by Rob Aspinall
Across the road from the station was a black Mercedes people carrier. Within a second of the door sliding shut, a sack was forced over my head and tied tight around my neck so I could barely breathe. I felt the Merc pull away from the station as I was pushed mush first onto the back seat. I felt the sharp pinch of a needle in my left arm. Then I felt nothing.
37
Welcome To Oslo
They must have taken the sack off my head at some point. I remember fragments. Hazy, lazy, in-and-out flashes.
A rumble over a cattle bridge.
Black, monolithic mountains rising from a still-water sea.
A bumpy drive up a grassy hill.
Naked hotdog thighs.
The black nail polish on my toenails.
The left big toe where I’d missed a bit.
A giant red barn with white lattice windows.
Tyres skidding to a stop.
The smell of freshly cut grass.
The smell of sheep shit.
Straw, sawdust and old wooden boards.
A plastic sheet on the floor, hard on my kneecaps.
Finally, everything glued together. I came round inside a huge, empty barn. On my knees. Cold. Stripped to my new Amazon-ordered underwear (the white version of Inge’s), my wrists and ankles bound behind me in pinch-tight plastic ties. I raised my head and peered out through straggles of my own distressed blonde hair, the wig gone, maybe tossed out of the car window and sitting crooked on a sheep’s head. Auntie Claire was kneeling in front of me, also stripped to the bare essentials. Big knickers and bra designed to turn men off rather than on. Her white cellulite skin trembled like jelly on a plate. She detected movement on my part and looked up, eyes bleeding light mascara.
“Lorna! Are you okay?” she asked, voice breaking.
“Auntie Claire, I-I,” I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I know you didn’t do any of the things they said.”
“I’m sorry for getting you into this,” I said, scanning the room for a possible escape route.
The barn was open plan, with a high triangle roof and a cross-weave of gnarly old beams. Stacked hay bales to the left. Abandoned animal pens to the right. Double doors to the front big enough to drive a bus through. Both closed and guarded by a two-man team in ski masks, automatic rifles in hands, eyes fixed on me.
They were taking me more seriously now. Smugorella yakked into her phone in what must have been Norwegian, twisting her sliver of a nose in disgust as she checked the bottom of her shoes.
“Lorna, listen to me,” said Auntie Claire, getting all parent and child. Almost like we were back home at the kitchen table with Plastic Jesus. I’d had given anything to be there now. For the biggest thing in the world to be the length of my skirt or an F on my latest exam.
“I don’t know what trouble you’ve gotten into this time, but let me do the talking,” she said. “I’ll work something out with them.”
“You can’t negotiate with these people, Auntie Claire.”
One of the guards held a finger to his ear and pulled one of the barn doors open. Nathan strode in, trademark coffee cup and white paper bag in hand, dressed in his signature leisurewear, complete with puffy blue body warmer.
“Afternoon, afternoon!” he said. “How are we all?”
Smugorella got straight off her phone. Everyone looked ten per cent more alive. Another masked man with a leather holdall slipped inside as one of the guards stepped out. I wondered what was in that bag. A bone saw? Hot panic rose up through my body and into my face.
As Nathan moseyed over, he took a fresh donut out of the bag and tore into it with his smoker teeth. He stood in between us, reeking of coffee and fags.
“Aw,” he said, swallowing a chunk of donut. “I love a family reunion.”
He bent over and looked from one terrified face to the other. “Are they treating you well?” he asked.
I spat in his face. I was expecting a slap or a punch in return. He simply handed his coffee and donuts to Smugorella and dabbed his cheek with a serviette, chuckling to himself.
“Ah well, this isn’t my first spitting,” he said, “and it won’t be my last.”
“Sorry about all the de-robing and the masks,” he continued. “It’s just to make you feel a bit more vulnerable. Personally, I think it’s all a bit unnecessary, but it’s in their training, so …”
He clapped the sugar off his hands and extended one my way, as if forgetting I was tied up at the wrists.
