Don't Fear the Reaper

by A. S. French

  She picked up Laurel’s notes and stretched her legs until her feet rested on the table. Once Laurel had scratched through the male names and added the ones she’d given her, there were seven left on the page. Astrid got the remote and switched the TV set off.

  ‘You might want to sit down for this, Frank.’ Astrid gave him a twisted smile, like the grin of someone about to divulge their most treasured secret. He pushed the cushions off the chair next to the TV and stared at her. ‘The murders and the Agency’s deliberate incompetence in investigating them are two different things.’

  ‘You don’t think there’s a connection?’ Laurel replied.

  ‘I believe somebody wants me to think there is, so I’ll focus on the Agency and who wants to frame me. But it doesn’t make any sense. As useless as I believe them to be, in general, there are still some skilled people there.’

  She peered into Delaney’s bloodshot eyes before turning to stare at Lee.

  Frank laughed at her. ‘You’re too kind, Snow.’

  ‘If somebody high up in the Agency wanted to frame me, there’d be evidence pointing towards me at all the crime scenes, not only in Prague. Even if it’s a rogue agent acting alone, they would’ve had plenty of opportunities to leave evidence incriminating me.’

  ‘Maybe they’re cleverer than you, Snow.’

  Frank’s shirt peered out of his trousers, and there was a sauce stain underneath his chin. He must have sprayed himself with something citrusy as a smell of lemon hung around the room.

  ‘I think the Agency’s smartest agents are all in this room, Frank.’ Astrid grinned at Laurel and ignored the scowl on his face. ‘No, a single individual is behind this, and influential people at the Agency are using it to smear my name and incarcerate me. They got lucky with the timing.’

  ‘Why?’ Frank asked. ‘What makes you so special?’

  Astrid sighed and told him what she’d already revealed to Laurel. ‘I wasn’t coming back to the Agency; Director Cross signed off on it.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why Cross disappeared. If they were on to his deception with you, he’d have ended up in a cell as well.’ He peered at the two women as if he’d discovered something significant in their investigation. ‘They probably think Cross is your partner, and he helped you escape from the van.’

  Astrid could see why the Agency had stuck Frank behind a desk. ‘Let’s hope they believe that. The more they follow the wrong leads, the better it is for us.’

  ‘The Agency would find you if you left,’ Laurel said. ‘I’ve read the files about the ones who tried to quit. It never ended well for them.’

  ‘Not me.’ There was no arrogance in Astrid’s voice, just absolute confidence and self-belief.

  ‘Snow’s right,’ Frank piped up.

  ‘I’m right about which part?’ She was curious as to why he’d switched from disagreeing with her.

  ‘You’re too good for the Agency. If one agent could disappear from them, it would be you, especially if Director Cross protected you. They couldn’t allow that to happen. Once you sign up for the Agency, they’ve got you for life; the only way to leave is in a wooden box.’

  Laurel rubbed at the mark on her head. ‘Why couldn’t they bring you back into the fold, keep you there?’

  ‘Isn’t that what they did?’ Astrid gazed at the stain on Frank’s chin, getting hungry again. ‘A deep cell underground is a pretty permanent place to keep somebody. If Frank hadn’t busted me out of the van, I’d be sitting in the shadows for the rest of my life.’ She acknowledged her debt to him with a nod. His scowl morphed into a grimace as she asked him another question. ‘Do you know what happened to Director Cross?’ It was too much of a coincidence for him to have disappeared before Astrid got entangled in this mess.

  ‘Nobody knows. One day he’s at work, the next he isn’t.’

  ‘The Agency searched for him?’

  ‘Of course, they did. They found nothing.’

  ‘So much for them being able to find anybody who tries to leave their orbit,’ Laurel said.

  ‘They might not be trying to find him.’ Astrid peered at the plaster on Laurel’s head, feeling a strange kind of emotion for her. ‘Or they might know where he is. And Frank could be right: if they knew what he’d planned with me, George would be locked away as we speak.’

