The Society

by Karen Guyler

  “You know of them?”

  He nodded. “They will try to get you again.”

  “I know, they blew my house up.”

  “Yet you stand still.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I’m still standing.” Running towards the bullets. “Do you know how to get in touch with them?” He considered for a while. “My daughter could get caught up in this, she’s only eleven, she doesn’t deserve that.”

  “The sins of the fathers.”

  A sudden surge of fury stained Eva’s worry about Lily. Whatever Charles had done would not get her daughter hurt, she wouldn’t let it. Maybe that flash of anger was what he was waiting for. The bodyguard produced a pen out of an inside pocket in his suit jacket and tore a strip from the paper detailing the ward’s daily menu choices. He searched for something on his phone and wrote it down.

  “This is how you get in touch with The Society.”

  Eva looked at the long string of letters and numbers suffixed by .onion. Was this a wind up?

  “It won’t connect, it’ll redirect you but if you follow their breadcrumb trail, you’ll reach them.”

  “Thank you.”

  She reached for the door handle when he stopped her again.

  “A word of warning, before you use that,” he gestured at the note in her hand, “be sure you want to come to their attention.”

  42

  “You sure this isn’t a wind up?” Iago asked exactly what Eva had thought as he frowned at the copy of The Society’s contact details she handed him.

  “Apparently not.”

  “And these are the guys Oblov’s bodyguard said are after his boss?”

  “Something like that.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, it was probably the same poison, something that elaborate wasn’t an easy over the counter purchase.

  Iago typed in the URL, hit return. Error flashing in the middle of the screen wasn’t what she’d hoped to see.

  “He said it wouldn’t go straight through to them, that it would redirect.” They watched the unchanging message. “What about a general search for The Society, would that work?”

  “It might, but I’m not risking this system on a trawl through the dark web. I’ll pass it to our tech team, they’ve got protocols, stand-alone systems for stuff that looks dodgy.”

  But she couldn’t wait that long, one minute more was too long. She had one other option, but was it going too far?

  “Where’s my doughnuts?”

  “Where’s the closest place to get some?”

  “You forgot.”

  Eva nodded. “I forgot, the whole poisoning thing was distracting.”

  “There’s a Sainsburys not far, a wicked bakery the street over, though the good stuff’ll be gone by now.”

  “You had lunch?”

  He grinned. “Can always eat another lunch. Food’s my language of choice.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  Nora popped her head round the door before Eva had finished her baguette.

  “It’s going well then if he’s had you on a doughnut run already.”

  “I’m not sharing.” Iago reached for the bakery bag.

  “I’m not asking, I’ve got a raw cashew nut bar in my desk calling to me louder than your sugar addiction.” Nora checked her fitness tracker on her wrist. “And definitely not today.” She gestured at Iago’s kingdom. “It’s quite something, isn’t it?”

  Eva nodded. “Things have changed a lot since I was here, well, there,” she waved a hand as though pointing at where she’d worked in Vauxhall Cross, MI6’s public headquarters, the Legoland building, as it had become known. “But one thing’s the same in the work, one step forwards, two back. Walk with me to the kitchen?”

  “Coffee, since you’re going.” Iago said.

  “You’re not tied to that chair.” Nora followed Eva out of the surveillance room. “What’s up?”

  As perceptive as ever. “What’s the process to get an unlocker?”

  “QM Provisions, same process for everything, has to be signed off by a signatory once they’ve reviewed the case, then you just sign it out, sign it back in. What’re you thinking?”

  Eva filled Nora in on the morning’s events at the hospital.

  “A two-part poison? Our opposition keeps getting smarter.”

  “I’m thinking that while the Oblov’s bodyguard is otherwise occupied, I could take a look around to see if I can figure out how they were poisoned.”

  “Breaking and entering’s still not policy.”

  “It’s only breaking and entering if you’re breaking something. With an unlocker it’s just like having a key. I recognised it, the smell on them both, I’ve smelt it before, when I said goodbye to Eric.”