“Hi, I’m Nathan … Oh, of course,” he said, withdrawing the gesture. “Still, you’ll understand if we don’t untie you just yet. How did you kill half my team, by the way?”
He seemed genuinely impressed. “I read your medical file. It’s ironic you’re a type A blood, because that’s what we call our best assets when we first recruit them. Type A’s …”
I looked at him blankly.
“The ‘A’ is for assassin,” he continued. “People with a natural aptitude for tradecraft. We’ve got one or two who were complete naturals. But no one like you … You’re a truly deadly individual. With a little brain retraining, your potential is limitless … Unfortunately, I ran it past HR and they said you’ve caused far too much trouble.”
I let out a horsey snort. I’d caused them trouble? Unbelievable.
Auntie Claire shushed me with her eyes. “It’s okay, Lorna,” she said. “Let me handle this.”
Handle it, Auntie Claire? Really?
“Ah,” Nathan said, “and this must be Auntie Claire. I’ve been reading all about you in Lorna’s little diary. The one with the sparkly stars on the cover. That’s right, isn’t it, Lorna?”
You have to be kidding.
Nathan held out a hand. Smugorella pulled my journal out of her bag and passed it over. It didn’t any get worse than this.
“Let’s see,” he said, leafing through and clicking his tongue. “Idea for YouTube viral … People staring at their phones walking into manholes … Ten reasons I’m still a virgin …”
Shoot me now. Just cut Auntie Claire loose and feed me a bullet.
“Five reasons Millie is a giant ho-bag,” he continued. “And, of course, the world-famous Lorna Walker penis museum.”
He showed me and Auntie Claire the inside of the book. A centre spread of crudely drawn members of all shapes and sizes. Each with their own classified species:
Massive Erectus
Droopy Drawers
Willy Wonky
Captain Hook
You get the picture …
“Ah, here it is,” Nathan said, flicking towards the back of the journal. “Auntie Claire …”
I didn’t have to look to know he’d landed on Witch of the Week. My last and, perhaps, final entry.
He put on a whiney voice like I was a ten-year-old brat. “Auntie Claire is acting like a massive witch,” he said, raising an eyebrow in Auntie Claire’s direction.
I could see the pain in her face. It hurt more than the agony of being tied up on her knees for too long.
“I go out for one measly night out,” he continued, “kick some scumbag ass and all of a sudden I’m on lockdown. She wants to ruin my life.”
“My, my, Auntie Claire,” Nathan said in his own voice. “You must be so proud.”
Auntie Claire was surprisingly tough. “You’ve had your fun,” she said to Nathan. “Lorna, give them what they want, love.”
Nathan nodded in agreement. “You’re absolutely right. Let’s crack on.”
He turned to me. “All we want is the list.”
It was a no-brainer. I gave up the lens case and this was all over. And the list belonged to them anyway. What did I care what they did with it? I ignored what my heart was trying to tell me and told them where I’d hidden it.
“It’s in my bedroom,” I said. “The piggy bank.”
Nathan called someone up on his mobile. “Yep, it’s in a piggy bank.”
He seemed surprised. “There all a
long,” he said to me. “How about that?”
He took the mobile away from his ear. “They can’t see a pig.”
“It’s a Hello Kitty piggy bank,” I said. “It’s more like a money box. You unscrew the bottom.”
Nathan looked confused.
“A white kitten with a pink bow,” I said.
Could I have sounded more immature?
Nathan put the phone back to his ear. “White kitten. Pink bow … Is it in there? Oh, the one place you didn’t look? Of course it was.”
Nathan shook his head and slipped the phone back in a chino pocket. “Honestly, field operatives today. They pull out a few drawers, knock over a chair and call it a search.”
“Now, Lorna,” he said, “there’s just one little formality before we finish up.”
I was naïve to think he was telling the truth. The guy had tried to abduct me from a hospital, for fuck’s sake. He’d sent a killer to our house, kidnapped Auntie Claire and ransacked my room. His people had tried to stab, shoot, strangle and beat me to death several times over. He’d turned me into a crazy lady on the news. And he’d had me and Auntie Claire drugged and stripped to our knick-knacks. Still, he had a way of making you want to trust him. Dumb little Lorna Walker, gullible to the last. It was pathetic.
