The House of Killers

by Samantha Lee Howe

  I glance at my watch. ‘An hour.’

  When I get back in the car, Neva is waiting in the passenger seat.

  ‘Any problems?’ she asks.

  ‘None. My explanation was accepted. Andrew is there too,’ I say.

  Neva nods. We now both recall that Andrew is always at the house when the new children are brought in. He plays an important role as the figure of authority.

  The plan is simple: when we get nearer, she’ll hide in the boot of the car. I’m not expecting them to search it, but if they’re suspicious, she’ll be armed and ready if the trunk is opened by anyone other than me. Then all hell will be let loose and we’ll be in for a fight. But I’m ready for that. I almost welcome it. The other Michael inside me will know what to do when the time is right, and I’ll use his knowledge to bring down the house, and the Network.

  With more time we might well have come up with a better plan. I’d wanted to go in alone, but Neva wouldn’t hear of it. She wants her revenge, and now I know how I’ve been manipulated, so do I.

  Twenty minutes away from the border of the house, I pull over and help Neva settle in the boot. Then I drive straight for the impressive walled and gated driveway.

  There’s a security guard waiting in a small booth. I pull up and wait for him to approach. I open the window and say the expected codeword; he glances briefly into the back seat, then turns and points a remote control at the gates. They begin to open with barely a creak. I close my window and make my way sedately into the grounds and drive up the long approach to the house. I behave exactly how I would if the other Michael was in charge.

  The house looks just like the photograph I saw in the school. It’s been years since I was last here myself but I marvel that they could have so easily suppressed my memories of the place. I hadn’t even recognised it from the pictures, but Neva had. So powerful is their control that I know I’m going to have to be on my guard. I don’t want any opportunity for Beech or anyone else to make me slip back under their influence. As I draw nearer, a wave of anxiety rises in my chest, followed by slight nausea. I remember feeling this way; approaching the house always brings a rush of unwelcome memories.

  I recall sitting in Mendez’s surgery, my eyes wedged open as I am forced to watch horrible images on a large screen. All the time, the drugs were pumping into my system through a drip. These are not pleasant recollections. I was a child being tortured.

  Now my recalled memories reveal that back in the Second World War, Hitler’s doctors had used drugs and torture as a way of brainwashing agents they later sent out into the world. Mendez wasn’t old enough to be a Nazi, but sometime after the war, as a young medic, he’d gained access to notes that should have long been destroyed. These early experiments became the basis of Mendez’s conditioning. A conditioning that he evolved over time once he realised that young minds were the best to work on.

  It was sick. Abusive. The evillest thing I can ever imagine one human being doing to another, especially a child. At least I was given the semblance of a normal life around the training and they’d allowed me, albeit for their own reasons, not to remember the torment most of the time. But I do now, and all that pain eats at me even as the house looms ahead. I push back, trying not to let my awful past swallow me whole. I remember reading files on Mendez’s methods. The old guy has Alzheimer’s now. Andrew shared that with me during one of the times he pulled me in to see him.

  Andrew had shared a lot of information with me. He’d trusted me; hopefully he still did. I understand now what my role had been. I was their mole in Archive. For this reason, I was sure that no one else in there was. This thought brings me to an important conclusion.

  As I pull up to the front of the house, I remember that parking is around the back. I drive around the house and see the large carport, which is full of various other vehicles. I back into a slot beside Andrew’s Porsche so the front of my car faces the cameras at the back of the house and the boot of my car is obscured. Then I pull out my burner phone and, making the decision to tell Ray Martin where I am, I send him a text. The message is in code, but it tells Ray my location and makes reference to the children. I wonder what Ray will make of this, considering I’ve taken sick leave. He’ll realise that this was a lie. How he’ll respond, I don’t know. I hope he’ll bring in some help. I’ve a strong suspicion Neva and I will need it.

