The House of Killers

by Samantha Lee Howe

  After dinner, Neva says goodnight to them all and goes back to her room.

  Once there, she opens her laptop and looks at the three of them on her surveillance cameras. They’re still in the kitchen, opening another bottle. She puts earphones in and listens to their idle conversation.

  ‘So,’ Daz says, ‘is she a dyke?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Anthony says. ‘I think she’s just socially awkward. Probably a bit on the spectrum.’

  ‘Well, you’d know,’ says Marie, ‘being a shrink and all.’

  ‘I’m a psychologist.’

  ‘Same thing. You mess with people’s minds.’

  Anthony shakes his head and laughs. ‘You’re incorrigible.’

  Neva listens to them for another hour. She doesn’t need television; people are entertaining when they don’t know they’re being overheard and Neva has been studying Marie and Daz now for six months. She may use Marie’s personality one day if she needs it. Her appearance would be easy to replicate, and her identity easy to clone. She wonders about Anthony. She thinks back to many conversations Marie and Daz have had. Anthony has been mentioned here and there; Neva knew there was a brother, even though this is the first time he’s visited. If he is a medical person, is he somehow a threat?

  She squashes down her mistrust. She is not complacent, hence the cameras all over the house, but she knows for now that she is safe. No one would ever think she was here, among these ordinary people. She is more off the radar now than she’s ever been.

  Out of habit she switches on her burner phone to check for messages. She sees a message from Michael’s phone asking her to meet him. She mulls this over. Then she types a reply.

  Why?

  He answers,

  We lost Sharrick. Need to pick your brains about where he could have disappeared to.

  Neva wonders if this is a trap. But no. She realises that she has been sitting too much on the sidelines since she moved in with Marie and Daz. Hiding, yes, she had to, but also avoiding what has to be done. She thinks about Michael again. Can she trust him? Really? After all, he’s in MI5 and she is a killer. It’s his job to put her behind bars for her crimes, no matter how much information she shares with him.

  Can I really trust you?

  The reply is immediate.

  Yes.

  So is hers.

  I’ll be in touch.

  Neva turns off the burner and stows it in her handbag. Perhaps now is the time to adopt Marie’s identity? Tomorrow she will return to London.

  Chapter Forty-One

  SHARRICK

  Sharrick has been allocated a single room in the personnel quarters. He drops his laptop bag down on the bed and looks round. There’s no outside window and it’s cramped but it has a small en suite bathroom which affords a modicum of privacy.

  He leaves his holdall at the foot of the bed and then goes out of the room, closing the door behind him. He pauses. He’s on the third-floor landing, another area he has not seen before. Olive told him he has full access. He can look around the facility to help him understand their processes. The thought terrifies him but he is also curious about the place.

  He mulls over his conversation with Doctor Mendez. The old man was formidable, despite his frailty, and Sharrick is disturbed by the contact they’ve had. Even so, he feels he’s learnt something that may help him find Neva. Mendez had confirmed a deviation in her conditioning that could allow her more mental freedom. It had been requested by Tracey, and Mendez had done it, not because she was his superior, but because he enjoyed experimenting. Neither he nor Tracey could have predicted the way Neva would go. Mendez, in a very lucid moment, had revealed his knowledge of Neva’s defection as well as what he knew of her.

  ‘We were experimenting with different methods then. Trying a few new things. She was an odd child. Different from the rest in that she was already quiet, as though she had been waiting during the first part of her life for us to find her. It was always her calling,’ Mendez told him.

  ‘Was she afraid of you?’ Sharrick had asked.

  ‘It was hard to tell. She didn’t cry after the first time, unlike some of the others. Just … accepted the hypnosis and didn’t fight when we injected her with the drugs. She came to the room. Lay down. Responded to whatever we did. I didn’t like her initially, but Tracey was adamant that she had potential. She didn’t show it at first, just this passivity, then when she came out of her shell, we all knew she was something very special indeed.’

  ‘What was special about her?’ Sharrick had asked.

