Killing It

by Asia Mackay

  He made no move to get out of my way.

  ‘Such a beautiful home you have, it really is impressive. Love everything you’ve done with it. You must be so used to compliments about it, but it really is wonderful.’ I paused for breath. ‘So are the others back downstairs?’ I tried to peer behind him. The dressing room was quiet.

  His eyes ran slowly up and down my body. I couldn’t tell if he wanted to seduce or frisk me.

  ‘I’d better go, give you your privacy.’ I took a step towards him. He didn’t break eye contact as he moved back and crossed his arms. On his right hand the skin on his knuckles was broken. I stared at the Cartier wedding ring and wondered how often he had to wipe blood off it.

  ‘Panadol,’ he said as I passed him.

  I stopped and turned round. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I needed some Panadol. I have a headache.’

  ‘Oh, right. Hope you feel better.’

  ‘The ladies are downstairs.’

  ‘Okay, thank you.’ I turned and walked through the dressing room, feeling his eyes boring into my back.

  *

  Everyone was sitting back down on the sofas in the drawing room, except Dasha, who was standing in a corner of the room clutching a champagne glass so tightly her knuckles were white. She looked up as I walked in. I gave her a brief nod and her shoulders slackened.

  I sat down next to Will. He put an arm around me and handed me my glass. ‘I’d better check in with Beata.’ I reached for my handbag on the floor and pulled my phone out. Clicking on to my Geraint-modified Google Maps I saw a new blue dot on our exact location. The Rolex’s tracking device was up and running.

  As soon as Dimitri rejoined us, Dasha interrupted the somewhat strained small talk.

  ‘Excuse me, everyone.’ She paused until we were all quiet. ‘Dinner is served.’

  We were escorted through to an impressively laid dining table. Enormous floral arrangements were interspersed with tall solid silver candlesticks. We took our seats, aided by beautifully calligraphed place names. I looked around the room. In any social situation there can be an undercurrent of something else, an alternate dialogue, a secret whisper. And tonight was no different. Except rather than the inappropriate lingering looks between a man and someone else’s wife, instead of a bitchy whisper about the hollandaise being bought not made, there was a woman who wanted her husband dead, and a dinner guest who had been tasked with doing it. And all without arousing the suspicions of a foreign superpower wanting to take over the world with a weapon of mass intrusion.

  Thank goodness there was Tamara hissing that she couldn’t believe Dasha had copied her monogrammed linen napkins down to the exact font and Pantone colour, otherwise it wouldn’t have been a proper West London dinner party at all.

  Frankie and I were sitting on either side of Dimitri. Before I could even take a mouthful of the smoked salmon and caviar starter he was firing questions at me:

  ‘Where did you meet your husband?’

  ‘How long have you been together?’

  ‘Where did you meet my wife?’

  ‘How long have you known each other?’

  ‘What’s that writing on your necklace?’

  I hadn’t realised that over the course of his questioning I had been fingering my pendant. Will intervened from the other side of the table.

  ‘It was her push present. Although I always said it was a bit of a cheat as she didn’t actually push.’

  ‘I think what I went through still warranted a present, though?’ Will would be getting an elbow in the ribs for that later.

  ‘Of course, my darling. Absolutely.’ He grinned at me, as if he could read my mind.

  ‘Was it a difficult birth?’ asked Frankie. She took another glug of wine.

  ‘It was a shock. I didn’t expect it to hurt so much.’

  With all my years of training, and not to mention work out in the field, I believed I had a pretty good pain threshold. I’d been captured and, tortured three times. Once I was shot in the thigh and, in our makeshift tent in the middle of the Sahara, Jake had to get the bullet out with a heated spoon. I’d therefore considered childbirth a slightly irritating formality that needed to be undertaken before I got to meet my daughter. After all I had been through, pushing out a baby, a wholly natural act that women all over the world did every minute of every day, I thought would be, well . . . a bit easy.

  I was wrong. So fucking wrong. Each contraction released guttural barely human cries and a searing agony I had never felt before.

