The Assassin's Keeper

by John McClements

  "What are you looking for?" he asked.

  "Can I help you?" she retorted defiantly, completely ignoring his question.

  John looked back at her. He wanted to say something, but the eye contact only lasted a moment. He wondered how he should proceed, and once he’d walked away from the situation, he decided that the best option was to call Pedro.

  "Look, Pedro, it’s not my business, but that girl wonder you’ve employed, you can’t trust her. I just caught her going through your files.”

  There was silence from the other end for a moment, and then Pedro said, “It’s fine. It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  He hung up before John could say anything else.

  The next day the office was closed, but on Thursday morning John arrived early. Soon afterwards, Sue came in, humming and singing.

  "You’re happy," he said.

  "Yes, John."

  John shot her a meaningful look and her mouth snapped shut. He couldn’t tell what it was, but he knew something was wrong – he could feel it.

  Just then her phone rang, and as she answered her expression formed to one of shock. Putting the receiver down, her body stiffened as she stood up. She then opened the door and walked straight out without saying anything.

  John watched her go, saying nothing. He knew of course that Pedro was an expert at detecting weaknesses in other people and manipulating them, and he had a feeling that this would be the last time he would ever see Sue. He wasn’t at all surprised, therefore, when Pedro arrived an hour later and said that she wouldn’t be back.

  "So business as normal," Pedro added.

  "So that’s all it is for you – just business?" asked John, already knowing the answer.

  "Yes, of course."

  "Was it carefully planned? Or was it just paranoia?" John asked.

  "What are you saying?" Pedro responded, a look of distrust on his features.

  "Nothing. Just thinking back to the old days," said John, staring at his boss.

  Pedro didn’t reply.

  Sue was woken early the next morning by the light spilling through her window. Feeling like an axe had been embedded in her skull, she drank some of the water from the glass she found on the floor and pulled the duvet over her head, before curling up and going back to sleep. She was feeling bad after yesterday – she’d really enjoyed working for Pedro, and she’d hoped it would be a long-term thing. Guess not.

  It was afternoon when she finally surfaced, dragging herself off the sofa and stumbling into the bathroom. Now, two hours later, she was hunched over her fifth cup of black coffee and trying to make sense of the previous day.

  The atmosphere in the office had been heavy and subdued – no one could quite believe what had happened.

  Sue had only come in to clear her desk, but his words were still ricocheting around her head: "I didn’t want to fire you because you do such a great job, but I had no choice. You broke the rule and that's it – don't show your face here again."

  She told herself that Pedro was making a mistake. “Pedro, I know what I did was wrong and I’m sorry,” she’d whimpered. There had been no reply.

  "Thanks," She thought to herself that hopefully she'd fooled the office into thinking that she was fine, but she felt like saying, Hey! I have feelings too!

  Oh, what was the point? She told herself to get over it. That was the only thing she could do.

  But there was something else. She was an unusually attractive little thing, even now when her face was flushed, and in the past she’d used it to get jobs, and keep jobs. So why hadn’t it worked now?

  It was at times like these that you needed company, and she couldn’t bear the thought of going home to an empty flat. Feeling the tears prickling her eyes, she quickly shuffled the papers in front of her and tried to concentrate on something else. Despite her best attempts, however, her thoughts kept drifting back to the empty flat.

  She was almost forty-one and her love life was on the rocks. She really was a top-notch looker, but she’d never wanted a steady man. The nearest she’d got to any kind of relationship over the past twelve months was a quick fumble in the back of a taxi with a man who’d felt so guilty he wouldn’t even take her calls.

  "You okay?" John asked, turning to look at her over his shoulder as he walked in.

  She just nodded.

  John could tell she was hurting, and though he wasn’t sure if this was such a great idea, he just went ahead and said it: "Why not call him again to apologise for what happened between you two?"

  Sue gaped at him for a second before bursting out laughing. "I’d never call him, John. I swear. There's nothing I have to say to him, and if I did call – even to apologise – he'd take it the wrong way. That's why I'd never do that." Tears fell down her face then, and she looked down to try and hide them.

  John shook his head in disbelief. Just what was he supposed to do with a sobbing woman?

  Chapter 24

  Still feeling a little guilty after complaining to Pedro about Sue and getting her fired, John decided to take the cabinet –which had been too awkward for her to move out of the office and put in her car – to her place. It was on his way anyway.

  Sue didn’t often go out, nor had she that many friends, and her social life had dwindled a lot over the last year. Her oldest friends were all in the Metropolitan Police Force, but she’d never minded; she was always busy and, with the new job, tired too.

  It took John a while to find the flat – a Victorian three-storey purpose-built block near Fulham – and twice he got caught in the one-way system, in a long snarl of evening traffic, before eventually working out where she lived. He let out a sigh of anger – after a difficult day, the last thing he needed were more complications.

  Eventually he parked his car in the multi-storey car park, turned off the engine, and walked down the cement stairs in search of the entrance. He made his way over to the house, pushed open the communal door, climbed the shallow flight of steps, pressed the buzzer, and waited.

  A few seconds later, she opened the door and smiled warmly at him. "Hello there. This is a surprise."

