He took a moment to admire some landscape photography, brilliantly observed and one, a monochrome seascape appealed to his artistic mind, if he were a burglar he would have taken it, if he were a friend he would have subtly asked for a copy. But he was neither. A pity, he particularly admired how the person behind the lens had captured the golden hour, had observed the shadows and had cropped the image to focus the mind. It would have easily graced the walls of his home.
He carefully picked up another photograph, a simple portrait in a sun-bleached birch frame. It was her. He studied her in the ambient light, long enough to confirm the target.
The caller’s words were deliberate yet ambiguous.
‘Cut a piece from her and remove it – send it to her lover at his work the following day. Let them realise we can strike at their heart, at any time.’
Iliescu found the whole task bothersome. He would much rather be entering the bedroom of a government minion in the country that had created the monster – a senior official from the National Library, perhaps? Yes, that would indeed do.
He would sedate the official’s wife, quietly going about his task and with the clinical efficiency of an anaesthetist.
Propofol would swiftly enter the victim, sedating her in moments. As a fast and short-acting narcotic, it was ideal for his task. Her husband would be next, but his dose would be lethal.
With a cursory and complete check for the presence of obvious forensic evidence, Copil de umbra could leave the building and blend back into the place from which he gained his name.
But no, this client was different. This client did not want him to murder someone. Why make a difficult job harder comrade? He made a mental note to track down the individual, and when the time was right, he’d be sure to educate him on the finer things in life, taking a particularly pleasant moment to consume the bastards exquisite French brandy in front of him as he watched him beg for forgiveness, cable-tied to a chair, the hypodermic needle delivering its consignment, widening his eyes and flooding him with the realisation that this was to be the end.
He often despised his clients more than the target.
It was becoming a regular thing too. Haunted by the demons of his past, of the government that betrayed him, but equally, driven to do the right thing. He wanted to earn well, to exploit his skills, but at the end of a task he also wanted to retain the moral high ground.
Enough. He must not let his desire for revenge cloud his judgement. His need for secrecy meant he had to be lucky all of the time, but his client only once.
He approached the bedroom door, took hold of it firmly and confidently moved it an inch forwards and backwards. Good. The owner of this home was as fastidious as he was. There was simply nothing more inconvenient than a creaking hinge to upset the evening.
Some said he was obsessive, compulsive even, but he had washed his hands of them, five times.
He entered, confidently placing one foot in front of the other, just like God had intended. He was at a heightened state of alert, the hundreds of microscopic hairs on the back of his neck standing in line, always an indicator of an imminent threat.
He’d done this a thousand times, both in practice and in reality. There was one time in Prague where he’d brushed the back of his hand across the naked breast of a diplomat’s wife. It was wrong, and he told himself he must never do it again. He was a professional intelligence operative, not a damned pervert. But she was rather beautiful.
When challenged, he explained to his supervisor that he needed to learn which parts of the human body responded to the lightest of touches. It was all part of the training programme and the diplomat’s wife had undoubtedly responded.
The present difference with these two individuals who slept, blissfully unaware of his presence, was that they worked for a government with whom he had no experience, and in truth that concerned him.
His intelligence brief was simple, almost too rudimentary. What it failed to do was to outline the risks posed by his target. The female was a civilian, ex-police officer and now an analyst. She wouldn’t pose a problem, surely?
The male was another case altogether. The document he had read and destroyed stated that he was a successful officer, with experience in a number of United Kingdom forces, that he had orchestrated a counter-strike against the client’s own men. He was close-quarter battle trained and could use a handgun and as such should be considered a threat.
He looked anything but a threat as he slept like a baby next to his lover. He looked at them both, wondering whether they had recently made love or whether they lived a mundane lifestyle like so many couples. He chose the former, if nothing else it allowed his mind to wonder away from the danger of being caught. It was how he worked best: relaxed.
He carried out a risk assessment on the male. He was on the other side of the bed and that provided Iliescu with valuable seconds should he need to exit rapidly. He looked physically in good shape, but the Romanian had the element of surprise. One good blow to the solar plexus would render the male ineffective long enough for him to leave the building and disappear.
Whilst the male slept in his newfound home, his uninvited guest continued with his task, allowing him the slumber he clearly needed. And besides, despite what the client had ordered, these two people had never harmed him and in a bizarre way they were connected – law enforcement brothers in arms, Intelligence Officers and all that.
He methodically swept the room, looking from left to right, taking a moment to close his eyes and just listen. Nothing, not even the sweep of a second hand on a clock.
He removed a scalpel from his sleeve pocket, it provided a hint of light, its tempered, sterile blade sitting at the end of a modest black plastic handle. Costing only a fraction of most surgical items, it was the essential catalyst for any surgery, so exquisitely sharp and yet so brilliantly simple.
