by A. S. French
Astrid rubbed the sleep from her eyes as excited birds chattered outside the window. It hadn’t been the most comfortable of beds, but it had done the trick when they’d collapsed into it. The gallery didn’t open until midday, giving them time to get refreshed.
‘How come artistic types never get out of bed in the morning?’ Laurel said without humour when she returned from getting breakfast.
Astrid stared into the phone Laurel had picked up during her early morning excursion outside the hotel. The first thing she did was access the hotel’s free Wi-Fi service, checking the latest news, pleased to find no updates on the Reaper or their escapade in Brighton. The talking heads were more concerned with another Royal baby, and some celebrity’s extra-marital activities caught on video and posted online.
She dropped the phone on the sofa bed under the window.
She needed the bathroom.
‘I’ll get a shower, and then we can have a wander around the Quays.’
Laurel emptied her bag onto the table against the back wall, moving the cups and tatty looking kettle to one side as she retrieved the fresh sandwiches. Astrid resisted the temptation to invite Laurel into the shower, having noticed tension from the younger woman during the night. She’d put it down to the stress of escaping from George’s house and their interrupted excursion with Davis, plus the news of Frank Delaney’s murder.
She’d fallen asleep as soon as they’d hit the bed, while Astrid had to go through her usual routine of clearing everything from her mind before she could get any rest. It was a process which took some time, during which it was amusing to hear Laurel snoring like a baby pig and watch her sink into a delicate dream state. Every once in a while, Laurel would mumble some incomprehensible words, all apart from one: Reaper. She’d stroked the younger woman’s hair until she fell asleep.
The hot water covered her head and ran down her back, reinvigorating her senses as she examined the map in her mind. The Reaper had followed them from the Agency to Frank Delaney’s house, that much was clear.
They must have been tracking me since the park.
It seemed likely considering they’d followed her during the trip to Europe and in Manchester. Astrid bent her neck so the water flowed down her head, grabbed her hair and covered it with shampoo. She’d forgotten how good it was to get a shower every day, to cleanse her body of unwanted thoughts and villainous memories. She thought again about who hated her so much, returning to the seven names from the list. What if she’d been wrong all along and it wasn’t an individual woman tormenting her? What if it was somebody inside the Agency? It made more sense, with all the resources they had at their disposal. What if it was Lawrence? What if someone from the Agency was working with him? The thought sent a shudder down her spine. Davis said she knew him, so maybe other agents did as well.
She turned the shower off and shook the damp fog from her head. She wrapped a towel around her waist and draped another over her hair. As she stepped out of the bathroom, Laurel was putting the finishing touches on their morning meal, pouring cheap coffee next to two sandwiches long enough to feed a small family. Astrid snatched the bread from the table, biting it in half as the water slid down her chest. She expected Laurel to smile at the sight, but she devoured her food while looking miserable.
Astrid placed the sandwich on the table and dried the rest of her hair. She let the towel around her waist slip to the floor as Laurel licked her lips and grinned.
‘We’ve got some time to kill before the gallery opens.’
They left twenty minutes later, striding past the receptionist with the patent leather face, and headed towards the DV8 art gallery Annie Dvorak had run for the past five years.
‘That’s a pretentious name for the place.’
Laurel stared at the website on the phone as they headed towards the sea. Noisy gulls hovered overhead as the finest retail stores, cafes, restaurants, and bars sailed past them on both sides.
‘Be careful when you meet her. She’s rather choleric and rises to insults quickly.’
‘You won’t be there?’
Astrid grinned, remembering how much of a rookie Laurel was when she was out from behind a desk. ‘You’ll need to have a word with Annie before she sees me; prepare her for the shock.’
She grabbed Laurel’s hand as they made their way to the gallery, both sets of eyes dragged towards the giant stuffed animal coming in their direction. It wasn’t every day somebody waddled towards her dressed as a humongous furry frog. The creature was a light shade of blue, no green anywhere, with eyes bigger than its head and a mouth which could have swallowed them in one go.
