Only one person ever spoke to Estelle within that room when her eyes were covered. Just one man, who held and carried himself well by the tone of his deep, bold voice. Probably in his fifties, she’d always assumed, but fit, healthy, and very confident of himself. Cold and callous too. Just like her. But with the tiniest bit of warmth in his tone that showed a rare weakness on his behalf. It showed that he was possibly fond of Estelle.
His name was Nathan. Most likely not his real name. But she knew his voice well. This was the man who allocated Estelle her missions. The only man from her work who ever called her up when needed. Her point of contact when she had to speak to someone quick and fast on a mission if the shit hit the fan or she had to be relayed some new vital information.
“Excellent work in Egypt, Estelle. Really fine job!” Nathan said loud and proud like he was addressing the whole room rather than her.
“So, where to next, sir?”
“I love your keenness. Always so eager to get right onto the next job.” He casually remarked. She could sense a smile on his face. “Well, since you asked. Columbia, actually. You fly out on Saturday.”
Estelle gently nodded. Inside she was a little excited. She’d never been to Columbia before. Just Argentina and Brazil. She’d enjoyed her visits to South America a great deal. It was probably more to do with the climate and food more than the people and scenery.
Another reason she felt a little twinge of excitement was because Saturday was still over five days away, and throughout the entire journey from the airport she’d been mulling long and hard about secretly heading up to Glasgow for a few days just to do a little digging in some of her old haunts while keeping a very low profile. Just to see if there was anything else to discover about her sister’s strange death.
But of course, she had to wait and see where her employers were sending her next and if she’d have enough time to take a little unauthorized time out. She secretly wondered too if her employers knew about her sister’s bereavement. Would they even have told her if they did? Her better judgement told her that they probably did and would not.
“I’ll understand if you need to take a short break though. That couldn’t have been easy blowing up an aircraft full of holidaymakers and dispatching a whole family of civilians like that... A husband. A wife... A child.”
“I’m fine, sir. I want the Columbia mission.”
She could feel Nathan gently nodding, pleasantly impressed with her eagerness and dedication to keep on working. But she knew she was only saying such a thing to disguise the fact that she really did want a time out. She wanted to go to Glasgow the more she thought and pondered upon it. She began to believe that she at least owed it to her little sister to find out some part of the truth, no matter how small.
“Good. Diane will brief you on Columbia in one hour. Which means you can have Tuesday to Thursday off. And I will speak to you again on Friday before you fly out.”
“Thank you, sir.”
***
Estelle returned to her secluded countryside cottage home just after eleven pm that same evening. The black Audi with its silent driver quietly dropped her off without even saying a word of goodbye or she to the driver for that matter.
As Estelle walked up to the oakwood front door, she could see the dim glare from the living room lamp and could hear the faint sound of jazz music playing from within. She knew right way that John would still be up, waiting for her like a faithful big dog, most likely with some dinner ready to be heated up while he lounged on his favorite leather armchair sipping from a glass of red wine and surfing the net. More research, he’d say, for his next book.
Estelle opened the door and walked into the hallway. She took off her shoes and hung her jacket up on the coat rack. Already from the dark open hallway she could see John sitting in the armchair, reading a book while sipping a glass of red wine. No laptop and internet tonight. She’d almost been right. Yet he was so engrossed with his book that he hadn’t even heard Estelle enter the cottage.
“Hey.” Estelle called out as she walked slowly towards her husband.
“Hey, you.” John said, sitting upright and pleasantly surprised at the interruption. He placed his book down on the small table beside his chair. Estelle continued to walk slowly and almost seductively cat-like towards him.
“Dinner’s in the fridge. You want me to heat it up for you?”
Estelle softly shook her head before seating herself down right upon his lap.
“You want me to pour you some wine?”
Estelle shook her head once again as she curled up into her husband’s chest. She’d had a long hard day at the secret underground facility and along with everything that had happened and all she’d found out in those past twenty-four hours, more than anything, she just wanted a good old-fashioned cuddle.
John sensed this too. She’d come to him like this so many times before in the past and always straight after a long, hard day at the office, so all he really had to do was just hold her and nothing more. John wrapped his big arms around her slender lower back until he could feel her warm, firm body slowly melting into him.
“I know I’m not supposed to ask about work, but… is everything okay?”
Estelle gently nodded.
“They’re sending me to Columbia on Saturday.”
“...Okay. So, I guess we have you until Friday then?”
“I also have to go to Glasgow for a few days.”
“Glasgow? Jesus.”
John knew Glasgow was Estelle’s home town, where she was born and where she spent a large chunk of her childhood and teenage years. But she’d never told him anything else about her early life there, only that she’d been orphaned and adopted at a very young age. And then, when her stepparents had died in a car crash, she was sent back into the system, back into foster care where she was bounced around from home to home, never really staying in one place long enough to make any real human connections—and it was almost the truth.
John always had his doubts about Estelle’s backstory though, but had never ever questioned it.