  I erase the message from the phone, then get out of the car. Taking my jacket from the backseat, I go around the back of the car and open the boot. I make a show of pulling on my jacket and then lift out my holdall. Meanwhile, Neva slips out of the boot and hides behind the car. I slam the boot shut, lift my holdall onto my shoulder and walk towards the back entrance of the building. I’m sure that any observing security will think this is all normal.

  The backdoor is locked, as per protocol. I press the intercom and stand in front of the camera. There is a piercing buzz and the door unlocks, allowing me to enter.

  I go in, leaving Neva outside, trusting she’ll find her way into the house without too much difficulty. One thing I know about her is that she’s very good at getting in and out of places and not being seen. The Network taught her well.

  I pass down a long corridor and out into the main entrance. I’m surprised that no security guard comes to greet me. I had at least expected to be patted down, but no.

  Olive Redding is waiting for me at the door to her office. We’ve met before and I know that she is the current caretaker of the house.

  ‘Come in, Michael,’ she says.

  I enter and see the slender frame of another woman sitting by Olive’s desk.

  ‘Hello, Michael,’ says the woman, turning to me. Of course! I had recognised her voice and now the memories rush back into my mind. I am almost plummeted back to the moment I first arrived at the house, when Simone Arquette brought me here along with her own daughter.

  ‘It was so amusing when you came to talk to me with your colleague,’ Simone says. ‘About Amelie. When you two were in the house together.’

  ‘Simone,’ chides Olive.

  ‘Oh, Michael is fine!’ Simone says. ‘He knows I mean no harm. This is our life here, after all. I’m a breeder. He’s a sleeper. And Amelie became an assassin. We are all the property of the Network. We all understand our roles.’

  Olive asks me to sit. I do as she says, falling easily into the conditioning, respecting her position here. She is a powerful woman. I know she is a former-operative-turned-trainer. Does she still get tremors when she walks down the corridor to Mendez’s consulting rooms? Or does she still play the mantra over and over inside her head, reaffirming her loyalty to the people who took her from her home and brought her here as a child?

  ‘Mr Beech will want to see you,’ Olive says. ‘But first, how did Neva find your parents?’

  I tell her the story that Neva and I planned on the way here. Mostly the truth, with just one tiny twist, that Neva had knocked me out, killed my parents, and left me in the house to take the rap. I don’t tell them that I now remember everything. They assume I’m still in agent mode – a default if my other self becomes compromised.

  ‘When I came to, I remembered who I was and what to do. My mother had followed protocol and activated me. Neva had fled, and so I called you, as I was supposed to, for clean-up.’

  ‘We picked up the bodies,’ Simone says. ‘There’s a team waiting in Bristol for Neva to appear at the other house. When she does, we’ll have her, Michael, and you can wreak your own revenge on her, if you like?’

  ‘Good,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t sure if Mum had given her the Bristol location, though I hoped. Which is why I didn’t come here until I was certain I wasn’t being watched.’

  As the casual interrogation ends, Andrew comes into the room. I stand and bow my head to him. I don’t address him as Andrew – though my real self always did; instead, I call him Mr Beech, like everyone else does. This appears to be the right behaviour as Andrew is relaxed around me, sure that I am genuinely on th
eir side.

  ‘Come to my study,’ Andrew says.

  I follow him out of Olive’s office and down to the next room on the left of the expansive hallway.

  ‘The death of your parents changes things. Their disappearance will raise questions. Therefore, you are compromised,’ Andrew says. ‘That being said, there’s no cause for alarm.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I say.

  ‘I will one day need a successor, as you know. I think it’s time you took a more active role. Maybe take on my duties here at the house. Then you’ll be shadowing me properly, learning the ropes. It’s time.’

  I bow my head, showing how humbled I am at this suggestion. The thought horrifies me, but also excites the other side of me, who has always known this was coming. I find myself wondering why I’m so privileged. Questions that have never been asked before pop into my head. Who were my real parents? Why has Andrew taken such a personal interest in me all these years? I don’t ask the questions, hoping instead that the answers will be forthcoming.

  Andrew pours us both a liberal shot of brandy from a decanter on his study desk.

