The House of Killers

by Samantha Lee Howe

  I’ll share this with the team when the time is right.

  I will. When I have something important to tell them. Before then, anything I say or do may jeopardise the next meeting. The thought of never seeing Anna again leaves a cold chill inside me that I can’t explain.

  ‘Use your gut and always follow your instincts,’ Andrew would say if ever I discussed anything I was unsure about with him.

  I feel the urge to arrange our regular lunch meeting, but I know I’ll be unable to ask his advice, any more than I can my colleagues.

  It’s best, I think, that I leave my uncle out of this.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  MICHAEL

  It is a week before I hear from Anna again.

  The call comes when I’m walking to the tube station after work. I’ve carried her phone all along, but during my working hours it is on silent. I don’t want it to ring when I’m with my colleagues. I’d have to explain having a phone that isn’t regulation, as well as the call received on it. But my worries are unfounded; Anna picks her moment with the usual attention to detail.

  ‘Do you know Abney Park Cemetery?’ she says.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Stoke Newington. Two hours.’

  She hangs up as if she’s expecting me to try to trace the call. Yet I’m sure she knows where I am and that it isn’t possible.

  I go into the tube station and start mapping the route to Stoke Newington. The burner phone vibrates in my pocket just before I pass the barrier. I take the phone out. There’s a text from the same number that called me.

  New location. The Langham Hotel, Marylebone. One hour.

  I take the Jubilee Line to Bond Street. When I leave the station, I hail a cab to the Langham Hotel. I’ll be there earlier than she wants me to be, but that’s better than being late. And I’d prefer to choose a vantage point before she arrives.

  But as the cab approaches the hotel, I receive yet another text.

  Royal Opera House. Ticket booth. Give your name.

  I redirect the taxi driver to the Opera House. As the car pulls up outside, I check the phone again. There are no further texts, but it’s obvious that Anna is not taking chances. She’s making sure I’m not being followed, and that I haven’t betrayed her. She doesn’t trust me, even though she’s chosen to talk to me. I have no intention of deceiving her, even though this might be a trap and she may well be planning something for me. Perhaps I’ve somehow become a target. I subconsciously pat my jacket, feeling the gun in the holster beneath, then I get out of the taxi. I know this could be dangerous, and a serious mistake, but my curiosity is such that I’m willing to put myself at risk. I’m driven to explore this situation no matter where it leads.

  There’s a group of people standing outside the building wearing dinner suits; one of them is smoking, while other opera goers drift into the lobby. La Bohème is playing.

  Feeling underdressed, I pay the taxi driver, then turn and walk towards the box-office door.

  Inside, I approach the ticket booth.

  ‘I believe there’s a ticket for me? Michael Kensington.’

  The girl behind the glass smiles at me, then reaches for an envelope that lies beside her keyboard.

  ‘You’re in a box. Best position directly over the stage. You’ll love it there. Enjoy the show,’ she says.

  I take the envelope, open it, and find a ticket inside.

  ‘That way,’ says the girl.

  A helpful usher directs me up the stairs and into the box. I enter with caution, expecting an ambush of some kind, but other than a few seats, as well as an ice bucket with a bottle of Bollinger chilling, the box is empty.

  There are two glasses. Is this some kind of bizarre date with Anna? The thought makes me feel uncomfortable in a way that’s difficult to express.

  I choose a seat at the back – a position that grants me a clear view of the door to the booth, as well as the stage.

  From this vantage point, I watch the theatre fill as people take their seats. I check the phone again, but there are no further messages. And so I put it on silent, but place it down on the table with the champagne bucket so I can see if the screen lights up.

  The lights in the theatre dim. The orchestra starts playing and I look over the balcony, checking out all the other booths around the room. All of them are full, which suggests that Anna had to pull strings to get this one.

  I pick up the phone and glance at it again but already I know there won’t be any messages.

  Then the curtains open on the stage.

