The Hit List

by Holly Seddon

  ‘Lower your voice,’ I say. I’m surprised by the stillness that has settled over me, that same ancient calm that has been flowing to the surface unbidden more and more. This is a matter of logistics now. I open his mouth, push a grape inside. ‘Chew it,’ I say. He complies. ‘And another,’ I say, nodding with encouragement as I feed him like a child. Then I push the third one in, pushing it as far down his windpipe as I can manage while his teeth gnash at me.

  He starts to choke, his chest shaking as he tries to cough, tries to escape, tries to keep hold of the life that is escaping him second by second. I watch his eyes widen, widen until they nearly pop. And then I watch him go limp.

  When I’m satisfied that he has gone, I untie the wire, pull off the coat and check his wrists for bruising.

  ‘I didn’t say anything about a computer,’ I say, as I upload a photograph of him slumped at his table, pack everything back into my carrier bag and leave through the window.

  I slide my feet back into my boots and head for home.

  Greg

  Friday, 22 November 2019

  Greg is biting into his last sandwich quarter and playing a game on his phone when he hears the car pull up outside. He rushes to the window and peers out from behind the curtain as two blocky men in dark coats and jeans emerge from a big black car that looks more like a robotic cockroach than a vehicle.

  They move slowly but with purpose. Two great meaty tanks rolling at their own speed.

  ‘Lock the doors,’ David Ross yells from somewhere nearby. ‘And don’t make a fucking sound.’

  The men slip under the window, out of view, and Greg hears the front door open with a whoosh. It’s a heavy thing, chunks of thick wood loaded up with old glass, brass knockers and hinges. It swings shut with a soft thud.

  The abandoned bell on the reception desk rings out through the foyer. Greg rushes to the door of his room and twists the brass key as quietly as he can. The room is uncomfortably warm.

  A shrill whistle rings out through the silent hotel. Greg imagines dogs barking at it from miles around.

  ‘David Ross!’ a new voice shouts, followed by another whistle.

  ‘Come on, cheapskate,’ the second voice calls, an amused lilt to it. ‘We know you’re here.’

  Can these be the people in charge?

  The men sound distant Scouse with a hint of more recent cockney. Like Greg, London has swallowed their original accents, softened and reshaped them.

  ‘Come on, mate, let’s be having you.’

  They palm the reception bell again, over and over. Ding, ding, ding.

  It doesn’t ring true that these men are in charge. They act like they’re breaking into the situation, not owning it in the first place. So who are they?

  Their voices are more falsetto than you’d expect from such thick throats and sloping backs. Thick muscle plastered over with middle-aged fat. The kind of men Greg would cross the street to avoid. Not the kind of men he would choose to be locked up with in an abandoned hotel.

  If they were running this show, they’d know they were interrupting a delicate operation. And they wouldn’t want to risk ‘the merchandise’.

  Greg shudders.

  The whole building is hushed and he tries to imagine where David Ross is hiding. He worries what stage the surgery is at, activity that can’t be so easily hidden. Over the sound of heavy stomping downstairs, Greg imagines Pavel with a scalpel in the air, holding his breath. He tries not to think of Helen opened like a chicken carcass, her body drying in the centrally heated air. Only eighteen and from Eritrea, her eyes hopeful despite everything. She told him that after the operation, when she was better, she would go on the London Eye so she could see the whole city. Until she escaped, she’d seen only slivers of the road in Wood Green where she was worked to the bone.

  How long can they safely pause surgery?

  ‘David Ross, we know you’re here, you daft bastard!’

  ‘Let’s get this over with, mate. Unless you’re ready to pay up?’

  It sounds like the men have split up, one still shouting from downstairs and one heading up to this floor. Greg resists the urge to check his lock again by rattling the door. Instead he squats down and pushes his eye to the mechanism. A solid chunk of brass rivets door to frame. He’s safe. He hopes.

  A shadow passes by outside the door but then comes back. Footsteps shuffle in the corridor and a fist bangs on the wood, shaking it in its frame. Greg stands still, not risking any movement. He tries to slow his breathing, quieten his heart, swallow the rising bile.

  Eventually, the shadow moves along and Greg rushes to the bathroom to throw up.

