One lunchtime, bored at work, I began the application process for MI5. It felt like a whirlwind romance, until an eerie and unexpected encounter
In 2010 I was 23, and had just moved to London from Manchester, where I had trained as a journalist. I had a dream job – a junior role on a magazine – but it turned out to be quite a miserable place. My manager was open about regretting having hired me and my confidence, which had never been high, plummeted. I was single, my friends were scattered all over the city, and I was renting a basement room with no windows that cost exactly half my monthly salary.
It was on one of these lonely days that a link popped up: MI5 was running a recruitment drive and it sent you to a verbal reasoning test that was part of the application process to become an intelligence officer – a spy, in other words.