  Frank nodded, the skin below his chin rippling in a most unattractive fashion. ‘They didn’t waste any time in getting somebody new in.’

  ‘And Director Davis replaced him?’ Astrid asked.

  ‘It’s her empire now.’

  Laurel sat up. ‘Why did you say it was a single individual behind the murders?’

  ‘I don’t think there could be two people who hate me so much.’ She allowed herself the luxury of a chuckle.

  ‘Don’t be too sure,’ Frank said without a trace of humour. His ire couldn’t knock Astrid from her upbeat mood.

  ‘There’s too much controlled anger in those five murders for it to be two people. It’s one person, and it’s a woman.’

  ‘Go on, then, enlighten us,’ he said. Astrid found it amusing her apparent saviour would sing her praises one minute, the next make obvious his disdain for her theories.

  ‘You’ve both seen the crime scene photos, right?’ They nodded in unison. ‘Any marks on the bodies of Andrews and Chill?’

  ‘Yes,’ they both said together.

  ‘Small bruises on their backs, as if somebody pushed against them to hold them down during strangulation?’

  ‘How did you know?’ Laurel asked.

  ‘Don’t worry; I didn’t do it, or any of them. Don’t you think it’s strange the three men have the marks while the two women don’t?’ Astrid removed her legs from the table, scratching the top of her ankle before a bout of cramp ensued. ‘I saw the photo of Chill’s body. The bruise was small, too small to be from a man unless he’s on the short side. And if our suspect has two hands on the plastic bag over the victim’s head, which they must have, it’s safe to assume they held them down with some part of their leg. It can’t have been their foot as they wouldn’t have been able to reach their head then, so it must’ve been their knee; same with the other men.’

  ‘Okay; why not the same MO with the other two murders?’ Frank said.

  ‘Because generally, women don’t think other women are going to kill them. We’re always suspicious around men, but another woman we trust; mostly.’

  ‘It must be someone with a similar or larger physique,’ Laurel said.

  ‘Absolutely, so it was easier for them to overpower the victims. There was no need to hold them down; hence, there were no marks on those two bodies.’

  ‘That’s all guesswork.’ Frank didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘It’s an educated analysis, Frank. It’s what I’m good at. You know this. It’s why you broke me out of that van.’

  ‘I don’t buy it.’ He jumped from his chair and stormed into the kitchen.

  ‘He certainly dislikes you. His sister must have taken your breakup pretty hard.’

  ‘She did.’ Astrid tried not to think about it, a brooding look on her face as she grabbed hold of the TV remote again.

  ‘What must it be like to love somebody so much?’

  The sadness in Laurel’s voice startled her. Staring at the other woman and recognising the pain in her face, Astrid didn’t know how to answer so switched on the TV and searched for news about the Reaper. Laurel stared at the names she’d written, with a far-off look in her eyes.

  Astrid ceased the pointless changing of the channels, stopping on a cartoon of a frustrated cat trying to smash a small grinning brown mouse. The moggy chased its prey around an old-fashioned kitchen on an endless loop of a desperate pursuit which would never end, no matter how many times they played out the same scenario.

  ‘You could go back to the Agency, Laurel.’

  ‘And what would I do there?’ The anger in Laurel’s voice pleased Astrid; as long as she used it positively, it would be much better th
an wallowing in sadness. ‘We have Frank on the inside; there’s no need for two of us there.’

  How quickly this has turned into ‘us’ and not just me.

  ‘Are you not concerned about your reputation, of what might happen to you the longer you’re with me?’

  Why are you still with me, rookie, when you could be back in your safe everyday life with the Agency and your dog?

  A million and one theories rattled inside Astrid’s head, and every single one of them wanted to pull her deep below the murky waters of her current predicament.

  ‘They think you and your partner have kidnapped me; I’ll be okay for a while. You never know, I might return there as a conquering hero. We both might.’

  Astrid laughed at the thought of it combined with the sight of the frustrated cartoon cat getting a creampie stuffed into his startled face.

  ‘My theories didn’t convince Frank; how about you?’