  Some minutes later, the front door swoops open downstairs. From his vantage point in the bathroom, Greg can see just enough through the gap in the blind to make out David Ross legging it across the gravel towards his car. Out of shape but driven by fear, David manages to yank the door open before one of the men is on him.

  For such a big man, the thug moves with finesse. A precise form of savagery, more ballet than boxing. The other man catches up and helps to deliver the message. It’s over in moments.

  As they drive away in their big black car, David Ross – his own car door still optimistically open – sinks to the ground. Even from here, Greg can see the blood running down his face and staining his rugby shirt.

  *

  ‘They took my fucking eye,’ David manages to cry before passing out on the gravel. Rosie and Greg carry him inside to the foyer and lay him on a banquette where guests would once have sat while waiting to check in.

  ‘He hasn’t lost his eye,’ Rosie says, her voice terse but her own eyes wild with fear. ‘But he could have.’

  Greg sits on the floor, resting against the banquette that David is lying on. Rosie rushes upstairs to get supplies but moments later, he hears shouting and follows her up.

  The door is open on Helen’s room, the noise and mayhem spilling out into the hall. Pavel and Rosie shout incomprehensibly to each other as they try to stem the blood burbling out of Helen’s side. ‘What the fuck were you doing?’ Pavel is saying, his accented words bleeding into each other.

  ‘What nurses do,’ Rosie growls. ‘David needed help.’

  ‘If she dies, this is on you!’

  Rosie presses another gauze down deep into Helen’s flesh, muttering, ‘So long as the client doesn’t, they won’t care.’ Pavel flicks his eyes at the serene lump in the other bed as he elbows Rosie out of the way, attending to Helen as Greg grips the doorframe.

  ‘Is that all that matters?’ Pavel says and she looks away.

  *

  David howls and sobs in another room, his eye patched up by Rosie, who has agreed to drive Greg to the station in David’s car.

  ‘I can walk,’ Greg says. ‘I’d rather you stay with Helen.’

  ‘She’s stable,’ Rosie says. ‘Pavel knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘And if the client suddenly needs help too?’

  Rosie says nothing. David’s keys swing from her finger, clicking into each other and ticking like a metronome.

  ‘I’ll walk,’ Greg says again. She doesn’t argue.

  He can see it’s dark outside. Greg has only a vague idea of how to get to the station and he’s going to be hours late. It’s particularly shitty timing, with his parents arriving for the weekend tomorrow. He did a bodge job of tidying the flat this morning and he has no hope of getting home before his wife and no phone reception to warn her.

  ‘Your girl has had surgery before,’ Rosie says, as he packs up his things. Greg stops what he’s doing. ‘Bad surgery. Not in a hospital, I’d say. Not even one like …’

  He turns to face her as she gestures to the room.

  ‘Oh Jesus! The same surgery? She didn’t say anything—’

  ‘No, not the same and we were still able to …’ She trails off. ‘But it was a mess in there. Poor girl had been butchered.’

  ‘Fuck. Will she be OK?’

  ‘She’ll live but …
I don’t know. She should live.’

  He follows the lane back to the village, using his phone as a torch. Thoughts of poor butchered Helen mingle with hazy memories of being her age. Of camping, roaming with a pack, making dens by torch light. Thoughts of her young body, already half-wrecked, mix with nostalgia for his own youth. Drinking regretful amounts of Buckfast Tonic with his mates, underage. Thoughts of home. The home of his bones, not the home of his flesh.

  Eventually, gritty feet rubbing against his trainers, one sleeve torn by eager brambles, he reaches the village. Friday night and a slow snake of traffic chugs along the A-road that runs through here, scoring the top of the cricket pitch. Parents returning home with fish and chips; husbands and wives shutting the door for the night, sealing themselves into each other’s safety. All anyone really wants is a home.

  He thinks of Marianne and checks his phone. Just one bar of reception and still no 3G.

  He thinks of Helen, her dreams to see their cruel city. Her hopes for a good life, despite everything that’s already been taken from her. Will she see adulthood proper? What has he done to her?

  A little bus is at a standstill in the traffic. He runs for it and knocks on the door. The driver opens it with a friendly smile. Everything is different out in the sticks.

