Oleander Soul

by James Arklie

  ​Ollie blinked in surprise, heard a pop in her head and then the dam burst and the violence of the release made her stagger. She reached for the support of a chair.

  She saw the grinning, blood smeared face and understood why her brain had blocked it. The brown eyes that burned, wild with blood lust. The knife raised towards her threatening. Ollie’s fear that she was next. A fear that had never left her. The eyes didn’t see Ollie, they saw blood and death.

  That’s when Saran turned back to Billy and stabbed him in the back as though it was some kind of game. Alesha stopped her, taking the knife from her tiny hand.

  Ollie straightened from the chair, feeling the anger in the clench of her jaw, the hands that were fists, wanting to kill. The pain of what had been done to her. Was still being done to her. The male stepped between them and pushed her backwards.

  Ollie pushed back against him, screaming at Jo. ‘I didn’t come in from school. I came from my bedroom. Dressing up. We were fucking dressing up. Playing Mum’s Motown. I let Saran wear my best yellow dress. To be Diana Ross.’ Ollie swore again. ‘What happened? She was only ten. We were a couple of innocent kids.’

  Jo ripped tape from around the box. ‘Saran wasn’t innocent. As to what happened, ask your mother, but trust me, Billy wasn’t all good.’

  ‘How is it I never knew you were Saran’s mother?’

  ‘I never met you before he got killed and kept well away afterwards. Then I met a guy and took his name, Johnson.’ She smiled. ‘It suited all this. Another layer of deception.’

  ‘How did you know it happened?’

  ‘Alesha called me. Panicking. Crazy. I went straight over and saw what Saran had been involved with. There was no way I was going let my daughter take the any of the blame for killing a womanising shit like Billy.’ She took a grey cylinder from the box, the size of her little finger. Placed it carefully on the table.

  ‘I took the knife from Saran, cleaned the handle and gave it to you to hold. Then I carefully wrapped it up and told Alesha that if she ever spoke a word against Saran the knife would find its way to the police.’ She pushed the polystyrene container to one side.

  ‘Then we got a suitcase, folded him into it. I made Saran put the dress in because it was covered with evidence against her. I used a trolley from the café and took the case to the basement. Simple really.’

  Ollie slumped into the chair. Saran. Her closest friend for years. Her only regular friend. Had she been watching Ollie just in case?

  Another thread twisted free as the waters of realisation flowed through the dam. ‘The hypnotherapy was your idea?’

  ‘See, all coming together now, but far too late.’ Jo stepped forward and looked into the confusion of Ollie’s face. She grabbed Ollie’s cheeks tightly in both hands.

  ‘But time to refocus. Death waits for no man.’

  Beside Ollie, the male let out short laugh, liking that. Jo held up the cylinder. ‘I have couple of very important things to tell you, Ollie. Listen closely if you want Lily and Alesha to live.’

  ​​​​ * * *

  16.15 – City of London

  Donna Small let herself out of the non-descript building, jogged the couple of hundred yards to where she’d parked her car and headed back to the station.

  She called Andy. ‘I’ve had enough of waiting around. I’m tempted to go and tell the Chinese myself.’ That’ll start a tasty diplomatic incident, she thought.

  ‘New information, Boss. That Cayman company owns two more properties in London. Also, remember the CCTV of Stockton Marston walking along a crowded Finchley High Street an hour before his death? Guess who was walking in the opposite direction?’

  ‘Saran Sherry or James?’

  ‘Not only that, they brush passed each other in the crowd and I reckon he palms her something.’

  Small decided she wasn’t going fast enough and put on her siren and blue light. She started weaving through the traffic. It lightened her mood.

  ‘What are we looking at here, Andy? Another suspect?’

  ‘Boss, this Saran James or Sherry can be linked to Anderson, Marston, she is the daughter of Joanna, now considered a terrorist and she owns a Cayman company that owns the apartment where Soul is living.’

  Small added the horn to the siren to clear a gaggle of tourists. Chinese. Oh, the irony.

