The Song of Orpheus
By Anne Spackman
Copyright 2014 by Anne Spackman
All rights reserved.
**Disclaimer: this is a suspense / espionage story that is entirely a work of fiction, and I have no knowledge of the MI5 other than research I did to compose this story.**
The song of Orpheus could charm even the wildest of beasts. But when Orpheus lost his wife Eurydice forever, he wept tears to the song of his lyre, and all of the forest cried with him.
* * * * *
He liked the dark days. The sky threatened a storm, and he walked outside into it.
He was not in the mood to have anyone stop him. His name was Fraser Phillips. He got into the car, and sped away from the house to London, which was a half an hour’s drive.
He hated the noise and pollution. He parked and got out of the car, and carefully made his way into the building.
“Morning,” said the receptionist cordially.
“Morning,” said Fraser in a clipped manner.
“I’ll just ask for the Director General,” said the receptionist. Fraser waited in the lobby, and began to pace a bit. The receptionist spoke to the Director General, then put down the phone.
“He’s expecting you now, Mr. Phillips.”
“Thank you.”
He noticed everything going in, and everything coming out, just in case.
* * * * *
Fraser waited in the car for an hour, watching the scene. Then he suddenly decided to intervene.
“She’s not taking your crap any more, you filthy bastard.” Said Fraser, and punched the young man in the face. Fraser then tripped the man, and began pummeling him. Fraser was well-trained at hand to hand.
“Oh my God!” said the young woman, whose boyfriend had shouted at her, slapped her, and hit her but a moment before, which he had been doing for about fifteen minutes on the London side street. She had had no idea that the two of them were being watched. But this stranger had leapt in and was making mincemeat of her boyfriend for what he had done to her.
Fraser got up after a second, and looked around to make sure no one was coming or looking their way. And there were people looking, and if the police were called, Fraser would be called in for questioning. He shouldn’t have intervened. Likely he’d been seen in the cameras, and though he had kept his face down, it meant there would have to be a cover-up.
He was MI5.
And he didn’t need any attention drawn to him.
He looked around and quickly darted back through the streets.
* * * * *
Fraser supposed it had happened because he was beginning to falter. Otherwise, he couldn’t understand why he had risked his cover that afternoon for a strange woman. Fraser was forty-six years old but looked much younger. He stayed fit.
It was getting harder psychologically to stay normal.
Fraser went home, on his guard as always. He learned everything he had to, information about all kinds of subjects, and he pushed his memory to its limits and never let go of anything if he didn’t have to. He despised apathy in general, or once had. He had learned so much about human nature, though, in the last twenty years. As a result, Fraser seldom made comments or revealed what he truly thought any more to anyone who was not MI5.
Fraser had access to all kinds of drugs that helped him to stay awake among other things, and he did, and it was killing him, he was sure. As an MI5, he was dedicated to the service of his country, the United Kingdom, and would do anything required of him. After many years of service, he knew he had done something unusual in rising to defend a defenseless woman that afternoon—and in broad daylight. In the modern world, with cameras everywhere. It was not the world it had been even twenty years ago.
Fraser had no doubt the beating would be covered up, but he had liked what he did, and he knew that wasn’t good.
Fraser ate very little, and stopped to do his regimen for the evening—push-ups, weights in the weight room, jogging for twenty minutes on the treadmill. He was thinking all the while—too much. His mind was never at rest.
He was nearing retirement, but he knew that this wouldn’t matter. He couldn’t really go back to civilian life. It was time for a trip North.
* * * * *
“Will you take a picture of me?” a young teenage girl asked him as he was standing in the car park of Eilean Donan Castle.
Fraser was stunned. “Yes,” he said, and took the small digital camera and snapped a photo of the girl with the castle behind her.
“Thank you,” said the girl with a sugary smile. He wasn’t sure if she was British. Immediately, he was alert.
She smiled and headed with the other tourists back to the tour bus.
He relaxed, only a bit, when the tour bus left. He looked around at the Scottish Highlands, and the emptiness of them, and was pleased. A stormy day. It might rain.
