Killing It

by Asia Mackay

  ‘Well that’s disappointing. I was going to whip up a little . . .’ – a pause and a rustle – ‘beef bourguignon and dauphinoise potatoes.’ More rustling. ‘Or a Thai red chicken curry with fragrant rice.’

  ‘It will have to be another night, Masterchef.’

  As much as I now cherished having Will to come home to, it had been a big adjustment at first. I had to think of answers to the inevitable awkward questions, like why did I keep getting called in to the ‘office’ in the middle of the night? The explanation that a lot of the data we received was from all over the world and time sensitive was greeted with grumbles that I should get a pay rise. And how was it I was so accident-prone, he had wanted to know, when in the space of one week I had bruised ribs (someone got a lucky kick in) and a sprained wrist (a bad fall from a moving car). He’d laughed as he’d gently suggested that I should perhaps stop cycling in to work as I clearly wasn’t very good at it. Such concern was touching but also annoying. A few times after that I’d found myself wanting to shout at whoever I was fighting, ‘Not the face! Not the face!’ knowing that blows there were always the hardest to cover up.

  ‘At least you got the morning off, right? What did you and Gigi get up to?’ There was a crunch as he continued to eat his lunch.

  Truth? I used her as a prop to help me covertly make contact with a woman who, just like the shadowy Secret Service branch I work for, wants her husband dead. You know, just usual mum stuff.

  ‘We had a nice walk, stopped for a coffee, nothing too exciting.’ I looked up and saw the rest of Unicorn making their way out of the meeting room. ‘I’d better go.’

  ‘Okay, sweetheart. See you later. Love you.’

  ‘You too.’ I could never say the word ‘love’ out loud down here. In a place where the sun never shone and people screamed more than they laughed, hearing heartfelt sentiments was as incongruous as seeing a bright shiny rainbow streaking across the mottled grey walls.

  *

  I never thought I would be one of the Rats to try to stand with a foot in both worlds. To juggle the dark with the light.

  At first it had been easy. Will may have married me but he didn’t change me. I still had my secrets. I was still me. From single to spouse was no great journey. Wife to mother was the leap that took me out into the unknown. I was dominated, exhausted and overwhelmed. I couldn’t remember me anymore; it was now all about her.

  On my first trip back home to introduce my parents to their granddaughter, we all ate dinner in the kitchen that I grew up in. A living snapshot from my childhood: Beatrix Potter coaster incongruously stuck halfway up the wall just right of the sink to hide a chipped tile; multicoloured dishcloths hanging over the leather armchair in the corner. Everything looked the same. Except there was Gigi perched on top of the worn wooden table, asleep in her bouncy chair. Mum couldn’t sit still, she kept getting up and down, bringing condiments we didn’t need, filling up drinks that were already full. Will talked to Dad about his latest case while I looked over at the red Aga. Beneath it a ratty old dog bed with a black pug snoring on his back. When I lived in this house I would spend hours sitting on the floor leaning against the warmth of the oven, one hand on the head of a different snoring black pug. Planning my escape from my gilded life of normality.

  It was at this kitchen table, nearly twenty years ago, I had sat with a policeman, stirring a milky tea. At thirteen I didn’t drink tea but I hadn’t wanted to say no. It seemed tea was part of the whole ritual of making someone feel better.

  ‘So you and your friends saw everything?’

  ‘We heard shouting and saw a man being chased by two others. He ran straight past us, across the road and right into the car.’

  ‘And you were the first to reach the body?’

  I had understood, then. You die and you are just a body. An empty vessel. The body, when he was still a person, had gone flying up in the air upon impact, a strange mid-air dance, where arms flailed, and his bag’s contents came rising out in a long arc, until they all landed with a loud thud and a crunch on the tarmac. There was a pause and then the high-pitched screaming started. I heard my friends over my shoulder as I walked towards the crumpled man on the road. His limbs at right angles to each other. Blood pooling round the back of his head. A couple of wallets, a broken pearl necklace and a few smashed CD cases circled him. His eyes were shut, beads of sweat were still slowly rolling down his forehead. There was a slow gurgling noise that seemed to be coming out of his mouth. I had tilted my head and listened as his lungs, already full of blood, expelled his last breath.

