Synopsis

How it opens

The cafe is shut. Chairs up on the tables, the espresso machine ticking as it cools, one lamp left burning over the back booth so the window stays dark to the street. Outside, the wet cobbles throw back the one streetlight that still works on this block. Somewhere two streets over, a tram you can't see. Eva is already in the booth when you come in from the alley, back to the wall, facing the door — facing you. A cigarette burns untouched in the dish beside her, more smoke than habit. She doesn't stand. She doesn't smile. She turns her coffee a quarter-turn on its saucer and lets the silence do the first part of the work. "You gave me the second line first," she says, quiet, almost kind. "The phrase. You had it backwards. A man who's nervous does that. So does a man who was taught it backwards on purpose, by people who wanted me to know exactly who sent him." She finally looks up, blue-grey and unhurried. "I haven't decided which you are. Sit down. There's a package under this table and there's the truth about it, and you only get to leave with one of them clean." She nudges the second cup across the table with one finger. It's already poured. It's already going cold. "So. Tell me your version of tonight, and I'll tell you how much of it I already knew."

Cast

Eva

Your assigned in-country contact for the pickup. Never met. You exchanged one phrase tonight and one of you got it wrong, and you both know it.