Smugorella handed Nathan a pen like it was all rehearsed. He squatted on the balls of his feet and flattened out an empty blank page in my journal on the plastic sheet in front of me. I noticed hundreds of tiny grey hairs sprouting around his temples, the smoker’s folds in his face. He pushed the pen into my right hand.
“I just want you to write me a little note in the back here,” he said.
“About what?”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “It’s just a little disclaimer. Just write what I say and we’ll let your auntie go.”
One of the men in ski masks stomped over and cut my wrist ties. He twisted my left arm up my back as an added incentive.
“Okay,” Nathan said, clearing his throat and pacing around like he was dictating a letter to his secretary. “My name is Lorna Walker. You may have seen me on the news.”
I resisted. The man who’d come in with the holdall walked forward and put a gun to the back of Auntie Claire’s head. I scribbled down Nathan’s words as he continued to talk.
“I’m so depressed and angry. I feel so alone.”
I hesitated again. The guy behind me yanked harder on my arm.
“Auntie Claire says she understands, but she doesn’t,” Nathan continued. “She’s one of them. One of you.”
What the hell was he talking about?
“Don’t write it, Lorna,” said Auntie Claire. “Don’t, love.”
But I had to write it.
Nathan continued, “They’re all plotting against me. My shrinks. My doctors. My Auntie. The police. Everyone …”
Nathan paused and bent down close to me so I could feel his hot coffee breath on my face.
“Auntie Claire was the last one on my kill list,” he said.
Suddenly, it dawned on me.
“No!” I shouted, eyes filling up with the salty stuff.
“It’s okay, Lorna,” Auntie Claire said, smiling. “Everything will be okay.”
Nathan’s sunny disposition clouded over. “Auntie Claire was the last on my list …”
The tears broke like rainclouds. I shook my head. Arm guy yanked harder, while the other one shoved his gun deeper into the back of Auntie Claire’s head.
“Write it,” Nathan said in a menacing tone.
I wrote out the words like a shaky spider.
“But if anyone should be the last on the list, it should be me,” he continued. “It’s time to end the suffering, once and for all.”
It was Auntie Claire’s turn to scream “No!”
“You said you’d let us go,” I said to Nathan.
“No, I said we’d let your auntie go.”
I looked across at Auntie Claire. She was powerless to do anything. On old photos with Mum, they were both young, slim, pretty. Guys buzzed around her like bees around honey. She’d let herself go looking after me. And I suddenly realised – she hadn’t been ruining my life. I’d been ruining hers.
I wrote the rest of the mock suicide note in terrified handwriting. Nathan stole the journal away, beady bird eyes zigzagging their way down the page.
“Wonderful,” he said, back to his bouncy self. He nodded at Auntie Claire’s would-be executioner. The man tucked his gun back in his shoulder holster, flicked open a pocketknife and cut the ties around Auntie Claire’s hands and feet.
I breathed a sigh of relief for her. At least she was safe now. She could live, love, marry.
As Nathan handed the journal back to Smugorella, Auntie Claire rubbed her wrists and ankles. I wanted to talk to her before they let her go, but she cut me off before I could squeak out an apology.
“Please don’t hurt my niece,” she said to no one in particular. “Neither of us will say a word.”
Nathan stood to the side of Auntie Claire, just out of her eye-line. He drew a gun from the holster on his belt.
“Oh, I’m counting on it,” he said.
Without hesitation, he lifted his gun to the side of her temple and pulled the trigger.
38
Barn Animals
I screamed the barn down as Auntie Claire flopped lifeless to the floor, slapping heavily against the blood-spattered plastic sheet.
Her life was over before she could blink. I felt like I’d been hollowed out with a giant spoon, ears still ringing from the shot, fired from a gun without a silencer.
Nathan tucked the weapon away in a holster on his hip. Smugorella handed him his coffee and donut. He took a big bite and stared at me as he chewed, mouth coated in sugar.
