The Minders

by John Marrs

  Sinéad shook her head sympathetically and patted Doon’s arm; she offered a half smile in return. As Doon made her way back to her other guests, Sinéad held back. She focused on the photograph of the bright, pretty young student again as two reports from the same pathologist came to mind. The first detailed how Isla had died, but the second was an alternative version of events. It was that one which had been submitted to, and accepted by, the coroner as the truth.

  But Sinéad knew why Isla’s brutal murder had been covered up and she couldn’t say a thing.

  CHAPTER 24

  EMILIA

  Emilia remained in silence for much of the journey from the hospital to the house.

  Ted had instigated conversation on several occasions, but more often than not, he was greeted with her reticence to communicate. He’d set his vehicle to autonomous mode and tried to encourage a tense Emilia to relax by holding her hand. It offered little reassurance. En route, he pointed out pubs and restaurants that they’d frequented before her career dominated her every waking moment.

  But her mind was elsewhere. As she stared out from the passenger window, she kept her left hand out of sight and held on to the object a stranger had slipped her in the grounds of the hospital.

  “Do not trust your husband,” the pregnant woman had warned, much to Emilia’s confusion.

  “Who . . . what . . . I don’t understand?” Emilia asked. The woman had a nondescript appearance. Her mousey-brown hair hung in a loose ponytail, she wore little makeup, and her protruding stomach backed up her claim that she was far into her pregnancy.

  “It doesn’t matter who I am,” she’d responded coolly. “All you need to know is that Ted means no more to you than I do. I’m not expecting you to believe me at this moment, but you will. Use this when you’re ready. We’ll be waiting for you.” She pressed a glossy business card with a phone number embossed upon it into Emilia’s palm.

  “We? Who is ‘we’?”

  “Take care of yourself, Emilia.” The woman patted a bewildered Emilia’s shoulder like an old friend as she rose unsteadily to her feet, then shuffled back towards the hospital entrance.

  Ted began to speak again. “We’re almost home. Is it ringing any bells . . . ? Sorry, I need to stop asking you that. It must be irritating.”

  It was but Emilia didn’t respond.

  The car slowed as it reached a set of white wooden gates at least two metres in height. White rendered walls hid everything from view behind them. Ted pushed a button on the dashboard screen and the gates opened, allowing them access to a cobbled driveway. The car made its way downhill until the road behind was out of sight. Ahead lay an expansive, modern house made up of three large glass-fronted cubes.

  It took Emilia by surprise. Ted had prepared her for the interior’s appearance when he had FaceTimed her, but he had downplayed its extensive grounds. He parked the car under a cantilever cube, and Emilia was momentarily startled by the appearance of someone opening her door.

  “It’s okay, Josef works for us,” Ted reassured, sensing her alarm.

  “We have staff?”

  “Just Josef and a few security staff.”

  “Welcome home,” Josef began in a gruff Eastern European accent. His attire was casual but a bulge in his jacket pocket suggested he might be armed. It made Emilia uneasy and she wondered why Ted needed security personnel who carried weapons. She followed her husband through a set of double-aspect smoked-glass front doors, along parquet flooring framed by grey concrete walls, and into a reception room. The windows offered uninterrupted views of the countryside. Ahead of her was a forest, and to the right, a tennis court and a swimming pool complete with pool house.

  “And this is all ours,” she muttered. It was impossible not to be taken aback by the property’s splendour. However, she could not remember any of it.

  “We bought it from the executors of an estate belonging to that actress Sofia Bradbury,” he said. “You won’t remember, but she was caught up in the car-hacking anarchy I told you about. After she died, her estate wanted a quick sale. We bought it cheaply, razed the original buildings, and designed this replacement ourselves.”

  Emilia allowed herself to be seduced by an imagined memory: of being talked through an architect’s three-dimensional blueprints which then came to life with the aid of a table’s projection. Then she watched as excavation machines ploughed the earth to create the space to lay the foundations.

  Do not trust your husband, a voice echoed, bringing her out of her daydream. Ted means no more to you than I do.

  A familiar chill returned to Emilia’s spine. Either the stranger or Ted was lying to her. Why should she trust that woman over Ted, the man who’d dedicated so much time to trying to help her remember the past? He had not done anything to deserve her doubt. But how did that woman know who either of them was? And why would she say it if it wasn’t true? Emilia reached into her pocket and brushed her fingertips against the business card again.

  She followed Ted into the kitchen area. Each work surface was immaculate and clutter free, without a visible drawer handle or plug socket. The exception was a refrigerator door decorated in brightly coloured magnets. The names of countries, cities, and towns were emblazoned across them, from hotels in Las Vegas to Dubai and the Seychelles. Amongst them were garish souvenirs from British towns that appeared out of place amidst the far-flung venues. It was a peculiar hint of personality in an otherwise clinically furnished house.

  “They’re my fault,” Ted admitted, sensing her confusion. “It started as a joke gift when I went to Italy for work and bought you one. And then it became a tradition—everywhere I went without you, I’d buy you a magnet.”