She slept on her left side; her face looking straight at him. He lowered himself onto one knee and leant across her body. He could hear and feel her breath. She was naked, but it failed to distract him. Using the blade, he sliced a locket of hair and placed it into a plastic zip-lock bag. It would later be dropped into a pre-addressed envelope.
Content that he had got what he considered to be a piece of her, and contrary to the more sinister desire of his customer he began to stand up. His task was complete. If the customer wasn’t happy then fine, he could come and have a face-to-face discussion about a refund.
As he turned to leave, he realised that in only carrying out the modest act of removing her hair he was in danger of damaging his reputation. After all, a skilled practitioner could remove the hair in a train carriage without alerting the donor. The client needed to know that their message had been delivered.
He exhaled silently. The couple were oblivious, sleeping soundly.
Iliescu stood still and thought deeply, rubbing his chin, backwards and forwards with his left hand whilst the right held the scalpel with the deftness of a surgeon.
He slowly let the air part from his lungs, and then gently inhaling once more. It was all he could hear.
‘Damn you people. Why can’t you just let me kill them and move on? Why does the job have to be so fucking difficult?’
He knelt down again, watching the male who had moved from his right to his left, placing his left arm up under the pillow and settling again. Now both people were facing him.
He placed the tip of the scalpel onto her neck, adding enough pressure to rouse her. She didn’t move. He had carried out this act before and he knew that the neck, contrary to popular belief, was not as sensitive as the back of the hand, the forearm or cheek.
As long as the action was deliberate, decisive and swift he would be fine.
He started the cut just in front of her ear, under the jawline. Following the line of her sternocleidomastoid muscle, which acted as a guide, he drew the blade down her neck, stopping at the collarbone. The cut was made with the precision of a physician, only a millimetre deep but enough to
allow it to bleed. It would heal in days, no worse than a shaving cut for a male.
But the point had been made. The message delivered.
He waited for a reaction. Nothing. As he expected. He was a professional, after all.
He placed the blade back into the pocket where he had located it and retraced his steps, gently closing the door as he left. He walked back down the left-hand side of the staircase, through the lounge and out through the main door, closing it quietly behind him and removing a piece of cloth from the Yale latch, allowing it to slip quietly back into place.
A masterclass in burglary had just taken place in central London, and a young woman would only know how close she had come to death when she woke to find the blood on her pillow.
He got to the ground floor, waited and hearing no sounds other than the cry of the wind he removed the latex gloves that had protected them both and exited the main door, turned left and walked off into the night. He would dispose of the surgical items the next day, dropping them overboard from the passenger deck of the cross-channel ferry that took him from Dover to Calais.
Once back in France he could recover, relax and enjoy the benefits of a lifestyle paid for by people richer than him. Living, for now, in a rented farmhouse in the Bordeaux region he looked forward to a glass of Aloxe Corton, the famed red wine from Burgundy.
He needed to support the local industry and besides he enjoyed the taste of his local wine, which, as luck would have it was one of the finest Pinot Noirs in the world.
He allowed the liquid to empty into his favourite glass before he swirled it around and around, allowing the fullness of its flavours to collide with his senses. It was only two years old, not yet mature but ready to drink. The heady mixture of preserved fruit and blackcurrant delighted his taste buds and the colour, the colour was garnet, crimson and red. A deep and satisfying red not unlike the blood that had gently seeped from that poor girl’s neck.
He leant back in his aged leather armchair and exhaled, forcing the stress of many years from his lungs.
For now, his work was done.
Chapter Seven
Early the following morning the weather had altered for the worst.
O’Shea fumbled for her alarm and placed one foot out of bed, took a moment to settle her equilibrium and then walked quietly towards the bathroom.
She switched the light on but kept her eyes closed. It was part of her daily routine. She ran the hot tap until it got up to temperature and then began to splash the refreshing water onto her face. Her eyes opened, the remnants of the night slowly allowing her lashes to prise apart.
She was joined by an equally half-asleep Cade who carried out almost the same regime, stood behind her, his arms casually draped over her shoulders, hands heading south towards her cleavage, but his eyes opened instantly when he saw his girlfriend’s neck and shoulder.
“Carrie, when did you start shaving? Is there something we need to discuss?”
“What the hell are you on about?” O’Shea asked. She wasn’t at her best in the morning and she was fighting a losing battle with her lashes.
Cade stepped forward, took a flannel from a nearby radiator and gently wiped the encrusted dark blood from her upper body. It was then that he noticed the cut.
“Carrie, what have you done to yourself girl? Look.”
She was now fully awake and staring back at her reflection. Her hand favoured the wound, pressing on it for a few seconds before she released it and stared at herself in the mirror.
“I have no idea.”
She turned to look back at her bed, the pure white cotton bedsheets and pillow cases were stained with her blood.
The rational part of her brain tried to formulate an explanation. Life was strange and had a habit of presenting stranger scenarios but this one had no obvious explanation. She had no recollection of injuring herself, and she was absolutely certain that her newfound lover had not tried to kill her during the night.
