by A. S. French
Why are you moving on so quickly? Why not focus on Cara’s murder?
She knew why, recognising the technique of bombarding the suspect with rapid information to disorientate them. There it was; she was a suspect.
‘I got a train from Berlin to Prague. It was packed until it stopped in Dresden. It took four hours to get there, and then I took a taxi to my hotel.’ The driver was a miserable sod who tried to overcharge her, only handing over the correct change when Astrid said what would happen if he didn’t.
‘You’d visited Prague before?’
Davis flicked things away on the screen with her hand. Astrid assumed she was staring at the files of her earlier visits to the Czech capital: three successful assignments, with only one causality.
‘Yes, years ago and not for relaxation.’
The last time she’d killed a man by forcing his head into the river until his legs stopped kicking. The comparison to Cara’s death worried her. Were they trying to create a link between the two?
‘What else did you do on your visit?’
Davis sounded like stones rolling down a hill, starting quietly before building up speed for a violent ending. Astrid reached into her recent past, dredging up images which swam in a blurred mist before her eyes.
‘I had drinks in the Old Town, before visiting an Absinthe bar to finish the night. The next few days were typical tourist stuff: a river cruise; a trip to the castle; afternoon around the Kafka Museum.’
‘Which agent did you work with on your last assignment in Prague?’
She didn’t need to think twice. ‘Michelle Dark.’
A different agent but another lousy memory. Dark’s mistake in letting their target escape led to Astrid drowning somebody on that mission.
‘Was that a successful assignment?’ Davis returned to being coy, running her fingers through hair nobody else would touch.
‘Hardly.’ She didn’t provide the details they already had.
‘When did you last see Agent Dark?’
‘When that mission finished, and I requested not to work with her again.’
A request was putting it mildly; she’d told George in no uncertain times she’d strangle Dark if they worked together again.
I said I’d strangle her.
Astrid stared at their digital screens and wondered if they had a recording of that meeting. George had guaranteed her confidentiality, and she trusted him with her life, but she wouldn’t put anything past the Agency.
‘Indeed. She’s been on sick leave ever since,’ the director said.
Astrid grimaced. Sick leave was a polite way of saying Dark received a dishonourable discharge from the service; not that they were in the military. She couldn’t work for the Agency again, but they’d keep tabs on her at all times. One word or step out of line, such as spilling Agency secrets, and she’d be buried underground for the rest of her life. And it would be a waking burial.
‘Are you going to stop messing around and tell me what this has to do with Agent Delaney’s death?’ Astrid puffed out her cheeks and formed her hands into fists.
‘How long did your river cruise last?’
As soon as Davis asked, Astrid recognised where the conversation would end.
‘Somebody murdered Dark, choked her to death with a plastic bag, and then dumped her in the river?’ Astrid visualised it all before the words came back to haunt her.
I’ll strangle her if I see her again.
And she’d meant every single syllable. Her interrogators stared at each other as if Christmas had arrived early.
‘And how do you know this?’
Astrid imagined the noose tightening around her neck.
‘It’s an educated guess. You must realise that me being in the same cities as two murders, even if they’re of people I used to work with, is pure coincidence.’
‘We considered that until more agents you’d worked with were murdered in Vienna and Budapest. Killed when you were in those cities, both suffocated. Would you call that a coincidence?’
Astrid sighed at the ridiculousness of it all. She moved forward and poured herself a glass of water.
‘No, I wouldn’t.’ This wasn’t a trial; if the Agency confirmed her guilt, she’d never see the light of day again. ‘Who are the others?’ The drink chilled her lips, as refreshing as sandpaper in her mouth. Davis dispensed with the digital screen and went straight from memory.
‘Your first overseas assignment with the Agency was in Vienna ten years ago, assisting Agent Andrews with data salvage. Do you remember that?’
‘Vividly.’