  She reached out to move one. “Best if you don’t,” Ted said quickly, his smile shifting as he put his hand out to stop her. “Some of them are broken and will fall off if you move them.”

  Emilia nodded. “Do you mind if I explore the rest of the house alone?” she asked. “This is a lot to absorb all at once. Just for now, I’d like to do it on my own.”

  “Of course. Take your time. I’ll be in the office when you’re ready. It’s downstairs on the . . . never mind, you’ll find it.”

  As Emilia set off on her own journey, she examined abstract artwork hanging from vast white walls; she picked up sculptures and ornaments arranged on sideboards. She inhaled perfumes in a dressing room framed by rails of clothing, shoes, and handbags. She scrolled through playlists on a speaker system and looked through brands of food inside the pantry. She took in deep breaths, allowing the concrete, mortar, and wood to seep into her lungs. Finally, she leafed through wall-to-ceiling bookshelves. Amongst dozens of medical and chemistry textbooks and photobooks on architecture and art sat a leather-bound collection of Shakespeare’s plays.

  Emilia hesitated as something inside her flickered to life. She saw herself inside a shop by table after table of electronic gadgets. She was choosing a tablet furthest away from the entrance, but where the doors remained in her line of sight.

  She logged on to the ReadWell book message board but the image wasn’t clear enough to recall what she was typing. She became aware of heavy footsteps approaching her and leaped into action. Emilia pulled her arm up at a ninety-degree angle and hit whoever it was in the face with the back of her fist. Her assailant barely gasped before she elbowed him hard in the stomach, then turned quickly and caught his leg with her foot, causing him to fall onto his back. Then she grabbed a long, sharp silver object from her back pocket, mounted him, and held it above his head.

  “No, please!” he choked, and she hesitated. Blood poured from her young assailant’s nose into his mouth, down his chin onto his white T-shirt. There, she read his name badge: Timothy—sales assistant. Neither of them moved, each equally bewildered by her actions.

  The recollection, if that was what it was, faded to black like the end of a movie. But before she had
time to dwell on it, a vibration against her thigh alerted her to a text message on a phone Ted had given her. It was from him and simply read: I love you.

  How can you love me? she thought. You don’t have the first clue who I am because neither do I.

  She glanced at the time—an hour had passed and her possessions had not brought her any closer to whom she’d been. So Emilia made her way back down a flight of stairs, passing a basement gym before reaching the only room she’d yet to set foot in—Ted’s office. Two muffled voices came from behind the door. Instead of knocking, she pressed her ear against it.

  “Keep your eye on her,” said Ted. “Do not let her out of your sight. And don’t let her leave the grounds alone.”

  “Do you have reason to think she might run again?” came the second voice.

  “I don’t know. It depends on how much she remembers.”

  “And if it all comes back to her?”

  “Then if necessary, we’ll have to sedate her again . . .”

  Emilia’s stomach hollowed. Sedate her again? When and where had he sedated her before? Did he have something to do with where she’d first woken up?

  As the voices grew louder, she backed away and let herself out of a door and into the garden. Nausea washed over her as she hurried across the driveway. She became distracted by the barking of two fox-red Labradors running towards her, poker-straight tails aggressively aloft. She tried but failed to remember their names.

  “Hey, guys,” she said as they snarled at her. “Did you miss me?”

  But after she received a cursory sniff from each, they went on their way. They were as familiar with her as she was with them.

  Emilia needed space and privacy to think about what she’d overheard. She remained where she was for a moment, the house behind her, mown lawns ahead. Was she trapped here? Was she being kept prisoner but hadn’t even realised it?

  She made her way towards the woodland until she was out of view of the main house, then continued along a flattened path that curved between the pines and ash trees. Eventually she reached a different entrance from the one she’d arrived at. Approaching this new set of gates, she jumped when Josef appeared from nowhere.

  “Can I help you with something?” he asked.

  “Have you been following me?”

  “Did you want to go somewhere?”

  “I’m fine on my own, thank you.”

  “I’m sure we can organise something if you need to leave the premises.”

  “Why can’t I just go outside if I want to?”

  “Perhaps it might be a good idea if you spoke to your husband first?”

  “Are you asking me or telling me?”

  When he didn’t reply, she knew the answer.

  Emilia turned and walked slowly back towards the property, emerging from the woods and stopping at the perimeter of the lawns. Ahead was the man who claimed to be her husband, standing behind the lounge windows, watching her watching him.

  CHAPTER 25

  BRUNO, EXETER

  Please, I can give you anything you want,” the man begged.

  “I doubt that,” Bruno replied, an image of Louie and him side by side in their family home coming to mind.

  “Do you want the money we took from you? I can get you it. Just let me go. I’m sorry, I really am.”

  Bruno found it difficult to read the man’s expression under the blood covering his eyebrows, cheeks, and mouth. It was impossible to tell if the apology came from the heart or from fear. As Bruno approached him, his victim contorted his naked torso, twisting it away from him so that it was less vulnerable. It was a futile effort. Bruno noted purple and red fragments of muscle tissue poking out from the deep lacerations in the man’s back. Broken glass crunched under the soles of Bruno’s boots, from the panes that he’d twice rammed the man’s head through. Like his first killing in the motorway service station toilets, he had taken the second name on his list by surprise too.

