The Hit List

by Holly Seddon

Marianne’s lizard brain kicks in again. Now she’s up and stumbling. She picks her way out of the cold tomb on Bambi legs, vision blurred with fear and adrenaline.

  Marianne can hear the woman in the dining room, her voice conciliatory, almost cooing into her phone. Apologies tumbling, a break in her voice. Marianne stumbles on, heading for the dirty fire door set into the back wall of the kitchen.

  She pushes hard on the metal lever and bursts out into the sunlight, gasping for air, and then runs to her car in such a mad scramble it’s more like she’s falling than running. No thoughts, no feelings, just action and adrenaline.

  She tugs the keys from her pocket and fumbles to unlock the car. She looks over her shoulder as she yanks the driver’s door open but the woman hasn’t come after her.

  In the quiet of the car, Marianne twists the key in the ignition even before she’s properly sitting down. No seatbelt, no time, just panic.

  ‘The Final Countdown’, the Final fucking Countdown, she thinks, as she crunches out of the carpark and back down the lane as fast as she’s ever driven in her life.

  Sam

  ‘Thank you, Joe,’ I whisper into the phone, after he stops talking. ‘Thank you so much for calling.’

  Joe doesn’t reply but I can hear that he’s still there. His breathing and his studious attention are crystal clear even down this scratchy line. My voice echoes around the dusty dining room.

  ‘I love you so much,’ I say, choking a little on a sob. The line goes dead.

  I head back into the kitchen but even before I reach the cold room, I can hear Marianne’s car shrieking away from the hotel. I have no hope of catching her, my car is hidden in a barn some distance away.

  I can afford to let her get ahead, I have a very good idea of where she’s going and right now, there is something else I need to do. Something I’ve been building to for the last year, without realising it. I’ve been so determined to get the work done and save the money that I didn’t see the bigger picture.

  I make my way to the office behind the reception desk and unlock its heavy door with another of the keys I should have returned already. Everything is here: the computer, the paperwork. This hotel is so far out of the way that it failed to thrive as a business, but it has also prevented theft. No one can be bothered, or maybe they never knew it was here.

  Wearing gloves as always, I switch the computer on. It doesn’t take long to confirm what I already believed.

  For a chaotic gambling addict, David Ross kept surprisingly detailed records. I now know everything about the Bluebell’s ownership and some more besides. It appears David wasn’t as stupid as he seemed. But I was. Until very recently, I sleepwalked my way into the kind of enterprise that girls like Cristina, girls like my younger self, get chewed up by. I even provided most of the medicines, without realising it. My stints as Jane Douglas et al. making more sense now.

  In the locked drawer of the desk, I find the ledger I suspected would be here. These people are record keepers. In the early days of blackmailing me, they kept everything.

  I take a deep breath and flip it open, reading the names and numbers. So many names. I wonder which one of them I disposed of, and a waterfall of tears wells up suddenly. I should not have taken that call from Joe – my emotions are charging in all directions now – but how could I not? Over a year since I last saw him, over a year since he accepted any of my calls. Two weeks ago, I finally messaged him to say I would give up. That I wouldn’t contact him again. Thank god it worked. ‘No promises,’ he said just now. ‘But I can’t not speak to you ever again.’

  *

  I leave through the front door of the Bluebell. There’s no CCTV here and no one for miles around. I walk back down the lane rather than churn through the field. The ledger is in my right hand.

  The trail of Marianne’s exhaust is still lingering amongst the blackberry brambles. She and I are the only disturbance this building has had in a while, a far cry from the feverish activity it must have seen when clients and girls were still coming here.

  As I walk, I keep checking my phone, but it’s pointless, really: Joe won’t call back. He’s said what he needed to say, agreed to all that he could bear to agree to, and now I must wait until he’s ready to meet. But it’s a start – thank you, God I don’t believe in – it’s a start.

