‘Why?’ Sonja asked.
‘Cycads are my favourite plants.’
‘You don’t say,’ Jed said.
‘I do.’
‘Well that’s a stroke of luck. I want something exotic,’ Sonja said, ‘out of the ordinary. I’ve heard some of them are quite rare.’
‘Endangered, even,’ Joanne said.
Sonja didn’t want to dive into asking Joanne Flack if she could source a cycad illegally for her. As it was, she felt she might have been too forward – she had worked undercover in the past, but it didn’t come naturally to her. She was more used to full-frontal assaults than sneaking about pretending, and she feared it showed.
‘Lunch is coming,’ Jed said.
The waiter brought their food and as they ate Jed steered the conversation away from plants and back to small talk.
When they’d finished eating, Jed asked Joanne if she was going