  ‘Where are you headed?’ Greg asks the driver, a moustachioed man in a rumpled jumper.

  ‘Redhill, son.’

  ‘That’s got a mainline station, right?’

  ‘It certainly does,’ the driver says in mock Scots, eyes twinkling.

  *

  Greg brings home fish and chips. Curry sauce, mushy peas, pickled eggs, all of it. A warm package, carefully wrapped, and carried in a thin plastic bag. It’s all he could think of, all he could do. Just for a moment to be like those couples in the village, with their normal lives and fish suppers.

  When he opens up, Marianne is working at the table.

  ‘Oh, Greg, I was getting worried,’ she says, her eyes crinkling as she stands up to hug him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I don’t ever want to worry you. My phone died.’

  ‘Good day at work, though?’ she asks.

  He shakes his head. ‘I’m just glad to be home.’

  Later, as she sleeps, belly full of fish and chips, knees tucked up to the side like a baby, he slides back out of the bed and heads to the living room. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees the red flesh of David’s eye socket. Imagines the scarred meat of Helen’s young torso. Imagines his own eye, Marianne’s side.

  A message waits.

  This can’t happen again. You need to get a full medical history from them going forward.

  ‘It was a very close shave. Surely we don’t need to keep doing this? There must be better ways for you to make money! I’ll pay for the information about the women, like I did the first time!’

  This isn’t about money. And I decide when this is over. Information on approximately ten women will follow.

  *

  Saturday, 23 November 2019

  Every time he falls asleep, Greg’s back in the Bluebell. In these dreams, though, it’s him being chased. By those men; by Helen, gushing blood; by David, his eye missing. And then by Marianne, running frantically through the building, trying to make sense of it all as he weeps and runs away from her because he has no answers.

  He gives up on sleep before dawn and cleans the flat as quietly as he can, airing out the spare duvet and even polishing the bookshelves with some moist toilet paper they bought on special offer.

  His parents’ flight is due to land at 9.30 a.m. but they’ll have been up since dawn, catching a plane first to Amsterdam and then back over to London City. Tracing an elbow in the sky. It’s one of his dad’s greatest pleasures, masterminding the perfect flight path for minimum cost. It’s not about the money, of which they discreetly have plenty; it’s the sport of it, the logistics. ‘He’d have me out to Dubai and back if it saved a tenner,’ his mum likes to say.

  It’s still only 7.30 a.m. but Greg’s itchy, crackling with energy. Fear, he realises, it’s fear. He leaves Marianne sleeping and pulls on his coat and trainers.

  Hackney is just waking up. The early sun a lazy eye blinking into the sky, warm yellow at its fringes. By the time Greg has walked through Victoria Park and down into Globe Town, day has finally broken. He heads towards Canary Wharf, with its great silverfish skyscrapers. Hundreds of windows blending into scales through his tired eyes. Behind him Mile End, with its skate park and canal, its big old houses carved into flats. Wherever you are in London, you’re always wedged between two worlds.

  He wonders how many people from their top-floor offices in Canary Wharf could imagine what is happening to women like Helen or Kenza or Talia, squirrelled away out of view. And what’s happening to them is largely down to men like him. However he tries to square it off in his head, he is taking from the girls, using them as a commodity and then never seeing them again. He’s tumbled from solution to problem and is sinking further and further away from his original intention. Is there any way out? For a moment he imagines himself walking forever, never going back. Maybe it would be better for Marianne and his parents if he just disappeared. Better than them ever knowing the truth.

  By the time Greg reaches Canning Town, he’s exhausted. He wants to know how Helen is doing, wishing he’d taken Rosie’s number or Pavel’s. ‘Your part’s over now,’ Pavel told him when he left. ‘Put it out of your head.’ So much younger than Greg but so sanguine already.

  His parents’ flight hasn’t yet landed when he arrives. He goes to the toilet, sees more signs he was instrumental in getting placed.