Astrid couldn’t forget it. Sensitive government financial information was being hawked for sale by a former employee, and it took three days of punching their way through criminals to retrieve it. Plus, she broke Harry Andrews’s arm. The successful recovery was all down to her since he was in the hospital, getting patched up. The mission made Astrid an instant star in the Agency. The rumours about her partner’s injury flew like wildfire on their return, but only the two of them knew the truth. Or so she thought.
‘Agent Andrews tried to assault you in his room.’
Davis spoke as if reading out a train timetable, with about as much emotion as a talking clock. Astrid said nothing.
‘Other allegations have been made against him.’ Agent Lee touched the silver crucifix around her neck. Astrid hadn’t noticed the jewellery earlier. ‘Twelve women over a period of two years, in Britain and abroad, all while on Agency assignments. When an agent made the first accusation against him, the others followed quickly. We have details of dates, times and locations.’
‘Do you have all that stored in your head, Agent Lee?’
She nodded. ‘I interviewed every one of them and listened to all their pain.’
Astrid realised why Lee didn’t need a digital screen in front of her. The general name for it was a photographic memory, but that wasn’t right. The person who had it, correctly called eidetic memory, remembered more than images: they had complete recall over sounds, smells, touch and taste. It was a useful thing to have in the clandestine world Astrid and Lee moved in.
‘Is Andrews dead?’
Astrid didn’t care. Since the incident, she’d avoided him at work, their careers heading in different directions after the assignment in Vienna.
‘Just like the others, clear plastic bag over the head and floating in the river.’
Astrid noticed a glint in Agent Lee’s eyes at the sound of justice delivered to Andrews.
‘He continued working for the Agency?’
‘He was under investigation, on permanent leave.’
‘Were the other two on active assignments?’
Astrid was curious to know if they were under Agency observation while they were in Europe. Agent Lincoln cleared his voice, his throat full of a lifetime’s consumption of nicotine and moonshine.
‘That’s classified.’ That gruff Geordie twang sounded like a collection of syllables fighting to get away from each other.
‘What did you do in Budapest?’ Davis asked.
‘Crossed the river, visited the citadel at the top of the hill, the usual tourist stuff.’ Astrid recalled her assignments in the city as she told them about her latest visit. She guessed who it would be. ‘You found Jack Chill in the water.’
It had to be him. The three of them exchanged those same looks again, confident they had their perpetrator.
‘Is that a confession?’
‘IQs must have dropped while I was away. Either that or your stumbling ignorance is seeking the road to wisdom.’ Astrid regained her composure. ‘Considering what happened between us, if there’s another body following me around, it could only have been him.’
‘Why?’ Davis’s eyes shrank into her face.
‘He sold secrets to the Russians, even believed he was clever enough to do it underneath my nose while we were in Budapest. Shouldn’t he be in prison?’
‘He got an early release two months ago,’ Lee
said.
‘Let me guess: he remembered he had dirt to sell as long as you released him?’ Astrid didn’t understand why they couldn’t recognise she’d been framed. So she told them. ‘You realise this is a set-up?’
‘Why?’ Davis liked her direct but straightforward questions. ‘Why go to this trouble for you? What makes you so special?’
‘You mean apart from my wit, intelligence and good looks?’ Astrid’s insides squeezed together as if ready to explode.
‘And four murders connected to you by place and victim?’ Davis said.
‘It’s all a coincidence.’ Astrid knew how impossible that sounded. ‘Don’t you have CCTV footage of them?’
Director Davis’s lopsided mouth highlighted her big nose.
‘We have no CCTV footage of Cara Delaney in Berlin. It’s as if whoever she was with knew how to avoid electronic surveillance.’ Davis stared at Astrid, waiting for a response but getting nothing. ‘She probably travelled under an assumed name, so we’ve had no luck there.’
‘What about flights to Berlin?’ Astrid said.
‘There’s no record of her taking a direct flight from Manchester or any other UK airport. She may have gone by train.’
‘What about the others?’