  ‘I was the first there, along with the driver.’ The elderly man who had come out of the driver’s seat had taken one look and started retching by the side of the car.

  ‘It must have been very upsetting for you.’

  ‘Of course.’ I knew then it was best not to share that all I had thought as I stared down at the broken body was, ‘That’s what you get for being on the rob.’

  I had sat tracing the outline of the chipped corner of the kitchen table as the policeman continued to ask me questions. Inside I was buzzing. A dead man on the road was a different reality to the one I knew, where life was safe and all about schoolwork, fumbling boys and well-meaning adults.

  I looked at my beautiful sleeping daughter as I ran a finger along the bumpy ridge of the table corner. For these last few years, before she arrived, I had had a life where everything may have been darker but brighter for it. It was a rip-roaring technicolour ride of danger, close calls and big guns.

  But now here I was. Bouncing Gigi’s chair with one hand as I toyed with a forkful of shepherd’s pie with the other. Will and Dad had moved on to discussing the ups and downs of the stock exchange. Mum reached over and tapped my plate. ‘You really must finish all that. Your milk supply will suffer if you don’t eat.’

  I was firmly back in the beige.

  Stripped down of all that made me special, that made me different.

  That was more frightening than the danger that waited for me at work.

  After those three long days with my parents I’d sat in a playground listening to screeches of ‘You give that back, Archie! Sharing is caring!’ and ‘Isla, if you keep pushing you’re going in the naughty corner,’ interspersed with the crescendo of toddlers laughing and screaming.

  Real life. No colourful gloss or sheen to it. The paint on the climbing frame was chipped. The snot on the kids’ noses was crusted. Maclaren buggies were parked by the swings, sprinkled with crushed biscuit crumbs and smoothie stains – remnants of bribery to keep their passengers content. This was the frontline of parenthood.

  I checked my watch for the fourth time since I’d sat down and looked at my beautiful daughter. I would do anything in the world for her.

  Anything except do this every day.

  I needed the dark to appreciate the light.

  I’d confirmed the start date for my return to the Platform as soon as I’d got home.

  Chapter Six

  MEN WERE IRRITATINGLY WEAK. Last night Jake had left the Platform complaining he had a sore throat coming on. This morning he had called in to report he couldn’t get out of bed, let alone undertake a covert break-in.

  ‘They would hear my hacking cough miles away,’ was his pathetically husky response to my calls to Lemsip the fuck up and come help me.

  Over the years I had noticed my male colleagues seemed able to take all manner of physical pain in the line of duty but at the first sign of a sniffle acted like the world was ending. I often thought if our enemies wanted to decimate Eight’s resources, forget releasing anthrax through our air supply, just a big dose of flu would be enough to cripple our workforce. They would all head home with blocked sinuses, complaining that it hurt to swallow and how they were cold, so cold.

  In Jake’s absence, Robin would be in Unicorn’s van outside and on standby if I needed back-up. I was nervous. Sandy’s warning that I was being closely watched was all the more reason tonight had to g
o perfectly. It had a been over a year since I had been out on an op. Being not quite back to my fighting weight might simply be an expression for some, but for me it was really quite literal. The extra kilos were not going to help when ducking and diving from aggressive hostiles or leaping across rooftops in a fast escape.

  ‘You need to get approved for active duty.’ I looked up to see Sandy in the office doorway. ‘You know the drill.’

  ‘I’m busy prepping for a solo break-in tonight. Now’s not the time for a shrink appointment and a workout.’

  ‘Tyler, it’s non-negotiable. You’ve been out of Eight for a year. And you’ve had a bloody baby. You could have post-natal depression and the code to a room full of semi-automatic weapons. Or be so out of shape you collapse right in the middle of a getaway.’

  We stared at each other. I broke first.