  Nora sighed. “You’ve got to do it then, haven’t you?”

  Eva walked up the street, which the Oblovs now called home. Londoners had nicknamed this area Red Square, nothing to do with the architecture but everything to do with the fact that the extortionately expensive houses were only affordable to oligarch level bank balances. Most of the Russian ex-pats would have bought their way in waving the twentieth-century equivalent of suitcases of money that the UK had been happy to stash under the bed of the banking system, no questions asked.

  She rang the doorbell at the electric gates of the Oblovs’ mansion, probably one of the most impressive in the row, eight zeroes worth, maybe nine these days. Eva’s first press of the buzzer on the pillar beside the electric gates wasn’t answered. Another one, to make sure. She stared up at the tall gates, getting over those would be—

  “Hello.” Someone home, helpful.

  Eva summoned up her rusty Russian, “I’m a friend of—”

  “I don’t speak that.” The woman cut her off.

  Eva tried her best I’m a Russian speaking English accent. “Kathy is my friend, I need to get clothes for her at the hospital.”

  “Mrs Oblov has died.”

  She already knew? Eva wailed, a caterwauling perfectly pitched to draw attention. She grabbed hold of the gate bars as though they were the only things holding her up, shouting her distress louder still toward the neighbours, shouting over the woman’s reasoning on the intercom.

  She couldn’t yell loud enough for anyone to hear past all the shrubbery and locked-up frontages, but she was attracting awkward should we do anything about the mad woman glances from the few passers-by. She swung herself from side to side on the gate, making sure all the cameras watching her got a noticeable performance.

  It popped open. Eva rushed inside, up the driveway to the huge front door at which a middle-aged lady stood.

  “Poor Kathy,” Eva wailed, “I can’t believe it, I spoke to her yesterday. But Aleksandr?”

  “He’s in hospital, he’ll be coming home. Viktor is with him.”

  Eva nodded. “Good. I can collect clothes for Aleksandr? I must go, how you say, make him feel better.”

  The lady nodded. “I can get what you need, you wait there.”

  Eva sniffed, rubbed at her nose. “You have handkerchief?” Burst into loud sobbing again, wailing for Kathy.

  The housekeeper sighed. “You must be quiet.”

  Eva pushed the volume higher.

  “Come, come.” The housekeeper ushered her inside and deposited her in an immaculate lounge that was bigger than the downstairs of Eva’s house used to be. She closed her eyes against her last image of it.

  Eva counted what she hoped was enough seconds for her to have reached the first floor, before padding through the enormous hallway to the kitchen. Wow, no excuse to be a terrible cook in there. Every gadget imaginable lined one wall, filed away in individual cubby holes behind glass doors.

  To have escaped notice, the poison had to be tasteless, odourless. She checked the bin, the bag inside was empty.

  Peering through the windows, there was nothing as pedestrian as a dustbin outside, but on the ground lay a disposable coffee cup. An odd place to leave it, or, so used to being cosseted, the drinker didn’t bot
her putting it in the bin.

  The back door was unlocked, giving Eva the chance to step outside to look at it. Wouldn’t it have been neat and tidy if it bore the Coffee Espresso logo? The generic brownness of the unbranded cup meant it could have come from anywhere.

  “What are you doing?” The housekeeper rapped Eva with her voice.

  “Whose drink was this?”

  “You need to leave, I’m calling security.”

  43

  “I’ll be honest with you,” Eva dropped her accent. “I’m not a friend of Kathy’s. I’m working on this case as a consultant for the security services. Kathy was poisoned, so was Aleksandr. He may not live. If he dies, you lose your job. Help me figure out what hurt them. Who brought this in?”

  The housekeeper opened one of the dozens of kitchen cupboards to show Eva a leaning tower of twin cups. No one here worried about saving the planet. “The Oblovs make their coffee here.” She gestured at the huge gleaming coffee machine.

  “Did either of them eat or drink anything from outside the house yesterday?”