  ‘I examined all the evidence they had. Your analysis appears sound to me. But then what do I know? I’m only a rookie.’

  Astrid stared at Laurel, expecting to be greeted by a morose vision of unhappiness, but was pleased to see the other woman grinning at her, blonde hair shimmering in the light of the digital screen. Some pots and pans were thrown into cupboards as Frank completed his domestic duties in the kitchen. Astrid nodded his way, pointing towards the racket coming from the other room.

  ‘What do you make of him?’

  ‘I don’t know him at all. I’ve seen him in passing at headquarters, but we’d never spoken until I woke up in the back of the car.’

  ‘Do you trust him?’

  ‘I don’t know who to trust.’ Laurel gazed at her. ‘If you were going to disappear from the Agency before, why don’t you do it now?’

  Astrid ignored the flashing psychedelic lights coming from the TV and shuffled closer to the younger woman, cutting out the space separating them on the sofa.

  ‘Someone is trying to destroy my life, and I’m not the type of person to stand by and let that happen.’

  ‘Why do you think they’re doing this?’

  She answered while flicking through the news channels again. ‘I don’t care why. I’m just going to stop them any way I can.’

  Frank trundled back into the room and glared at them. ‘We need to talk about what we’re going to do next.’

  ‘That’s simple.’ Astrid turned off the set. ‘I’m going to find Director Cross.’

  18 Vienna

  Vienna is a beautiful city; a place bathed in imperial grandeur with a pastel palette of Baroque and Renaissance architecture which is wondrous to behold.

  To do such a dreadful thing in such a beautiful place was a shame, but Harry Andrews was a terrible man who deserved everything he got. I had to humiliate him first, make him pay for all those women he’d hurt. It was easy, really. Point the gun at the head and issue the command. The weapon sleeps at the bottom of the Danube now.

  ‘What do you want?’

  It seemed a strange thing for him to say, considering I was pointing a gun at him. Only when I gazed into his eyes did I realise he wasn’t afraid. His arrogance stopped him from worrying about his situation.

  I waved the weapon at him. ‘Take your clothes off.’

  My finger on the trigger removed any reluctance he might have had. He stood there in an undershirt and pants an old man would wear.

  ‘I’ve got money if that’s what you’re after.’

  The mania in my eyes must have told him I was a druggie in search of a fix. If that was the case, he wasn’t far wrong. I pointed the gun towards the shirt, and he pulled it over his head. There were fresh scratch marks on his chest.

  ‘Did your last victim hurt you?’

  He ran his fingers over the scratches and grinned at me. ‘Is that what this is about? You’re a friend of the family?’

  He shivered in the room as I wiped the sweat from my forehead. ‘Yes, something like that.’

  The fear seeped through his skin, dripped from his eyes, eroding the person he thought he was, consuming all the arrogance and confidence which drove him through his existence. The contortions were visible in his stomach, my invisible hand crushing his insides in anticipation of what was to come. His breathing was fast and erratic, coming in great clumps before disappearing for seconds as he struggled to come to terms with his imminent future.

  For one moment, I recognised a promise of resistance in his startled eyes until I pushed the revolver against his skull. Any hope of defiance was crushed against the blackness of his soul. I made him strip naked before forcing his head against the flaking plaster of the wall. Whatever he’d paid to rent the property was far too much.

  My knee was pressed tight against the bare skin of his back, the plastic in my left hand, gun in the right and glued to his cheek. I thought a man of his violent proclivities would protest more, would put up a fight, but all he could do was piss over the floor as I slipped the bag over his head. I dropped the gun onto the ground and got both hands on the bottom of the bag, forcing my leg even harder into his back as my fingers grabbed hold of the plastic.

  As the life slipped away from him, his hands grasped at his throat, struggling to pull upwards as my knee pushed down. As I pulled hard on the plastic, his head tilted in the air, and my eyes followed his as they focused on the wall and the last things he’d ever see. I’d thought about placing photos there of the women he’d attacked, but dismissed the idea as too risky. Taking no chances of leaving any evidence behind, instead, I placed random postcards of Vienna’s sights on that spot on the wall: the Belvedere Museum, St Stephen’s Cathedral and Schönbrunn Palace. It was ironic a man so ugly on the inside would see such beauty as he breathed his last.