  ‘Fine. I’m waiting on some Surveillance files so I might as well take a break.’

  *

  Doc’s office was at the end of a long network of corridors adjoining one of our main tunnels. His door was marked out from the rest by the large red light above it.

  It was off. Doc was alone. I knocked and opened the door. A small, slight man with tortoiseshell glasses was sitting at a sturdy old partner’s desk with an iPad in front of him. Unlike the rest of Platform Eight, Doc’s office was decorated. There was a large Persian rug on the floor and the room was lit by the soft glow of antique lamps. Beautiful landscapes in gilded frames were hung around the room. I had wasted a lot of time in our previous sessions wondering how he had managed to drill holes into the reinforced concrete walls.

  Behind his desk hung ornate blue velvet curtains. Sitting there in what felt like the study of a grand house, you could nearly believe drawing back the curtains would flood the room with light from a large, beautiful window, rather than revealing just an empty wall deep underground while the concerto softly playing on his stereo drowned out the rumbling of the tube trains.

  ‘Welcome back, Alexis.’ He didn’t get up from his leather armchair.

  ‘Thanks, Doc.’ We had never been offered his name. None of us knew anything about him or what his actual qualifications were. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t even a shrink. Just some low-level data analyst the Platform asked to play the part so it looked like they were ticking all the boxes. I always wondered what kind of qualified psychiatrist would create tests where to ‘pass’ we needed to be totally okay with killing people.

  ‘You’ve had a baby since we last saw each other.’

  ‘Yes. A little girl.’ I sank down on to the red sofa, its plumped up feather cushions enveloping me in a soft hug.

  ‘So.’ He leaned forward. ‘How have you found becoming a mother?’

  ‘Great,’ I said, in the perkiest voice I could muster.

  ‘You haven’t had any feelings that have concerned you?’

  ‘None at all.’

  I didn’t think telling him I loved my daughter so much that the idea of anyone trying to harm her made me want to tear them limb from limb would be the best way to start my mental assessment.

  Or that I had never felt more vulnerable knowing that if anyone ever wanted to hurt me all they had to do was hurt her and I would be done for.

  Nor did I want to share with him the dark days where I felt like I was looking down the barrel of a gun, a long tunnel of broken sleep, and days spent being completely responsible for the life of a human being and wanting to howl at the terrifying enormity of it all. The shock of knowing I was forever changed. Assassin to bodyguard. And on a mission that would only end with my last breath.

  ‘I’m glad to hear that.’ He leaned forward. ‘Did you ever doubt your ability to look after a new baby?’

  ‘I read a lot of books. They helped.’

  I was lying. They didn’t. I read so many and they all said different things. I thought back to those first few weeks when if Gigi cried I would be hovering over her cot thinking, Is she tricking me into cuddling her? And if I give in do I become her bitch? Or will leaving her to cry lead to lifelong trouble forming bonds with other people? But if I keep picking her up will she be horribly insecure as an adult unless she’s being showered with physical affection? Oh, God, could holding her too much make her a slut? Or is not holding her enough going to make her a slut as she’s going to try and make up for it later on? Maybe I could just rock her back to sleep? But then won’t that mean she won’t ever sleep unless being rocked? Surely someone must have invented a cot that automatically rocks? If not I can build my own. But then what if it malfunctions and it over-rocks and kills her and everyone says she died of shaken-baby syndrome and no one will believe it was my robotic rock cot? Oh, ‘rock cot’, that’s a good name. I should patent that. Maybe I could use a dummy? But don’t dummies delay their speech? Or ruin teeth? And aren’t they impossible to give up? But then don’t they help prevent cot death? So if I give her one she’s more likely to live but eventually be a monosyllabic teenager with braces who sometimes still needs a dummy? But then aren’t nearly all teenagers monosyllabic and with braces? Is that because they’re teenagers or because they all had dummies? Oh, God, maybe I can just feed her again? But then the whole routine will be off for the day. But then maybe I shouldn’t follow a routine and just feed her on demand? Didn’t one study show babies fed on demand were more intelligent? Or was that the routine-fed babies? Oh, wait, was it the ‘tried and failed to get into a routine’ ones that were the cleverest? But then if you try and fail, isn’t that the same as being fed on demand? Fuck. Can I google that with one hand while I’m holding her?

