The House of Killers

by Samantha Lee Howe

Ah! This must be a hospital. I’ve been ill; that’s why I’m confused.

  The woman helps me dress, then they take me from the … ward? Perhaps that’s the name?

  ‘Have I been sick?’ I say as they lead me down a huge flight of stairs.

  ‘Yes, and now you’re better,’ says the woman.

  I see her and the man exchange an expression as they take me down the front steps of the house and put me in the car. It’s dark outside. The woman, Mum, makes sure my seatbelt is secured. I thank her. She gives me a bottle of water and sandwiches wrapped in foil.

  ‘For the journey,’ she says.

  We drive for a few hours; I drink some of the water and eat one half of a sandwich. It’s chicken and mayonnaise, a personal favourite. Then I drift off to sleep, even though the day is beginning to dawn.

  I wake later in a bedroom. It’s nicer than where I’ve been. There are toys, and posters, and it’s painted pale blue. I can smell the fresh chemical scent of the paint.

  Mum comes in as if she knows I’m awake. She gives me water again and a spoon of medicine that will help me ‘settle’. Then she shows me around the house. I don’t remember it, or my room, but Mum explains this is normal.

  ‘You had a very serious illness,’ she says. ‘Meningitis. It made you forget lots of things.’

  There’s a girl in the kitchen, sitting at a small table. She’s eating a bowl of cereal.

  ‘This is Mia,’ says Mum. ‘Your twin sister.’

  Looking at Mia makes me happy. I sit next to her and Mum gives me the same bowl and cereal. Mia holds my hand.

  ‘We’ve both been ill,’ Mia says. ‘But now we’re together we’re going to get better.’

  ‘You had the mengies as well?’ I ask.

  Mum laughs, ‘Meningitis. And yes, you both had it.’

  I let go of Mia’s hand and eat my food.

  ‘Do you have a pink room?’ I ask. ‘Mine’s blue.’

  ‘Mia’s room is lilac,’ Mum says. ‘It’s her favourite colour.’

  Mia doesn’t look certain but she nods. Then she takes a swig of the milk that Mum places down before her.

  ‘Time to visit Uncle Andrew,’ she says.

  Mia falls asleep on the chair and Mum picks her up and carries her outside. I follow them both to the front door and look out on the street as Mum places Mia in the car. Dad is in the driving seat.

  ‘See you both tonight,’ he calls, then he drives away.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mia will be back later,’ Mum says. ‘Now, you and I are going shopping. So, go and get dressed. I put your clothes on the chair by your bed.’

  We go out, taking a bus ride into what Mum refers to as ‘town’. There we go to a shop that says ‘School Uniforms’ in the window. I try things on. We leave with new clothes and shoes for school.

  ‘You start your new school on Monday,’ Mum explains.

  ‘What day is it now?’ I ask.

  ‘Tuesday,’ she answers.

  That evening, Dad returns with Mia. She’s still sleepy when we all sit at the table to eat. She struggles to eat the roast chicken dinner, even though Mum insists it is her favourite. After dinner, Mum takes Mia upstairs to bed; half an hour later, I follow.

  When I wake the next day, the room feels more like mine. I hear Mia laughing with Mum in the bathroom as she encourages her to brush her teeth. The sounds are familiar. This is home. How could I have forgotten any of it?

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  MICHAEL

  The dream of my childhood slips away as I come around to the sound of knocking. I jerk my head up and find I’m in a bedroom, an unfamiliar one, and the blinds are drawn.

  ‘Housekeeping!’

  I struggle from the bed, find I’m only wearing my boxers, and I go to the door. I open it and peep round it, explaining I’m not ready yet. The woman frowns at me, then nods. ‘Check-out is at eleven,’ she says.

  ‘Okay.’

  I close the door and blink, looking at the hotel room. There’s a gap in my memory: I have no idea how I got here or even what time it is. My watch is not on my wrist. I walk back to the bed and look for my personal belongings. My hand is shaking as I find my watch on the chest of drawers beneath the wall-hung TV. My wallet, my phone, and my clothes are all piled on a chair by the window.