  It’s a cathartic experience, taking another’s life, a cleansing of the soul. I wanted to defile his body, burn every part of him so he’d disappear from existence. But I couldn’t; it had to follow the same pattern as the others, be part of the larger plan.

  Once it was done, I removed the postcards and dumped them into a rubbish bin as I wandered towards the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere. The museum was open for another hour, giving me plenty of time to visit some old friends. The lateness helped to thin out the annoying tourists and their selfie sticks. I glared at a few of them, picturing my technique for thinning out the herd. Once the plan was completed, plastic bags would be neither practical nor safe for when I continued. I needed to think of new methods.

  As I considered using an array of knives in future endeavours, my eyes were drawn to the glitter of my old friends. A gun would also be essential to get people in position. I could still use the plastic bags on the odd occasion. It would be a sweet memory, homage to the grand plan.

  I stared at my old friends, her face permanently turned away from his. A long time ago, I believed they were deeply in love, the way he embraced her in that field of cloth and gold; they were bound together, through choice, as one being – one entity.

  My interpretation had changed over the years; now, I saw her as an unwilling victim of his oppression. Rather than the embodiment of true love, they were the quintessential symbols of death. Head turned away or eyes closed, pale skin contrasted with the opulent gold and green of life surrounding them. She was limp; she was passive; was she alive?

  I stared at them until it was time to leave. Ushered outside, I was thinking about life and death. Dreaming about what I’d do once I returned home.

  The journey to Brighton was a straight drive down the A23. Frank gave Astrid his car while he took the train to London and returned to the Agency.

  ‘How do you know where his home is? Only a few people at the top of the Agency hierarchy know where a director lives.’

  Laurel fiddled with the seatbelt as Astrid ignored her question and cruised down the road. Laurel was uncomfortable wearing the same clothes for more than a day and had repeatedly told Astrid that as they readied to leave the Delaney household.

  ‘I’m sure Frank has kept all
of Cara’s clothes upstairs in her room; ask him if you can borrow some.’ Laurel declined, and Astrid was glad. She shuddered at the thought of seeing Laurel wearing her dead ex-girlfriend’s clothes. ‘You’ll have to make do with what you’re wearing, then. George might have something at his place.’

  They drove past a sign for Mud Mania, and Astrid grinned at the thought of getting dirty.

  ‘His full name was George Cross?’

  Laurel appeared bemused, her pretty eyes creeping upwards as those delicious lips headed south. Astrid kept on smirking.

  ‘Yeah, he wanted to change it but never did. His parents were dedicated patriots. They were none too pleased when they discovered what they called his alternative lifestyle.’

  On their right was a large billboard advertising Hot Tubs. Laurel scratched at her stomach as the car slowed because of the traffic.

  ‘How do you know where he lives?’ Laurel asked again.

  ‘Because he told me, and I’ve been there before. He was my friend.’

  Astrid didn’t know why she’d slipped into the past tense when she mentioned him. She kept her eyes on the road. It was warm outside, so she turned on the air conditioning.

  ‘What happens when we get to Director Cross’s house?’

  Laurel pulled at her trousers and scratched under her shirt. Her constant frustration began to annoy Astrid.

  ‘I take one of George’s computers and hack into the Agency system and see what they have on me.’ She was pleased with the idea, but Laurel frowned. ‘Why the long face, beautiful?’

  Astrid always enjoyed flirting, more so with women than men. She’d found that men expected it to develop into something else. For them, it was an aperitif guaranteed to lead to an entree as a gateway to the main course. But for most women, it was an end in itself, something frivolous that could just be a bit of fun.

  ‘All your files have been moved from the main server.’ Laurel passed on the information as if updating somebody about a loved one’s death.

  ‘Why?’ It was disappointing to hear. She could think of any number of reasons, but wanted to know the official line.