The House of Killers

by Samantha Lee Howe

  ‘What made you think that?’ asks Beth.

  ‘Her behaviour that day. She was spaced out. Like she had just remembered something important. Or horrible. And now I think about it, it’s possible she had. Maybe she even recalled who she once was,’ I say.

  ‘We’re assuming then that Amelie and the other missing children were somehow taken to be raised and trained to kill. Like some freaky experiment that the Nazis were reported to have done during World War Two?’ Ray says.

  ‘It seems a little far-fetched,’ Leon says.

  ‘I know. Very Cold War,’ I say. ‘But let’s not forget what Henry Murray got up to at Harvard University, between 1959 and 1962. Just imagine it is the case. What if Amelie was taken and trained? Brainwashed, even. Like a sleeper agent. She’s working fine, robotically obeying orders, and then something happens and cracks appear in the conditioning.’

  ‘I’ve never known you to go off into these realms before,’ Ray says. ‘But I’m not going to shoot you down for it. We all have to think outside the box sometimes. Maybe you’re onto something.’

  ‘He could be,’ Beth agrees. ‘Some of the most formative years in a child’s life are between the ages of four and seven. They are susceptible to their nurturing environment the most during this time.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I say. ‘And it isn’t impossible to imagine that someone out there has been developing techniques to create mindless soldiers to do their dirty work. Hell, I wouldn’t put it past our own government to be working on this shit.’

  The team laugh, but it isn’t with humour; deep down they are open to this possibility.

  ‘You think she’s “mindless”?’ Ray asks.

  ‘That’s the point really, Ray. I’ve been working on the profile of this killer for some time. If it is Anna, and she was once Amelie Arquette, then she’s probably been raised not to question anything. Even so, a high-functioning sociopath of this sort also has to operate within normal parameters when she’s not on an assignment or when she’s not activated if she’s a sleeper. Throughout those times, and during a kill, she has to be capable of adapting to any circumstance. You can’t completely turn a human into an automaton. Certainly not a highly skilled assassin. Or what you have is a creature that can only do as he or she is asked and cannot think for themselves. They’d be destined to fail in the end. Being a professional killer requires a great deal of planning and imagination,’ I explain. ‘We aren’t looking at our usual serial murderer here. They aren’t motivated to kill by emotion, insanity, or through some kind of obsession.’

  Ray rubs his chin; there is three-day-old bristle growing there.

  ‘If what you say is true then this thing is bigger than we thought. This girl is maybe one of many trained operatives and someone has to be in charge of a scheme this well organised. Think of the planning that has to go into it. Thirty-five years ago, seven children were taken and this thing began. Fifteen years later, presumably when the first seven were put to work, another seven are taken and groomed.’

  ‘Which means that a further seven could have been taken five years ago and might still be undergoing their conditioning,’ Leon says. ‘And who’s to say there aren’t more children than these that Beth has linked.’

  ‘I wonder what the significance of seven is,’ Beth says.

  I can’t come up with an answer and, despite everything I’ve proposed, I still struggle to believe it myself. I’m amazed that my colleagues are even considering this is possible. But instinct tells me we are on the right track. We just need a lucky break now to find Anna and learn the truth.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  NEVA

  ‘So what do you do for a living?’ Daz asks.

  ‘I’m a regional manager for a hotel chain,’ Neva says. ‘I’m working here for the next six months, hence why I need something convenient for the city centre.’

  ‘Oh, right. Well, my girlfriend is out at the moment so I can’t really make a decision—’

  ‘I’m willing to pay the entire rent up front,’ Neva says. ‘In cash.’

  ‘Really? Well, just let me call her.’

  Daz leaves Neva in the sitting room. It’s a small semi-detached house in an area called Whitefield. He’s shown her the tiny single bedroom with its minuscule wardrobe. There’s a lock on the door and Neva has no doubt that Daz and his girlfriend will not snoop. He’s desperate to please, but also nervous as he tells her they’ve never rented a room before. This is the perfect situation. One fleeting advert in a town newspaper, unlikely to come on the Network’s radar.