  She shook her head.

  “Do you eat and drink here?”

  The woman nodded, her eyes widening, her hand flying to her mouth as she realised what Eva was actually asking.

  “The Oblovs aren’t the first to be poisoned in this way. May I?” Eva gestured at the gap between them. The woman looked totally confused. “I need to make sure you haven’t been affected.”

  At her vigorous nodding, Eva stepped close and sniffed her cheek. “Thank you. I just need to make a phone call.”

  “Have I? Have I been poisoned?” Her eyes filled with tears.

  “Not exactly, but you have ingested a drug. It won’t harm you if you do exactly as I say, okay?” the woman looked like she might die from a heart attack first. “It’s vital that you’re not given hydroxocobalamin, you understand? You’re quite safe unless you’re given that drug.” Eva hoped. “That’s what killed Kathy. Aleksandr hasn’t had it, that’s why he’s still alive. Do you understand?”

  Tears ran down the housekeeper’s cheeks, but she repeated the name of the drug at Eva’s insistence until she said it fluently. Eva sat her down in the lounge and called the situation in to Nora, adding that someone needed to check the bodyguard.

  She sat with the terrified housekeeper until the house got busy with the arrival of the police, CSI, paramedics and a couple of guys who didn’t ID themselves but came in unchallenged. MI5, potentially Six.

  The waiting gave Eva a lot of time in which to argue with herself. She had too much evidence to the contrary now to not go with her Plan B. She shifted on the sofa, the house-keeper clutched her hand tighter. “I’m not going anywhere.” Eva reassured, “until I know you’ll be safe.” And then she’d have no choice but to do what she didn’t want to.

  While she watched the efficiency of the authorities evaluating what this might be and how to deal with it, something tickled at the edges of Eva’s mind, something she already knew. What was linked? But the more she questioned it, the further away from her the feeling fled, further still as she explained the situation to the paramedic examining the housekeeper.

  “Repeat it back to me, please.” At his look Eva added, “I need to be sure for when you hand her on so please humour me.”

  The paramedic repeated her words exactly. “Though the patient is presenting with the appearance of having ingested cyanide, it’s a priming agent. And administering hydroxocobalamin will be fatal.”

  Eva nodded. “Dr Asha Chakrabarti at St Thomas’ knows about this, she’s treating the owners of the house. This appears to be a two-part process, the hydroxocobalamin, potentially any drug, could finish it.”

  “Got it.” The paramedic shifted attention to the housekeeper.

  “You’ll be okay.” Eva squeezed the stricken woman’s hand and let the officer in charge know she was leaving. It felt good giving her contact details as SIS, a sense of belonging she hadn’t realised she’d missed.

  The bus deposited Eva close to her next destination. She watched the house from the street corner. No sign of anyone in there, but there hadn’t been the first time she’d been there.

  She’d do anything to keep Lily safe, that was all this was, looking after her baby girl. She could do that.

  As bold and confident as possible with her limp and her churning insides, she walked up the front path and knocked. And again. CJ probably wouldn’t let her in out of choice. That was what the pick gun—she’d had to start again with the requisition form, using its correct name—was for. One more knock, ignored. You don’t have the choice, CJ, you’re going to help me.

  She pressed the front door, almost immoveable in its frame. Starting with the deadbolt, she inserted the tool’s pick into the lock, a quick press and she heard the unlocking she wanted. Same procedure in the top lock and open sesame.

  Eva stood in the hallway and listened. Was he home?

  She steeled herself. The closest door to her had a lock on it, the bar in the big screwhead beneath the handle was vertical – cloakroom unoccupied? She tapped the chrome fitting. What was she doing? He wasn’t likely to have electrified it. Grasping the handle, cold against her skin, she pulled it downwards and opened the door.

  Nothing breathing in the tiny space.

  Eva tiptoed to the one on the other side of the passageway. Heart thudding in her head loud enough to cover any noise she might make, tensed against a rough hand in her hair, something cold and sharp against her skin, she peered into the room.

