The House of Killers

by Samantha Lee Howe

  She’s natural today. No wig, just that luscious hair and a little make-up. It makes her appear very young and sweet. The perfect girl next door.

  ‘I take it you had no issues today?’ I say.

  ‘No one came to your place. So no one got killed,’ she says.

  I laugh. It is an amusing thought that someone might sneak into my home and Neva would dispatch them. I play out the scenario in my mind as though I’m watching a movie. I see Neva karate chop the intruder. I chuckle a little at the thought.

  Neva gives me a look and frowns a little, even as she takes a bite of food. I don’t explain how far the small joke went inside my head.

  After dinner, when the dishwasher is full, we go back into the living room with our newly replenished glasses.

  On Mrs Kendal’s coffee table is the autopsy report for Sharrick.

  ‘Did you look at this again?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, and I think I know where he disappeared to.’

  I look at her and wait.

  ‘They took him to the house. I’d say that’s where he died,’ she says.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The chafing on his hands. Sharrick went up on the trapeze. He’d probably not used it for years, but the old scarring confirms he once did,’ Neva says.

  ‘Trapeze? I don’t understand.’

  Then Neva explains about the rigorous training that all operatives go through.

  ‘If an escape calls for it, I could launch myself from one rooftop to another with a lot of confidence that I’ll reach the other side,’ she tells me.

  ‘It explains what he fell from,’ I say.

  Neva nods. She’s quiet, as though she’s imagining Sharrick on the trapeze, seeing him fall.

  ‘I wish I could find this place. We’d have a whole load of answers in one go,’ I say.

  Neva curls up on the sofa and I open my briefcase and return the report to its former place. Then I pull out the prospectus for Janice Brayford’s prep school.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asks.

  I hold it out to her, watching her expression as she takes it.

  ‘Do you recognise this place?’ I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Look inside; maybe something will spark a memory.’

  Neva opens the booklet. She studies the opening pages, examines the pictures of small children in uniform, and then she opens the page to the history section. She’s relaxed as she reads and then she turns the page again and is faced with the photograph of a young Janice Brayford. It’s an old black and white taken in front of an imposing building.

  Neva sits upright.

  ‘Look!’

  I join her on the sofa and she points to the photograph and the building behind Janice. All we can see are steps, going up to a grand double doorway.

  ‘I recognise this place,’ she says.

  On the opposite page is a more modern photograph of the woman. I identify it as the head teacher’s office at the school, even though the décor has changed since this photograph.

  ‘Oh my God,’ says Neva. ‘The house.’

  ‘What?’ I look at the picture. Janice was probably in her eighties at this point. ‘What am I looking at?’

  ‘Behind her.’

  Above Janice’s head is an old black and white picture taken at a distance of a sprawling mansion. At the front is a row of steps leading up to the big double front doors. The same steps that Janice looks very comfortable in front of in her youth.

  ‘This is the house. The one where they took me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I ask.

  ‘I spent twelve years of my life there,’ she says. ‘I’m positive.’

  I take the prospectus and read the story of Janice Brayford’s life once more, this time looking for information on the house. The only credit given to the black and white picture of her is ‘Janice as a trainee teacher in her early twenties’.

  I think we’ve just had a breakthrough, but I don’t say anything.

  The rest of the evening, Neva is quiet. She wades through the prospectus but whatever she gleans from it she doesn’t share.

  I tell her about my visit to the school that day. She listens, but says nothing. Eventually I ask her outright if she recognises the place.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t fit in with the memory I have of my school,’ she says. ‘It seemed much smaller somehow.’

  I don’t press her on it. She’s probably shocked that she has found some link to the house. Or perhaps seeing the building again is causing her some massive stress. It’s hard to tell because she shuts herself down as a defence mechanism.

  ‘Now we have a photograph, it should be easier to find this house,’ I tell her.

  She gazes into my eyes, her own quizzical and glinting in the candlelight.

  Then she stands, takes my hand, and leads me to the bedroom without a word.

  I let her. The time for coyness is gone.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  MICHAEL

  The next day, I return to the Janice Brayford Prep School unannounced. I ask to see Denton, but I’m told she’s called in sick.

  ‘I need to see her office,’ I say.

  The secretary is reluctant to take me in there without the head’s permission, but I threaten to get a warrant and the girl is so intimidated that she unlocks the door.

  Inside the room, I look at the pictures on the walls. Janice Brayford’s photo isn’t there, and neither is the picture Neva and I had seen behind the woman in the colour photograph. Now, in its place, is a simple landscape print.

  ‘Where did that picture go?’ I ask the secretary. When she looks at me blankly, I describe it to her. ‘It’s there in your prospectus.’

  I go and fetch one from the pile in the reception and show the girl the photograph.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t there when I started here. It’s always been the landscape.’

  I ask for Denton’s mobile number but the secretary refuses to give it. ‘I can’t!’ she says. ‘I’ll lose my job. That’s data protection!’

  ‘Then ring her and put me on the phone to her.’

  I follow the girl back to her office where she pulls out Denton’s mobile number and, hiding it from me, dials the number on the landline telephone on her desk.