  ‘She didn’t do anything how you expected. Like the knife. She loved wielding that thing, though it’s normal for the boys to be more into the up-close killing and girls frequently favour a gun. Tracey encouraged her. She wanted her to be brutal. I think she even encouraged enjoyment in death, but Neva never gave her the satisfaction of that. She always remained indifferent, barely even lost her breath during a fight. She never at any point showed any serious emotions. Because of that alone, we would never have thought her capable of running. She was the most controlled of them all.’

  The conversation with Mendez has left Sharrick drained. He is weakened by it, but he hides this from the doctor and from Olive when she returns for him. Even that is convenient, arriving as she does when Mendez has said all he wants to, as if Olive knows exactly when that is. Sharrick suspects the room is bugged, if not wired with cameras. He thinks the whole house is rigged with surveillance. He would make sure it was if he ran this facility.

  Now, he leaves the room and forces himself to walk down the stairs. He appears in control, as he draws in all of the resources he has at his disposal – the major benefit of his training. He can operate in any circumstance, and even though he gives assignments and no longer takes them, he will never forget how he must behave. Inconspicuous. This, after all, is just another role to play.

  On the second floor he glances into one of the small dormitories. This is the girls’ area, judging by the clothing that is hung up on the rail and the shoes that stand neatly under each bed. He has a flashback of his own time here. The terror of the first night… Whispered conversations with the other equally scared boys.

  ‘I want to go home, Benji…’ said a boy called Paul. He was taller than the others, but was still so young. Like himself.

  Was he the one they referred to as Benji?

  Sharrick finds he is standing still on the stairs. That feeling of terror he’d once experienced here now threatens to consume him.

  It’s just the conditioning, he tells himself. It’s only natural.

  He shakes off the feeling as if it’s nothing more than a minor phobia. Then he propels himself downwards.

  Reaching the ground floor, he decides to explore this level. He knows that the classrooms are here. He wants to see the students; he wants to see if they are all smiling like Elsbeth. For some reason, he hopes they are. He hopes that the old torturous methods are long gone. He doesn’t know where this empathy for the current batch comes from. He has no children, has never wanted them, and yet he doesn’t want to see any harmed. This, too, is at odds with his conditioning: anyone is a target if they are an enemy of the Network.

  In the hallway, he opens the door opposite the study and finds himself in another corridor. He walks down it, observing the closed doors on his left and right. Then a spark of memory makes him pause once more. Here. This door.

  He opens it without knocking and finds himself looking into the gym. A judo mat lies in the centre. Around the edges is a variety of exercise equipment: a trampoline; ropes hanging from the ceiling for students to climb up; a vault; a gymnastic beam.

  Sharrick remembers climbing up to the top of the rope in triumph and a first failed attempt at walking across the beam. Then he looks up and sees the trapeze high above. It isn’t enough for them to be strong, and tough, and to be able to fight. They have to be everything. Gymnasts of the highest standard. Mendez was right; Sharrick had excelled in this area.

/>   ‘One day, what you know about using a trapeze will save your life,’ his trainer had said. Then a terrified child, he was forced to climb to the top and throw himself off onto the net below. Later, there were no nets.

  ‘There are no nets in real life,’ his trainer had said, lowering it down before the students’ frightened eyes.

  That was the day Paul fell. He broke his spine. They took him away, crying in agony. He was nine years old; Sharrick was ten. They never saw Paul again, and by then, none of them would dare ask what had happened to him. But Sharrick had worked hard after that. He didn’t want to fall down onto the hard floor and end his career like Paul. So he became the best and, even now, he knew he could use that trapeze and fly across this high-ceilinged gym, catching the swing gracefully on the other side.

  He finds himself climbing up the stepladder. It was so much higher when he was a boy. Not so frightening now. Sharrick had taken on greater heights than this and survived them. At the top he sets the swing going, catches it on its return, then sends it back out across the room, harder and stronger this time. He catches it again. Then he leaps out with it. Strong hands hold the bar as he swings across the ceiling. His mind slips back into memory as he swings back and forth. Turning himself easily on the swing until he’s facing the platform again.