  Empty. A huge painting surprised her, CJ had seemed too angry to even know Buddha’s name, but the room was almost a shrine to the East. He needed to study harder.

  She tiptoed towards the last door downstairs and peered into the space beyond it. Kitchen: sage green units all around the room’s periphery minimised the space he could be in to one cursory glance. Not there.

  Eva let go her held breath, looked up the stairs.

  Softly, carefully she placed each foot on the next step and eased her weight onto it. One, two. . .seven, eight. . .twelve. Thirteen would take her onto the landing.

  Three doors up there, closed. Silent.

  Thirteen.

  Eva padded to the first door, CJ’s office. He could be just the other side of the wood, headphones on maybe, his knife within easy reach. How much of a threat was the pick gun in her hands?

  Eva opened the door.

  CJ wasn’t in his office.

  She whirled around, no one behind her.

  She eased over to the next door. CJ’s bedroom, empty.

  The last door was a repeat of the downstairs cloakroom, lock in the unlocked position. A quick check of the bathroom and Eva could breathe properly. No one there but her.

  She walked into his computer room, the auto-closer on the door shutting it behind her. Every screen was blank, no keyboards out. The winter light wasn’t reaching very far past the half-drawn blinds. Eva sat in the captain’s chair at the bank of monitors and waited, her fingers unfolding and refolding the piece of paper that held The Society’s contact details.

  The hiss started quietly, a disturbance in the air that Eva scarcely noticed. From nothing to everything in a few seconds, raucous, threatening and, when she bolted for the door, malevolent in every way. Eva grasped the handle, but she tumbled to the floor into darkness.

  44

  Eva woke as though she’d set her alarm wrong and had been asleep only a couple of hours before it went off. She dragged her eyes open. Sage units, strange kitchen. CJ’s house. A bolt of adrenaline tore through her, firebombing the vestiges of the sedative he’d knocked her out with.

  She flexed her wrists, but the cream cable ties holding them together on her lap were immoveable as they looked. Her ankles were also tied, one to each of the two metallic spindly front legs of the hard chair on which he’d propped her.

  She blinked hard, swallowed. The wooziness might be receding, her thirst not so much. There had to be knives in the drawers. She
leant forward, tipping the back legs of the chair off the floor, but it was weighted weirdly and pulled her back onto its seat. The clunk of the legs brought CJ into the room.

  “Is this how you treat all your clients?” Her voice was a lot steadier than she felt.

  He leant against the units opposite her. “Only the ones who break in.” In black jeans and jumper today, black socks with green aliens on them, he seemed to be a man big on co-ordination. Something in his hand. He threw it up and down, a metronomic game of catch. “How do you have one of these?”

  The pick gun.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Pissing me off isn’t going to get you released.”

  “Pissing me off isn’t going to go well for you.” she retaliated.

  “How did you end up with the Professor? You’re not exactly his type.”

  She didn’t want to hear what was fast becoming a truth. “I want to hire you.”

  He cupped his free hand around his ear, “You know, if you listen hard enough, I’m sure you can hear the echo of what I said the other day, nothing’s going to induce me to help you.”

  “You don’t want to be paid for a job, fair enough. I’ll go elsewhere.”

  “You wouldn’t know how.”

  “I have one of those,” she nodded at the pick gun, “one that tackles deadbolts,” thank you, Nora, for pointing out what Provisions had stressed about how good it was, rolled up in the warning don’t come back without it, “you think I can’t hire a hacker? I bought your line that you’re the best. But this job is simple enough for me to choose someone else.”

  “You’re at a bit of a disadvantage.” he gestured at her.

  “You think I came here without a plan? My people are expecting a check-in, it doesn’t happen, well, I’m sure you can guess.”

  He laughed, a belly laugh. “You don’t honestly expect me to buy that? No phone, no ID, no keys. Oyster card, bit of cash, not promising for me to believe anything you say.”