Laurel nodded in acceptance of Astrid’s request. The tall frog marched past them as a group of school kids ran behind it, giggling and screaming in its wake. Astrid found a bench next to the clock and opposite the art gallery. She sat, staring at the kids as they disappeared into the distance. Olivia was never far from her mind. So much so, she’d started to create a second escape map inside her head, but this one was for her niece and her options to get her away from Courtney and, potentially, Astrid’s father.
‘I have a niece. That’s who Davis threatened when I grabbed her.’
There was a longing in her voice which hadn’t been there before. They held hands as if they were kids waiting for their first day at school, staring at the unassuming entrance to the art gallery, with its plain white curtains draped against the inside of the window and an ordinary-looking door. If there hadn’t been an intricately designed business logo sitting above the front, she would have believed it was another run-down residential property.
‘You love her.’ Laurel gripped her hand as the clock ticked closer to twelve. ‘She loved you.’
‘Who loved me?’ There were another five minutes before the gallery opened.
‘Annie Dvorak.’
‘I didn’t know what love was.’
She stood, took in a large breath, and prepared for another reunion. Laurel got to her feet as well.
‘And you do now?’
‘Yes,’ Astrid said as she strode forward. ‘It’s very much like hate.’
28 Art School Girl
I scrutinised them from the other side of the quay. How funny it would have been to walk past them inside that frog suit, even though the outfit appeared uncomfortable. The sea air created an overpowering desire for ice cream and candy floss. A dense mix of sugar drifted over from the vendor behind me. The sweet fragrance brought a memory of fresh blood, threading ecstasy through my body and reminding my fingers of when I pulled plastic tight against cold skin. I dipped my hand into my pocket, clutching at the desire hiding there. What had started as a redemption journey had transformed into one of discovery, unfurling the creative artistry living inside me.
It had gone twelve, and the art gallery hadn’t opened. Nobody else but Astrid and Laurel approached the building. An artistic vacuum surrounded them as Astrid pushed her face against the window, its coldness providing a welcome relief from the midday sun frying the back of her head. There was nothing inside but the outline of a man lying on the floor. His face was obscured by a bright red cloth, while a large sheath of dark metal split his body down the middle, spilling shrivelled organs out of his manicured suit and all over the floor.
‘I hate modern art,’ Astrid said as the clock struck fifteen minutes past the hour.
She strode from the entrance, down the side of the long, narrow building and around the corner towards the back of the DV8 art gallery.
Laurel hurried behind her. ‘Will we restrain her first?’
‘If you want to and you like that kind of foreplay.’ Astrid’s face was unmoving apart from the tiny glint of humour trickling from the corners of her lips. Laurel’s eyebrows curved upwards in surprise. ‘She’s not our target.’
The rear of the retail area was bereft of any other sign of humanity. A black cat scampered across their path, prompting Laurel to reach for the cross around her neck.
‘What is she, then
?’
‘I hoped she’d be the bait.’
Astrid jogged forward, with Laurel keeping pace by her side.
‘Bait for what?’
Astrid kicked some empty beer cans to one side, regret creeping inside her.
‘For whoever is following us; the one you like to call the Reaper.’ As they approached the back of the art gallery, Astrid’s heart sank. ‘This isn’t a good sign.’
They stepped over a surprising amount of trash at the back of the property.
‘You think Annie’s hiding or has left because she knew we were coming?’
‘No, but somebody got here before us.’
Astrid grabbed the broken lock hanging from the handle of the door. She swore at herself for being so lax; if they hadn’t rested, or if she hadn’t been distracted by her desire for Laurel, they could have gotten there earlier and prevented this. They slipped inside through the open door. Laurel stepped into the storage room at the rear of the gallery as Astrid barged ahead, pushing boxes to one side and making for the front room.