  I wipe another tear that’s been loosened by the whipping wind, and then switch the SIM cards back. Still no reception or 3G on this one. I slide it back into my pocket and unlock my car. The barn is dusty, every surface covered in insect corpses that crunch underfoot. Marianne is long gone, but like a cat, she only has a small area of patrol and I know exactly where she’s headed.

  I’m furious at myself for not joining the dots months or even years ago.

  Marianne

  Marianne surges onto the A25 and away from the hotel. She should go to the police and tell them everything she knows. The dead body in the cold room, for starters. No, for starters the dark web browser she found and everything that followed.

  As she drives, her nerve wobbles. Did she really just face a killer? Did she really stumble upon a murder victim?

  If she didn’t have an imagined target on her back, would she still have read that scene in the kitchen the same way?

  David Ross could have trapped himself in that cold room. The door was closed; it was surely easily done with no one there to hear his cries. And did that woman really want to kill her? What had she said? ‘Hello, there.’ And then: ‘It’s OK.’ Are those really the words of a killer? And hadn’t she put the knife away once she saw Marianne? And wasn’t it an understandable reaction of a woman on her own to grab something like that to protect herself – like Marianne had picked up the corkscrew?

  Perhaps the woman saw David Ross and is calling the police right now to tell them she’s found a body. What would she tell them about me?

  Marianne stares out at the black tarmac ahead of her and tries to soothe herself with its normality. The wind blows, the sun shines, she’s still alive.

  She imagines Greg in her ear: ‘You’re talking yourself out of doing the right thing.’

  Marianne shakes him away, his unbending morality not so certain now. But if nothing else, she should tell the police about David Ross. She’s a witness, after all. And if that woman has given them a description of her, better to turn up of her own volition. She lights a cigarette and takes a deep drag but her body rejects it, sweeping nausea up and over her. She pictures a police station, a sea of uniforms. Questions. ‘And what were you doing on private property, madam?’

  The searches through Greg’s computer, and hers. Telling work. Telling her mother.

  I can’t do this alone.

  The road is filling up with family cars, children in the back staring dumbly at iPads, looking out the window or picking their noses. It must be school-run time. Not that far from here, Daisy will be on her way from her Richmond school to her grandparents’ house – her second home. Noah will be alone. In his safe suburban home where nothing can hurt her. No gas leaks, no surprises. She’ll head there now and tell him everything. Then she’ll trust his morality; maybe not as unbending as Greg’s but probably more realistic.

  She can’t imagine Greg’s voice in her ear anymore, can only think of Noah. His solidity. Noah will help her decide what to do, and hold her hand while she does it. And if someone is following her, if this woman wasn’t a benign trespasser checking out a strange noise, well, Noah will help protect her. That’s the kind of man he is.

  Sam

  The 3G sputters back on between Redhill and Godstone, announced by the trill of a message coming through the Bluetooth speakers. My phone sits in its holster like a gun, a cable trailing down to what was once a cigarette lighter. This car, the most average spec of an average model that I could buy with my budget, has served me well, but I’m dreaming of the day that I ditch it. I bought it no questions asked, and didn’t send off the paperwork to change the ownership. I couldn’t, I don’t exist. When I
sell it, it’ll be for scrap. Maybe I’ll just drive it out to the middle of nowhere and set it alight. Burn everything else from these last couple of years with it. God, yes, that’s what I’ll do. The SIM card, the phone, the clothes, the boots. Just watch it turning to black smoke and drifting away.

  I’ll turn up on foot to see Joe. I’ll walk for weeks if I need to.

  The sun pastes the windscreen with thick orange light as I drive towards it, squinting to make out the message on my phone. I surge onto the M25 and pick up speed. I tap the accelerator and wait for my modest engine to catch up.

  The end is still in sight as I weave carefully through the lanes, checking for Marianne’s little bug car as I go. Beating her to Richmond would be smart in some ways, but there are too many variables I can’t control that way. So I drop back just a little and settle into the middle lane. Aggressive men overtake me as they swerve without indicating, shouting along to their music, parents with carloads of kids trundling along, distracted. Everyone is so very predictable.

