‘Hey,’ says Beth from the door. ‘Penny for them?’
She follows my gaze to the incident board. ‘We’ll get her Mike,’ she says. ‘We’ll get them all.’
I uncramp my hands and nod, straightening my tell-tale expression. How can I possibly explain my thoughts to Beth? They are so confused, even I don’t understand them.
I wish I had Beth’s confidence.
I’ve taken to wearing my Glock 17 full time now, as Beth and I, and perhaps everyone else in Archive, are no longer safe. Neva has learned too much about us.
‘Anyway,’ says Beth. ‘I came in to tell you, your sister Mia is on the secure line. Want to come and talk to her?’
‘Yeah. That’d be great.’
When I finish my call with Mia, I feel a little better. Mia is the one anchor in my life that remains constant. I would sacrifice anything for her and my beautiful niece, Freya. And, indeed, I had lost everything I had thought I wanted because of my loyalty to her.
A few weeks ago, Neva and I rushed to Mia’s side in a bid to protect her from the Network. I thought I was defending my sister, but there I learned all about the double life of my brother-in-law, Ben Cusick. A further blow and betrayal to us both. Ben had shown his hand when he thought I’d been triggered again by the Network. He revealed he had been working for MI6 and had lied to Mia for years. The revelation was a shock to both Mia and me and had almost crippled their marriage. But now they are working on it and Mia, Ben and their daughter Freya have been given new identities. Even I don’t know where they are but Mia is allowed a weekly call to a secure line in MI5 so that I can at least know they are safe and well. A situation that is very hard on us both. I’d sworn to protect Mia and Freya and now that task had been taken away from me. I’m dreading the day when the calls will have to stop because Mia will have to transition fully into her new life, without further contact with me. I’ll never be able to see or speak to her again and I’ll never see my niece grow up.
There is a rising panic inside me as I anticipate the approaching end of our small contact, and worse still that I will have to go through the rest of my life trusting that they are both safe, but never knowing for sure if that’s so.
Even so, I have to accept it is important that Mia disappears because once we both belonged to the Network, and now they want to call in their assets. Mia doesn’t know this. Or at least not all of it. She has been told some truths. Like the fact that the couple that brought us up weren’t really our parents. But she doesn’t know that Will and Annie Kensington are dead – executed by Neva. I chose not to tell her, just as I didn’t want her to learn that I was a trained killer, and that she might have been groomed as a breeder for the Network’s kill house.
Since Mia, Ben and Freya would be starting a new life, it wasn’t necessary to burden her with more. After I’d outed Ben, he told me privately that Mia had been suffering with anxiety that Freya would be taken from them. It’s likely to be caused by some deep-seated memory that she was drawing on from the conditioning. She is sheltered now, and the Network can’t find her. So, I hope my sister will never have to experience the trauma of giving up my niece to the house of killers.
But even as I tell myself Mia is safe, I regret her lack of full knowledge about our past. Forewarned is forearmed, after all. And one of the issues that stopped me leaving with Neva and going to Mia’s aid instead was that Mia didn’t know she was in danger.
For that reason, I didn’t take the decision to keep all of this extra baggage from her lightly. Mia’s marriage was on a precipice, more knowledge might be the burden that could tip it over the edge. Even so, it means that Ben can’t come clean about everything he knows either. An added pressure on him, though after spending six years lying to her already, I doubt he will find it that difficult now. There is always the fear though that Mia will learn he is keeping more from her. All of which isn’t good and she may see it as further betrayal. Can their marriage recover from more deceit and lies? I don’t know. All I can hope for is that they can rebuild their lives together and that Ben is strong enough to keep my sister and niece safe, no matter what.
But Mia’s call had been reassuring on that front. She’d talked about Ben and Freya and it appeared that they were getting back to normal. I hoped so anyway. They need to be united now more than ever.