  "I brought your cabinet."

  She smiled again, before walking back to the car to help him carry the piece of furniture to her flat.

  She looked pale and strained, two dark smudges of mascara shadowing her eyes. "I’m sorry," she said. "If I’d known… but of course." If she’d answered his phone calls, or even checked her messages, she would have known John was coming. "Sorry," she murmured again.

  He followed her into the communal hallway, along a corridor and then through another door to the right. Her main living space was small and sparsely furnished, and as he looked around the sitting room he saw several strewn clothes, a severely puckered rug, and a discarded glass on the floor. There were women’s shoes seemingly everywhere – one here, one there, one over there by the dark blue Futon-type sofa bed. There were a couple of lamps giving some much-needed light to the room and the table at the side of the room was completely covered in piles of paper. In fact, the paper, as if making a bid for freedom, had migrated into every corner of the room.

  "Welcome to the mansion," she said. "I’d apologise for the mess, but to be honest, that would suggest it doesn’t normally look like this." Her speech was slightly slurred. He noticed a bottle of vodka – already a third empty – sitting on the table.

  "Are you really okay?" It was a stupid question but he still felt obliged to ask it.

  "Sure," she said. "I’m fine, thanks."

  She scratched her head, causing her hair to stand up in jaunty spikes. She then started making little unnecessary noises as she moved around, clearing her throat, speaking to herself, lifting a pile of old magazines just to plonk them down on the coffee table. It seemed to be almost in preparation for something, and it was like a combination of self-reproach and possibly misplaced obligation that had brought her here. One thing was for sure: she had something on her mind. I just hope Pedro won’t bully
her, John said to himself. She’s not as steely as she likes people to think.

  He still wasn’t entirely sure why Pedro made a big deal of her. But then again, that pretty much summed Pedro up: he was unpredictable in the way he handled people.

  She picked an empty glass up off the floor and poured herself another stiff shot from the bottle. She forced a smile. "Well, I need one even if you don’t."

  She blinked once, twice, and then shook her head almost imperceptibly, as if to rid herself of the image: Pedro was such a shit. A huge air bubble formed at the back of her throat, and she looked as though she were either going to sob or laugh. She laughed.

  "I don't blame you, John."

  He shrugged, not at all fazed by what she said.

  "I have to ask you, though,” she continued, her voice dropping slightly. “I overheard a conversation that you and Pedro had a few weeks ago."

  "What was that?"

  "Sit down. I guess you could sit on my bed if you want? I’m sorry, that’s pretty creepy but I don’t have any chairs."

  "Yes,” said John, perching on the end of her bedspread. “So what did you hear?"

  "Pedro said that now was a good time to tell you that he knew you better than you could ever imagine. And that you thought you were moving through this world alone, unseen. But you shouldn’t believe that for a moment. He’d studied you and knew what you were going to do before you did it. He knew where you'd been and he knew where you were going. So what was that all about?"

  "Look, Sue," he said, exhaling deeply, “I mean...” he paused, staring at the ceiling. “Ah, what the hell." His voice wavered on the last word.

  "Mm-hmmm," she said, seemingly deep in thought.

  John was both shocked and confused, and he was beginning to feel like he was being used. Why? And why was she still asking questions after what had happened to her? If she just wanted to keep him distracted for a while, if she was trying to get him to reveal something, it wouldn’t work. It seemed fairly obvious though that she was up to something.

  He took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts. One key thing about Sue was that she was brilliant. Her brain was so busy, it never worked on just one level – it was whirring away all the time. The second thing about Sue was that she was one of those people who were never wrong.

  She knew exactly what he wanted to hear: “You are one of the good guys,” she whispered with a smile.

  He responded with a no-problem flick of his hand, before looking around at the empty walls and the posters rolled up on the floor. "What’s happened?"

  She raised her eyebrows. "Well, I wanted you to know before you heard it from someone else," she said brightly. “Everything is all packed away. I’ve decided to move to Manchester.”

  "What?" he asked, more than a little surprised. He honestly thought she’d stick around, at least for a while.

  They sat for a while then in a semi-companionable silence. He felt like cracking a joke to clear the air, but she never really laughed a lot, anyway. In fact, she'd rather that he never laugh either, or be funny. Silence was fine.

  After a minute he stood up, unnerved, undecided. Before he could do anything else, however, there was a bang on the door.

  Sue cursed under her breath as she walked over to it then flung it open: it was the elderly woman who lived in the flat next door.

  Ever since Sue had first met Mrs O'Brian six months ago, the old lady had been regularly knocking on the door with her homemade shortbread biscuits or lemonade, telling her that she should be married by now. Every time she brought this up, Sue would get irritated. "I don't miss it; I don't miss men. It's a relief just to walk into a shop and have no one look at you." She was married to her job, but if she was honest with herself, deep down she would have liked to be in a relationship. Not that she’d ever admit that to her neighbour.

  Today, however, Mrs O’Brian just looked distressed. "Please can you help me?"

  "Calm down, Mrs O’Brian, tell me what’s happened," said Sue, concern growing on her features.