“It’s just for a short business trip. I’m getting the train up there first thing tomorrow morning.”
John hesitated. He contemplated asking Estelle more questions. His desire to do so was burning deep inside. But he knew better of it. He’d learned his lessons the hard way in their early dating days. So instead, he simply nodded and held Estelle even tighter in his arms.
He knew he’d been punching well above his weight when the two of them had first met on that riverside bench on the embankment down by the river Thames eight years ago. She could be an absolute knock out on the rare occasions that she’d dressed to the nines for a night out together. So, he still had to pinch himself from time to time to understand why on earth she was with him.
Estelle was the one who had initiated the conversation that afternoon by asking him for a light for her cigarette. He’d had his suspicions about her at first. Even unattractive women had never chatted him up or made the first move on him before. Even when drunk or at a nightclub.
Over the years he’d felt that she’d even kind of selected him in a way as a safe bet to start a family with. And perhaps she probably had. She was so aloof and mysterious at the best of times that she was impossible to figure out. But when she’d turned up without question for a second, then third, and fourth date, he very quickly fell head-over-heels in love with her and adjusted with relative ease to her demands of never questioning her past or her line of work.
Their attributes suited each other. He was more passive and submissive in his mannerisms, where Estelle was the more active and dominant in their relationship. Always the decision maker, even though she hardly said a word at the best of times.
He also had no qualms about staying at home and raising their child while Estelle went back to work for her top-secret government agency. It suited him down to a T since he spent most of his time at home writing anyway. He was the perfect old-fashioned, stay-
at-home mother in that respect. While Estelle was the perfect old-fashioned father, working every god-forsaken hour to support her family.
In their early dating months, John even believed that Estelle might be some high-class international escort with the hours she worked and the weeks she just simply disappeared. But even if she was, he wouldn’t have cared one jot. He was absolutely smitten. Although, she was quick to reassure him that she was not a high-class hooker. But she could never ever talk about her line of work either and John respected her wishes, and always would, right until the bitter sweet end. Until death do they part.
“Well, at least I’ll have plenty of time to work on my new book then while you’re away.” John finally retorted as he took a gentle sip from his wine.
Chapter 5
The glare of the rising sun eased its way in through the bathroom window as Estelle showered in the early hours of Tuesday morning. She was used to getting by on only three or four hours of sleep a night and today was no exception. She was even tempted to go out for a quick early morning run just to get her blood pumping and not because she’d be sitting on a train for the next few hours, but because she was catching the first early bird morning express of the day up to Glasgow and she couldn’t be late. With such a short stay back in her old city of birth, she’d needed all the time she could get up there.
Another reason she avoided her morning run was that she wanted to dye her hair for the trip up to Glasgow. Back to blonde, her natural color, which she did in the shower. It was more for caution’s sake than anything else. CCTV cameras were everywhere these days and she had no intentions of being caught out. Especially by her employers. They’d been more than fair to her over the years but in the back of her mind she still didn’t entirely trust their reactions if they ever found out about her little field trip back to her city of birth.
Once her new hairdo dried and began to color, Estelle changed into a pair of casual jeans, trainers, t-shirt, and a hoody. It seemed like it was going to be pretty damn warm for the next week, even up in Glasgow. If the temperature did drop then she could always buy an extra layer of clothing out on the high streets.
John was still sleeping soundly when Estelle leaned over and gently kissed him goodbye upon his creased forehead. She knew he was a good writer and had an amazing world-building imagination. She realized too that she should make more of an effort to read at least some of his work. But the truth of the matter was she just wasn’t a fiction book-lover and absolutely loathed reading anything longer than a few pages unless it was something to do with work, like a background check on a new target or information regarding the city and country she’d soon be travelling to.
Deep down inside, Estelle always preferred watching and listening rather than reading and speaking. And people watching was at the very top of her list of passions.
Estelle stepped silently into Clara’s bedroom. She too was sleeping soundly. Her little angel of delight, Estelle always thought of her. Estelle stood beside her daughter’s bedroom doorway just watching her sleep for as long as she could. It calmed her immensely and helped her focus for the long day ahead.
***
Estelle sat in her economy class window seat with her hood up over her new blonde fringe and a pair of headphones in her ears as she gazed out of the window at the passing scenery, watching with serenity as the English countryside whizzed on by.
She wasn’t actually listening to anything through her headphones. She never did. They were just for show. Sneaky little props to disarm the people around her so that they might leave her in peace and quiet—especially men—when they saw a pretty young woman with her headphones in travelling all by herself.
It also left her free to eavesdrop on any nearby conversations. In her experience, most people usually let their guard down when they thought nobody else was listening or paying attention to what they were doing or saying.
The train was jam packed. There must have been a midweek rugby match going on up in Glasgow because to everyone’s annoyance and dismay, half a dozen seats down from Estelle, a very loud and boisterous group of rugby players were yakking and bantering loudly with their fellow team mates who were annoyingly scattered all over the carriage—far too lively and loud for such an early time of day.