  Beside me, a figure slips into the booth and takes a seat. A female shape. Bobbed dark hair is all I can make out in the dim light. I hold my breath as she reaches for the champagne and expertly pops the cork. As the opening song begins, she sits down in front of me. I wait for her to turn around to talk to me but she says nothing as she pours the champagne into the two glasses. She doesn’t offer me any, but takes one of the glasses herself and sips. I watch her as she appears to be concentrating on the show. I glance at the stage. Is opera so enthralling?

  I can’t understand the words, and the music, though vaguely familiar, does nothing for me.

  After ten minutes, I lean forward and take the other glass of champagne. If you can’t beat them, join them. I sip. The wine is perfect. Chilled. Delicious. Even so, I place it back down, concerned it might be drugged, or poisoned, as suspicion kicks in again. What is this all about?

  Anna – if this is her, and I cannot be sure – tops up her own glass and continues to drink. I have no more. My eyes are on her back, not the stage, even as she remains riveted.

  When the interval arrives and the lights in the house go up, I think I must have dozed off.

  Then the woman turns: it is Anna. She looks … beautiful. The dark wig suits her, bringing out the blue of her eyes, and I’m taken by how chameleonic she is.

  ‘My name is Neva,’ she says. ‘That’s what they called me. Not Anna. Or any other name I’ve used in the process of working for them. This name has become who I am.’

  ‘Who are they?’ I ask.

  ‘I know them only as “the Network”. We were never told about our masters. I only ever saw a few faces, mostly handlers.’

  ‘Tell me what you do know,’ I say.

  ‘I’ve been remembering things. I believe I was five when I was taken. From that day, I was conditioned. Trained. Made into who I am now.’

  ‘Who was your handler?’ I ask.

  ‘I think you already know that.’

  ‘No. I don’t.’

  ‘She went by the name Tracey Herod. She was one of the people who trained us,’ Neva says.

  I nod. It all makes sense.

  Then Neva tells me what Beth and I already suspected. How she and six others were taken to a house and then their whole lives changed. Neva’s story fills in some of the gaps for me, but she knows so little herself that the whole tale is still not revealed.

  ‘This room they took you to, with the doctor. It was brainwashing?’

  ‘They’d give us drugs, tell us the same thing over and over until we believed it. So, I guess brainwashing is what you would call it.’

  ‘What things did they tell you?’ I ask.

  ‘That we’d always been theirs. We were born to serve the Network. After a while, we forgot our former homes and families. Our handlers became the only family we had.’

  ‘And … you went against them. You killed your handler? You killed Tracey.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’ Michael asks.

  ‘I began to remember things. I knew what they’d done to me was wrong. I didn’t want to be owned anymore,’ she says.

  ‘You’re implicating yourself in several murders by telling me this.’

  ‘I know,’ she says.

  ‘Then why tell me?’

  Neva glances away and back at the stage.

  ‘I speak seven languages,’ she says. ‘I discovered opera when I was on an assignment in Italy. La Bohème was pla
ying then too. I heard it and loved it. I don’t know why. I had no other emotions. Not for possessions, and none associated with life and death. But music. That is something else. I suppose I have an advantage because I can understand the words. But these people down here, most of them don’t, yet they still engage with it. What that says is that music speaks to us on a primal level. It crosses language barriers. We don’t need to know the words because the notes tell us the story.’

  I’m not sure where she’s going with this but I wait for her to explain. She looks back at me.

  ‘The closest thing to this is the rhythm of death,’ she says. ‘There’s a music to murder to.’

  ‘And you enjoy that too?’ I ask.

  Neva smiles and shakes her head. ‘Some do. Like opera, when you first hear it, you don’t necessarily like it. But you can learn to appreciate it on a cultural level. Murder is an acquired taste, Michael. One I’ve learnt to be very good at. I feel no guilt or remorse when I take a life. If I ever did, some time in my life that emotion was removed from me. But equally I feel no enjoyment. There are plenty of us who do. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know as a profiler.’

