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

shook her head.
    “Hasn’t Luke told you the rule?”
    I narrowed my eyes. I had a feeling there were a lot of things Luke hadn’t told me.
    “One unit a day. Stops you from becoming a complete lightweight and means you can still get in a car and drive if you need to.” She poured some out and I was instantly seduced by the thick glug, glug from the bottle.
    Just one, then.
    “And you know how to spit-back, don't you?”
    “With a shot and a bottle of beer? Like in Coyote Ugly ?”
    She grinned and nodded. “Exactly.” She put her head on one side and looked at me. “I think we’ll make a secret agent of you yet, Sophie,” she said, and I wasn’t sure if I was flattered or insulted.
    She jumped up and ran into the immaculate dining room. “I almost forgot,” she said. “I have something for you. Went and raided Boots today.” She handed me a large carrier bag and I peeked cautiously inside.
    It was full of hair dyes. What was I expecting, that Boots the Chemist had opened up a hand gun section?
    “Great,” I said, trying and failing to sound enthusiastic. Maria reached out and fingered a wisp of hair that had fallen out from my scrunchie.
    “Is this real?”
    “No, it’s all a wig.”
    She rolled her eyes. “The colour. Are you a natural blonde?”
    Not since I was about twelve. “Mostly.”
    “But you can still dye it, right? It won’t go green or anything.”
    “No. I’ve dyed it before.” I picked out the bottles. Mostly they were shades of brown, a few reds thrown in for variety. No Sydney Bristow pinks or blues, then. Damn. “What’s this?” I lifted out a smaller box.
    “Coloured contacts. Very useful. If someone describes you as a green-eyed redhead and you turn up with blonde hair and blue eyes, you’ll walk straight by.”
    Clever. I made a mental note to keep some in my bag.
    Maria showed me how to use the contact lenses. It took hours, and I nearly blinded myself several times, but I still drove home with newly violet eyes. I could get used to having violet eyes. They were cool.
    My mobile rang as I walked in. “Why don’t you ever answer your house phone?” my mother wanted to know.
    “I was out.”
    “Hmm. Are you staying here tonight?”
    I looked down at the bag full of hair dye, at my slightly illegal stun gun (Maria said you needed a firearms license to carry one, so I’d better keep it hidden), my defence spray and my drawer full of kitchen knives, and told myself I was a highly dangerous secret agent. Tomorrow I was going to go out and enroll in a self-defence course.
    “Sure,” I said. “What’s for tea?”
     
    Everyone poured out glasses of wine at dinner. This was one of those things that was supposed to be all sophisticated, oh, we always have wine at the table, but it didn’t quite work when it was the coffee table. We eat breakfast at the kitchen table, but never all at the same time. We eat lunch and tea in front of the TV. We always have done. If we ate in the dining room, there’d be two problems. One, we’d have no TV to argue over, and two, my dad took the dining room over as his office about five years ago. The dining table is covered with files and printer cables now.
    I thought about the dead finger, which Alexa had told me she had got back so she could analyse it herself, and desperately wanted to pour out a lot of wine. But I’d had my one glass. I might have to leap in Ted and go screaming off to another crime scene at a moment’s notice.
    But that was kind of cool.
    My mother can drink for Britain, but she’s the self-denying sort when it comes to things like crisps and chocolate. So she’d bought a tub of Ben & Jerry’s for dessert and sat there smugly with an apple while we all tucked in.
    “Sure you don’t want some?” Chalker waved the pot under her nose. “Cookie dough, mmm…”
    My mother made a face. “Raw cookie dough? I can’t think of anything more disgusting.”
    But she never took her eyes off my spoon.
    My parents were happily bickering over football versus Jamie Oliver when my Nokia rang. Chalker gave me an envious glance, having no such excuse to escape, as I legged it and tried to figure out how to answer the damn thing.
    “Couldn’t find the ‘answer’ button?” came Luke’s voice when I eventually did.
    “Oh, piss off.”
    He laughed. “Thought you might like to know we have another suspect for you to come on to.”
    “Marvellous.”
    “Name of David Wright. Businessman with some rather dodgy