Astrid didn’t hold out too much hope. One of the many notable things about Agency training was how agents avoided locations with cameras or were skilled at hiding themselves from electronic eyes.
‘Enough of your questions, Snow; you’re the one under investigation.’ Davis moved closer to Astrid. A fever of enthusiasm consumed the director’s features. ‘So tell us: what did you do with their fingers?’
6 Agents of Fortune
‘What happened to their fingers?’ Astrid asked no one in particular, but Agent Lincoln replied.
‘All the victims are missing theirs, sliced off below the knuckles. Somebody is collecting trophies.’
He stared at Astrid as if she’d reach into her jacket and throw those fleshy digits onto the table like cadaverous jacks in a game of death the participants had already lost.
Astrid peered at her nails. ‘How careless of them.’
‘You’ve worked some serial killer cases for the Agency over the years, isn’t that right?’
She ignored Lincoln’s question. Lethargy raced up her spine for an assault on the rear of her head. She fought off its pernicious tendrils, straightened her back, and shook the stupor from her mind.
‘I like my fingers delicate and warm, ready to stray wherever I command them to.’ Astrid forced a smile and waited for them to speak.
Davis pulled her shoulders up and pushed her chest out. ‘We have the evidence, Snow.’
‘Everything you have is circumstantial.’ Astrid spoke with a confidence she didn’t possess. Davis nodded at something behind her, and Astrid turned to see the doors open as four large boards were wheeled into the room. She gazed into the photos and recognised an artist at work, but this one possessed a fearful and malevolent talent which burnt into her retinas. ‘And it had been such a glorious holiday,’ she said as she stared at the images.
And the victims peered back at her.
An eternity of silence oppressed her. Staring into dead faces was nothing new to Astrid. She’d gazed into cold flesh before, yet these photographs made her uneasy. The fathomless depths of their suffering poured out of each digital pixel.
The victims were barely recognisable from the damage the strangulation had caused: eyeballs extended, filled with blood as if the pressure around the throat had forced them to search for oxygen; the skin stretched and possessed of a dreadful rainbow of unhealthy colours. Vivid purple and red bruising started on the neck, and then spread to cover the rest of the face.
We might be dead, they said to her, but a worse fate awaits you.
Astrid wasn’t sure what she felt, but it was unpleasant. As the others in the room muttered behind her, a hideous thought planted its claws into her head: what if this was Olivia she was staring at? What would she feel then?
One by one, the photographs on the boards transformed into her niece, Olivia’s delicate features devoid of the innocence and vivacity she’d witnessed in the park: there was only pain and death now. It was a fiction she saw, but it didn’t make it any less raw, any less of a nightmare. The images were punches in her gut, hitting hard and fast, so they stole the air from her lungs. As she struggled for breath, they landed again, resurrecting long-buried memories of her childhood, of her family, of her father. As the images returned to normal, all Astrid thought about was Olivia in the arms of her grandfather. She wanted to vomit as she turned to her accusers, a newfound sense of urgency searing into her brain.
‘Agent Lee, will you inform Snow what we’ve gathered so far?’ Davis asked her underling. Lee’s eyes sparkled as she played with the crucifix in one hand and recited from memory.
‘Four employees of the Agency killed in the same manner; the bodies disposed of the same way in four different European cities around the same time as Snow visited them. GPS tracking on the murdered agents phones shows they stayed at the same places Snow did. All the agents had worked with Snow, and all were involved in serious incidents with her.’
Davis smiled at her. ‘What do you say to that, Snow?’
The invisible fingers inside her guts squeezed hard enough for her to double up, but she fought the temptation.
‘You can’t tie any of this to me.’
‘What did you do during your three days in Prague?’ Agent Lincoln prodded at his screen again. Astrid gave them her best bored expression, pursed her lips and glanced at the ceiling.
‘I was the perfect tourist.’