Chapter Five
Lizzie
‘Wild-haired Lizzie’ her friends used to call her, and she’d been pretty back in the day before she met and married Barry. But marriage and several failed years trying to conceive had transformed Lizzie into someone less wild, more staid. Barry, bored with their life, had eventually succumbed to the charms of his much younger secretary. Like everything else in their life, this scenario was a cliché. Lizzie hadn’t even cried when he told her, the same day he moved out to be with the girl. In fact, Barry’s departure was a relief. It signified that Lizzie no longer had to try. No longer had to be a wife. No longer had to please anyone other than herself. Barry had been difficult to satisfy at times. His expectations of her, their marriage, the potential children – that in the end weren’t possible – it had all been too much, and for the last few years she’d been miserable anyway.
She had signed the ‘quickie’ divorce papers – what was the point of dragging it out and making him wait two years to marry the girl? Lizzie wasn’t the vindictive sort anyway, it took too much energy, and gained you nothing but more stress. Besides, Barry had been generous because she hadn’t been difficult and because he felt guilty. She’d ended up with the house, and a nice lump sum in the bank to keep her comfortable. She didn’t have anything to complain about.
Two years off 40, Lizzie wanted each day to slow down. It had taken her a few months of going to work, coming home and being alone at night, to consider what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.
‘You need to look after yourself,’ her friend Vicky had said after Lizzie voiced concerns about getting older. ‘There’s no reason to just give in to nature. You have to do everything you can to make time stand still. I mean… don’t you want to meet someone new?’
I’m not ‘past it’ by any means, Lizzie had thought. So maybe it’s time to get back out there.
Her red hair, always a sign of her once passionate nature, had faded down: a more golden and less red colour, that someone once called strawberry. The truth was that her vibrant red had just been diluted by oncoming white but certain photographs still made her look somewhat Nicole Kidmanish.
Vicky had been encouraging and had taken Lizzie to see her beautician. Botox, fancy nails and a great new colour and cut, made Lizzie feel better than she had in years. The colour was balanced out and she took some selfies as Vicky suggested.
‘Looking good!’ Vicky had said. ‘Time to get online…’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Lizzie.
‘Dating site, silly!’
It was just a bit of fun at first. Lizzie chatted to a few people and was invited out on a couple of dates. She never took them up on it, but the online flirting was exciting. Then Lizzie started getting some flattering comments from one person. It made her feel attractive, even though they weren’t her type. She was curious though, and more than a little lonely. But she didn’t admit this, even to herself.
They chatted sometimes on Messenger, but Lizzie wouldn’t do FaceTime calls as it worried her. Even so, the friendship grew over a few months. Lizzie found it easy to express her feelings to this anonymous friend, though she’d never been good at that before. But typing your emotions just wasn’t as challenging as speaking them and her friend was never judgy and was always sympathetic.
The relationship went to a new level when the occasional chat turned into regular exchanges, from weekly to daily, without Lizzie realizing.
I’d love to meet up one day, her friend typed.
Lizzie replied with, Wouldn’t that be nice? But she never really considered that they could meet. Her friend lived in Europe, and it was a good excuse to keep t
hings the way they were.
Then she got a message that her new friend was in town, along with an invitation to meet for a drink. Lizzie wasn’t sure and made a few excuses not to go. But at the last minute, and after some very persuasive texts, she decided it couldn’t do any harm to meet. Especially in public.
The pub her friend suggested wasn’t too far away from her home, just a twenty-minute walk and so Lizzie had finally agreed.
It was a nice warm evening and Lizzie enjoyed the exercise. Even as she made her way there, she thought of how Barry would hate this: he wouldn’t walk anywhere, and it reminded Lizzie how much she liked being able to do what she wanted. Like this spontaneous meeting with someone she didn’t really know, even though the calls and texts made her feel like she did.
She went through the scenario of what it would be like to meet this friend face to face. Could they be as comfortable in person as they were online? She hoped so. Then she blushed at the thought of this leading somewhere else. Where could it go? After all, Lizzie wasn’t like that.