  She heard Andy take a deep breath, knew something good was coming.

  ‘And here’s another, Boss. That DNA check from the coffee carton? We have a familial match for Saran to Soul and to Billy Jones. Same father, different mothers.’

  ‘And you told me I shouldn’t take the carton. I wonder if Soul knows she has a half-sister. Is Saran working for Soul? Or vice versa? Or just another member of the team? This just puts Soul deeper in it. I can’t see anything that gets her out.’

  ‘Maybe we have been looking in the right place, Boss, just not seeing the whole picture.’

  Small hit a blockage on Cannon Street, gave up trying to force her way through and turned off the siren and lights. ‘Get me the life history of this Saran James Sherry. And find out what she really does at Guy’s Hospital.’

  She tried George Sapphire to pass on the information, knowing it would add another nail to the coffin in which they were going to bury Soul.

  He didn’t answer because he’d just found out the real reason Sammy Cheong had been chosen as the target.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Jo handed Ollie the grey cylinder. It was heavy. ‘What the…?’

  ‘First thing. That’s lead. The vial is inside. It’s not a poison, it’s a virus that will spread a disease that will kill thousands, but we’re hoping millions.’

  Ollie felt the sickness rising to the top of her throat, ready to explode out. How can someone be so casual about death? She swallowed it down and accepted the voice of reality that had been fighting to be heard inside her all the time - she couldn’t do this. One man for the life of her daughter and mother…. maybe. But not millions.

  Jo was all determination. This was her time.

  ‘Second thing. Don’t think you can pretend to administer the virus, Ollie. The solution has been tagged with a radio-isotope. Iodine. We’ll be able to detect it just by being close to his body. So, no pretending or switching.’

  Jo was smiling. Ollie was crushed. Every loophole closed. Now she knew there was no chance of escape for her, for Lily, or for her mother. She couldn’t carry this out. Better to die. Make this the noble sacrifice that would balance the shitty things she’d done in the rest of her life. This is what I did, God, to redress the balance. Is it enough for three tickets into Heaven?

  Jo leaned towards her, a mobile in her hand. ‘And here’s a third thing.’

  Christ, thought Ollie, there’s more. And then she started crying. It was the utter helplessness as she watched Lily and her mother being roughly held and then both given an injection in their arms.

  Lily’s scream tore through Ollie’s soul. Alesha held her close, but there was a horrible acceptance in her eyes as if she was receiving some kind of retribution.

  Ollie swallowed and cuffed away the tears as she recognised the hands. The pink ring on the small finger. She twisted her own. Friends forever.

  Then it all came out; the futility overwhelmed her, she put her head between her knees and threw up. There was no point carrying on now if they were going to die anyway.

  Jo waited, threw her a towel. Laughed. ‘Mind that beautiful new dress.’

  ‘You bitch. I don’t understand…. I guess you’re mad, which is why you don’t understand, why you can’t comprehend what you’re doing.’

  ‘I know exactly. I’m a warrior, fighting to save our planet.’ She leant forward. ‘It’s you who doesn’t understand, Ollie. Do you know that scientists did an experiment…?

  ‘Conducted,’ said Ollie and spat again. ‘Scientists conduct, like conductors.’

  Why had she said that? A futile gesture to irritate Jo? She wiped her mouth and the sw
eat from her face.

  ‘Whatever, Ollie. They placed two Amoeba in a petri-dish and gave them all the nutrients and goodies they needed to breed and grow. And they did, Ollie. Filled the dish. Two became four, four to eight, eight to sixteen. Spread right to the lip of the dish until they were piling up on one another.’

  Ollie spat into the towel again. She knew where this was going.

  ‘And then they started dying. But still they tried to multiply. But they were killing their own species, drowning in their own excrement, poisoned by their own toxins, until they were all dead. Wiped themselves out.’

  Ollie wiped her mouth. Spat into the towel. Wiped again. ‘You want me to do this because of some Amoeba in a dish? This is bloody pointless. Stop it now. You must realise that a few million won’t make the slightest difference anyway. A few billion, maybe.’