  ‘To the Network, dear boy.’ He takes a generous swig.

  I pick up my glass and sip the warming liquid, trying not to show how distrustful I feel about drinking or eating anything here.

  ‘But now, you must tell me everything. How did Neva know who you were?’

  The only way to deal with this is to tell mostly the truth. Andrew will know if I’m lying anyway. And so, I start at the beginning.

  ‘I met her outside the tube station the day Tracey Herod was killed…’

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  NEVA

  She passes by, as invisible as a ghost and as silent as the dead. The kitchen is empty but Neva can hear movement in a small pantry on the left-hand side of the room. Inside the room, Neva sees the cook, stuffing a handful of chocolate chip cookies into her mouth. The woman chomps noisily, oblivious of the assassin behind her. For what is about to go down, Neva intends to leave no adult witnesses. All are facilitators, abusers, abductors. She enters the pantry, reaches out and grabs the woman’s neck. One precise twist, and the woman slips to the ground at her feet. The half-chewed cookies crumble from her dead mouth, even as the eyes glaze over. It’s grotesque, but nothing worse than Neva has seen before.

  Neva remembers this woman as she looks down at her face. She’s older now, but no less mean. There are flashes of memory, how she tormented the children with food, half-starving them mostly, then sitting eating cookies even as one of them fainted with hunger.

  Maybe I am an avenging angel after all.

  Neva leaves the pantry, closing the door as she goes.

  At the kitchen door she encounters a small child. She is a little girl of five or six. The girl is small and frail-looking. Neva realises that nothing has changed at the house, despite the story that Michael told her of their ‘new’ methods.

  ‘I want my mummy,’ says the girl. Her eyes, over-large in her too-thin face, are red from crying.

  ‘Where are the others?’ Neva whispers.

  ‘In the gym room. We have to climb the ropes.’ The little girl holds out hands showing red and sore blisters.

  ‘How many teachers are in the gym?’ Neva asks.

  ‘Just Mistress Mercy.’

  ‘You’re going to be okay. Go to the bathroom. Stay in there until I come back for you.’

  ‘You’re not one of them, are you?’ says the girl, barely able to trust this new adult stranger.

  ‘No. I’m not. I’m here to help.’

  The little girl goes into the small toilet by the cloakroom. Neva presses her fingers to her lips to warn the child to remain silent. As the girl closes and locks the door, Neva hears soft tuneless whistling. She ducks into the broom cupboard under the stairs. Peering through the cracks, she sees an armed guard walking towards the kitchen. It’s only a matter of time before the guard finds the cook, then the alarm will go up and her chances of taking revenge will be gone.

  Neva leaves the closet and follows the guard into the kitchen. He is totally relaxed and unaware of her. Behind him, Neva picks up one of the breakfast barstools. She hits the man with all her strength. The guard goes down, but he’s not unconscious. Neva delivers a precise kick to his throat. He falls back, gasping for breath. Another blow to the head and the guard falls back lifeless. There was some noise, but the house is big and Neva hopes no one was near enough to hear it. She pauses, catching her breath and listening. No alarm; all is quiet.

  Neva pulls the guard into the pantry. She checks his pulse; he’s alive. She takes her knife from her boot, and slits his carotid artery.

  There is a popping, gurgling sound as the guard’s last breath hisses from his mouth. Neva removes her knife and wipes it clean on the cook’s apron. Blood pools briefly from the guard’s throat, spilling onto the pantry floor, and then peters out as the heart stops pumping.

  Knife in hand, she slips out of the kitchen, leaving the two bodies hidden in the pantry.

  Down the corridor, Neva hears voices.

  She presses her ear to the door and recognises Michael’s voice.

  ‘I don’t know what more I can tell you,’ he says.

  ‘Neva’s defection could be catastrophic. If we don’t find and retire her soon, we may find the Network itself is exposed,’ says Beech.

  It’s been a long time since she heard Mr Beech’s voice but Neva would know it anywhere.