‘Shouldn’t we wait?’
‘If this Reaper wanted to kill me, they could’ve done it numerous times over; this is about more than murder. They wanted to do something here…’ her voice trailed off at what greeted them.
It was easier to get the two of them inside the gallery than I expected, helped by the emptiness waiting for me when I arrived there early in the morning. The lock on the door was no obstacle, the metal snapping like a neck in the hangman’s noose. It was a good job I had Dvorak’s home address from the data I got from Jack Chill. Getting into her house was child’s play, for who would suspect somebody like me of nefarious intentions? The gun helped as well, although I had to be inside the door first before showing it to her. She didn’t protest when I injected her with the sedative, which was a shame because it would have been a treat to beat her around the face a bit. I was missing the excitement of murder. He was out cold in the boot. All I had to do was drive up to the back of the gallery.
The comfort of the storage room, with its numerous stacked boxes and random pieces of artwork dotted against the walls, was replaced with a scene lifted straight from a Hollywood thriller: two bodies standing on tiptoes atop chairs, ropes around their necks and tied to the beams above them. The plastic bags over their heads obscured their features enough for Astrid to be unable to recognise them, but she guessed the woman was Annie Dvorak.
‘Shit!’
Laurel moved forward to steady the trembling legs of the woman: if the chair moved, she'd snap her neck.
‘Stop.’ Astrid grabbed Laurel by the shoulder. ‘Look at the ground.’
Wires and ropes crisscrossed the floor, intricate knots and connections running over everything, up the chairs and hanging bodies. They looped and spiralled above their heads along the rafters: coiled snakes of imminent death if Astrid and Laurel put a foot wrong. Not their deaths, but those of the two trussed figures in front of them. The woman was Sophisticated Annie. Astrid recognised Annie behind the plastic bag which was moving in and out as she struggled to breathe. She ignored the advice she’d given Laurel, stepping as carefully as she could between the cables to get a better look at the other hostage.
Laurel checked the rest of the room. ‘It’s clear.’
Astrid focused on the floor. She probed for any trap which might set the chairs to fall and the ropes to fly to the ceiling, killing the hostages before help could reach them. There was no free space left to move in. She stepped as close as she could to the wires, staring at Annie’s agonised face, features contorted to resemble a reflection cast from a circus mirror. Then she peered at the other hostage and her insides turned to ice.
‘George?’ The word tumbled out of her mouth, lips trembling with shock.
‘You can save one of us, Astrid; only one.’
There was no panic in his voice, his body unwavering on the chair even though the tips of his favourite hand-stitched shoes were just about touching the furniture and keeping him alive.
‘What?’ Astrid’s heart pounded against her ribcage.
‘Can’t we grab one of them each?’
Laurel had managed to get close to Astrid’s side without standing on any obstacles littering the ground. The low noise of the ticking coming from behind the hanging couple startled them both: it was the sound of numbers clicking over, the unmistakable echo of a countdown.
‘There’s a bomb under the window.’
Astrid pointed through the gap separating George and Annie towards two objects sitting on top of a cupboard. The clock ticked down from a hundred, with a large knife resting against it.
‘Time enough to cut one of us down,’ George said.
‘Shit!’
Panic seeped out of Laurel, her eyes twitching in a frenzy, switching from the clock, to the bodies, and then to Astrid. Ten seconds had evaporated, and they hadn’t moved.
‘Save Annie,’ George said.
The cogs inside Astrid’s brain hadn’t stopped moving since they’d entered the room. George pleaded with her again to save Annie, but she wasn’t going to let anyone die. There was just over a minute left. Astrid ran around the threat on the floor, thrust the cupboard door open, and stared at the explosives inside.
‘Can you stop it?’ Laurel asked in desperation.
‘Not in the time we have left.’