  Jo was shaking with passion, her jaw muscles giving involuntarily movement to her mouth, her hands jumping like a junky’s with no fix.

  ‘You’re smart, Ollie. I know you’ve got the point. We have to do something dramatic. Create a catastrophe so deep, so harmful, so profound, that it will force the rest of the human race to leap to their own defence.’

  Ollie threw the towel onto the table. What could she say? ‘You’re crazy?’ That was obvious. But Jo hadn’t finished her rant.

  ‘What makes us do it, Ollie? Ignore the warnings. We are all like smokers. You put a big sign on the packet saying – ‘This will kill you’, and still they smoke it. It’s the same with our planet.’

  Ollie knew there was an absolute truth at the heart of Jo’s rant. It was black and white. But this wasn’t the way. She let her heart speak.

  ‘I won’t do it. End of.’

  Jo laughed, turned to the others who laughed back at Ollie’s naivity.

  ‘Fine and in that case what we do is let the virus take hold in Lily and your mother and then we put them on the streets of London. We’ll start the fight here instead.’

  She tapped the screen and pointed at a box Ollie’s mother was gripping tightly. ‘In there is an anti-serum. Give that to them within three hours and they’ll be ill but recover. The lock is controlled remotely. You administer the virus. By six pm we will be close enough to the target to know you’ve done it. The lock will be released.’

  Christ, thought Ollie, everything. They’ve thought of everything. They’ll have me dancing to the very end. Ollie used the edge of the table to drag herself to her feet, when a way out struck her.

  ‘Security. I’ve been told there’s security. I’ll never get this in there.’

  Jo laughed. ‘And you’re telling me you don’t know where to hide that little cylinder?’ She paused. ‘Give up the fight, Ollie. Go and do this. Save yourself. Save Lily and your mother.’ Then Ollie watched as Jo’s eyes stopped blinking and stared at a carnage unimaginable.

  ‘Save our planet.’

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  16.55 – The Lanesborough, London

  A doorman in a top hat and white gloves held the door for Ollie. She entered the plush lobby and breathed in the polish and wealth. She sauntered casually across to reception as if she was accustomed to being lobbies like this. They called up to the room of Sammy Cheong and she was told to wait near the lift to be taken up.

  She wandered across the deep carpet thinking she’d throw up with every step as she thought of the death that nestled between her legs. She settled into an elegant, high backed easy chair just as her mobile rang. It was George. The real George.

  ‘George. Tell me you’ve found them?’

  ‘No, Babes. But I’m sorry, they’re cutting you loose. They have no choice.’

  Ollie told him about the handover, then asked, ‘Why don’t they have a choice?’

  ‘Cheong is the nephew of the Chinese Premier. It’s in their plan. Cheong will deliver the virus straight into the heart of the Chinese Government.’

  ‘It’s too late, George, it can’t be stopped.’

  She told him about Lily and her mother. Listened to him swear, heard him yelling instructions at various people. They now had a live biological terrorist attack on home soil. The game had changed.

  In front of her the lift door opened and a huge, but smiling, Chinese security guard stood there.

  She held up a hand and gave a smile of apology, pointing to her mobile.

  Then George was back. ‘Don’t go in there, Babes. Please. They’re making the call now. In a couple of minutes that floor will be locked down and you with it. There’s nothing you can do up there.’

  Ollie was at a loss. ‘So, what do I do, George?

  ‘Get out. Run. Get your head down. Small will be after you now.’

  ‘Run? That’s all I’ve ever done. I have to face up to this.’ But maybe he was right, this wasn’t the time or place for her last stand.

  Ollie could hear the commotion all around George. Thought he was running himself. ‘Ollie, we have one way out of this and that is to find Lily and your mother.’

  In front of her the security guard had lost his smile and was looking impatient. Then he reached to his earpiece and a frown and cloud of suspicion swept across his face.

  George was breathless. ‘Where’s the virus?’

  Ollie turned and started walking towards the doors. She let out a short laugh. ‘Somewhere safe, George. Very safe.’