  ‘Nina?’ Daz says returning to the room. ‘Marie says yes. So when do you want to move in?’

  ‘This afternoon?’ she says. ‘I don’t have much at the hotel and I can go and get it and come back.’

  ‘Oh. Right. That quick? Okay.’

  She hands him the deposit, promising the remaining cash on her return.

  A few hours later, she’s settled into the small bedroom.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Daz shows her the shelf in the fridge where she can keep chilled food, and the cupboard where she can keep other items like tea and coffee.

  ‘Thank you,’ Neva says. ‘Here’s the rest of the rent.’

  She hands him an envelope with four thousand pounds inside. Daz’s eyes bulge as though he’s never seen that much cash in one go before.

  ‘I’ll go and do a food shop now,’ she says.

  Daz nods.

  She goes upstairs to fetch her purse and as she returns, she hears Daz on the phone to his girlfriend, Marie.

  ‘The end of our money worries, babe,’ he says. ‘I told you it was a good idea to rent that spare room.’

  Taking the set of keys he gave her, Neva slips out and walks down the street.

  Earlier she passed a car dealership and she has to be mobile. She wanders around the lot and finds an inconspicuous car. A Toyota Yaris. Small, not that new, not that old. It’s selling for five thousand. A man comes from the small office on the lot and smiles at her. He has a ridiculous comb-over and his hair smacks of a bad dye job.

  ‘Need some help?’ he asks.

  ‘How much for cash? I can take this as seen today,’ she says.

  The dealer’s grin widens.

  ‘Pop the hood and let me look inside,’ she says.

  She checks over the engine after the dealer starts it for her.

  ‘It’s just had an MOT,’ he says.

  Neva sees nothing wrong. She’s been taught a lot about engines. You never know when you might need to fix a getaway car. This one seems sound. They agree a cash price and then she produces a new ID and gives the address she’s renting for the log book. Within an hour she’s driving the car off the lot and back to her new home.

  ‘Never put yourself in a position where others can observe you,’ Tracey had once said.

  Everything she’s doing now is different from the training. It’s why she’s chosen this place, this house, and the two young people who are struggling to pay the mortgage. They’ll observe her, but they won’t see her. It’s also not the kind of situation any operative would choose to be in. Living in someone else’s home is too personal. She knows, therefore, that she’s safe for now. They’ll be looking in hotels, private flats, just like the one she rented as Ingrid. But she won’t be in any of those places; she won’t use an estate agent through which they can track her. She doesn’t underestimate the power of their reach; it is infinite. True anonymity comes with sharing Daz and Marie’s home.

  When she returns with groceries, Marie is there. She goes over ground rules with Neva, showing her the fridge and cupboard again.

  ‘You’re welcome to watch TV with us at night, but you might prefer your own in your room,’ Marie says.

  ‘I have a laptop. I tend to stream everything. Anyway, I’ll probably be out a lot.’

  Marie nods.

  Neva stows her meagre clothing in the wardrobe. There’s a small chest of drawers with a mirror on top so that it doubles as a d
ressing table. She pulls out the chest. Behind it, she tapes her Glock and bullets. Then she pushes it back against the wall. Neva places beauty products on top of it in a certain way. If either of her landlords get curious, she’ll know that things have been moved. She hides another weapon under the bed, strapping it to the frame.

  That night she gives Marie and Daz a bottle of red wine as a thank you for taking her in. She doesn’t drink it with them, but chats to them as they down the bottle. Then she excuses herself and goes to her room.

  Locking the door, she removes the brunette wig.

  That night she sleeps soundly for the first time in days.