One of the men had even tried to catch Estelle’s eye at the beginning of the journey from the opposite-facing aisle seat with a sly wink and a cheeky grin, but Estelle never gave him the time of day or the acknowledgement he so desperately craved in order to pursue his advances from the moment she sat down.
Estelle continued to zone out of the rowdy group’s antics as she continued to focus in a meditative-like state at all the passing fields, houses, towns, and cities. Soon she found herself drifting off into long forgotten and distant memories, gradually reminiscing about her hazy past and of course her sister again.
In no time at all, most of those repressed memories were all flooding back to her present-day state of mind and she found herself remembering some rare few adventures they’d both found themselves caught up in while skipping school and roaming down Argyle and Sauchiehall street on a weekday morning. Always on a keen lookout for the next trouble-making escapade to throw themselves into. Well, perhaps not Gayle, but definitely Estelle. She had always been addicted to trouble and chaos.
Estelle thought back to one particular time, when she was around fourteen and her sister must have been around nine. She was supposed to drop Gayle off at her local primary school that morning before making her way over to her own high school a few streets away. But she was in such a mischievous mood that she spontaneously decided, along with her best friend David, another fourteen-year-old misfit who was always game for truancy, to give her little sister a one-day crash course education of life on the streets.
At the time she strongly believed it would be the best thing for Gayle, rather than sitting in a dull, stuffy old classroom experiencing nothing but other people’s words, writings, robotic thoughts, and opinions.
Estelle was a natural born leader, but it was a gift that she never truly utilized during her youth. She wasn’t really into gangs or large groups. Most people annoyed the shit out of her, if she were entirely honest, and always seemed to have some kind of agenda behind their actions or pretentious cheery words of friendliness and compliments. To this day she still enjoyed the company of very few people in this world. And trusted even less.
She’d learnt quickly during her few short years on the streets that most people were always looking for something in return for their help, or a little favor here and there down the line for their friendship. Hardly anything came for free in her world, unless she strolled up and took it for herself.
So, Estelle preferred smaller groups, no more than two or three people at a time. And only people she could hand pick and vet herself, which was why she only ever hung out with David. His intentions or agendas were usually about pleasing her and making her happy, which was why he often did everything that she asked of him. Like some lovesick puppy dog. So, if she wasn’t out and about on the streets with him, then she was usually always out on the prowl alone, which she always much preferred.
David was her best friend growing up. They’d both enjoyed the thrill of shoplifting together. Which was how they’d actually met, since they both went to separate schools: him to a catholic school on the other side of the neighborhood and her to a protestant academy a stone’s throw away from her front door. Religion didn’t mean a thing to her. Sweet F.A., in fact. Never had. Never would.
One day they had both randomly decided to shoplift in the same quiet supermarket, oddly looking to steal the exact, same thing: a packet of Jaffa cake biscuits—something they both oddly had a strange addiction to. There was only one packet left on the entire shelf that quiet afternoon, which David had managed to get his grubby hands on first, just a few moments before Estelle appeared. So, Estelle did what Estelle did best: she stalked the thieving little shit outside. All the way down to the riverbank wher
e she returned the favor by stealing the biscuits from him. This she did by showing him her flick knife first and her intimidating grin second. After that, she couldn’t get rid of the little lovesick fool for love nor money. Even when she offered to share half the packet with him just to get him to go away. He continued to follow her around and ever since they’d been inseparable.
Of course, Estelle realized that David was in love with her, and secretly she had no objections using that little obvious fact against him pretty much every single minute they spent together. Not once though were his feelings ever returned. Estelle enjoyed David’s company mostly for his meek, easily-led manner. Anything that she suggested, no matter how crazy or fucked up, he would always say yes to just to impress her, but mainly just to follow her lead. Whether that was simply throwing stones down from motorway bridges trying to smash the windows of the passing cars’, extra bonus points for a police vehicle or ambulance, to running on train tracks and playing chicken with the next passing freight train.
On this particular day Estelle wanted to show her sister how to pick pocket and shop lift without getting caught. The first task out of the two had been the easiest to carry out. Estelle noticed a heavy-set traffic warden who wasn’t going to be running after anyone anytime soon. He was far too busy booking and arguing with a foul-mouthed driver that he’d just given a ticket to for parking in a disabled bay without a badge. So, it was a well-deserved ticket to say the least.
A sniggering Gayle and David eagerly watched from behind the comfort of another nearby parked car as Estelle snuck up behind the big, fat slob of a warden before easing out his wallet from his rear trouser pocket before doubling back to her waiting gang of young giddy offenders to share the spoils.
No more than twenty minutes later and they’d already targeted a small corner shop newsagent for their next crime spree. It was in the middle of a weekday afternoon, so it wouldn’t be particularly busy either. Easy pickings, Estelle boasted.
Cold Heart Page 6