  LOOK

  ASK

  CALL

  From his pocket he pulls the piece of paper detailing the addresses of more women in need, and goes to the public phone to dial the number from the poster. Hood down over his eyes, face turned from the CCTV camera trained on the handset. The number is staffed by volunteers from a consortium of related charities. The fast turnover ensures he won’t have met the woman who picks up. Still he changes his accent, aping Marianne’s slight Devon tint as he gives the information he has received. Ten women stuffed in an illegally converted houseboat, a monstrous fire risk and the rest.

  He’s thanked for his information and hangs up in a hurry. Safer this way, another step removed from him and Hidden Humans. Last time, a colleague remarked on the ‘luck’ of yet another tip-off.

  He throws the piece of paper in the bin, then buys a giant coffee in Costa, eyes trained on the arrivals door. Eventually they bustle through, his dad wheeling a little suitcase – packed with military precision – his mum fussing with her handbag.

  ‘Hello, son,’ his dad says, patting his shoulder.

  ‘Her Royal Highness not here?’ his mum says, kissing him. Three days of this, he thinks.

  Samantha

  Christmas Day, 2019

  I see Jonathan for the first time since we slept together – a grand description for what was a mad moment in a public park – as he steps carefully over our threshold, carrying presents. Paula follows, holding a tray with tin foil over it. Steve won’t be pleased; every year he hosts and every year she brings something to contribute to the meal, knocking his plans out of whack. It’s practically a tradition.

  I can’t meet either of their gazes and push my face to their cheeks one by one, then take the tray from Paula’s skinny hands.

  ‘You shouldn’t have,’ I say, and she squirms. ‘But it’s so kind of you, thank you.’

  ‘I thought dessert might be better than a starter, as Steve didn’t like that last time.’ She gives a little laugh that is tinged with embarrassment.

  ‘I want to hear all about New York,’ I say, realising we’ve not had a catch-up since they went. After what happened with Jonathan, I’ve been happy to avoid her.

  ‘I have photos,’ she smiles, tapping her phone screen as she follows me into the kitchen.

  I smile apologetically to Steve as I
tell him that Paula has kindly brought a dessert. ‘Oh, how nice of you,’ he says. Behind him, the ceramic bowl sits like a cartoon bomb. A plum pudding made months ago and lovingly fed with booze every week up until today.

  ‘Where shall I put these?’ Jonathan asks, his voice muffled by the pile of presents.

  A flash of a memory makes me blush. ‘I’ll show you,’ I say.

  Steve is tubby with red-tinted skin, Jonathan is lean and pale, but they share the same strawberry blond hair and blue-green eyes. Looking at Jonathan is like seeing a hall-of-mirrors version of the man I’ve spent my adult life with. A man who, somehow, has chosen to forgive my cheating. I’m certain that wouldn’t be the case if he knew the details.

  As I lead Jonathan through to the living room, and the tree I dressed carefully, Joe comes barrelling down the stairs in his socks. I’m relieved not to be alone with Jonathan and I’m sore with disappointment all the same. A toxic mixture.

  ‘Happy birthday, mate!’ Jonathan says. Joe smiles, unsure if this is a joke.

  ‘And happy Christmas to you too,’ Joe says, finally.

  ‘Christmas!’ laughs Jonathan. ‘That’s what I meant.’

  ‘Let’s put these birthday presents by the tree,’ I say, trying to keep things light and punctuate the strange swollen feeling that has settled in the living room.

  ‘Is Aunty Paula in the kitchen?’ Joe asks and we both nod, dumb with relief.

  With Joe out of earshot, I fuss about arranging the presents, my nose and mouth filled with the oppressive smell of fir trees. ‘You need to hold it together,’ I say quietly. ‘I feel guilty too but they’re going to guess if you keep this up.’

  ‘It’s not guilt,’ he says, and I feel his knee brush mine as he bends down to help me. ‘I can’t stop thinking about you. You drive me wild.’

  I stand up and survey my work. ‘There now,’ I say briskly, before walking out and into the kitchen.

  *

  In the kitchen, Steve is bright red with effort. Shaking golden potatoes in their tray of goose fat, glazing carrots, checking the huge bird is still tucked snug under its foil blanket. I hand out drinks, bucks fizz for everyone else and orange juice for me. I’ve not drunk any alcohol for months, never knowing when I’ll be called out on a job. Not wanting my tongue loosened by booze.