  The next day she wakes early. She dresses in a smart skirt, blouse, and jacket. Then she pretends to leave for work. Soon afterwards, Marie and Daz leave the house. Marie works at the council offices in a small local town. Daz works in the city centre at a big retail store. He’s working his way up into a managerial position but has yet to pass a few tests before he qualifies for the role. He hopes his pay will increase enough so he and Marie will be more secure. Neva learnt all this in just one short conversation with him the evening before. It’s surprising what people will tell you when you give them wine.

  She returns to the house after they’ve gone and begins to plan the next few months in her new identity.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  MICHAEL

  I lift the white sheet back from the face of the corpse. It is a man in his early forties. Bearded. Flecks of red have coagulated in the facial hair where blood has seeped from his dying lips. I pull the sheet further back and examine the body. The man is naked, slightly overweight. There are several puncture wounds on his torso, and defensive wounds on the arms and hands of the body. He was attacked and it was sudden and brutal.

  ‘His name is Alexander Olczak,’ Beth explains. ‘Russian national, visiting as a tourist. We’re checking into him more but all indications are that he was no one of any importance.’

  Olczak was found dead in his hotel by the maid service.

  Olczak’s death comes into the category of ‘unusual’ and that’s why we’ve been called in. We’ve been on high alert now for the last three months since Tracey Herod’s death, about which we have failed to learn more, and most disappointing of all is the lack of any further sighting of Anna.

  ‘He arrived in the country on Wednesday. Checked into the hotel. Had dinner in the restaurant Thursday evening and no one saw him after that,’ Beth explains.

  ‘Any camera footage for the restaurant or reception?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, security provided the recordings for the reception, bar, restaurant, and his floor. We’ll wade through, see if he interacted with anyone. It looks like a deliberate, premeditated attack. This could be a lead,’ Beth explains.

  ‘We’ll need your full profile on this one as soon as possible,’ Ray says.

  ‘No problem.’ I take photos of the wounds and examine the body inch by inch.

  Beth and Ray leave me to do my work and I’m already analysing the style of this perpetrator.

  This one is possibly new to the job, one who might have panicked when the man fought back. It’s not the experienced hit of the female assassin we’ve been looking for. This is a violent attack that shows a massive lack of control.

  Once I’ve finished my examination, I return to Archive and look at the photographs Leon took of the room. There’s also a report from our forensics experts; the blood splatter confirms the struggle that the injuries on Olczak suggest. As I read, I discover that they also have another blood group. I’d already guessed that this assassin was hurt during the fight. Olczak was a large man, fairly strong, even if he was overweight, and his death had not been easy.

  Beth hangs up the phone as I come into her office.

  ‘Glad you’re here,’ she says. ‘I’ve been looking through the footage from the hotel.’

  Beth opens up the video on her desk and shows me. We see Olczak arrive at the hotel. He checks in, then takes his luggage to the lift. No one gets in with him and he doesn’t speak to anyone other than the receptionist.

  Beth skips through recordings of the next few hours, pointing out Olczak when he comes down after stowing his luggage. He buys a vodka in the bar. He has one drink and then retires for the evening back to his room. The next day he leaves the hotel in the morning and doesn’t return until the evening. As we were told, he ate in the hotel restaurant – a rare steak and a bottle of wine (confirmed by the autopsy) – and then he goes to his room. He doesn’t act like a tourist; he appears to be waiting for something, or someone.

  ‘Next I looked at the footage outside his room. The man died in his hotel room between the hours of midnight and 6am and so I reasoned someone must have been filmed going into his room,’ she explains. ‘But look.’

  She fast-forwards to the evening of Thursday 25th February and we see Olczak exit the lift on his way to his room. Then the footage turns to snow.

  ‘Mysteriously, the one bit of film that could help us in this case has been, I suspect, erased,’ she says.

  ‘Can we get a court order to seize the original hard drive? Nothing is erased permanently; it can probably be salvaged,’ I say.

  ‘That’s Ray’s call but I’ll speak to him. Mike? You know this is weird, right?’

  ‘It does seem like too much of a coincidence,’ I agree.

