's only Tuesday. Emma checks her watch—10pm on the dot—and rings the brass doorbell. She has in her hands the latest report ready to hand over as soon as Taverner’s door opens. When it does, her heart does an odd little jump the way it always does when she sees Taverner out of her work clothes. This time in a black cashmere jumper and ivory, straight-cut trousers. Simple and, as ever, elegant in a way Emma’s in mild awe of.
“Good evening, ma’am,” she says as she offers up the report. But Taverner ignores it and nudges open the door wider.
“Would you like to come in?” she asks.
It takes a moment for Emma to register the question. Maybe a little longer than she quite realises because Taverner begins to look slightly impatient.
“Well?”
“Okay,” she manages to say and it’s with a strange mix of trepidation and a flurry of something electric that she crosses the threshold and follows Taverner inside.
*
Taverner’s kitchen is almost clinical. All sharp edges and gleaming, pristine white. The various books and ornaments lining the shelves on the far wall do a lot of work to bring a human touch to the room and Emma, deeply curious about what secrets they might reveal, if any, tries to take it all in without being too obvious.
But, of course, nothing gets past Taverner.
“Are you a reader, Emma?” she asks, plucking a book off the shelf where Emma had just been looking. As she turns it over in her hands, inspecting it, Emma sees the words Vanity Fair emblazoned in gold down its spine. Reading is actually one of the few things she finds is able to still her mind in the evenings, but her taste isn’t quite so highbrow—her Kindle is packed full of schlocky thrillers and crime fiction.
“Not really, ma’am,” she lies, feeling like it’s the better option.
Taverner just nods, as if she expected the answer, and puts the book back on the shelf.
“Would you like a glass of wine?” she asks Emma.
Not being entirely sure whether she’s technically on the clock or not, maybe she shouldn’t. Then again, she’s not about to pass up the opportunity to share a drink with Taverner—or decline anything she might be offered, whether she actually wants it or not.
“Yes, thank you,” she says, which is met with a small, approving smile. It might be the first time she’s earned a smile that hasn’t been laced with derision and the sudden rush it gives her goes straight to her head.
Just as she’s pouring out a glass, the doorbell goes, a loud, shrill noise that startles Emma. Taverner, though, is unaffected and there’s a barely perceptible trace of a different kind of smile on her face as she hands Emma the glass, which has the effect of making Emma’s throat feel suddenly very tight. Why is it beginning to feel like she’s walked into some sort of trap?
“Excuse me a moment,” Taverner says, and swiftly exits the room.
Emma listens to the clack of heels as they move down the hall, the sound of the door opening and a short exchange of words she can’t make out. Without quite registering it, Emma gulps down half the contents of her glass.
A minute later, Taverner reappears, closely followed by none other than Ingrid Tearney and Emma can’t tell if the wave of nausea that immediately hits is because of her or the wine. Perhaps both.
“Oh,” says Tearney in mild surprise when she sees Emma. She glances over to Taverner and then back at Emma and to the glass of wine in her hands, her brow slightly furrowed. “Hello.”
Tearnery’s eyes then fix back on Taverner, her head tilts and her mouth forms an impish grin that makes Emma's stomach do a turn as she realises she really has absolutely no clue what she's got herself into. Shaking her head slightly, Tearney turns back to Emma, her smile twisting into something more congenial and stretches out a hand to shake, which Emma takes hold of with a firm grip.
“Ingrid Tearney.”
“Emma Flyte, ma’am.”
“Oh, please, I’m not ma’am to anyone these days. Call me Ingrid.”
Unless there’s a gun pointed to her head she absolutely won’t be doing that.
As they speak, Tearney unravels her scarf and hands it to Taverner, followed by a particularly beautiful houndstooth coat Emma can’t help but feel a little envious of. Underneath she’s wearing a slightly oversized shirt, crisp and almost impossibly white, which is tucked neatly into dark grey, wool trousers. Like Taverner, the understatedness of it all has the effect of projecting an elegance Emma could only dream of pulling off. She wouldn’t be surprised if Tearney’s outfit somehow cost more than her entire monthly paycheque.
When Taverner leaves to put away the scarf and coat, Tearney turns to Emma, her face impassive, and she takes her time to look her up and down with a meticulousness that makes Emma squirm. It’s easy to picture her as First Desk, subjecting countless before her to the same scrutiny, testing them, seeing if they’ll hold strong or disintegrate in front of her. Emma reminds herself she’s not standing here as her subordinate, and wills herself to find some sort of power in that.
“So, this is your Head Dog,” Tearney says appraisingly when Taverner re-enters the room, eyes still fixed on Emma, who’s trying her hardest to look unaffected.
Taverner nods. “For now.” When Emma’s head snaps round to where she’s standing, Taverner quickly adds, with a sly grin, “just a little joke, Emma.”
Another glass of wine gets poured out, which Taverner passes wordlessly to Tearney.
There’s a fluidity to the way the two of them move around each other and there’s no question in Emma’s mind that her assumptions about Tearney’s late-night visits here were absolutely on the right track.
“Cheers,” Tearney says as she slightly raises her glass in Emma’s direction. Both Emma and Diana raise their glasses in kind and they all take a drink.
“Treating us to the good stuff, Diana,” Tearney hums approvingly and the way she says Diana, the name all silk in her mouth, so intimate, has Emma quashing down a surge of jealousy. “What do you think, Emma?” she asks.
When it comes to wine, Emma couldn’t tell a Malbec from a Merlot and she can’t help but feel that Tearney, in all her obvious sophistication, knows exactly that. All she can do is nod in agreement and say, a little meekly, “yes, it’s very nice.”
“Good,” Taverner says, giving Emma yet another smile before she turns her attention to Tearney. “I actually invited Emma round to clear up a little work matter, I hope you don’t mind?”
“Please, go ahead,” Tearney replies, her voice tinged with amusement.
And it’s at this precise moment that Emma, whose stomach feels as if it’s about to drop clean out onto Taverner’s immaculate marble floor, knows for certain she’s been caught in some sort of web.