Lizzie almost turned around and headed back home when she saw the pub ahead. She stopped at the traffic lights but didn’t cross the road.
What am I doing meeting a total stranger?
She received a text then: Looking forward to it, but I’m a little nervous.
Of course, Lizzie thought, we are in the same boat. It will be weird for us both. Yes, it was a little scary but that added to the excitement of the adventure, didn’t it?
She crossed the road and went into the pub. Inside she saw her new friend waiting with a bottle of wine and two glasses already poured. They’d talked about putting the world to rights with a good bottle of red. She walked in feeling more comfortable now. They could be friends, even if Lizzie wasn’t ready to take it further than that.
There’s a moment of confusion when Lizzie wakes. She doesn’t remember coming home, and certainly can’t recall coming to bed. Her mind flutters around the evening. Some remembered laughter, but the rest is a bit of a blur. She feels a bit dizzy now, and nausea burns the back of her throat. How much did I drink?
She groans and tries to get up as the prospect of vomiting becomes a reality. That’s when Lizzie discovers that she’s tied up.
Her arms are splayed apart, wrists secured to something she can’t see. It’s pitch black, and she can’t tell where she is. It’s not home. It can’t be. Her bedroom curtains never block the street lights out this well.
‘Hello?’ she croaks and then she turns her head and pukes to the side. The acrid smell of vomit lingers near her head.
‘It’s all right,’ says a quiet voice beside her. ‘It’s normal after Rohipnol.’
‘What’s going on?’ Lizzie says. She’s scared now and still feels so very sick. ‘Where am I?’
It feels like she is lying on a bed of leaves. She tugs at the bonds that hold her down, it feels as though she’s tied to four wooden stakes, hammered into the ground. She tries to move her legs but they too are spread and attached on each side. She is helpless.
‘Look, whatever you’ve done…’ she says.
‘I haven’t done anything to you,’ the voice says.
‘Please. Let me go… I won’t tell anyone…’
Sharp pain silences Lizzie as something moves across her thigh. It takes a moment for her to realize that it was a knife. The cut pulses and throbs. Her inner thigh grows damp as blood pumps from the wound.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Lizzie says. Already she is light-headed from loss of blood. She tries the bonds again, but nothing gives and then the real panic sets in. She is wounded and she’s going to die.
Tears spill from Lizzie’s eyes. What has she done to deserve this?
She hears her attacker move away, and then light pours in as a door is opened. She sees a beech tree beyond the opening and she realizes in a rush that this is her garden shed. All she has to do is scream and her neighbours will come running. But the blood is still pouring – no, gushing – from the wound and her strength ebbs away with every pulse. She doesn’t have the energy to speak, let alone scream.
She struggles again, moving her arms and legs, but they are held tight. She can feel the glutinous warm blood pooling under her thigh. The wound throbs in time with the beat of her heart as her life drains from her.
She drifts off as the blur of sound fades into unconsciousness but then the shed door closing hurls her out of the darkness.
She is left listening to her own breathing.
Her eyes close once more.
The tears of fear dry on her cheeks. Her muscles start to tense and her head aches as her brain struggles to keep her alive.
Her pounding heart slows.
Each beat grows further apart and then Lizzie slips back into unconsciousness, never to wake again.
Chapter Six
Neva
Neva wakes. For a moment she forgets where she is. Then the memories rush back in, changing her perspective of how this day will go. She is unhappy and frustrated.
It is a few weeks since she fled the Tower Bridge Hotel, and Solomon Granger threw his accusation her way. At that point she knew it was all over with Archive, before her work with them had even begun. A disappointment she hadn’t been prepared for because she’d wanted to work with Michael. She’d wanted to help them to bring down the Network.
As usual she disposed of anything that they could use to track her, like her phone. But first she sent Michael a text, telling him that she was being set up.