  After a few rings it goes to voicemail. She leaves a message for her to call me, reading out my mobile number from the card I hold out to her.

  After that I leave the school and return to the office, but on the way, I buy two new phone handsets and sim cards for cash. One that I’ll give to Neva later and one that I’ll keep for myself just to communicate with her.

  When I get into the office, I find Ray and Leon are absent. Like me, they will be out doing their own investigations for whatever cases they are working on.

  In my inbox I find an email from Beth. She asks about the child disappearance case. I don’t know what to answer. Ray has given it to me now, but he didn’t ban me from discussing it with her. I reply with a noncommittal response about catching up with her when she’s back.

  Using this time alone, I go into Leon’s office. I’m not expecting to find anything in there, but I search his desk drawers and look inside his office diary. Nothing jumps out at me as being out of the ordinary.

  Getting into Ray’s office will be a different matter however. He always locks the door when none of us are in the office. Even so, I go down the corridor and try the handle. As predicted, it doesn’t budge, so I walk on past towards the coffee machine to give me an excuse for being down here.

  I bring back a drink to my office, open my briefcase, and take out the prospectus again. The picture stands out to me so much as an odd one for the old woman to have in her office. I look up Janice Brayford and discover she was ninety-one when she died. I search the name Jacqueline Brayford-Bell and other than finding a few photographs of her on her retirement, there is little to go on. I’ll have to get permission to search DVLA to see if the woman s
till holds a driving licence. New data protection laws mean that all of these searches need justifying, even for MI5.

  Later, I scan the image of the house in the prospectus and set up an online image search to see if the house can be recognised by our systems. There are always a lot of avenues to go down.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  NEVA

  After Michael leaves for work, Neva showers and dresses, and puts on a shoulder-length black wig.

  She smiles when she sees the two empty wine glasses in the living room as she briefly remembers the sex from the night before

  She can’t stay here all day today, despite her promise to guard Michael’s place from further invasion; she has a source to meet and her own investigations to continue. The picture of the house has haunted her thoughts. Memories merge with horrible scenes that form part of bizarre, disjointed fragments of her dreams. Now she’s awake, she tries to make sense of it all. A signpost saying ‘Manchester 17 miles’ is one thing she recalls, but she doesn’t remember ever going there until her recent stay – not even for an assignment.

  She realises now that this memory was always there. It’s why she subliminally chose Manchester as the place for her bolthole with Daz and Marie.

  Out of habit, she takes all of her belongings in the rucksack she brought with her and tucks a small pistol into a holster at the small of her back. She pulls a loose jacket over the ensemble. She looks like a rock-chick or goth, especially when she pulls on a sleeve that makes her arm look as though it has a large Celtic cross tattooed on it. In truth she has no tattoos, and no piercings – not even in her ears.

  She takes the rucksack and exits the flat, taking with her Michael’s spare keys.

  Outside, she heads to the tube station, avoiding any cameras along the way.

  Her source works at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, managing the Orchid display.

  It’s still early and the gardens are otherwise quiet. Neva walks over, holding a map, and the woman gives her a slightly impatient sideways glance that suggests she’s already sick of being asked directions.

  Her name is Sophia Birling. She’s worked at the gardens for years, but she’s also a hacker with a sideline in selling information she’s gleaned about huge corporations. She’s not smart enough to know what she’s actually stealing though, and this is why Neva has decided not only to converse with her online but also to meet Sophia in person. Neva’s interest in the woman was piqued when she casually mentioned she’d come across financial records for a company that has so far been off the radar. What alerted Neva to this was the mention of the company’s CEO: Mr M. A. Beech.

  Lily Devlin had said the order for her death had come from Mr Beech. Neva hadn’t really digested the name – not until the information came up for sale in Onionland – and then she’d remembered the conversation. Mr Beech. He’ll give the order for you too.

  Neva doesn’t think too deeply about why she hadn’t thought of the name since Devlin’s death. Key words and phrases often become obscure to her. It is, she thinks, a side-effect of the conditioning. Though she remembers more now than she ever did, Beech’s name had been taboo. She had forgotten it the instant she heard it. But not now. Now it’s beginning to make sense to her. And Beech himself is a figure somewhere in her past, though she’s yet to find that memory.

  ‘Act as though you’re giving me directions,’ Neva says.

  Sophia’s face registers a moment of shock and then she starts to gesture after the woman with the buggy, and then to another part of the gardens.

  ‘Good,’ says Neva. ‘Where’s the document?’

  Sophia looks around. Neva casts a glance too but she’s more circumspect than Sophia, whose lack of sophistication is obvious. How did this ridiculous woman come across this information?

  Sophia takes a folder in a plastic wallet out from under her blouse. She passes it to Neva.

  ‘What about my money?’ Sophia says.

  Neva looks at Sophia for a long moment. She’s taken a big risk meeting her, but she wouldn’t let her have the information remotely. Really, she should kill her for even getting this close. She weighs it up. If this was a Network job, she would have to silence the girl. But no, those days are over. Sophia isn’t working for, or against, the Network. Neva reasons that she is not important enough to come up on their radar. And even if she does, she couldn’t tell them anything about Neva other than what she looked like and the Network already knows that.