  George was curt, brusque. ‘I need it. Get out fast. Take a cab.’ He gave her an address on Cannon Street. Have it drop you outside the delivery garages at the back. I’ll meet you there.’

  Ollie twisted to look over her shoulder, the security guard was following her across the lobby. She turned and ran out into the heat and noise of Knightsbridge.

  * * *

  17.30 – Cannon Street

  Ollie got out of the taxi and dived into the shadows of an open garage entrance. An office supplies van was unloading. She went behind a large metal waste bin, removed the cylinder and wiped and wrapped it in an old piece of newspaper from the bin.

  She moved nearer the entrance again, got out her mobile and pretended to text. The men ignored her.

  Two minutes later a car came around the corner at speed and she stepped out. George pulled in sharply and jumped out leaving his car door open and the engine running.

  ‘Ollie.’ He held her briefly and the comfort of his arms felt really, really good, but then he eased her away.

  ‘I don’t have any time, Babes. I need that vial.’

  ‘Why?’

  For a second his eyes narrowed then, ‘Jo Sherry said ‘close enough’ to know you’d administered the virus. The only way is if she is at the airport.’

  Ollie blinked seeing black canvas holdalls in the back of the van.

  ‘She’s going to fly with them.’

  She gave George the container. ‘Where are you taking it?’

  ‘To do something that might save Lily and your mother.’ He led her to the car.

  ‘Take the car. Talk to Small, but don’t go near her until you work out where Lily and your Mum are held. She’s a good cop, she just needs convincing.’

  Overhead she heard the sound of a helicopter, hovering above the building.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  He started running into the building. ‘You don’t want to know.’

  Ollie sat in the car. The men were watching her now. She dialed Small and tried to listen to the warning buzzer that had started in the back of her mind.

  * * *

  17.45. The streets of London

  Small was talking to George on her mobile. She was not impressed and she wondered about George’s motives. ‘You’re having a laugh. She’s as guilty as hell. She’s part of this whole attack.’ She turned her look of ‘do you believe this guy’ on Andy who shrugged.

  She went on. ‘I’ve been given the brightest of green lights to bring her in whatever.’

  ‘What about finding her mother and daughter.’

  ‘Someone else is on that.’

 
George was angry. ‘You’re heartless, you do know that?’

  ‘No. I’m a detective who catches criminals and this one happens to be a serial killer, a terrorist and someone who wants to commit mass murder. You do your terrorist bit and I’ll do the murders.’

  Small froze as Andy jumped to his feet. ‘I’ve got Soul on the line.’

  George was still pleading. ‘Listen to her, Small. She may be the only chance you have to save the other two and to stop a terror attack.’

  Small disconnected, swapped mobiles and put it on speaker.

  ‘Are you giving yourself up?’

  ‘We have a deal.’

  ‘Taken off the table as soon as they told the Chinese. There will not be an attack.’

  ‘What about Lily and my mother.’

  ‘Not my problem, Soul. I do murders.’

  Ollie started as she heard Mann in the background shout out, ‘Got her. Just off Cannon Street.’

  Ollie slammed the car door and pulled away. Then stopped. She felt trapped, better to be running free on the streets. She jumped from the car, sprinted to the main road then down into an underpass.

  She came up on the other side, turned south towards the river and put the mobile back to her ear.

  Small was still shouting. ‘We’ve got you. Soul. Stop and we’ll pick you up. Keep this easy.’

  Ollie listened to sirens that were too close. She could ditch the mobile, but it was her only way of communicating. Instead, she had to convince them to back off. If she was taken, she may never see Lily or her mother again.

  Her brain sieved information desperately. She reached Upper Thames Street and had a decision to make. Right or left? Something surfaced.

  She shouted over Small. ‘Who owned my apartment?’

  Small paused, looking at a screen. They had Soul on CCTV. She could see her. That close, she thought. Not long now. ‘Joanna and Saran. Another two properties as well.’

  Ollie was stunned. Her brain started chuntering, processing.

  ‘Where?’