  She sees him now, younger, wielding a cane, like an intimidating school master. She doesn’t recall if Beech ever used the cane on anyone. He carried it almost as an affectation. She had not remembered this when she saw him with Michael in London or before that when she googled him. It was as if the conditioning disallowed any memory of Mr Beech and only now, back in the house, can Neva permit it. Other information is returning to her as well. Things she had forgotten. Things she never wanted to remember.

  There is a rush of terrifying recollections. Further abuse. A beating for one of the boys who they thought wasn’t toeing the line. He was black and blue for weeks, but was used as an example for the others who were made to inflict the thrashing on him in the first place.

  You aren’t with us, you’re against us, they’d all been forced to chant as the blows fell.

  Toby, she thinks. Or at least that was the name they gave him eventually. Where is he now? Does he work here? Or is he out in the field like she had been?

  She wonders if Michael is experiencing returned, uncontrollable memories. She hopes this does not have a negative impact on him. She takes a tremulous breath; there’s no choice now either way. They are here and the plan must go ahead.

  Neva moves away from Beech’s deep tones. His voice, though muffled through the door, has an ill effect on her. The hand holding the knife trembles. She is weakened here. Doubts seep into her mind that weren’t there before. The Network is everywhere. We are nothing without them. We are weak. What can she and Michael do alone?

  Neva takes a controlled breath. She stills these uncertainties, strengthening her belief that they have to end this, no matter how hard it becomes. There is so much she doesn’t know, or can’t remember. But these qualms were placed in her mind to stop her betrayal, weren’t they? She calms herself. I’m strong; I’m death. Once again, she sees Ansell’s grave, daffodils marking the final certainty. The doubts are hard to suppress but this memory reinforces her resolve. She is sure of one thing: she will face expiry before she gives in.

  She walks along the corridor, breathing deeply as she fights for control. Beech’s voice, now in the distance, feels less intrusive. The anxiety attack stills and she reins in her wayward emotions.

  Neva reaches the staircase. The huge house remains silent. She recalls how very few people actually live or work here. A few teachers, trainers, who perhaps only come in a few hours a day. Back in her time, the recruits were kept in conditioning for most of the day. Quiet and controlled. But sometimes, like now, they are working
on their physical strength and so are alert.

  Neva weighs up what to do. The house is probably only a small part of the Network. There are new children here as well as some that are almost fully operative. Those will be dangerous. Their conditioned minds will fight hard for the Network. If nothing else, fear of their trainers will stop them from easy capitulation. She and Michael can get them out, but then where would they take them, and what was to prevent the Network taking others? It is odd that they only ever take seven in at a time. Neva doesn’t know why that is or if it matters. But Beech is behind it all. He has to die, and so do all of the trainers they find here. Maybe then the Network will be thrown into enough chaos that their defences are down. Without leadership, the whole thing will fall apart.

  But even as she thinks this, Neva feels the tug of fear that always accompanies any rebellion.

  I can do this, she thinks. I killed Tracey and no one had more control over me. Not even Beech.

  But first, as agreed with Michael, security needs to be cut off from raising any alarms in or outside the house.

  Neva presses against her stifled memories. Where did they keep the monitors? Ah yes. Next to the conditioning room. She passes the staircase and walks down the opposite corridor. The walk does not feel as long or as terrifying as it once had. This at least has little impact on her. Her eyes dart left and right as she studies the hallway, looking for signs of cameras even though Michael told her there are none.

  They watch the children but not the trainers, Michael had explained as the plan was formed. That way there is no evidence of what has been done to them, should this place ever be discovered.

  And so the dormitories are to be avoided, as well as the exterior. But not the bulk of the interior of the school, nor the conditioning room. No, the Network is too clever for that.

  Neva reaches the security office. She doesn’t knock.

  The guard is sitting with his feet on the desk. He has a mug in one hand and a sandwich in the other. As the door opens, he quickly removes his feet. Then, seeing Neva and not one of the teachers or other guards, he drops both the sandwich and coffee and leaps to his feet. The coffee cup smashes on the floor splashing coffee over the guard’s boots.