Cade felt unsettled at what he saw, but forced himself to play it down. Somehow she had cut her neck, and, girl it was already healing. Best leave it at that.
O’Shea had the same unnerving feeling, but did exactly the same as her man. She lived a professional life that existed around the need to collect data, to provide intelligence and support investigations. As things stood she had some primary information; pure, analysed intelligence couldn’t follow as she had no idea how it had happened and therefore an investigation was considered unlikely.
It was a freak event without explanation.
“Time for breakfast?” asked a reassuring Cade.
Seven miles away rain was pounding off the pavements of Braybrook Street, London and creating hard work for the perished wipers on Gabor’s newly acquired Peugeot 306.
The bland silver car sat in the side street adjacent to Wormwood Scrubs Park and in view of the iconic British prison of the same name.
Gabor was sat in his own car. At least that is how he viewed it for now, his, until taken away from him. He was in the driving seat, but not in control. Behind him was a thin but wiry individual who was by far the most paranoid person he had ever met. Most likely a heroin addict. He was constantly shifting about in his seat, looking left and right and up and down the street, as if the might of the United Kingdom police force was bearing down upon him.
Had the male have looked through his steamed up passenger window, or taken a moment to wipe the vapour away with his hand, he would observe that Gabor had parked immediately alongside a small memorial.
The memorial, brown marble with gold lettering and detail sat among the grassy verge of the famous common land and acted as a reminder of a summer day in 1966 when three plain clothes Metropolitan Police officers were shot and killed after they stopped to question three men in a car, a car that in its day most likely aroused as much suspicion as the silver Peugeot and its occupants would in the present time.
The offenders, almost certainly afraid of being found with a firearm in their car, were later convicted of killing all three officers, two of whom were detectives the third, their uniform branch advanced driver.
The irony was that the Metropolitan Police decided to create a specialist firearms branch – CO19 – as a result of the incident. A manhunt took place, two of the criminals were apprehended swiftly, however the third male, Harry Roberts, managed to evade capture using previously acquired military and jungle training. He was a career criminal who would eventually serve forty-eight years in a number of British prisons – one of the longest sentences in British history.
His accomplices were not so fortunate. The first, John Duddy, died in prison. The second, John Whitney was released early on parole, causing huge unrest among the judiciary and renewed heartache for his victims’ families. Whilst hardly a consolation for the family, Whitney’s life ended violently in 1999 when he was beaten to death by a heroin-fuelled flatmate.
The proximity of the Peugeot to the scene of the massacre was uncanny. When the male did eventually wipe the glass clear with his hand he noticed the memorial, its words and the police crest. He had no idea what the location was famed for, but shuddered involuntarily.
He had no need to worry. He was just another shifty-looking male sitting within striking range of a high security prison. The place was full of and surrounded by them.
Gone were the days that the nearby officers’ quarters would have acted as a deterrent, now mainly in the hands of private owners: they were just houses that happened to adjoin the Victorian monolith.
Curtains occasionally twitched, but the inhabitants were too busy watching daytime television to care about the outside world.
Sat in the passenger seat and all together calmer was an older male. Gabor knew he was also Romanian and from his demeanour he knew he was in charge. His voice was familiar and he made no effort to remind those present who was actually in control. Calm, measured, but menacing.
The rear seat passenger was just along for the ride – and to slice open the
driver’s throat should the need arise.
The front seat passenger exhaled a dense cloud of cigarette smoke which mixed with the dank vapour already present in the Peugeot and forced the driver to lower his window slightly. The older male turned towards Gabor and spoke. It was at that point that the younger man focused upon the hideous, recent scarring to his face.
Feeling it was the right thing to do and a compassionate act, Gabor asked him the obvious question.
“What happened to your face?”
The male shook his head and blew another veil of smoke up towards the already tarnished roof lining.
“Let us say I had a disagreement with a whore.”
Gabor laughed uncomfortably.
“My young friend, there are times when to laugh.”
Gabor nodded eagerly.
“But this is not one of them. Laugh at my misfortune again, and you will look a hundred times worse than this. We will send a piece of you home to your beautiful mother every week until you are finally able to be laid to rest.”
“I’m sorry. Sorry…” He held up his palm in a consolatory gesture.
“Another sign of weakness. Never apologise. See? You simply cannot win can you?” Now he laughed. “Relax. You have done well for us, the boss is very pleased. Now you must go to the next level. There is only one answer, and that is yes. We will meet near this location tomorrow night and we will hand over the equipment that you need. We will send a text providing the exact location. Until then, you do not contact any of us. And keep off the streets. Your days of making small money are gone. Do this last act and you can go home a rich man. Do I make myself clear, Dorin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Very good. You will receive your rewards in heaven, or sooner, depending upon what your currency is. Mine, should you be interested, is US Dollars.”
Seven Degress (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 2) Page 9