  ‘I mean, this goes deeper than a security guard being paid to destroy footage. The guard expected it to be okay. She copied it all for me while I was in her office. I didn’t get any vibe that she was hiding anything.’

  ‘Was this guard on that night?’ I ask.

  ‘I checked schedules and yes, she was working that night shift. She couldn’t have been more helpful. I don’t think she was hiding anything from me.’

  ‘And yet the files are corrupted?’ I say.

  Beth lets out a slow breath. ‘Not corrupted. Wiped.’

  ‘Then maybe we need to interview who was on the shift after this guard,’ I say.

  Beth nods. ‘I’ll get on it.’

  ‘Have you read the autopsy report yet?’ I ask.

  ‘No, I was waiting for your analysis of it and the wounds.’

  ‘The assassin was hurt. They have his or her blood,’ I say.

  ‘That’s a bit of a breakthrough. But only if we already have them on record somehow,’ Beth says.

  ‘I was thinking we should try and DNA match with the parents of the missing children.’

  Beth blinks. ‘Wow! Why didn’t I think of that?’

  ‘It could prove your theory that these are connected,’ I say.

  ‘If we prove one of these kids is still alive—’

  ‘Then it might prove they all are,’ I finish her sentence to confirm that we are both on the same page.

  ‘Let’s see what comes up on this original hard drive, then I’m on it,’ Beth says.

  A short time later, with the court order in hand, Beth and I arrive at the hotel and head straight to the reception; after a brief talk with the manager, we are escorted to the security office.

  ‘Eric Smith is on today. He’s the regular team leader,’ the manager explains. ‘He’s been off for a few days so you’ll have to brief him on what you need.’

  We walk into the office and find Smith sitting in front of the camera monitors. There are six in all, covering the whole of the hotel and the car park as they flick from screen to screen. Smith is in his late fifties and has a short beard. His hair is long and pulled back in a ponytail. He turns to look at us briefly then returns his gaze to the screens.

  ‘How can I help you?’ he asks, not looking at us.

  ‘We have a warrant for the security hard drives used to record a few nights ago,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah. Heard about the murder. Wouldn’t have happened on my team’s watch,’ Smith says.

  ‘Your team?’ asks Beth.

  ‘Yes, we were on our rest days.’

  ‘Rest days?’ says Beth.

  ‘We work
seven days on and four off. This can be a very tiring job. To get the best out of my people, we rest them. A new crew comes in each time to cover us. They’re like temps – no fixed assignment,’ Smith explains.

  ‘So, you’re saying this team that was on the other night weren’t regular staff?’ I say.

  ‘Well, I guess we all work for the same company. But some teams are floaters; they move from place to place. Wherever they’re needed.’

  ‘I want access to the hard drive,’ I say again, holding out the warrant.

  ‘Let him have what he wants,’ the manager says.

  Eric Smith reads the document and then shakes his head.

  ‘I can’t really help you. I have a log here saying the drive was copied for you. But it’s gone now so I can’t give you the original.’

  ‘What do you mean it’s “gone”?’ Beth asks.

  ‘Well, the day after you came the system was replaced. New computers, monitors, and cameras all over the hotel. It’s been planned for months. The old system was ripped out and taken away by the company that installed this one.’

  ‘Taken where?’ Michael says.

  ‘It’s all incinerated,’ Eric says. ‘It has to be to comply with data-protection laws.’

  ‘Oh!’ says the manager, ‘Of course. I’d completely forgotten about that. Don’t we keep any back-ups of what was on the drives?’

  ‘We should have,’ says Smith. ‘But I’m sorry, I just booted up this new system and it’s clean. There’s no back-up footage at all. I think maybe one of the temp staff cocked up. I’m sorry.’

  ‘We may be able to salvage the hard drive if we get in touch with the company quickly,’ says Beth, as we cross the street to where Beth’s car is parked.

  ‘It’s already destroyed. Olczak’s death was planned months ago,’ I say.

  ‘You can’t know that,’ says Beth.