  For a moment I don’t know what to say. I absorb the information she’s giving, acknowledging that she knows more about me than I do about her. But from what she’s revealed, I know she must have been through so much, and it’s made her who and what she is. This is the worst case of child abuse I’ve ever come across. I question again if she can be held responsible for everything these people made her do? Surely not? I use this to justify my contact with her now and the secret of it that I kept from my colleagues.

  For all this, I don’t see a victim before me. And I’m at odds with what she’s told me and what I know of her crimes. Could someone like Neva be rehabilitated?

  ‘You said you want my help,’ I say. ‘How? Do you want witness protection?’

  ‘I do want your help and I want to offer you mine. You and Archive.’

  I blink at the use of the taskforce’s name. She obviously knows more than should be possible.

  ‘In what way?’ I ask.

  ‘I have resources that can find your assassins. But more importantly, the people who control them.’

  ‘How will you deliver this information to me? Will you let me take you in? Keep you safe?’

  ‘I’d be in more danger in custody than I am out on my own,’ she says. ‘Right now, I’m invisible. They can’t find me. By helping you I’ll be opening a chink in my armour. I’m putting myself at risk. But let me worry about that, and also about getting you what you need. You just have to promise me you’ll keep me a secret from your taskforce for as long as possible.’

  I deep sigh. ‘I don’t know if I can.’

  ‘At least you’re honest.’ Neva smiles again. ‘Let me give you a helping hand with that. Here is your first lead.’

  She leans towards me, retrieving a brown manila envelope from under my seat. She places it in my hands.

  ‘Inside is information about someone. They call him Sharrick. He was assigned to me as my handler after … after I killed Tracey. They didn’t know I did it at the time, but they probably do now. Sharrick is a lead that can get us closer to the hierarchy of the Network. But he’s still a minor cog in the works. A mere handler and former assassin. All handlers are. But Tracey’s death will have created a vacancy. I suspect Sharrick is next in line to fill it.’

  ‘Next in line for what?’

  ‘A seat at the table in the banquet hall of the Network. Think of it as a huge house, with many rooms. Promotions happen only from within. I only know about the ones immediately above me. And a little I learnt by spying on Tracey. She was more involved than the average handler, you see. She was also a trainer.’

  I want to ask questions but instead I open the envelope and look at the photograph of Sharrick. He’s a middle-aged man with white hair – possibly dyed. His face is clean-shaven. He’s like a young Rutger Hauer. The picture captures him leaving a London club that I’m familiar with. He’s carrying a briefcase and wearing a suit. For all intents and purposes, anyone would take him to be a businessman. But I notice other things about him: his well-built, strong frame. His lean, wiry, athletic appearance tells me more about him than the formal suit. Even in the photograph I can tell this man will be light on his feet.

  ‘This place…’ I say. The location is a small gentlemen’s club. I know it, but can’t remember why.

  ‘I’ll leave you to figure that out,’ Neva says. ‘But he’s there a lot. So that’s a starting point to bringing him in.’

  ‘How did you find him here?’ I ask.

  ‘One of my sources recommended I check the place out. I knew the lead was spot on when I saw Sharrick leaving the place.’

  ‘But you didn’t follow him, to see where he was staying?’ I ask.

  ‘No. He’s a seasoned operative. I couldn’t risk being seen,’ she says.

  The house lights go down as the orchestra strikes up again.

  ‘You aren’t staying for the second act?’ I ask as she stands.

  ‘I never stay anywhere too long…’ she answers.

  I don’t try to stop her. I sit back in my chair as Neva slips out of the booth. I stay until the last song before I leave, taking the envelope with me.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  SHARRICK

  In a private office at the Methuselah Club, Sharrick opens his laptop and logs on. These offices are free and used by members on a first-come, first-served basis. It means that Sharrick, and others like him, can find refuge when away from their regular locations. In this building, all internet access is encrypted, so he can securely open his emails.