  Marianne

  The driveway is empty so Noah must still be out. Marianne tries to remember what his plans were for the day. Meetings and the gym, she knows that much, but hopefully he’ll be finished soon.

  Marianne looks around; no one is outside in the quiet cul-de-sac but the distant sound of kids playing helps ground her. Nothing bad can happen in a place like this, surely?

  Still, she doesn’t hang around in the open for too long, letting herself into the garden quickly. She fumbles for the cleaner’s key that she’d left under the pot earlier. The metallic weight sits like a comfort in her hand now. Marianne unlocks the patio doors, then puts the key back under the pot. Slipping inside, shaking the dried cherry petals from her shoes and tossing them back outside, she pulls the patio doors closed with a grunt. Just in case, she locks them from the inside.

  She drinks water from the tap, letting it gush over her chin and neck. She plans to make a coffee, opening the fridge to get milk. A rush of images fly at her and she slams the door shut again, trying to forget the way David Ross looked, the way his skin glistened. Instead of coffee, she pours a measure of whisky from the drinks cabinet.

  Outside, a car door slams and she jumps, ducking down behind the sofa and peeking out. It’s not Noah or anyone nefarious, just an elderly neighbour, but she feels like a sitting duck all the same.

  Marianne steps upstairs, carrying her drink. She uses the bathroom, realising only when she sits down that she’s not peed in hours, not eaten in even longer and is shaking so hard she shreds the toilet paper trying to pull some off the roll.

  She won’t feel safe until Noah is back.

  The bathroom locks but there’s no window. Just thinking about hiding in here makes her head hum with claustrophobia. The office.

  *

  It’s unlocked when she gets up there, the street clearly visible through the window, so she can watch for Noah or anyone else. She locks the door, the mechenism is more robust than the bathroom lock, presumably designed to keep out burglars.

  Her phone is close to dying but her phone charger is still in the car. She opens WhatsApp and sends a message to Noah. She’ll explain everything in person, can’t even begin to now, so she keeps it light. ‘Just popped back to yours for a bit, hope that’s OK. See you soon?’

  She drains her whisky and feels the alcohol numb her. She should have brought the bottle up. Almost out of habit, she checks her email with the last sputter of battery.

  Dear Marianne,

  I was a colleague of Jenna’s and all of her emails are being forwarded to me. I’m very sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I’m afraid that Jenna died recently. If your query relates to a case that Jenna worked on, please let me know how I can assist.

  Yours,

  Kate Williams

  Marianne’s stomach churns. She wasn’t expecting this. A tearful rebuttal. A snippy cold shoulder. No reply at all. But not this. Not another dead body.

  Her phone goes black in her hand.

  Sam

  I park in a spot I’ve used before, but I don’t think any of the neighbours will notice. They’re not looking out for people like me, or cars like this. And after today, they’ll never see me again.

  I watch as the Range Rover parks next to the Fiat and Noah Simpson jumps down. He has a surprising lightness for a big man and seems to bounce on his toes a little as he walks past Marianne’s little Fiat towards the door. I remember that walk from last time, with his little girl, and the time before that. The first time I saw him. At the Bluebell. It took me a while to make the connection.

  Of course, that day he was wearing an expensive shirt and smart jeans, every inch the successful entrepreneur. Today he’s dressed in gym gear. Great slabs of trap muscles and chest, bulbous biceps and triceps visible through gaps in his vest and a flapping zip-up hoodie. He’s an advert for his own strength. I am going to need to be smart.

  Marianne

  Jenna died recently …

  A woman she knows only by association. A woman of whom she was secretly jealous. A woman to whom she silently compared herself. A woman Greg trusted when he trusted no one else. A woman who is dead.

  Marianne looks out of the window but no one’s there. She needs to know more. Needs to understand what happened in this latest horrible development.