  ‘Lex isn’t great with pain are you, sweetheart?’ Will grinned. ‘She actually threatened the midwife with violence. Can you believe it? This delicate little flower screamed at the poor woman that she would rip her apart limb from limb unless she got some drugs.’

  I laughed, hoping it wasn’t unheard of for women to get a little aggressive when in the throes of labour.

  ‘Will does like to exaggerate. But she was very annoying.’ I bristled, remembering how the perky midwife’s fanny-side repertoire had only seemed to consist of ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘So Gigi was whipped out via the sunroof?’ asked Frankie.

  ‘Yes. She got herself into the wrong position.’ I took another mouthful of my starter.

  ‘Next time, you must use my doctor at the Portland. The man is an artist. Barely leaves a mark,’ said Tamara.

  I thought of the starting line Gigi had burst through upon her arrival. Of all the scars I had got over the years, all mementos of bravery, lucky escapes and war wounds for my country, this was the scar that would always mean the most. A permanent reminder of the life I brought into this world and so much more meaningful than reminders of the lives I took out.

  ‘So now I understand,’ intervened Dimitri. ‘This necklace you are wearing was your reward.’ His mouth curled. ‘For the hardship.’ He was mocking me. I gritted my teeth, remembering I was in polite company, and that now was not the time to end his life.

  ‘Yes. Exactly. The G on it is for Gigi.’

  ‘What’s on the other side?’ He had caught a glimpse of the engraving on the back. I turned it over so he could read it. ‘Mes filles sont mon monde. You’re French?’ He looked between Will and me.

  We caught each other’s eye and laughed.

  ‘No. Not at all. It’s well, it’s a bit funny really . . .’ I trailed off.

  Will continued for me. ‘We were in a café one morning, and this couple next to us started arguing. Even though they were so angry with each other because it was in French, to us it still sounded beautiful. So it’s kind of became our thing. Any big insult. Or any big compliment. We do it in French. Don’t we, ma chérie?’

  ‘You two are just too sweet for words,’ said Frankie. ‘But my French is awful. What does the engraving mean?’

  ‘My girls are my world,’ I said quietly.

  ‘And you really are, my beautiful.’ Will toasted me with his glass. ‘Mais vous ne pouvez pas faire cuire du tout . . . But you can’t cook for shit. See which sounds better?’

  We all laughed; even Dasha. Only Dimitri remained stony-faced. This bringing-your-husband-to-work thing was turning out quite nicely.

  My interrogation from Dimitri over with, we thankfully reverted to more talking as a table. We may have all been very different but being parents gave us common ground that brought us together in a way no other subject could.

  First of all, schools were debated. It was agreed that if a school wasn’t featured in the Tatler Schools Guide, it didn’t matter how well it did in the league tables, there was obviously something wrong with it.

  Next, sleepless nights got a lot of airtime. Tamara told us about sleep consultants who could sleep train your baby, or you could call them for pay-by-the-minute advice. They may have had the same extortionate rates as high-class hookers and dodgy phone lines but they were selling sleep rather than sex. Two lucrative industries; one for bored husbands and another for exhausted wives. I wondered if they did package deals for
couples where the women had got so used to outsourcing their duties to staff they wouldn’t see it as cheating, just as another inconvenient task ticked off the list.

  Then we moved on to the joys of dressing toddlers. Frankie was despairing about her son’s refusal to wear anything that didn’t have Spider-Man on.

  ‘Do you have any idea how difficult it is to try to dress a convulsing hysterical octopus? One day I’d love to see Prince George turn up for a photo call not perfectly dressed in Edwardian Sunday best but his Thomas the Tank Engine PJs and Kate shrugging her shoulders saying, “The little fucker insisted.” That right there would help people relate more to the monarchy.’

  The way Dimitri was staring at her, I couldn’t work out what offended him more, her language or how she was gulping the Château Lafite faster than the waiter could pour it.

  As we were all enjoying the most delectable pear tart I had ever eaten, the waiter stepped forward to fill up glasses, Dimitri caught his eye and shook his head. He stood up.