Fraser was back in civilian life once more. He had thought he would move to Edinburgh, but there were too many people in Edinburgh for his psyche to be comfortable there. He moved to Ft. William, and he knew they were watching him, and that he would be called into active duty if necessary.
Helena was walking across the road one afternoon when she turned around suddenly and ran into the man who was following her, though she didn’t know that he was following her, or so he thought. She wasn’t a natural blonde, but the color of her hair suited her face well.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, in a strange accent. He knew she was American.
“You are?”
“Who are you?” she said, her eyes narrowing.
“What?” Fraser was stunned that she was asking, not just accepting that this had been an accident.
“You were following me.”
“Could you help me up?” Fraser feigned weakness and innocence.
“You were following me.” She repeated. Now Fraser didn’t know what to do, so he made a quick decision. He couldn’t tell her why he was following her.
“Would you like to go out for lunch—to a pub,” his accent was flawless English. He wasn’t sure what her response would be. “You’re quite lovely,” he added.
“Well, I guess so,” she said. “At least then I can find out what you’re doing and why. But let’s keep it public.”
This behavior and answer surprised Fraser, and he was not easily surprised.
“All right—over there is a pub. Shall we?” and like the gentleman he was, he offered her his arm.
“Thanks, but I’ll just follow you,” she said.
* * * * *
Helena McIntyre took a sip of a drink and a bite of her meal and put down her knife and fork properly. He noticed that she had good table manners, and that she ate in the British manner. Fraser noticed everything.
“You’re American,” he said. They hadn’t spoken much.
“From Boston,” she said, nodding. He never entirely believed anyone, but accepted temporary facts and information.
Helena stopped and looked at him. “I am here on holiday for two weeks. I just needed to get away, and my father is from Scotland, so I came here. What I might want to know is why you were behind me—for some time.”
“Can’t a man find a woman attractive?”
She sipped her drink. “Perhaps that’s what it was. And perhaps not,” she added.
“You have a lovely mouth.” He said. He was acting, but starting to entertain the idea that it would be nice if he meant it, and this surprised him. He wasn’t a romantic. Never had been. This was merely a ploy. Did she suspect?
He looked intently at her. She was lovely enough, and was young—in her twenties most likely.
“I suppose I should thank you
, but I’ve heard that one before.”
“I suppose I’m not being that creative, then,” Fraser shrugged.
“So why are you here—in Ft. William? You’re English.”
“Yes. I have taken a house here. For my retirement.”
“You don’t look old enough to be retired already.” She remarked.
“No, but I am,” he said. Trusting her with information about his own life made him uneasy. “I retired early.” Was all he would say.
“Oh.”
“I will give you my number, and you can call it if you’d like.” Fraser said, giving her his real telephone number at the house. He was taking a chance, but had got the idea that to deceive her, he had to go on with the ruse of being a potential suitor. “I’ll meet you again, if you’d like—in public. Some other day.”
“All right.” She said. “I’m here for two months—sure, I’ll meet you. Let’s go somewhere.”
“This is a small town, not much we can do here.”
“If I trust you to drive me somewhere, then maybe we can go to Ullapool together sometime.”
He was shocked. “You hardly know me.”
“But I like you,” she said.
* * * * *
Ullapool was a small Scottish town further north on the seacoast. They drove in his car, and stopped at a pub for lunch. They reached a bed and breakfast by afternoon.
“Separate rooms, if you would, please,” said Fraser. He hadn’t explained why he was following Helena, but the current situation made spying on her far easier.
“That’s right,” said Helena. She was wearing a gorgeous blue sundress and shades. He realized he liked the sound of her voice.
“I like it up here.” She remarked briefly, looking at the portrait of a bird on the wall and leaning forward to examine the details. Her dress moved, and her leg was exposed more.
Fraser watched her lean forward, and started to feel stronger feelings toward her—he was definitely attracted to her.
“I’ll show you the rooms,” said the host.
* * * * *
They went out to listen to music and had several drinks that evening in a pub. They had gone on a walk by the beach, had taken pictures of an old crumbling castle that afternoon which was located near Ullapool, and were in general having a jolly good time when Helena, who was slightly inebriated, ruined it.