  I pick up the phone. It’s fully charged and there’s a text message on it.

  We have to talk. N x

  The memory of the last few days comes flooding back. Neva and I went to my parents’ house to ask them about Andrew. My mother drugged me.

  I sink down onto the bed. My head hurts. I run my hand over the back of my neck and find the lump there. Neva knocked me out. She tied up my parents. Where the hell are they now?

  ‘Oh God!’

  My mind is a jumble of mixed-up recollections, some that don’t feel like mine. But I know what this is. The memories are mine; I’ve been living a double life. Neva instructed me to remember it all when the meds were still in my system. My brain couldn’t cope with the rush of knowledge and so I’d blacked out again and again until finally I became coherent.

  She’d half untied me then, knowing I’d be able to get free. Then she’d left.

  I’d struggled out of my bonds and gone into the lounge. That’s when I found the bodies. Mum and Dad were dead. Executed. Still tied and gagged. Neva had done it and I knew why.

  I had run to the downstairs toilet and thrown up. My stomach was empty bar the water Neva had fed me. God, what was I going to do? I cursed myself for being an idiot. Why had I brought her here? What did I expect would happen? Did I think this would be some kind of family reunion and Mum and Dad would reassure me that there was no problem with Andrew? Deep down I’d hoped it had been all some horrible mistake that Mum and her baking would put right. Just like when I was a child.

  But I hadn’t known how involved they were, had I? I’d thought maybe the Network had tainted my family only through Andrew. I couldn’t have predicted Neva would kill them – even if it was necessary.

  But I could. On some level I’d always known they were wrong. All those trips to visit our uncle, how sick and woozy and miserable Mia and I would feel on the return. Then Mum’s baking would soothe us and we’d drift off to sleep and forget the whole horrible experience – until next time.

  In my parents’ house I’d found my wallet and the keys for the Corsa by the door but Neva was long gone. I got into the car and drove away.

  Even as I’d fled the house, my mind was a mess. I worried what I would do. I had to ring work and tell them everything. But the other memories pushed against me, telling me this would be a stupid move. I should call the police, hand myself over to them. But no. I’d be dead in twenty-four hours if I did that. The Network’s reach was limitless; wasn’t that what I’d been told?

  A telephone number had popped into my head then.

  I pulled over when I saw a phone booth and dialled the number. It was answered on the second ring.

  ‘I need clean-up,’ I said. My throat was dry. ‘Codename Neva killed my parents.’

  ‘We’ll deal with it. Come in. You know the procedure,’ said the voice on the other end. It was a familiar voice, but the name of the person evaded me.

  ‘On my way,’ I’d said.

  I got back in the car and drove to Cambridge train station instead of the meeting point I knew I should be going to. Because I’m not that Michael. I’m me. And despite the flood of information about what I’d done under the Network’s influence, they didn’t own me. Neva had been right to trust that I’d feel this way.

  At the station I’d abandoned the car and caught a train to Manchester. I didn’t know why there, but some inner logic said it was the place to go. There were still so many gaps in my memory, so much I had to process before I could use what I knew and decide what I had to do.

  On the train I was consumed with more information about my parents – my parents who weren’t my parents at all – and Mia. She wasn’t my twin! But what did
all of this mean for her too? She’d been an innocent child once; we both had.

  I’d found a hotel and paid top rate to get a room instantly. Then I’d undressed and fallen asleep again. It had been the only way to cope with everything.

  Now I stare at the phone, wondering if I should call Neva. Part of me is fighting the urge to murder her. There’d be a great deal of pain inflicted before I gave her final retirement. I feel anger and hatred boil up inside me. But these aren’t the assassin Michael’s emotions, they are mine. I’ve been lied to. Used. But … none of this is Neva’s fault. She’s just forced me to face it. The other side of me wants to silence her – but not because he cares; he’s just been taught to be loyal always to the Network. He’s an automaton, responding to instructions and barely thinking about what he does or why.