  ‘Apologies. I have a conference call to make. Good to see you all. No need to get up. Please, as you were.’ Dasha continued her conversation with Tamara’s husband, Ed, without openly acknowledging her husband’s departure, a slight clenching of her jaw the only outward sign she had noticed his early exit. Dimitri disappeared into the kitchen, no doubt to recover the rest of the wine to drink alone. As the door was swinging shut I saw him give the Labrador a good kick as it begged for leftovers.

  ‘Sorry for Dimitri.’ Dasha directed at this at Ed and Boris who were sitting either side of her. ‘He’s been having a bad day. His big property deal is taking longer than he hoped to come together and he just found out his beloved Lamborghini will be under repair for the next couple of weeks. He will have to make do with his Ferrari. This is what you call first-world problems? Yes?’ She looked over at me as Ed and Boris laughed. Great. All the prep we had done for the Lamborghini was now wasted and we had only a week to source and steal a limited edition Ferrari.

  With the host and the wine’s departure it was clear our presence was no longer expected. We were all fast to make our excuses and leave in a flurry of compliments and promises to do it again soon. As we were walking out I looked at the family portrait by the front door. I stared up at Dmitri’s likeness.

  He had proven to be a poor host; he’d made his daughter cry, cut off the wine supply, and assaulted his dog.

  I really was going to have no problem killing him.

  *

  ‘Dasha and Dimitri are a funny couple, aren’t they?’ was Will’s analysis as soon as we were in the safety of a (genuine) Uber and assessing the evening and the other guests.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They didn’t exchange a word all evening.’

  ‘I don’t think they’re very happy.’ Understatement was everything.

  ‘They’re not even playing for the same side.’

  I got exactly what he was saying. Will and me were a team; we prepared together, applying war paint and armour, ventured out into the field together and fought alongside each other. And now here we would get to do a post-action evaluation. Notice weaknesses that were exposed. Forms of attack that were successful. Areas where our defences needed to be higher. It was us against the world. Dasha and Dimitri were fighting tooth and nail on opposite sides and if it was evident to even Will who had just met them, her supposed friends must know more about it than they were letting on.

  Chapter Seventeen

  HALLOWEEN WAS ALWAYS A busy time of year at the Platform. The season’s traditions were used to finally clear through our interview backlog. With fancy dress and excessive alcohol intake expected, a line of masked Rats could walk the streets propping up unconscious ‘friends’ and no one would look twice. In addition, Big Man Bert, our resident little person Rat, was dispatched to the homes of unsuspecting targets who would open the door proffering candy to the small silent Batman on their doorstop. They got easily tricked and then badly treated.

  While other units were tasked with the Halloween offensive and responsible for very real screams in the night, Unicorn were focused on finalising the Pop plans. It was a whirlwind couple of days. Sandy had been called into Head Office for reasons he didn’t divulge but were undoubtedly related to him being shortlisted for Chief. I had to field constant calls from him demanding updates, as well as calls from Will asking why I was working so much, all as we frantically searched for a Ferrari identical to Dimitri’s. Yet somehow, I still managed to find the time to chuckle at photos of Gigi dressed as a pumpkin. It was good to remember the other side to Halloween; the one where the only danger in sweets were E-numbers and the biggest threat from small caped-crusaders skipping down the street was sugar-induced meltdowns.

  *

  ‘Are you absolutely certain Dimitri doesn’t suspect you?’ Sandy was back in the office and using our update briefing to grill me further on the dinner party.

  ‘I’m positive.’ I relayed the stand-off outside the bathroom. ‘If Dimitri had any doubts about me he would’ve made a move—’

  Jake cut me off. ‘And what if his move had been, you know, a seduction move?’ He smirked. ‘Would you’ve been as willing as you once were to lie back and think of England?’