“Kiss me,” she said, with a little laugh.
He acted. He kissed her. And felt alert right away. Had someone seen them? He stopped caring about that suddenly when she laughed and kissed him again.
That night, there was no need for the separate rooms.
* * * * *
Helena looked beautiful in the morning. She stayed in Scotland for more than two months, in the end. Fraser felt as though his own actions had constituted a breach in decorum in some way—he had been spying on her, and though he believed she wasn’t dangerous, he knew he should not have gotten involved with her. By now it was well known to anyone spying on them that he had.
Helena was kissing him one minute and then dancing around the room in a nightie. He was watching her. He had never in all his years loved anyone before her. He loved her, and was enjoying every moment with her.
Fraser was wondering things he had never wondered, but she never knew, never suspected who he was really and what he did. Or so he assumed. It seemed she had accepted that he had been a London businessman dealing in antiquities and art. Well, he did know a lot about these things.
They made three years of memories, up there in the highlands and in Ft. William. Helena had briefly gone back to Boston to take care of her belongings in the United States, and had managed to have everything sold or shipped over to Scotland. In the end, Fraser was surprised that she had left her old life behind so easily, but she was in love with him. Or the outer persona he had let her believe he was.
They were married after a year, and Helena’s family came over to Scotland for the wedding. It was a simple ceremony. Fraser had actually been allowed to marry her—officially, by the MI5, though he had been obliged to confirm first of course that he was at liberty to do so. Because he was officially retired—mostly, anyway—it had been permitted. And there may have been another reason it was permitted. So that he didn’t blow his cover, as he had been spying on her on active duty for a while.
Helena loved to make him omelettes and bring them to him in bed, and watch him eat and sometimes dab his chin with a napkin when he missed because he was of course looking at her in her scanty nightie. She had been a photographer in Boston, and after they were married, she had set up shop in Ft. William, but she wasn’t doing so well making a decent living. She had savings from America, but Fraser had told her not to worry about finances. He would take care of her.
Helena wondered about Fraser’s past then, and Fraser was evasive as usual about it. He told her that he was a private person, and believed in living life in the present, not the past, but he consented at last to show her pictures of his childhood and years at The London School of Economics and Political Science. And he brought out an old album with a few black and white baby pictures, and separate pictures of his parents. Helena was satisfied by seeing them, and had his best baby picture framed and mounted on the wall.
* * * * *
Fraser loved Helena, really loved her. She was sweet, decent, wild at heart, and completely different than him in so many ways, but she was easy to live with. She let him live his own way, and just lived together with him, while she kept busy with her work. She could photograph scenery, animals, people—and with such uncanny timing, she had captured their uniqueness.
The day came one summer afternoon when he returned from a trip South to London and found her lying dead on the floor, because someone had struck her with a heavy object, and their house had been robbed. It had been in the last two days that it had happened.
In London, Fraser had been seen attending a charity event on the night Helena was killed. Fraser had flown home the next day to Glasgow and had driven home to discover his dead wife.
In the days after Helena’s funeral, Fraser was in a fury, at whoever had killed Helena, and he knew somehow that it hadn’t really been a robber. Moreover, it had been discovered that she had been pregnant when she was killed. Fraser was even more angry at this. MI5 was on the case, but the case wasn’t solved, or at least publically. Fraser got on the phone, knowing it was tapped.
“I need to know—was it one of us?”
Fraser nodded, as the response came.
* * * * *
Fraser felt a little like Orpheus must have done, with Helena gone out of his life. His grief went on for months. He would have begged Hades himself to have back the happiness he had known with Helena and to have only kept her safe that day. One day, Fraser took a trip to the Highlands alone, and thought very seriously about ending it all. But in the end, he realized Helena would not have wanted him to die with her.
Fraser decided to move back to London shortly after that.
He took Helena’s photography collection with him.
And, Helena’s death brought him out of retirement.
There was no telling why, but the MI5 knew.
The End.