It seemed a lifetime ago, even though it was only two weeks. Astrid loved the place, all of its long and winding narrow streets with surprises everywhere she went.
‘You never met with Agent Dark while you were in Prague?’ Lee was polite while Lincoln glared at Astrid.
‘I haven’t seen or spoken to Michelle in three years.’
‘You recommended Agent Dark be removed from active duty because of the mistake she made during your last assignment?’ Ice dripped from Davis’s voice.
‘She was a danger to everybody, including herself. Director Cross saw that and did the right thing.’
Lincoln changed the page on his screen and pulled up Agent Dark’s personnel file.
‘She was placed in a basement office somewhere in northern Scotland, typing out transcripts from serial killers and child murderers. Five days a week, forty-six weeks of the year for five straight years.’
‘Sounds like she found her calling,’ Astrid said with no pleasure.
‘Being an agent was the only thing Michelle desired. Not only did you take that from her, but she also ended up in a living hell.’
Anger bubbled inside Agent Lincoln’s voice: this was personal for him.
‘What was Michelle to you, Lincoln?’
He didn’t bother with her question and repeated the one Lee asked earlier.
‘Are you sure you never met with Agent Dark while you were in Prague?’
‘No,’ Astrid replied.
‘Are you sure?’
‘One hundred per cent.’
‘You never met her in the city and went to her hotel?’
He was the proverbial dog with a bone, gnawing at her words until she faltered, and he’d bury her somewhere she’d never be found.
‘No.’
‘Then how do you explain this?’
Lincoln pushed the digital screen towards Astrid, who stared at an image of an empty glass sitting on a stand in a cheap-looking hotel room.
‘It’s a glass; even you could work that out.’
She gazed straight into Lincoln’s lifeless eyes. He paused before replying, waiting to deliver the coup de grace.
‘It’s a glass with your fingerprints on it; a glass with your DNA inside it. Found in Agent Dark’s hotel room. Even though you claim not to have seen her while you were in Prague.’ If h
e could have folded the digital screen in half and written CASE CLOSED on top of it, he would have.
‘I had breakfast at the same joint every morning. Somebody took it and planted it in the room.’ Someone had framed her, and she didn’t know why. The three opposite didn’t appear to care, getting up to leave. ‘Can I call my lawyer?’
Finally, there was a crack in the director’s face, the sharp corners of her mouth discovering the strength to push upwards into a grin resembling a seaside clown.
‘You’ve forgotten where you are, Snow. This is the Agency, remember? I’ll leave you with Agent Lee to complete the custodial process.’
Director Davis didn’t give Astrid another thought or look, heading for the exit while the others gathered their information. Agent Lincoln’s shrewd gaze fixed upon her, a staccato cough interrupting his grin as he followed his leader. Agent Lee stared at the table and avoided Astrid’s gaze.
‘They left me with the rookie?’ Astrid said after a minute’s silence.
‘I’m no rookie.’ Her eyes switched from curious to indignant in an instant, her cheeks turning pink.
‘How long have you been an agent?’ Astrid forced her mind to work against the lassitude, searching for any information to help her escape from her impending fate.
‘Six months.’
‘That makes you a rookie.’
Lee put her hands on the tablet and gripped it, summoning some steel into her voice as she spoke. ‘I did five years in the military before coming here. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe.’
Something flashed beneath the surface of her professional expression, something hidden and secret, which Astrid found intriguing. She tried to identify what it was, but it vanished as soon as it appeared.
‘See, more rookie mistakes. You’ve given me information about you I didn’t have.’
‘It won’t help you with your situation.’
‘You don’t know that. Everything you give away, no matter how small, can be used against you. What you’ve told me, I’ll add it to all the other observations I’ve made since you entered this room.’
Astrid’s lethargy vanished as soon as her brain started worked working overtime. They’d decided on her guilt. They’d isolate her for a while, seeking a confession, before transporting her to a secure unit somewhere else. It meant she still had time to devise an escape from the building.