Killing It

by Asia Mackay

  Praise for

  ‘I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT!!! It’s so new and different and refreshing and I found it such fun (also loved the feminist message)’

  MARIAN KEYES

  ‘A riotously fun read . . . James Bond should retire now: Lex Tyler shows him up for the tired, old has-been he is. With prose as sharp as her heroine’s (actual) killer heels, Asia Mackay puts the sass in assassin as it’s never been done before’

  L. S. HILTON

  ‘An annoyingly brilliant and funny first novel’

  HUGH GRANT

  ‘This might be the best fun I’ve ever had reading a book. Funny, observant and proper adrenaline inducing thrills, I now solely aspire to be even half the woman Lex Tyler is. A badass with a baby: every mother’s dream’

  GEORGIA TENNANT

  ‘Witty . . . fun . . . clever. BRILLIANT!’

  SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR

  ‘An urgently contemporary, kick-ass action heroine for our times. Lex Tyler is the ultimate female trail-blazer: as dextrous with a breast pump as she is with a gun. We’re so excited to be going on a thrilling action adventure with Lex, to cinematise her battle with returning to work, trying to take care of a young baby and, of course, trying to save the country . . .’

  RORY AITKEN

  ‘What new mother can’t relate to murder? This is the funny and thrilling story of how one woman does what all women do all the time – manage every single thing. Brilliant’

  ARABELLA WEIR

  Contents

  Part One: Weaning

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Part Two: Crawling

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue: Cruising

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  In Conversation with Asia Mackay

  Readers First Ad

  Copyright

  I PULL MY PISTOL OUT of my striped Cath Kidston nappy bag. A half-eaten rice cake is stuck to the barrel. Fabulous. Keeping my gun clean used to be not only a matter of pride but one of professionalism. And now here is my beautiful custom-made snub-nosed .38 suffering the indignity of having small snacks crushed on to it. Looking closer, I see that the formula container has leaked and powder is caught between the ridges on the handgrip. Nightmare to clean. At least if anyone looks too closely they’ll just assume it’s cocaine.

  I stare at myself in the mirror and take a deep breath. I always knew this was going to be tough. This was the life I chose when I came back to work. Plan a hit, stalk a target, pull the trigger and still make it home for bath time.

  When you become the elite of the elite, you really do believe you can do anything. But now here I am. Admiring my injuries in a Starbucks toilet, officially under investigation at work and very aware of the fact that someone wants me dead.

  ‘I’m sorry little one, I’m doing my best.’ I look down at the perfect, chubby-cheeked baby lying on the hard, plastic changing table. I still can’t believe she’s mine. Blissfully unaware of the morning’s drama, she is safe, and that’s all that matters. If I can survive the week, I have a chance. That is all I need. A few more days to work out who wants my name in the mud and my body in the ground.

  ‘Let’s get you all nice and clean.’ I reach into the bag and take out a nappy and wipes.

  I try to make sense of it all as I change her. The men today were nobodies. Toy soldiers blindly following the orders of an unknown general, doing his dirty work while he stays hidden in the shadows. To defeat him I have to unmask him.

  I stare down at my baby daughter and stroke her cheek. I’m grateful I got away with my life but I can’t help feeling a little insulted such low-calibre professionals were sent to do the job. Underestimated to the bitter end.

  The nappy changed, I pull her little tights back on and adjust her corduroy dress. She looks up at me, chewing on her fist. Big blue eyes watch as I check my gun again, load it and lock it back into place. I need to work fast. My need to stay alive is more than just a selfish desire to continue enjoying life. I have someone relying on me now. Someone whose life will be inextricably changed if I’m taken out of it.

  I lift up my shirt and look at the large purple bruise forming across my midriff. My enemies have got it wrong if they think that becoming a mother has made me weaker. I stare down at her as she holds my little finger. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for her. Climb mountains. Fight tigers. Track down and kill every single fucker trying to tear us apart. I will show them all.

  I look at my watch. Shit. But first I have to get to Monkey Music.

  Two months previously

  Part One

  Weaning

  wean1, v.

  Gerund or present participle: weaning.

  1. Accustom (an infant or other young animal) to food other than its mother’s milk.

  2. Accustom (someone) to managing without something which they have become dependent on.

  Chapter One

  ‘KILLER MAMA. MUMMY BOND.’

  I tried the words out loud. Today was my first day back at work after six months of maternity leave and while searching through the depths of my wardrobe I was trying to think of a name for my new dual status.

  ‘Assassa-Mum. Slayer Mother. Breastfeeding Bullet Bitch.’

  It was an attempt to distract myself from worries that undoubtedly struck every mother taking that first step back into the workplace. Is it too soon? How much am I going to miss her? Will she forgive me for leaving her? Is this the right thing to do?

  There were also a few, perhaps a little less usual, other concerns. Is baby brain going to affect my aim? How am I going to fare in combat when my boobs are so damn sore? Is the extra baby weight going to be an operational issue?

  Could ‘having it all’ really extend to mothers who were also highly trained assassins in covert branches of Her Majesty’s Secret Service?