  ‘Swing to me, Benji! I’ll catch you!’ calls Paul.

  Sharrick, turns himself again and sees Paul waiting on the other platform, his hand holding the second swing.

  Paul pushes the swing towards him. They are in tandem; Sharrick knows how to flip from this one onto the other. His swing pulls back and Paul catches the other. He is laughing and smiling.

  ‘Coward!’ he says. ‘It’s so easy once you know how. Just let go and reach out, Benji!’

  Sharrick swings back; the other swing comes to meet him. Perfect. Harmonious.

  Sharrick lets go with one hand like a tentative child. He reaches out for the other swing but already it’s gone.

  His hand paws back at his own swing, gripping it.

  ‘Come on, you big baby,’ says Paul. ‘You have to let go with both hands and fly across to it. You know how it’s done.’

  Sharrick swings back into the middle and back again. Paul catches the other swing.

  ‘On three!’ he calls.

  Then Paul throws out the swing to meet him once more. Sharrick lets go.

  ‘Sharrick, no!’ There is a scream from below and then his hands are grasping, reaching for Paul’s swing, but the only thing that meets him is empty air. He falls. Falls down so fast, hitting the ground hard. His leg crunches under him. His collarbone shatters. Sharrick feels it all through a veil of confusion.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Olive says. ‘Get help!’

  Sharrick sees the boy, so like Paul, running towards the door, shouting ‘Medic! Accident!’

  Olive is over him now. ‘What were you doing?’ she asks.

  ‘Paul. I saw Paul.’

  Olive’s face is pale as she looks at him.

  ‘Who’s Paul?’

  ‘My friend. He was so good at trapeze.’

  ‘We don’t have friends,’ says Olive. ‘You shouldn’t have gone up there. The drug was just to make you pliable. Someone should have been watching over you!’

  ‘I climbed the ladder … Paul … he was waiting for me.’

  Olive looks up at the still moving swing, then back down at Sharrick. She sighs.

  ‘Mr Beech was wrong about you,’ she says. ‘You’re broken.’

  She reaches inside her jacket.

  Sharrick sees the gun a spilt second before Olive fires two shots into his head. Then he feels no more pain.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  MICHAEL

  ‘I like pizza,’ Neva says.

  ‘We’ve gone from opera to as basic as it gets,’ I say with a laugh.

  Neva smiles. There’s more humour in her eyes than usual. She is less cold, less distant. I wonder why. Maybe she’s finally trusting me. On this second meeting, I too am feeling more relaxed with her, though I’m aware that I should never really let my guard down.

  ‘It’s very public. I was able to observe if you were being followed,’ she says.

  ‘How?’ I ask.

  She shows me the screen of the phone she’s holding. She’s connected to the internal camera system of the pizza restaurant, as well as the cameras outside.

  ‘I would ask how again but I doubt you’ll tell me.’

  She gives me a lopsided grin. It’s very endearing. It also makes her appear far younger than she is.

  Her look today is very different from my idea of her real, sophisticated self. Mousy, shoulder-length hair, a cheap T-shirt under a grubby-looking denim jacket and a pair of jeans ripped through at the knees. She looks ordinary, slightly grungy. Not someone you’d notice in a crowd. The clothes are also slightly too big – as though she’s borrowed them, or recently lost weight, which I don’t think is the case.

  ‘Let’s get to the point,’ she says. ‘Sharrick wasn’t my handler long, and although I studied Tracey, knew most of her movements, I didn’t have time to do this with him. Tracey was easy for me anyway. She’d been with me since I was a child. She trusted me. The last thing she expected was that I’d stalk her. So, in answer to your query, before you ask it, I don’t know where Sharrick’s base is. If I did, I might well have gone there and interrogated him myself.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now anyway,’ I say. I look around the busy restaurant to make sure no one is observing us and that our conversation is not overheard. ‘Sharrick’s dead.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He was found in a flat over in Devon. We discovered that he’s lived there for the last five years under the name Damon Sharrick,’ I say.