  ‘It’ll be transferred this afternoon if this doesn’t prove to be a red herring,’ Neva says, making her decision. Then she turns and walks away.

  She’s careful to make sure she hasn’t been seen as she leaves the gardens. She hails a taxi and then heads into Richmond. There she goes to an internet café and logs on and reviews the email servers and chatrooms she uses in the dark Web via a VPN she already has set up. Another source has sent her a file on Mr M. A. Beech and his company, along with a photograph of the man. Neva frowns at the picture, wondering if she’s seen him before. She can’t remember. He has white-blond hair, is in his late fifties, and dresses with a great deal of finesse. Some would call him a silver fox, though he’s really too young for that epithet. She googles him. The man is generally private and so she doesn’t find much about him online with the exception of his attendance at various charity functions with a different supermodel on his arm each time.

  She sends the information in an encrypted email to herself to access later. Then she logs off and leaves the café before any suspicions are aroused.

  In another taxi back to Michael’s flat, she removes the tattoo sleeve and puts on a jacket she takes from her rucksack. Then she looks inside the folder that Sophia gave her. Inside is the complete financial history of Beech’s company, along with an address.

  She decides she’s going to stake out the place a little before returning to Michael’s. She gives the driver instructions to take her to the nearest tube station instead.

  Then she stuffs the folder back into the plastic wallet and puts it into her rucksack.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  MICHAEL

  ‘I’m glad you’re here!’ says Ray as I enter my office.

  ‘What’s up?’ I ask.

  ‘There’ve been some more abductions,’ Leon says.

  ‘From schools?’

  ‘No, this time our perp took them from a variety of play areas. Simultaneously,’ Ray explains.

  I shouldn’t have had the second glass of wine at lunch, because I’m feeling a little woozy.

  A few hours earlier, Uncle Andrew called and said he was in town. I had slipped out for a long lunch. It’s not something I usually do, but it’s not often Andrew is in the area.

  I sit down at my desk, wondering how I allowed Andrew to tempt me with that second chardonnay during the working day. But I don’t suppose it matters.

  I shake the fugue off after a coffee and I wade through all the paperwork generated by the recent abductions. While I wait for more information and Ray’s instructions, it occurs to me that we don’t normally get pulled in to such cases so quickly. Usually there’s something else that makes a regular abduction come to our attention. But this isn’t ordinary, I can see that, and it’s linked, I’m sure, to everything else we’re working on, and especially to Neva.

  There are seven children missing. Four boys, three girls, and it’s obvious that this is connected to the previous abductions that Beth and I have been working on. What is the significance of seven, I wonder? Odd numbers are always conspicuous. I make a note to ask Neva about this and see if my words prompt some memory that may help us find the answers we seek.

  ‘Mike?’

  I look up and find Ray standing by the door.

  ‘You okay?’ he says.

  ‘Sorry, yes. I was thinking about this case.’

  ‘The local police are still collating evidence but we may need you and Leon to travel to the locations and find out what you can,’ Ray says. ‘Interview some of these
parents, or whoever was with the kids at the time.’

  ‘Of course. It’s connected. It has to be.’

  Ray nods. ‘I’m sure of that too.’

  He walks away and I return my attention to the information I’ve received so far.

  Like the others, the children are aged between five and seven. All from wealthy or middle-class families. One of the parents is a CEO of a conglomerate. There’s a footnote on this file; they are expecting a ransom note, but I doubt they will ever get one.

  The day finishes and I find myself still looking at my computer as silence descends on the building. It’s not that the place is particularly noisy during the day but there is a sudden absence of sound. A vacuum that becomes stillness. As though the air stops moving.

  I blink. I hear the security guard sweeping the rooms to make sure everything is locked up. My computer is still on, but it’s in privacy mode – an extra security that screens what I’m looking at even from colleagues. I shut it all down and stand. I’m stiff, and annoyed with myself for having fallen asleep. Neva must be wondering where I am and why I’ve not come home. Perhaps she’s even worried.

  I make sure my office and any private documents are locked up, then I take my briefcase and leave.

  It’s only when I’m halfway home that I realise I didn’t check up on the image search I’d started for the house using the picture scanned from the Brayford Prep School prospectus. It’s not like me to be so forgetful. I really shouldn’t drink at all during the day. I’m a total lightweight these days.

  I get back to the flat after 9pm and walk in to find Neva sitting by the door.

  She has a gun pointed straight at my head.

  Chapter Sixty

  NEVA

  Earlier that day

  Beech Corp is in central London, not far from Piccadilly. Neva takes the tube to Piccadilly Circus. It is risky being here, especially if Beech is involved with the Network. They may have operatives looking out for her, even though she shouldn’t know about him or his involvement.

  Across the road she pretends to window shop. From there she locates all the street cameras and takes note of the front door that leads into the building. Beech’s business is in an impressive white structure, and it takes up two floors above a popular store. It isn’t what she expected to find, because this company makes several billion a year. In many ways, it’s lost among the shops around Piccadilly Circus. The sign above the door doesn’t stand out, but what Neva does notice is the security guard just inside, and the camera covering the door.