  I had been looking forward to leaving babyville and heading back to the cold hard grind of my underground office. But now last-minute doubts were creeping in. Not helped by a call a few minutes ago from my boss, Sandy, telling me not to come to our headquarters but to go straight to Legoland, our name for MI6’s HQ, as we had an urgent meeting. Such a meeting would require a suit, which had languished at the back of my wardrobe for so long I was having trouble finding it.

  I flicked back through the hangers again. I caught a flash of white amid a sea of black. There it was. I pulled the shirt and suit out. Trousers with a waistband. My new nemesis.

  I squeezed into them and hurried into the kitchen. Beata, the nanny I selected so carefully, was busying herself at the sink. Gigi, my beautiful baby with round cheeks and soft brown hair that always seemed to naturally spike into a Mohawk, was sitting in her highchair at the head of the table, examining the food laid out in front of her. Blissfully oblivious that today would be the first
day of her short young life where I wouldn’t be there for her every waking moment. I took a deep breath, kissed the top of her head, shouted a goodbye to the hulk of Beata’s back as she was loading the dishwasher and rushed out the door for the tube station.

  *

  Packed into a full eastbound commuter train, I deeply missed the VIP status of Transport for London’s tacky ‘Baby on Board’ badge. I stood rammed up against the doors and looked around the carriage. It was all dark clothes and solemn faces. The only splash of bright colour came from a woman in a party dress with panda eyes and bed hair. She kept tugging down at the short frayed hem as suited men watched her over the top of their newspapers.

  I had forgotten how miserable the morning commute was. I pulled out my phone and clicked on my ‘GigiCam’ app. Up popped a live feed of Gigi, now indulging in a strawberry yoghurt facial. I stroked the screen. I missed her already. But having access to an arsenal of government-issue surveillance equipment was definitely helping.

  Thanks to motion-activated cameras hidden all over the house and the GPS tracker in the pram I could not only keep an eye on what Beata was pureeing for Gigi’s lunch, but track their movements all over Chiswick. I had also tasked Bryan in R & D to work on a prototype tiny camera that could be hidden inside Gigi’s amber teething necklace. He had been making good progress although he had warned it was unlikely the image quality would be the requested HD. To make up for this disappointment he had added a sound sensor notification to the app – if Gigi’s crying reached a certain decibel I would immediately get an alert to my phone allowing me to check the cause of her tears and assess Beata’s reaction to them. Hands-free parenting made easy.

  Gigi was currently staring transfixed at Beata, who was balancing a bright pink plastic cup on her head and wobbling around the kitchen with more grace than I expected from someone of her build. Gigi had thankfully taken to the no-nonsense mother-of-four immediately. My own confidence in Beata was undoubtedly helped by the office undertaking several exhaustive background checks, a month of surveillance and even arranging for a local agent to visit her small home town in Eastern Poland.

  The cup fell from Beata’s head and Gigi squealed with laughter.

  The worries I had quietened, the tight knot in my chest loosened. Gigi was being well looked after, I was getting back to work, this is what I always wanted. To have it all. And, one day, it would prove to my daughter that she could, too.

  But hopefully with a job that didn’t involve quite so much bloodshed.

  I looked around the carriage and saw nothing but glazed eyes and stifled yawns. Not me. I felt more awake than I had been since I entered the baby haze of sleep-deprivation. I felt ready. Fully prepared for my first day back. Excited, even. I could do this. I was an Assassa-Mum.

  I definitely needed to work more on the name.

  *

  The tube rattled on past graffitied walls, the morning sun brightening an otherwise grey streetscape, and I turned my mind to the meeting. Everyone who had heard the MI6 building at Vauxhall Cross referred to as ‘Legoland’ assumed it was down to its unusual art deco exterior. An easy mistake to make. But my colleagues and I called it Legoland because, to us, Six was a toytown. Little figurines were lined up and placed wherever they were wanted. They copied each other’s homework and called each other names. Building blocks of intelligence were painstakingly built up and then swiftly demolished. Legoland was a playground compared to the real world we lived in. They were still children, with clean hands and full deniability. We were the grown-ups who sullied our souls with the dirty work that was necessary to keep them safe. Yet parenting was a thankless task. They threw tantrums when we asked them to share, and would sit rocking with their hands over their ears when told Father Christmas did exist – just not anymore because we had put a bullet in his head.

  The train jerked to a stop. Then a crackle and the voice of the driver entered the carriage.

  ‘Apologies, ladies and gents. Signal failure up ahead. We’re being held here for a few minutes. We’ll be on our way shortly.’

  A few people sighed loudly and looked at their watches. The rest didn’t even look up from their reading material. I was the only one smiling.

  I wondered who my colleagues were interrogating.