  I winced at the memory. On my very first operation as a Rat in a joint briefing with a couple of the other units Sandy had assigned us our roles. Mine was to distract the target, swipe his phone and then safely return it to him after our Tech team had worked on it. The discussion that followed had led to some confusion over exactly what ‘distract’ meant. I’m still not sure if it was an enthusiasm to prove to my new colleagues I would do whatever it took to get the job done, or the Italian target’s razor-sharp cheekbones and piercing blue eyes staring out at me from the glossy Surveillance photos. But I had made a fast analysis and decided this was something I would have no problem doing. For my country. Another look at the photos had helped. Yet my bravado-filled response of, ‘Fifteen minutes? You aren’t giving a girl long to get things going,’ was met with a silence eventually broken by Sandy saying, ‘Lex, when I say “distract” I mean spill a drink, ask him about the weather. Not anything else.’ It was a credit to my colleagues’ professionalism that they had remained straight-faced. Well, all except one, who drawled, ‘I think for what you had in mind we’d need an 8.7, not a 7.2,’ before collapsing into laughter. And that was my first introduction to Jake.

  I ignored him and turned back to Sandy. ‘We all know that Dimitri is both ruthless and violent with a small army of security to undertake his every whim. If Dimitri thought I could be a threat we would know by now. I haven’t had anyone following me and Surveillance report Dasha is going about her usual routine. I’m positive Dimitri has written me off as “just a mother”.’

  ‘Let’s hope you’re right. I don’t need to remind you how important it is that this Pop doesn’t fail.’ Sandy drummed his fingers on the table. ‘How are we doing with the car?’

  I outlined the issue we’d been having. ‘Dimitri’s limited-edition orange Ferrari has custom-made grey leather seats with black piping. There are only seven like it in the world. It’s been difficult locating one, let alone working out how to steal it.’

  Sandy ran his tongue over his teeth making a loud sucking noise. I tried not to grimace at hearing him trying to remove some remnant of his breakfast. ‘Jake, how long will you have to fix the car once you’re in Dimitri’s garage?’

  ‘Thirteen minutes,’ said Jake. ‘His team do frequent security sweeps. I can fix the explosive in that time but embedding the needle is not easy. Just one tell-tale rip in that Italian leather will give us away. I need to have an identical pre-prepared seat to swap over.’

  Sandy stood up. ‘Well you all need to work a fuck of a lot harder at sourcing one then. The whole Pop is reliant on Dimitri’s Ferrari being fitted with a needle seat before Bonfire Night.’ He stared at me, ‘You have three days to rig that car, Lex. No screw-ups. No excuses.’


  *

  We resumed our search for the six other Ferraris with a renewed vigour. Although hacking Ferrari’s customer database had given us the owners’ details it was difficult tracking down the exact location of the cars. All of those who owned this very exclusive model of Ferrari had houses all over the world, and their toys would be shipped over to whichever country they were currently in, or driven across a border for a particularly good party.

  ‘There’s one in London right now!’ shouted Geraint, his fist punching the air.

  Jake moved over to Geraint’s desk, checked his computer screen and looked up at me.

  ‘Okay, so the good news is: there is one currently sitting in a garage in the East End.’

  ‘Thank fuck for that.’

  ‘The bad news is it’s owned by Ray Ray Campbell.’

  ‘Shit.’ Ray Ray was a bona fide East End gangster. A throwback from the good old days when people broke legs, shot off toes and asked questions later. All the Security Services knew of him. He was on every watchlist going. Thanks to his well-oiled drug-dealing enterprise he had so far managed to stay out of jail but we all knew that if anyone with any ties to that world turned up dead in his patch it was down to him. He had a killer temper and enough muscle to form his own army.

  And we needed to steal his favourite car.

  *

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Sandy threw on to his desk a pack of photos that captured various moments from our last few committee meetings. ‘I don’t see Dasha in any of these. What the fuck are you playing at?’ When he had called me into his office I had assumed it was for an update, not an ambush.

  I flicked through the photos. In one I had my head back, laughing, Gigi clutched in my arms, a large croissant on the plate in front of me. It was actually quite a nice photo.

  ‘Where did you get these? Who would waste time doing surveillance when I’m actually there?’ As soon as I asked the question out loud I knew the answer. Bennie. That little prick. ‘Sandy, these are bonfire committee meetings. Dasha usually leaves first and I leave ten minutes or so after. I can’t go racing out after her every week. Don’t you think that would look a little suspicious? And these are Dasha’s friends I’m spending time with; who better than to give me the inside track on Dasha and Dimitri?’