I, Spy? (Sophie Green Mysteries, No. 1) (Sophie Green Mystery)

away some of the crusted blood. It was just a few cuts on my elbow and lower arm, but they’d been stinging all day. I kept thinking longingly about that hot bath and wished Luke would go away so I could get some sleep.
    “You’re a menace,” Luke said, pouring out water for my chocolate and his coffee. I didn’t remember him asking if he could drink my coffee.
    It was good coffee, too.
    Even Tammy, the little traitor, was happily weaving around his ankles as if he was a great friend. So much for cats being good judges of character.
    “Just doing my job,” I said tiredly, dabbing Dettol on the cuts and trying not to let him see my eyes watering.
    “No, you were doing my job. Why didn’t you wait?”
    I stared at him. “You said to follow him! He had a gun. I wasn’t about to let him try to board with it.”
    “They’d have picked that up at Security.”
    “Not if he didn’t go through Security.”
    Luke shook his head. “Even the staff Validation Points have scanners. Nothing gets through. It’s tight. I’ve checked them all.”
    I sighed. Probably this wasn’t the best time to bring this up but…
    “There is a way,” I said.
    He stared at me. Great, now he thought I was a terrorist. It was just an idle thought I’d had once, in between ranting about bloody cyclists taking their bikes with them on holidays. So they don’t have bikes in France? Yeah, right.
    “When someone wants to travel with a bike, what do we do?”
    “Tag it and send it to Outsize,” Luke said promptly, like a proper newbie.
    “What if it’s unpackaged?”
    “We escort it to the undercroft. It gets scanned there.”
    “Yes, but only after it’s been down in the lift. With an agent. All alone.”
    He gave me a hard look. “What are you getting at?”
    I peeled the backing off a huge plaster. “Okay. You’re a terrorist or a counterfeiter or whatever, and you want to take a gun through undetected. All you need is an airline uniform, a pass and a bike. Everyone knows the picture on your pass looks nothing like you. It’s like a passport photo. Did you search Brown?”
    Luke looked mulish. “He had a pass. Forged. Ryanair.”
    “Right,” I said. “And he was wearing a white shirt, yes? Lots of people don’t have full uniform. Security isn’t going to pull you up on that. All he had to do was get a bike, put his gun in a saddlebag or something and go through VP9 with it. He gets scanned, he’s clean. The bike goes through the gate to be scanned later. While he’s in the lift, he takes out the gun, puts it in his pocket, leaves the bike in the undercroft and wanders off airside.”
    I stirred my hot chocolate and looked up at Luke. He looked dumbstruck.
    Ha.
    “Jesus,” he said eventually.
    “I know.”
    “How do you know all this?”
    I shrugged. “Figured it out one day. I was bored, okay? It was even easier when we did the foot-and-mouth spraying. Even packaged bikes had to be taken down there. You could hide shedloads in one of those bike bags, then stash it under your coat, in the lift. Those Ace coats are bloody huge.” They were fat parkas, and I looked like the Michelin man in mine.
    Luke was still staring at me. “Shit,” he said. “So anyone could have taken anything through?”
    “If they were smart enough. If they knew how to work the system.”
    Luke shook his head. “Does anyone else know about this? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
    I raised my palms. “Didn’t think anyone’d ever try it. You’ve got to be clever to work it out and pretty dumb to try it.”
    “A common criminal combination,” Luke said. He pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his fingers into the corners of his eyes. “Can I use your bathroom?”
    “Sure.”
    Off he went, and I flumped down on the sofa. Tammy leapt up and settled on my lap. Apart from the grazes on my arm, I had bruises all over from being bashed about on the baggage belt. BAA had been really mad at me for that, but I pointed out that I’d been doing what no one else had done. I caught the criminal.
    I figured there’d be hearings and fines. I figured I might lose my job. I didn’t really care. I think I was in shock.
    Luke came back out, jiggling a small case in his hand. A contact lens case.
    I looked up at him. “You wear contacts?”
    He grinned. “Only for show.” He fluttered his eyelashes, and I realized in shock that his liquid brown eyes were now pale blue. And rather lovely.
    “Jesus,” I said.
    “I figured Luca would