  ‘What happened to him?’ Neva asks.

  ‘Well, it looks like a hit. Two shots in the head. That’s what finished him. But here’s the thing. He had a broken leg and his collarbone and arm were fractured. The coroner said he could only have sustained such injuries if he’d fallen from a great height. At least thirty feet. Not enough to kill him, but enough to damage him significantly. Then someone put the bullets in him and finished the job.’

  Neva shook her head. ‘Why? He was in with them. Rumour has it he was about to be promoted. It was why I chose him for you. He was about to enter the inner circle of the Network.’

  ‘And now he’s dead,’ I say.

  ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Neva says. ‘Who did you share my dossier about Sharrick with?’

  ‘No one. I shared my lead on Sharrick with two of my colleagues. But they can be trusted.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘With my life,’ I say.

  ‘I have to go,’ Neva says.

  ‘Don’t go. Come in with me. I can guarantee your safety.’

  ‘No, you can’t, Michael. Listen. This is really wrong. Sharrick … he was strong. He’d survived all this time. He wouldn’t have been retired without cause. Someone leaked the information that he was being watched,’ she says.

  ‘No. It’s not possible,’ I say.

  ‘Can you do one more thing?’ she says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Toxicology. On Sharrick’s body. Pull up the report. See if there were any substances in his system. If they were in doubt about him, they’d drug and question him.’

  ‘Okay. But I’m not expecting anything. I suspect he was thrown off something in an attempt to kill him. When that failed, he was shot. They retired him. It’s that simple. You said yourself they never let anyone go into old age. Sharrick was past his prime and no more use to them,’ I say.

  ‘So you think this was just bad luck? Our timing was off?’ Neva says.

  ‘Yes.’

  She frowns and shakes her head a little, as though she thinks I’m the naivest person she’s ever met.

  ‘We can’t meet again,’ Neva says.

  ‘You’re being paranoid. No one knows you’re my source,’ I say. ‘And I have no plan to reveal
it.’

  Neva stands. ‘Goodbye, Michael.’

  ‘Wait,’ I say. ‘Please. I’m sure I wasn’t followed and you made doubly sure. Let’s talk this through.’

  ‘Okay,’ she says relenting. ‘But … I need the bathroom. I’ll be right back.’

  She leaves and I watch her walk towards the ladies. Just then the waitress comes up and asks if we’re ready to order. I take my eyes away from Neva and look at the waitress.

  ‘A beer for me,’ I say. ‘The lady will decide when she returns.’

  I wait. It doesn’t take me long to realise that Neva is not coming back. I hoped she’d trust me, but given the information I’d shared, I couldn’t blame her for being suspicious.

  Despite her fears, I don’t believe there is a leak in Archive. I’ve worked with Beth, Ray, and Leon for a long time. There has never been any doubt of their intention to resolve the cases they work on. Even so, Neva’s words sow a seed of doubt in my mind. What if one of them was a mole for the Network? A double agent, even? I shake my head in subconscious denial. The waitress returns with the beer. I take a sip, then pay her, and stand up from the small cafeteria-style table. There’s no point staying here alone. Plus, I feel self-conscious that I’ll be remembered, especially since my date has ducked out on me.

  Outside, I look around. There is a man standing in a doorway opposite me, for example. He’s not looking at the pizza restaurant, but he looks suspicious, as though he’s averting his gaze too much. He is turned away, his body almost blocking the restaurant from view. Is it possible I have been followed?

  I cross the road and walk towards the guy.

  ‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Do you have the time?’

  The man looks at me and panic crosses his face.

  ‘Look, I’m just waiting for my wife!’ he says.

  ‘I only asked you for the time,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah. But … I know what that means … round here…’ stammers the man.

  ‘It means I left my watch at home.’