You’ve been playing me, he’d said by reply.
She had stared at her phone for a while, wondering what she had expected him to say. She was no expert in relationships, after all, for she had never felt anything like this before. Michael was her strength and her weakness. Being cut from his life left a gaping hole that Neva had no idea how to fill.
She went through a scenario of conversation in which she tried to persuade Michael to believe in her. Each time she saw him turn his back. It was disappointing that he didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt at first. But in the end, she didn’t try to change his mind. What was the point? Michael now believed she had been lying to him and Neva really couldn’t blame him. She was a child of the house and by the nature of their training, taught to lie with perfection.
Michael’s rejection hurt though. Even as Neva took the sim card from the phone, water leaked from her eyes: tears she hadn’t shed since the early days spent in the house.
She forces herself to go to ground because old habits die hard. When in doubt she retreats to safety.
Burner phone gone, passports that Michael had known about still need to be disposed of: Neva now has to find a new life when she had begun to believe for the first time that she had a chance at some form of normality.
She stares at Michael’s passport photo for a while, and then tears it in half. What a fool she was to ever believe they could be together, let alone be a married couple.
Neva berates herself for her weakness and her inner voice is that of Tracey Herod, her one time handler. You’re pathetic. It takes her a few days to even begin to function again.
Despite the ongoing shock of Michael’s mistrust, she sets the wheels in motion to establish a new identity, with the plan to leave London via the Eurostar. While she waits, her mind is in turmoil, she can’t concentrate properly. She feels lost.
After a week she realizes that she can’t go on like this. She has to talk to Michael. She has to tell him her side and somehow try to convince him that Granger lied. What possible motive he had for that, Neva doesn’t know. But she isn’t who he claims. At least… she doesn’t think she is.
Life, post-kill house, is sometimes confusing. Neva can’t be sure that she hasn’t been coerced, just as Michael once had been. He’d been a sleeper agent for the Network, raised and conditioned to live a double life. There is always the possibility that something is lurking inside her too, still waiting to be triggered. That something may well have been set in motion an
d she now has no recollection of it. No one knows better than her how the Network play with your mind and so she picks around her memories again, trying to see if anything was off. The thought horrifies her: after all the work she’s done on herself to break free.
Six months of Neva’s life had been in hiding during the time that Granger claimed she was acting as a double for the stewardess, Angela Carter. Neva recalls everything she’s done in that time and none of it involves a plane hijack. Or so she believes. But she can’t help thinking – what if it was me? What if I did these things and just can’t remember them?
She wants to get Michael back on side until they can learn the truth. Sometimes, she toys with the idea of letting Archive take her in, doing a polygraph. Proving she doesn’t know anything about Carter. But capture would just make her a sitting duck. The Network will send someone after her, and they will come in strong. It wouldn’t matter where they put her – the Network has allies everywhere. This is not a realistic or sensible option, no matter how much she misses contact with Michael.
She returns to Michael’s apartment block. She hangs out in the street in the hope that she can catch him alone. She doesn’t want to run until she has that one last chance to see him again.
During the wait for Michael’s return, Neva sees Janine’s apartment invaded by MI5: Michael has told them about her. They find nothing: Janine ditched that location and identity as soon as Neva had left the apartment with Michael. It is standard practice once a location is revealed to an untrusted party – in this case Michael. Janine never trusted Michael even when Neva had. Neva now concedes that Janine was right too: Michael has betrayed them. There is no doubt on that score. And it tears her up inside: he was the one person in her life that she truly believed in. When the truth dawns on her that he’s given her up to Archive, she wants to yell and shout at him. Perhaps even punch him in the face for it. She even imagines herself on her knees, begging for forgiveness for something she doesn’t think she’s even done. She hates feeling this way. All these irrational emotions make her weak when she has to be stronger now than ever. What good are feelings to someone like her anyway?
Kill a Spy: The House of Killers Page 4