  *

  In a fitting nod to the underground nature of our work, our offices were located in a disused network of rooms and tunnels coming off Platform Eight at Holborn tube station. It was a set-up that worked well for us as we could roam all over London, under the streets, away from the all-seeing CCTV and the inconvenience of traffic. The sound of the trains also helped disguise any troubling noises from our less cooperative interviewees. ‘Signal failure’ was often caused by over-enthusiastic interrogating shorting the electricity supply and affecting the whole underground grid. Whereas what would be reported as a ‘person on the tracks’ was actually a highly effective way of disposing of those who would rather die than answer our questions. This tactic worked well for us because ‘splatters’ were near impossible to do autopsies on.

  Not everyone appreciated the benefits of our location. Many years ago a disgruntled unit leader, fed up with the lack of natural light and the constant background rumbling of the trains, had complained that being stuck in such conditions made him feel no better than a sewer rat. He had not lasted long, but the name had and Rats were how we were referred to by those in the know.

  *

  As the train started up again I wondered which Rat had been leading the interview that caused our delay and whether they had got all the answers they wanted. Those who entered our underground interrogation room rarely left without relinquishing their secrets. Information on an impending terrorist attack, tips on which container needed to be intercepted at customs; everything spilled out before their guts did. Afterwards a Blackouttini, a Platform Eight special cocktail, ensured subjects woke up in hospital with memory blanks and injuries concurrent with whatever a helpful bystander was reported to have witnessed. ‘It was terrible – the car rammed him, reversed and then drove over his hand as it sped off . . . Yes, that would exactly explain why all the bones are crushed.’ Or in a particularly reticent subject’s case, ‘He fell from a second-storey balcony and landed in a puddle that must have been electrified.’ That one really should have ended up a splatter. Reportedly, interviewees never did regain their memory, although after-effects included an inability to ride the tube without sweating profusely and a screaming, hyperventilating need to be back above ground. But, then, didn’t most Londoners using public transport on a hot summer’s day exhibit those symptoms?

  At the next stop a new flood of people entered the carriage, pushing us all further into each other. While squashed up against some bearded man’s armpit, I looked down and noticed how much my shirt was straining to contain my chest. Great. In all the joy of managing to just about fit into my trousers, I had overlooked how my cheap polyester shirt was going to be no match for my breastfeeding-sized boobs.

  *

  Legoland. It was fitting that MI6’s home was a huge shiny building out in the open, pinned on Google Maps for all to find, while us Rats scurried around underground in offices with peeling walls and dank, crumbling corridors. A division that didn’t exist in a headquarters that didn’t exist.

  I headed through security and after pulling out my ID card signed myself in as an employee of GCDSB, which stood for Government Communication and Data Specialisation Branch. On paper we were a data consultancy firm whose services could be called upon by both MI5 and MI6, yet our longwinded official name was routinely ignored by those in the know in favour of the catchier Platform Eight, or just the Platform.

  We were one of our country’s essential security services. There was Five, Six and then us – Eight. The numbers that kept our country safe.

  I got into the thankfully empty lift and pressed the button for the third floor; we always used the same meeting room for our visits to Legoland – the corridor cameras were angled
so that anyone entering and leaving #0341 were never recorded. I had a look in the lift’s large mirror and tried to pull the shirt further across, which made things slightly better, as long as I didn’t try to breathe too much. I straightened up and reached to pull my ponytail out – at least my hair could help divert attention. Ping. Just moving my arm had been more strain than the shirt could take and off flew the top button. A seriously distracting amount of bra and cleavage was now visible to anyone looking my way. That combined with my ruffled hair gave me the look of a sexy secretary out of a clichéd porn film. All I needed to complete the look were the fake glasses.

  I was busy worrying about my reflection when the lift doors opened at the third floor.

  ‘Why, hello, Mummy.’ It was Jake. There he was in all his six-foot-four glory, wearing a dark suit, bright red tie and with his eyes firmly on my chest. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’ He studied me closely. ‘You look just the same. Except with bigger breasts.’ He smiled. ‘Isn’t this the longest we’ve been apart?’ He was clean-shaven and his dark hair effortlessly styled.

  I stepped out of the lift and pushed past him, catching the all-too-familiar smell of stale cigarettes, coffee and Hugo Boss.

  ‘Come on Jake. We’re going to be late.’ I put my hair back up and unfolded my jacket lapels to limit the exposure from my missing button. He followed behind me.

  ‘So we’re saving the tearful hug and how much you’ve missed me for after the meeting?’

  I ignored him as I opened the door to our meeting room.

  *

  My boss, Sandy White, stood alone next to the large conference table fiddling with his garish multicoloured tie. In all the years I had worked for him, each time I saw him in a suit I marvelled at how uncomfortable he made it look. He turned as we walked in.

  ‘Welcome back, Lex.’ He paused. ‘Now, please let’s all sit the fuck down.’ He clutched his right leg as he eased himself into his chair. A bad gunshot injury that had never healed properly had meant desk-work for the last decade. You could tell from his frame and the way he carried himself he used to be a hardened ball of muscle, but the forced sedentary lifestyle had taken its toll. He was losing the battle against middle-aged spread. The leg gave him a lot of pain and at first I’d tried to be a little more understanding about his moods and general dark demeanour until one of the other Rats told me he’d been just as miserable before he’d been shot.