“You said you were letting her go,” I said, whimpering.
“Oh, that was for your auntie’s sake,” Nathan said. “No need to make her suffer any more than necessary. We’re not monsters.”
He sipped on his coffee. “You might not realise it, Lorna, but all this is for a good cause.”
“Oh yeah, of course,” I said sarcastically. “Who are you fuckers? How can a stupid list be worth killing over? My auntie never did anything to anyone.”
Nathan screwed up his mouth in thought.
“Who are we people and what does it all mean?” he asked himself. “Hmm … well, it’s very complicated, Lorna.” He checked his watch. “And we really don’t have the time … But the simple version? We’re with an organisation called the Joint Peace Alliance Committee. Or JPAC, for short.”
I couldn’t help snorting. “Peace Alliance? Yeah, you’re real fucking humanitarians. What are you, like a secret branch of MI6? CIA?”
“We’re a bit more global than that. We work beyond international boundaries. Total anonymity. Unlimited budgets. It’s the only way to get anything done in this world.”
Oh great, a secret organisation with guns, money and zero accountability. What could possibly go wrong?
“And the list?” I asked. “What’s Project Maelstrom?”
“Maelstrom … Hmm, I’m afraid I could tell you, but then someone would have to kill me,” Nathan said, gesturing towards his team. “We can’t risk ruining the surprise.”
So I didn’t even get to know what I’d stolen, or what all this was for. How could I have been such a thick bitch? I should never have gone to London. Never have brought back that lens case. Never have tried to run. Never, never, never.
What the hell was I thinking?
Clearly I wasn’t. And now Auntie Claire was dead. And I was dead. And there’d be no more sunshine. No more Becki. No more keyboard cat videos. This was it. Lorna Walker. Full stop. The end. I’d die a guilty, stupid, selfish virgin on a bad-hair day. And it was all my fault.
“Look, just go ahead and shoot,” I said, utterly defeated. “Get it over with.”
I didn’t want to wait any longer. I wanted all the pain of Auntie Claire’s death to end. The s
hock was waning and I was starting to feel every raw emotion, like when the anaesthetic wore off after the heart surgery.
Nathan chuckled to himself. “No, no, no. You’re forgetting, Lorna. You’re going to kill yourself. The Oslo police will find you. The Manchester police will find your auntie, albeit in several different pieces.”
The man with the holdall stepped forward and rolled Auntie Claire over in the plastic sheet, wrapping her up like a birthday present with a fat roll of silver tape.
“We’re in luck today,” Nathan said, swallowing the last of his donut. “You’re in the presence of a real craftsman. We’ve got him on loan. A compliment to you, Lorna. He’s not someone you outrun.”
Finished with Auntie Claire, The Craftsman reached into his bag and pulled out a chain with a hook on the end. He threw it over one of the beams, tied the chain off and gave it a little tug to check it was fixed in position, the hook dangling ominously. What was he going to do, cut me and hang me like a piece of meat?
He didn’t look at me once. He was the farmer and I was the pig.
The Craftsman and the guy who’d been yanking on my arm lifted me up off my knees. I tried to wriggle out of it, but they had too much combined strength and I felt all the fight draining out of me. They bound my wrists several times over with the silver tape.
“Anyway,” Nathan said, “I’d rather not watch if it’s all the same with you. I’ve got two daughters of my own.”
I spat at him again but it fell short. Story of my life.
The Craftsman picked me up from behind and carried me over, kicking and screaming, to a hay bale he’d positioned beneath the hook. I butted him in the mouth with the back of my head. He didn’t make a peep. The stooge helper held me still in a bear hug while The Craftsman went digging in his holdall. He returned with a clear plastic bag. Oh no, I knew what this meant. He pulled the bag over my head and taped it off tight around the neck, so the plastic was right up against my face. It was horrible. Scary. Panic-inducing. Made me want to gasp for breath out of reflex, when I should have been breathing slow, light and shallow. Out of desperation, I wrote a mental note to God.