  "Sue, I'm sorry, I don't know what to do." She began to cry but quickly wiped away the tears, clearly furious at herself for crying. She paused then, clearly trying to think of something to say.

  Mrs O’Brian nodded at her door, and John followed them both into the next-door flat. The place smelled of old shoes and stale mattresses.

  What John saw next made his stomach drop: Mr O'Brian was lying face down in a pool of blood.

  Sue looked like she was in shock – she was staring at the corner of the cabinet, chewing her lip, thinking that it looked as though he had fallen and banged his head: he was lying on the floor next to a stool which was sitting on its side.

  Sue glanced sideways at John, her eyebrows raised in a silent question.

  "We need to call the police," he said.

  "I don't like this," Sue said. “Something doesn't look right – we have a lot of uncontained issues here, and I won't call the police until they’re contained."

  "Come on, you can't be serious," said John, as he looked at his watch. It was late – he was late. He was supposed to be meeting Sonia, and he couldn’t wait there any longer. "Look, I can't hang around," he told Sue.

  "It's okay, John, I'll take care of things here, you go."

  He stood up and wiped his hands on his jeans. "I’ll see you later, Sue. I’m sorry about your husband," he said to the neighbour.

  Sue nodded, and with that he walked down the stairs and towards the car park. Several streetlights suddenly flickered to life at intervals along the bridge, just as it started raining heavily. He walked on, his head tucked down against the elements, and when he glanced up again, he saw that he’d nearly reached the steps at the other end of the bridge. By now he was soaked. He took a deep breath, pulled open the car door, and flung himself into the leather seat.

  Now that the events of the past couple of hours started to sink in, they sent a shiver down his spine, and he was wondering whether Sue had set him up. Had she befriended him purely to manipulate him? She was certainly difficult to read: friendly sometimes, and other times distant. She was brilliant and charming, and she wanted you to believe she was perfect – but she wasn’t: John suspected she was controlling and a bit of a liar, to say the least.

  Right now though, his main concern was getting home. What reason would he give Sonia for being late? The restaurant normally gave him the perfect cover: busy with their daughter Cassandra, Sonia assumed he worked there all day as they served both lunch and dinner, but John had employed a head chef so that he could cover his own shifts at Pedro’s agency. Usually that worked, but it was now well after closing hours, and she’d know that.

  He turned the engine on and pulled out of the car park, but after five minutes the damned car broke down on the M3.

  * * *

  It took a few moments for the bedside clock to come into focus, and Sonia stared bleary-eyed at the numbers. Two minutes past 11 p.m.

  "What the hell?" she cursed.

  Miserable after spending her birthday alone, Sonia had gone to bed early – at 9 p.m. to be exact. It had taken her a while, but eventually she’d nodded off and had fallen into a deep sleep.

  Now, her muddled mind was more than a little confused. ‘Who the hell would be ringing at this time?’ she wondered. A terrifying thought suddenly shot through her groggy mind, making her very alert: John! Fearful that something had happened to him, she snatched the phone and answered it. "What's wrong?”

  "It's me, look, I'm sorry, the car broke down on the M3 and I'm at a service station waiting for the recovery service.” Instinctively, her hand flew to her chest in relief, as she told him not to worry. Once she hung up the phone, she lay back in bed, trying to get her heartbeat back under control. At least he was safe.

  John had to leave the keys with the recovery man, only realising that his house keys were on the same ring when he arrived home an hour later. He banged loudly on the front door, causing a worried Sonia to jump out of bed. She
pulled on her dressing gown, flicking on lights as she went through the house before making her way downstairs to the front door. Her shadow could be seen through its mottled glass panel.

  "I’ll be with you in a sec," she called out. She undid the latch and opened the door.

  John was waiting patiently on the darkened doorstep, doing his best to shield himself from the rain that was coming down by the bucketful.

  "Let's get you out of those clothes and warmed up,” said Sonia. “I'm gonna put the shower on for you; that'll help." She wandered off into the bathroom, waiting a few moments for it to heat up. "It's ready for you now – take those wet things off and get in."

  Sonia pulled fresh towels from the hallway cupboard and laid them on the tiled floor outside the shower cubicle. "I'll leave these towels here for you," she called through the shower door. "I'll go and make you a hot drink for when you get out."

  While he showered, Sonia picked up his discarded wet clothes, and inspecting them carefully, she noticed some bloodstains on his shirt and trousers.

  She paused in her tracks. Bloodstains?

  Her heart hammering in her chest, she tried to think of all the possible scenarios – attack, murder… accident? Anything could have happened, and while she tried not to jump to conclusions, it was easier said than done.

  * * *

  The next day, back at the office, John had just finished telling everyone about his experience the night before.

  "Oh my God, John, that's terrible," one of the office girls gasped.

  "Are you okay?" Pedro asked.

  "Yes, it was all very shocking and messy, but I'm fine. Understandably, the police want to question me about it."

  "Apparently they think he could have been murdered," Pedro said, nodding. He already knew all about it, of course.

  Pedro caught the look of concern in John’s eyes before he turned away and dug back into his sausage roll. His jaw clenched forcefully with every bite.

  “What? That’s not possible,” said John. “He fell off a stool, it was lying on the floor."