Ava Glass thought she had made her first work friend. An American now living in London, she had just started her first job as a civil servant, working in counter-terrorism communications. She was waiting for security clearance when, one morning, about three weeks in, she got talking to a colleague in the kitchen. The woman was in her late 20s, and also new, she said. Glass showed her where the teaspoons were kept. A few days later, Glass ran into the woman again at her favourite cafe. “She was very curious about my background, my life, what my family did back in the US,” Glass recalls. “‘Your brother was in the military? How interesting!’ I just didn’t cotton on to it … Then she disappeared completely.”
Soon after, Glass learned that she had been granted her security clearance. But it was months until she realised the probable truth: that her “curious” colleague had in fact been Glass’s final background check. “She was my first spy.”