  I think about my parents and their lie. I’d never met them before that day when they took me from the house. They had deserved to die for their part in this. They all did. And the house, one phone call to Archive and I can bring the place down and everyone in it.

  I toy with the idea again of calling Ray Martin and telling him everything that’s happened. Can I trust him? I just don’t know.

  The ache behind my eyes starts to lessen and I pick up the burner phone again. I pull Neva’s phone number up and press call.

  ‘Michael,’ she says.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I say.

  ‘I’m in the lobby. Come down and talk to me.’

  ‘How do you know where I am?’ I ask

  ‘I told you to meet me here.’

  I take this information in as I pull on my clothes, then pick up my holdall and look inside. My service revolver is still in the bag. I scan the room, make sure I’ve left nothing behind, and then I go downstairs to the reception.

  Neva is wearing the long black wig again but I recognise her anyway. She’s sitting in the lobby, pretending to read the local newspaper. I sit down in the empty chair beside her.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she asks without looking at me.

  ‘As though I’ve been beaten around the head several times. Oh wait, you did hit me over the head.’

  ‘You were pretty dangerous; I had to do something.’

  She puts down the paper and looks at me.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to have to kill you. We are the same, you and I,’ she says. ‘A terrible thing was done to us, but we have the capability of being free of it.’

  I hear her words but can’t believe I’ll ever be free of this pain I’m feeling.

  ‘I was lied to. Misled. Brainwashed. Nothing in my life was actually real.’ I’m filled with rage. ‘I … I know now that my flat wasn’t bugged. I put the drug in my own tea. They conditioned me to … check in. So, on Saturdays … not every week … I’d sometimes drink the tea. The other me would emerge and I’d go and meet Beech. I just don’t remember everything I’d tell him. It’s like … the information is unavailable.’

  She nods. She is the only person who can really understand what I’m saying, and yet my anger wants to focus on her too, as part of this. She was part of them, even if she wasn’t really complicit.

  ‘You murdered my parents,’ I say. It hurts. Deep. Like someone is sticking a knife in my heart and twisting it.

  ‘You know why,’ she says.

  ‘I do but—’

  ‘You’re still dealing with the attachment you had to them. But remember what you said to me as we drove there. You weren’t close. This is why. They weren’t your real parents and they knew it, even if you didn’t. And every time they were with you, those interactions were a performance to them. They manipulated you, and your sister too.’

  ‘Oh God! Mia. What am I going to do about her?’ I say.

  ‘Right now, nothing. They may activate her to find and kill you. Then—’

  ‘No! I can’t.’

  ‘I’m with you, Michael,’ she says. ‘I’ll take care of what needs to be done.’

  ‘You don’t understand. She’s pregnant.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  I shake my head in confusion. ‘What’s interesting?’

  ‘They let her get pregnant. Maybe she’s not one of us but one of them.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I say.

  ‘You will. But let’s get out of here now. I have another safe house set up.’

  Neva’s safe house is a forty-minute drive out of Manchester centre, the other side of Altrincham. It’s a small country cottage in a rural location. I take my holdall containing my meagre belongings inside and find it cosily furnished.

  ‘Nice place,’ I say.

  ‘Airbnb,’ she says. ‘Surprisingly anonymous.’

  In the bedroom I find she’s bought me some basics – more underwear and clothing – as I only brought enough things for one night. I’m surprised by her practicality.

  I take a shower and change into the new clothing: a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. In the bathroom is shaving gel and a new razor. I scrape away the two-day-old stubble and feel more human again.

  Downstairs, Neva fixes us some lunch. She offers me tap water to drink.

  ‘Screw tea,’ she says.

  I laugh.

  Over a tuna sandwich, I ask her what the plan is.