  Surely Noah wouldn’t mind if …

  Marianne switches on the iMac and waits for it to load up. She opens Safari. Some tabs are already open: property sites, fancy men’s clothing site Mr Porter, bodybuilding.com. All very Noah. She leaves them undisturbed and opens a new tab to search news about Jenna Fairbarn, a deep note of melancholy chiming in harmony with her base fear. Jenna wasn’t on the list; this must just be a sad coincidence, mustn’t it?

  *

  Jenna lived near Loch Lomond, not far from the village of Killearn where she and Greg grew up. The cliché of a big fish in a small pond, she’d returned with her city law degree to the place that had given her such a happy upbringing.

  According to the news, the A809 is home to a notorious traffic blackspot. But Jenna’s accident was still a gut punch to the community she had loved and served.

  So she wasn’t ‘killed’. Marianne tries to feel some relief in this sad story.

  And the decision to finally turn off the machines that kept her breathing was a choice her family made after months of deterioration. But the car accident happened just days after Greg’s death.

  Was Jenna distracted by grief and lost control of her car?

  And it was just days after she had made a special and secret trip to London the day after receiving his email.

  Or did someone run her off the road?

  Marianne hears the familiar growl of the big engine and looks out to see Noah’s Range Rover rolling towards the house. Thank fuck. She closes Safari, the neatly arranged desktop taking over the screen, its icons organised as precisely as Noah’s cupboards. She shuts it down, an unease coming over her as the screen fades.

  Did she imagine it? The same icon, tucked in the corner? Surely not.

  As the front door opens below, Marianne looks again at the portfolio on Noah’s desk. The unease grows; something just out of the corner of her mind’s eye is fizzing dangerously. She flips through the pages of the portfolio, each one elegant and quietly persuasive.

  When she’d looked through these leather-bound pages last time, she’d not yet been to the Bluebell. Hadn’t yet felt that curious shiver of familiarity.

  But there it is.

  The portfolio is open on the artist’s rendering of the luxury converted flats that Noah is having redeveloped, each one overlooking acres of unspoilt Surrey countryside.

  Downstairs, she hears Noah call her name, but she just stares, mute.

  According to these pages, the architects will make the most of the existing ink-pot building, gussying it up with floor-to-ceiling windows and sleek balconies. An on-site gym, a concierge. But underneath it all, it’s the same place. The
same building that welcomed paying guests as the Bluebell Hotel.

  Sam

  He’s already upstairs when I enter the house, taking the time to slide the patio doors silently behind me. I slow my breathing and regroup, listening carefully before stepping further inside. This whole floor is open-plan, with the kitchen to the right of the dining area, which sits behind the lounge area. The calm right angles are slashed only by the designer staircase that runs along the wall.

  In the lounge area ahead, the grey corner sofa has just one deep groove. Behind it, on cream-coloured shelves, sit photographs of his wife and child, a few of him and his wife alone and some framed baby artwork, flowers and hearts made from pudgy fingers pushed into paint. There are no pictures of Marianne.

  One of my deepest regrets is that I have no photographs of either my parents or Cristina. I have hundreds, probably thousands of Joe on my phone. But I can’t bear to look at those.

  I listen again, standing in the centre of this cavernous space, my eyes closed. I trace the creaks and sighs of the struts and boards on the floor plan that I’ve committed to memory.

  I’d say he’s in the family bathroom that sits between the master bedroom and Daisy’s room. I wonder if Marianne will run down to him from the office, cower in his arms and bury her head in his chest. Or perhaps she’s calling him quietly, just beyond my earshot.

  I hear nothing new so I open my eyes and take the time to assess the room fully. It’s impeccable, every surface shining. Even the deepest corners, the grooves around the kitchen tiles are spotless. Just some splashes around the sink, which I hazard was her and not him. It’s as if the house is a show house, or someone has done a forensic deep clean. This will make things easier, on balance.

  A toilet flushes overhead and then heavy steps spell out the route Noah Simpson is taking along the hall and up the narrow staircase to the top level.