  He flicks through the unimportant ones, quickly dismissing them, until he finds an encoded one from Mr Beech.

  He opens the email and commits to memory a date, time, and location. This is not a meeting place for him, but one he needs to pass on to his charge, Samara. She’s been newly assigned to him. He will take her through all subsequent stages of her career, starting today with a new and dangerous assignment.

  Sharrick picks up his phone and dials Samara. He gives her the instructions verbally, expecting her to memorise everything. Then he hangs up.

  Business done, Sharrick closes his laptop and puts it away in the wide leather briefcase he carries. He doesn’t concern himself with how Samara will perform her duties. She will, or she will die trying. All operatives are trained to perfection and he does not expect any problems with this one. Unlike the disaster that has happened with Neva.

  Sharrick finds himself thinking of Neva now. Where is she? What would a girl who is so highly skilled do in order to avoid detection? The truth is, she should be doing everything they expect her to. They should be able to anticipate her every move. But Neva has broken away from her conditioning in every way possible. She’s not falling foul of any of the safeguards they’d implanted in her brain. No, she’s somehow managed to bypass all of that and is well and truly hidden from them.

  Sharrick recalls his last conversation with Mr Beech, who is taking this defection better than expected. Though Sharrick has never seen it, Beech is known for his temper. Sometimes he’s even killed agents in mid-flow of an explanation of why they had failed him. Sharrick heard of one such agent who dared to tell Beech that what he asked was ‘impossible’. Beech stabbed the man in the eye with a fountain pen, before cutting his throat with a very sharp paper knife.

  For these reasons, Sharrick is wary. He expects Beech’s rage to be turned on him at any moment. Beech, however, appears to be taking it all in his stride. Sharrick wonders why.

  ‘We’ve exhausted all of the possibilities she could have used,’ Sharrick had explained. He waited for the angry outburst but Beech merely sighed down the phone as though the conversation bored him.

  ‘Not surprising. Neva was trained by Tracey. She’s more than an average operative because Tracey was our best trainer. Tracey delighted in her protégée’s su
ccesses. Neva was something of a flagship for successful training. Now that has become the biggest joke of all.’ Beech had laughed, displaying uncharacteristic humour. ‘Find Tracey’s last trainee and we may have an insight into Neva’s disappearance. It has to be something they did during training.’

  Mr Beech had hung up then, leaving Sharrick with the problem as usual.

  ‘You could’ve at least told me who to speak to,’ Sharrick had said to the dead phone.

  Who Tracey trained was all a matter of ‘need to know’, after all. Sharrick was certain that this went beyond training: Neva was thinking for herself. Neva’s programming should make it intolerable for her to function without them.

  Sharrick had received a text from Mr Beech then, telling him to speak to someone called Vasquez. There was a number to call. At the same time, an email with a codeword arrived in his inbox. Sharrick had known that this was something he had to use with Vasquez – a keyword to allow the man to access the information he needed.

  It had both pleased and concerned Sharrick that he had been given access to an important figure in the hierarchy of the Network. It meant he was moving up in the ranks. Possibly a good thing, but potentially a poisoned chalice.

  Now, his meeting with Vasquez looming, he feels anxious.

  He leaves the small communal office, switching on the ‘vacant’ sign as he does. Then he passes out into the main bar.

  The Methuselah Club is a known haunt for stars of television and film. In the bar, Sharrick studies the other occupants, and he runs his eyes over the paintings of old stars that once attended the club. This place has always been more than just a gentlemen’s club founded in the nineteenth century. It is home to the secret service too, and a neutral ground for other spies, many of whom attend with impunity.

  Sharrick visits often. It is a good refuge when in London and feels like a truly safe location. The secret service won’t become involved in anything taking place here. There is an agreement regarding anti-surveillance – more for the benefit of the British government than anyone else but the others take full advantage of it.