  ‘We could just get the hell out of here,’ she says. ‘But they won’t stop looking for us.’

  ‘I can’t do that. I have a life. A job.’

  ‘You don’t understand, Michael. None of that is real.’

  I have a hard time processing this and I tell her so.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she says. ‘The person you have been … the MI5 agent, that’s mostly you. But you’re more than that. You’re a sleeper and the Network isn’t going to let you fall into the hands of your colleagues now that the cat is well and truly out of the bag. You know too much and you’re aware of it all, no longer compartmentalising the bits they didn’t want the real you to know. If they know you’re compromised, they can’t let you live.’

  ‘So we run? Hide?’

  ‘We could. Or we could fight back,’ she says.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Your mother told me where the house is. But she lied. They knew I wouldn’t torture her further if I believed what she said. She was good. I’ll give her that. She put up with just enough to make me believe she’d cracked.’

  I feel sickened by her words.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘But I had to do it.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. I understand completely who and what she is, more now than ever. I’d have done the same in her shoes. Yet I still can’t believe I think like this.

  ‘She told you it was in Bristol. That’s a default location. When you started on her, other conditioning kicked in. She would have believed she was telling the truth. She lied. But I know where the real house is. I remembered. When I was … the other Michael.’

  Neva put her hand on my arm, ‘I was hoping that would be the case. We just have to think of a way to get in there and shut them down.’

  ‘I can do that,’ I say.

  ‘Michael, you’ve been compromised. They’d never trust you.’

  ‘There’s a lot you don’t know, Neva. Andrew will trust me. He’s always trusted me. I’m his heir.’

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  MICHAEL

  The house is in several acres of land in rural Cheshire. I know the security rituals and how to get in there. What I’m not sure about is how to get Neva in.

  I draw a plan of the place, showing her all the weaknesses in their defences. They may have upped their game as a precaution though, and I explain this to Neva.

  ‘I want to bring Archive into this,’ I tell her. ‘We can do with their help.’

  ‘Michael, you can’t trust them.’

  ‘But wouldn’t I remember now if one of the others was in the Network?’

  Neva shakes her head. ‘They may have kept you in the dark about each other. Hell, for all I know, Archive is a front to help, not stop,
them.’

  I’m not surprised that she thinks this. The Network has many fingers in many pies, particularly the government, which is full of people facilitating them for the backhanders, or other privileges. I write down a list for Neva of all those I know of.

  ‘The thing is, most of these people don’t know what the Network really does. They take bribes to push bills through that suit the company, or help Beech Corp – whose money mostly finances the whole operation. My parents talked a lot when they thought we were drugged,’ I explain. ‘All this stuff has been hiding in my brain.’

  I tell her some more things I overheard.

  ‘There’s something else you should know. That last day when I was in work, seven children were reported abducted. I was waiting on instructions to go and interview the parents. It’s likely that all of these kids were taken to the house. They haven’t finished with the last batch; they’re overlapping the new with the old. For some reason they need more operatives. But here’s the thing. There’s something nagging me. About the parents … I just can’t remember what it is.’

  ‘Give it time. There’s a lot of information in your head that needs to be processed and made sense of,’ she explains.

  A short time later we go out for a drive in Neva’s car. I don’t know where she got this one – perhaps it’s another rental – but I drive far enough away from the cottage until I find another phone box. The woman I’d spoken to was at the house. I’m late checking in. Now I have to convince them I’m still under their influence.

  I dial the number again and she answers with an abrupt ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m not far away. Made several detours to make sure I wasn’t tailed,’ I say.

  ‘And have you been followed?’ she asks.

  ‘No. I’m free and clear.’

  ‘Mr Beech will be here to debrief you. What’s your ETA?’ she asks.

  This voice is familiar. It’s the same one that took my call last time and there’s a trace of an accent, though I can’t place it. I know who she is – or at least my other self does – but I still can’t access this information. It’s as though it’s hidden behind even greater barriers than the other things I can remember.