There were four sticks of dynamite, forty per cent nitro, ready to shoot out at fourteen thousand feet per second. There was enough to blow a hole in the wall and destroy everything in front of it. That included George and Annie, plus Astrid and Laurel if they didn’t get out of the way.
There were fifty seconds before it went boom.
‘You have to choose one,’ Laurel shouted.
‘Follow me.’ Astrid sprinted into the other room.
Laurel ran after her. ‘You’re just going to leave them there?’
Anger and disappointment sat heavy in her voice. Astrid ignored the question.
‘We need to move this piece of metal into the other room, between them and the device.’
She grabbed one end of the artwork, the metal splitting the plastic man down the middle. It was a large chunk of lead, at least an inch thick, which was good for what they needed, but was going to be a pain to move in the time they had.
Forty seconds to go.
‘It’s too heavy,’ Laurel said.
Then Astrid got the first bit of good luck she’d had in a long time. Whoever designed such an unusual art piece had the good sense to place the large, heavy centrepiece on wheels.
‘Help me get this in front of the explosives.’
Laurel dragged one end while Astrid pushed the other, placing it equally distant from the cupboard and George and Annie. Astrid didn’t want the force of the blast to send the metal flying into the two of them, hoping it would be strong enough for protection.
Thirty seconds left.
Astrid ran back into the other room, scooped up the plastic man, and then returned to Annie Dvorak’s feet. She lifted Annie’s legs, making sure her neck was supported, before plopping her back down, so she rested on top of the shoulders of the plastic man.
‘Grab the knife, and then get in the other room,’ she shouted to Laurel.
She reached over to George and grabbed hold of his legs for support. Dismay gripped Laurel’s face.
Fifteen seconds left.
‘Leave me, Astrid,’ George said.
‘You need to be in there in case something goes wrong, Laurel.’
The calmness in her voice must have convinced Laurel to follow the instructions as she lunged for the blade and snatched it away from the concealed dynamite.
Ten seconds left.
Laurel scampered into the other room, both hands over her ears. Her vision fixed on Astrid, their eyes glued together like magnets.
Then the whole room shook.
29 Revelation
Astrid thought about George and the times they’d shared; of how she’d
missed him. Until she was eighteen, she’d had no real experience of love or kindness. It was Ramon and his gang of criminals who’d provided her first sense of belonging. She’d romanticised the experience, drawing a soft focus on the violence and intimidation surrounding her life then. He was the bad boy who oozed a magnetism which no girl could resist. In reality, he was ten years older than her, skilled in manipulation and deceit, which blinded her to his true self.
Eventually, Astrid grasped she’d fallen into a traditional role of girl attracted to the boy until she appreciated she much preferred other girls. She was on the verge of leaving him and the criminal underworld’s confines when she was arrested and ended up in handcuffs, sitting opposite Joe Storm. He was her superior, but it grew into something much more: colleagues; equals. Once Director Cross entered her working life, Astrid found it possible to look up to somebody who was a parental figure. Now she looked up to him in a different and terrible way.
The explosion knocked the memories from Astrid; her ears shook so much, she thought they’d fall off. Vibrations rippled through her body as the chair rocked from side to side, teetering on the brink of sending her over the edge and snapping George’s neck. It was like a huge hand was pushing against every inch of her until it travelled through and out the other side.
She held on to him with all her strength as the blast smacked into the lead sheet with enough force to topple it over and towards the dangling torsos of Annie and George. Astrid twisted her shoulder to one side, stuck her hand out, and took the full brunt of the lead as it staggered towards them. Shock jumped inside her wrist, and agony sprang through her like an electric current.
Debris flew into the air, not quite a mushroom cloud, but enough to obscure anything around her. Astrid used her shoulder to shove the wheels one way, moving the lead sheet away. Her right arm dangled to the side, parallel to George’s legs as she continued to cling to them for dear life. Through the haze, she saw the plastic man had achieved what she wanted: supporting Annie so there was no threat of her collapsing and the rope ripping the life from her.