  “I have a family,” the man sobbed. “I have a son.”

  “So did I,” Bruno deadpanned, and another image of Louie prompted his fist to fly with a life of its own, punching the man in the kidneys many times. “You took him away from me.”

  Bruno looked at the rope around his victim’s neck, the other half looped around metal beams holding up the greenhouse’s vaulted roof. It was the fault of parasites like this that father and son were separated.

  His victim gasped for breath as Bruno recalled the last time he’d seen his boy, almost five months ago. He’d felt such joy watching Louie dancing barefoot on the artificial lawns of his care facility. Now when he thought of his son, he alternated between grief and anger. Louie no longer had either parent in his life and Bruno hated himself for that. Hot, raw tears streamed from Bruno’s eyes as he hit the man again.

  Bruno had visited lawyer Robert Graph’s country house on a previous occasion, shortly before Bruno enrolled in the programme. His address hadn’t been hard to find, and then, Bruno had only wanted to reason with him; to explain how he and his colleague Jacob O’Sullivan had been lied to, which resulted in Bruno losing everything. Bruno turned up unannounced on his doorstep, begging him to ask his client to reconsider. But Graph had laughed, told him he didn’t care what the truth was, and threatened to call the police before slamming the door in his face.

  Today, he had no such opportunity. When he’d opened the door, Bruno had shoved him inside and, armed with a hammer, launched into a brutal attack. Then he’d dragged the unconscious lawyer to the greenhouse, pushed his face through glass, looped a rope he’d brought with him over the beam, and hauled him up, allowing his feet to rest on a stepladder.

  “This is your own fault,” Bruno began. “You have turned me into someone I don’t want to be. This is for every man, woman, and child whose life you have destroyed with no fucks given.”

  He pulled back his foot and kicked hard, sending the ladder toppling to its side with a clank. The drop was not long enough for Graph’s body weight to sever his spine. Instead, the veins and arteries carrying blood to his brain slowly closed off, depriving him of oxygen and making his death a drawn-out affair. His legs flailed as his hands gripped the rope around his neck, desperately trying to release its grip. Ten minutes later, Graph was finally dead. Before he left, Bruno firmly pushed a £1 coin deep into each of the man’s eye sockets.

  Birdsong emerging from the treetops caught Bruno’s attention as he walked along a single-track country lane and towards the vehicle he’d parked there. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard it. More often than not, the chattering of the Echoes blocked out all background and white noise. But today, they weren’t competing to be heard. Perhaps his brain was beginning to settle into its new form. Or perhaps murder was enough to silence the dead.

  Bruno recalled the first time the Echoes appeared. It was days after the implant procedure and he was still feeling groggy. Whispering had been coming from consultants outside the recovery room, but no one entered. After a time, he’d opened the door and found the corridor empty. Yet the voices persisted. Panicked, he’d told Karczewski, who told him not to worry, advising that they were temporary and his augmented brain was adjusting to the new information it was storing.

  But soon their numbers swelled from a handful to more than Bruno could count. It was as if he were listening to every radio station all at once and couldn’t switch any of them off.

  Fearing for his sanity, Bruno planned to inform one of his psychotherapists. However, outside her office and through an ajar door, he listened as she and Karczewski discussed Patient 0157, the number assigned to him. He clenched his jaw and toes tightly until his Echoes were under partial control, then listened.

  “I have my concerns,” she began. “His chemical map and thought patterns are too random. They should be settling by now. He’s not responding like the others are.”

 
The others, Bruno reflected. How many more Minders were there?

  “He has completed every level of training and passed every test, bar none,” Karczewski countered. “The Echoes have been proven to dissipate of their own accord in past subjects. We’ve increased and stabilised his dopamine levels and also reduced his norepinephrine levels so that his anxiety is manageable. Yes, his epinephrine levels are higher than we would like, suggesting he has anger issues, but we have yet to see them act out in a negative way, which in turn suggests he can self-regulate his temper. Why are you so concerned?”

  “It’s a gut feeling, Edward. He has displayed the weakest synaesthesia despite solving the initial puzzle the quickest. This programme is so much more than just a brain accepting a foreign body implanted inside it. It’s about how he can live an ordinary existence and keep himself and the data safe. We cannot have a repeat of what happened last time.”

  Karczewski’s tone shifted. “Adjustments have been made to ensure we won’t.”

  “Can we take the risk of allowing him back into the world with what he knows? Can you offer a cast-iron guarantee that he will put his duty to the country above all else?”

  Her question appeared to irritate Karczewski. “You saw the initial results—someone with his skills is not leaving the programme unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  Bruno left as quietly as he’d arrived, deciding to keep his escalating Echoes to himself. He would rather live with them than risk being removed from the programme and having Louie’s care-home funding axed.

  Karczewski’s colleague had been correct about his high anger levels. Since the procedure, he often felt rage bubbling under the surface, ready to break through like lava from a volcano. But he trained himself to swallow it down and keep it hidden from the lab technicians monitoring the sensor pads attached to his head and body.