was opening up, by simply pressing the ‘send’ button.
After the deed was done, I remember staring at my laptop for a long, anxious moment, imagining that the possibility of it now exploding was actually quite high. Then a few moments later, after gathering up my car keys, cell phone and laptop, that now seemed quite benign again; I rushed outside and opened up the garage.
I then remembered that my mother had warned me to be wary of strangers, -once I’d sent off the messages. So to make certain that nobody was lurking in the shrubbery I looked around furtively, but the only person around was old Mr. Jones, who was busy clipping his hedge. He waved when he saw me, but I somehow I don’t think I waved back.
Still feeling tense, I revved the car fiercely as I backed it out into the road. Then after stalling it; I took another anxious look up and down the road, before making my way to my mother’s house some twenty miles away.
The traffic was heavy for this time of the morning, but once I was on the motorway I gathered up speed and as I appeared to enter into a kind of time warp, where my only thoughts were to get to her house as soon as possible, time sped by unnoticed by me.
Even so, along the way I do recall praying fervently for her to be unharmed. I also hoped that this was just one of her exercise drills; a check to ensure that my reactions were up to speed and that I’d sent off the email messages correctly. She’d done this previously on two separate occasions in the recent past, as she had the means from her computer to prevent the messages from being sent to the recipients.
As I sped around the final corner on the approach to my mother’s house, to my amazement I spotted her sitting on the red wooden seat at the bus stop, on the opposite side of the road. I immediately pulled over to the curb and hooted and also indicated that she needed to come over and climb into the car.
She looked at me blankly for a moment and then slowly shook her head.
So becoming impatient with her, while at the same time also beginning to feel that panic was starting to set in, I shouted out, -“Oh, come on mother! Whatever is going on with you?”
As she still didn’t respond, I eventually climbed out of the car and went over to her and took hold of her arm. I noticed then that she was crying and not behaving at all as she normally did, for my mother was a woman that usually had her wits about her, who always kept her head.
Once I’d settled her down in the car, I drove to the top of her driveway and immediately spotted the two police cars parked outside her house. Then I saw Lena, the housekeeper, sitting on the verandah steps. She was also crying, so I climbed out of the car and went over to her and asked, -“What’s the matter Lena? And what on earth is going on here?”
“Oh missy Susan, it’s terrible. The blood is all over the place,” she said.
“But whose blood is it?” I asked, but she simply shook her head and began to cry all the harder.
Leaving my mother sitting inside the car, I then walked into the house and called out, -“Hello, can I please talk to somebody here that is in charge of whatever is going on here.”
A policeman immediately came forward and asked, “And who might you be, miss?”
“I’m Susan, the daughter. But can you please tell me why my mother was sitting down the road at the bus stop?”
“Oh good, so you found her. We looked everywhere for her, but we didn’t think to look at the bus stop. So tell me, were you the person that sent us the e-mail, then?”
“Yes, but perhaps I should explain that this was all something that was pre-arranged by my mother. You see she’s been anticipating that something dreadful would happen here one day. This is why she set up the five e-mail messages on my laptop. She also told me that if ever I received a certain sms from her, it would mean that she was in trouble and that I needed to send off the e-mail messages as soon as possible.”
“But why would she have gone to all that trouble, miss? And what made her think that something bad was going to happen here?” He asked.
“It’s a long story officer, but it’s mainly because she thought that some of her old enemies from the Cold War were still after her, for the things she’d done during that time,” I said.
“Oh, dear, she’s not some sort of criminal or anything, is she, miss?” he asked, as he stared in disbelief at the shaky old woman, that was now standing beside me, who was acting as if she had no idea of what on earth was going on.
“No. No, she’s not a criminal, but rather an ex-spy that once worked for MI6,” I told him.
“A spy? Right! Oh-my-gosh! This case is becoming more weird by the minute. But why is she just standing there like that, miss?” He asked.
“I wish I knew, officer. Especially since my mother is usually a vibrant, active woman, with all her wits about her. The way she’s acting now, makes me think that something really awful must have happened here,” I said.
“Well, you’re right on that account, miss,” he said. “But the security people say that the alarm system wasn’t triggered and that none of the doors were locked, either. When we arrived, the place was standing wide open and the only person here was the maid, who told us that she’d arrived only minutes before we did. In the meanwhile, we’ve discovered three dead bodies. The two outside were shot and the one inside the house was stabbed and gouged several times. There’s also plenty of blood all over the place, so we think a real ding-dong kind of a battle must have gone on here. We’ve also found two funny looking weapons that we surmise were used in the struggle. This is very strange, especially since people don’t usually use such weapons these days. There’s also upended furniture strewn throughout the house and the neighbor that lives down on that lower property over there, reported hearing several gunshots from up there,” he said, as he pointed towards the French doors that were also standing wide open.
As I felt too stunned to speak, I simply stared at him open mouthed, while my mother continued to stare uncomprehendingly into the distance. Her actions, or should I say non-actions, scared me. Also, her lack of emotion upset me, even more than the gory details of the massacre, which the policeman had just described to us.
Realizing then that my mother was obviously in no shape to tell us what had happened, the policeman addressed me instead, and said, “I need to take a look at her hands and also her clothing if you don’t mind.”
Taking her gently by the hand, he then led her inside and sprayed something onto her hands as well as her clothing. Then picking up a type of torch, he shone a light onto her.
Alarmed by this, I said, “What on earth are you doing, officer?”
“I’m checking for blood spatter or injuries, but she doesn’t appear to have been involved in any way. Gosh, I do wish she’d snap out of it, and talk to us, miss. Do you think you could possibly coerce her into giving us a name, or at least some sort of information? She’s obviously traumatized, but she must have seen whatever went on here,” he said as he patted her shoulder in sympathy.
Shrugging, I said, “Actually I don’t think so, officer. She’s not behaving at all as she normally does. If she were, by now she’d have taken charge and had us all running around in circles and solving this enigma.”
I also realized then that due to her experience as a spy, as well as her previous martial arts training, my mother might well have been involved in the killing, but I didn’t mention this to the policeman.
Instead, I thought about the business of the alarm not being activated. This really bothered me, as she’d previously told me that she had four levels of security, which would first have to be breached before anyone could get to her. She’d also always been super cautious and this led me to believe that she must have known the three dead men. I pushed this idea aside though, as it scared me too much. But even so, the idea continued to linger on in the back of my mind.
To get rid of the images in my head that were plaguing me, I tried to concentrate instead on arranging for some medical help for my mother, but when I asked, the of
ficer said, “It’s already been taken care of, miss. The medics are on their way here. In cases such as this we prefer to use our own people, as they know what to look for.”
A medical team arrived shortly and as they wanted to examine my mother, I took the opportunity to walk away from the scene to try to clear my head.
At first I walked around the garden, but soon I was drawn back towards the house. It seemed eerie to be wandering through the house and finding blood, as well as signs of a terrible battle, all around me. Then at some point, I asked a policeman who’d be responsible for clearing up the mess and also getting rid of all the blood.
“Well, we’ll have to wait for the forensics people to arrive, miss. They’ll go over this place carefully, looking for fingerprints and so forth. Then after this they’ll arrange for a clean-up. So don’t worry; it will all be taken care of. Also, we’ve just been informed that a team from MI6 will be arriving here tonight and that they will apparently be able to identify these men. So, I guess the big boys will be taking over from us,” he said with a smile.
“Yes, and I bet the goings on here will get big boys all terribly excited,” I said, as I realized that shockingly enough in the past, none of this would have seemed foreign to my mother, whom I imagine had once been one of the big boys, herself. This was why
My Mother, the Spy Part 1 of series Page 2
