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gesturing to the seats opposite.
    “I don’t want to...” began Lara.
    “Honestly, it’d be nice to talk about something other than last night’s football match. I’m Willow.”
    “Lara,” said Lara.
    “And the parental unit was a hippy, not a Buffy fan, before you ask.”
    “I wasn’t going to ask,” said Lara, smiling.
    “No one ever gets the chance,” said the tall boy. “It’s her opening conversational gambit. She thinks it makes her interesting.”
    “I’m sure she is interesting,” said Lara.
    “Thank you,” said Willow. “In fact, I am.”
    “I’m Ben,” said the boy who had spoken, “and that’s Josh, Elliot, Imran and Xander.”
    Lara couldn’t help but laugh.
    “I know,” said Xander, one of the boy-next-door types. “I promise you I was Xander long before I met Willow.”
    “It’s never not funny, though, is it?” said Imran, the other boy-next-door.
    “So, are you a student?” asked Ben.
    “Sometimes,” said Lara.
    “Ah,” said Ben, “post-grad. We’re undergrads. Teddy Hall. English, mostly.”
    “I’m a chemist,” said Josh, who looked like a jock.
    “History of Art,” said Willow.
    “And I’m off to the loo,” said Xander.
    “Oh,” said Lara.
    “That a problem?” asked Xander. His smile was slightly quizzical.
    Lara smiled back. She felt foolish. She’d just realised that she hadn’t taken a shot of the man she thought had been following her, and now Xander would have to pass him on his way to the loo. It was too soon. She couldn’t possibly ask him to sneak a picture of the bloke in the blazer.
    “Coincidence,” said Lara, brushing it off. “I just remembered something.”
    “I’ll be off then,” said Xander.
    As Xander returned, the train pulled in at Reading station.
    “Who’s going to do me a favour?” asked Lara, pulling her phone out and approaching the carriage doors.
    “What do you need?” asked Imran, who was sitting closest to her.
    “Just hold the doors so I can get back on the train,” said Lara. “I won’t be a tick.”
    “No problem,” said Imran, following her out of the carriage.
    “What’s going on?” Willow called after them. But Lara was already on the platform.
    The shot she got of Blazer Bloke wasn’t great, but at least the platform was on the same side of the train that he was sitting. She could always clean the image up using Photoshop if he really was following her and she needed to identify him at a later date.
    Only two passengers got on at Reading, so Lara only had a few seconds. It was all she needed. Imran watched from the doors, and Lara was back in the carriage moments later.
    “So?” asked Willow when they returned to their seats.
    “It’s all deeply mysterious, and she can’t talk about it,” said Imran, winking at Lara.
    Willow’s eyes widened.
    “Why?” she asked.
    Imran leaned closer to her in order to whisper.
    “Well,” he said, “you know the ‘recruitment’ programs ‘They’ have at Oxbridge? Lara here is being vetted, and she has to perform certain ‘tasks’ before she can qualify for full ‘status.’”
    “As a spy!” said Willow.
    Imran burst out laughing.
    “You are so gullible,” he said. “The cleverest woman I know, and you fall for that stuff all the time.”
    “I am clever,” said Willow, blushing. “And you’re mean.”
    “And Willow just might not be as gullible as you think,” said Lara. It was her turn to wink, and Willow’s blush deepened with pleasure as the expression was aimed at her.
    “Seriously, though?” the girl asked.
    “It’s actually really stupid,” said Lara, “childish. It’s a game I used to play with a friend of mine when we were at boarding school together. Sam’s in hospital at the moment, and I thought it’d be a bit of fun the next time I visited.”
    “What sort of game?” asked Imran.
    “When we were separated during holidays, we collected photos of certain things to bring back to school and compare. On the list