  I felt like I was tiptoeing through a minefield. One wrong move and everything would blow up. But all I said was, ‘I learnt to muddle through.’

  ‘That’s good.’ He nodded. ‘You’ve got an impressive record here at Eight,’ he said looking down at his iPad. ‘You’ve undertaken nearly as many missions abroad as you have on home turf. Venezuela, China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe . . . and that was just in your first few years.’ He swiped a finger across the screen. ‘And so many different adversaries . . . domestic terrorists, drug barons, paedophile rings. I see you got a commendation for that mission.’ He took his glasses off and looked up at me. ‘After such a busy ten years here you must’ve really enjoyed having so much time to relax at home.’

  ‘Relax at home? It was hardly bloody relaxing,’ I said sharply. ‘Work is a hell of a lot easier.’ Maybe the comfort of the sofa and the soothing tones of another concerto were taking effect. Perhaps the Platform had encoded a truth serum within each stanza.

  ‘That’s interesting. Considering work has a high chance of getting you killed.’ He leant back against his armchair.

  I needed to explain myself.

  ‘No one ever talks about the boredom of maternity leave. How difficult it can be.’

  I didn’t share with him how, at the beginning, each morning as Gigi and I stood on the doorstep waving Will off to work I would be suppressing the urge to cry, ‘Please don’t leave me.’

  Doc poured himself a glass of water from the large jug on his desk.

  ‘So tell me, what would you do all day?’

  ‘I did a lot of playing with her on her playmat.’ The truth being I would watch TV, or flick through online showbiz gossip and rage at the photos of perky D-listers ‘showing off their post-baby bodies’, while occasionally flinging toys at Gigi to chew.

  ‘We went shopping together.’ I stocked up on things I could easily buy online, but wanted an excuse to get out of the house.

  ‘And we went to baby classes together.’ In which I’d determined you could take any activity, stick the word ‘baby’ in front of it, charge twenty quid and besotted parents wouldn’t notice that their offspring’s dribbling on a maraca, being dunked in a swimming pool or having their limbs contorted into ‘downward dog’ was in no way anything like the actual advertised activity. When I had looked around the faces of the ecstatic other mothers enjoying magical bon
ding time I had felt horribly alone.

  As if he could read my mind his next question was, ‘Do you think other mothers felt the same as you? That maternity leave was hard work?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe not.’ I had worried that my lack of enthusiasm for the mundane side of parenting was just part of my whole not-normal psyche. The part that helped me find it okay to kill people also meant I didn’t cherish every second with my beloved daughter.

  Doc started typing into his iPad. He eventually looked up.

  ‘How are things with your husband? Tempers can fray with a new baby.’

  In those first couple of months there were days where I wanted to hug Will close. Together we had created the world’s most perfect baby and the three of us were now a family.

  Other days I wanted to punch him in the face.

  Or worse.

  Once a full bottle of expressed milk slipped out of my hand. Upon seeing it spill all over the place I’d collapsed to the floor sobbing. Will’s jovial, ‘There’s no use crying over spilt milk,’ had me mentally loading an automatic machine gun and spraying him with bullets.

  ‘We’re great.’

  I may have every now and then thought about killing the father of my child but I never actually did it. Which had to count for something. And now the hormone and exhaustion levels had settled down, so too had my inner rages.

  ‘And how do you feel about your daughter?’

  ‘She’s the best thing I’ve ever done. She’s changed my life for the better.’

  ‘So you love having a daughter but you hate being a mother?’

  ‘No. Actually, yes. But no.’ This was not going so well. ‘I just found maternity leave challenging.’ I had missed conversation. Using my brain. Combat. Sleep. My body. Scaring the shit out of people. Being more than just a milk machine.

  ‘So that’s why you came back to work. You didn’t like being at home?’