Girl Seven

by Hanna Jameson

  I felt sick.

  I thought of the last time I’d left my parents’ flat and walked to Jensen McNamara’s.

  I thought of sitting in the Relatives’ Room considering killing myself.

  And then the man who walked in and asked me questions...

  Something had always been wrong. I’d known it.

  It had taken three years to confirm it, but I’d been right. I’d always known it was he.

  Those black fucking lunatic eyes...

  I almost considered drinking I was so scared, scared to my very bones, but I didn’t. I waited until four-thirty and then walked back to Kenneth Gordon’s house, where I sat on the kerb with a good view of his door and the road he’d be walking down if he were coming from the tube station.

  It took a long time, so long that I thought he wasn’t going to appear and that maybe I’d got the wrong house, but he appeared just before six o’clock. I watched, so still I couldn’t breathe, until I was sure it was he. People look so different in photos than they do in motion, with their different clothes and walks and heights. But this was he. He was bald, but it was he.

  He huffed as he walked, bright red with a dark patch of sweat down the back of his shirt, until he entered his house.

  I didn’t want to follow him. I could just go get my stuff and go to the airport. I didn’t need to think about any of this ever again.

  Instead, I stood up and went over to the house. There was a kid on a bike some way down the road but no one close enough to notice me. While standing outside his front door I took one of my daggers from my bag and held it behind my back.

  I cleared my mind and rang the doorbell. I hoped, when it came to it, that I’d be able to move, that my nerve wouldn’t fail me and leave me rooted to the spot.

  Footsteps.

  The door opened.

  He recognized me instantly but it didn’t matter because I kicked him as hard as I could in the balls, making him drop to his knees before I roundhouse-kicked him in the chest and sent him on to his back.

  I came inside and shut the door.

  By the time I turned around again he had, somehow, managed to overcome the pain and stop grabbing at his crotch long enough to sit up. I went to slam the handle of my dagger into his head but as I swung down he punched me in the face so hard that I lost my footing and fell against the wall. He snarled and launched himself upwards but I turned the dagger round and jabbed it into the top of his arm.

  He crumpled again, howling and screaming until a blunt impact to the skull with the dagger’s handle almost knocked him out cold. The blow sedated him enough for me to pause for breath and take the tape out of my bag.

  My left eye was pounding like a motherfucker and threatening to shut.

  I surveyed him. He was rolling from side to side; blood was trickling out of his arm and spreading across his shirt. He was too heavy to drag into another room so I’d have to question him here. It wasn’t ideal but it would have to do.

  I put on some rubber gloves I found in the kitchen and stood on his chest to tape his mouth, ankles and wrists. I stashed the gloves in my bag, figuring I’d drop them in a bin on the way back to the Underground or the airport.

  There wasn’t much in the house, I observed as I went from room to room to check for any other occupants. There was a single bed in the bedroom, but with a photo of his wife next to it. I went to pick it up but didn’t. It felt disrespectful. She had short curly hair and smiled like someone who was still happy despite having had a difficult life. There were marks of strain all over her face and in her eyes.

  I felt guilty and went back downstairs.

  Putting the dagger down, I had a go at dragging him into the kitchen, just because it was the nearest available space, but he was too heavy and I had to drop him.

  I sighed and sat across his stomach, giving him a slap. ‘Hey!’

  There wasn’t much response.

  I worried that I’d hit him too hard and ran through to the kitchen, only just remembering to turn the tap on and off with a tea towel, to get some water to dash across his face.

  That woke him up.

  He opened his eyes and focused and rolled around a bit, conscious, so I put the cup and the tea towel back and then stood over him. He became still and glared at me with an intensity that almost made me shudder.

  ‘Right,’ I said, unsure now of what I could say to him. ‘You know who I am, don’t you?’

  Slowly, he nodded.

  ‘Obviously I’m going to kill you. You must have got that by now because of the whole... tying-you-up-and-having-a-knife thing. So, er... just get used to that idea fast, and then I have a proposition for you. Now, I know your arm hurts but it’s not that deep; you’re not going to bleed to death. But the thing is, if I take that tape off your mouth and you start shouting I’m going to have to knock you out again, and again, and again, and it’s going to get way more painful for you. So if I take this tape off, can you save yourself the trouble and just shut the fuck up the first time?’

  He didn’t protest. I took that as compliance.

  I leant down and ripped the tape from his mouth.

  Luckily for him, he remained silent, but he was still staring. His stare was corrosive. I wanted to make him stop, but not as much as I wanted to appear in control of this situation.

  I knelt down and sat across his stomach again, resting the dagger across my knees.

  ‘A couple of years ago you had some guys with machetes... Hell, one of them was probably the same guy you sent to finish me off, right? After Leo called you? Anyway, you sent some guys with machetes to our flat and—’

  I stopped. Suddenly, and for the first time in my life, it was hard to talk about it.

  Clearing my throat, I made myself carry on. ‘You had Sohei Ishida and Helena Ishida and their five-year-old daughter murdered... for some reason. And I want to know what that reason was.’

  Silence. He was breathing through his nose, bleeding silently, staring silently.

  ‘Look, you’re going to die anyway! If you tell me why then I’ll kill you really quickly, you’ll hardly even notice, which is a fuck-load more than you deserve. But if you don’t tell me I’ll just torture it out of you and, seriously... I have a lot of pent-up anger to vent.’

  He just sneered at me, still without any sound, with a slight curl of the lip.

  I’d never seen so much hatred in someone’s face.

  ‘Was it because of your wife? Something to do with money?’

  ‘Don’t talk about her. Don’t!’ he spluttered.

  ‘Oh, what, because it’s a sensitive subject? Unlike you killing my whole fucking family?’ I stood up and stamped on his chest, hard. ‘Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck, why did you do it?’

  He didn’t even stutter. ‘Because you’re here now, I know that you’re fully aware there is nothing you wouldn’t do for someone you love. She needed me. Maddie needed me to do what I did. I did it all for her.’

  ‘Then why?’ I blinked back the tears. ‘Why? Was my dad some fucking gangster? Was it a hit?’

  He shook his head. It didn’t look like a confirmation; it was more like he couldn’t be fucked to talk to me. It was a shake of the head that said, ‘Just get it over with.’

  ‘Why, you fucking...’ I rammed the dagger under his chin. ‘TELL ME!’

  He sighed, like someone who wasn’t remotely scared. ‘Oh, just kill me.’

  I was about to, but that was what he wanted me to do. He wanted to incense me into killing him quickly.

  Hesitating, I leant against the wall instead. ‘No. No, I’m not going to just kill you.’

  ‘I’m an atheist, so I don’t think I have to bank points with anybody by confessing my sins before I die.’

  ‘That’s bullshit. What do you have to lose now anyway?’

  A smirk. ‘Nothing.’

  It was spite. He wasn’t going to tell me out of spite. He’d enjoy that, I realized.

  I looked at the dagger in my hands, then back
up at him. ‘I’ll kill your wife.’

  ‘No, you won’t.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘You’re not a monster.’

  Now it was my turn to smile. ‘Of course I am. You made me one.’

  A couple of people walked past outside and I stiffened. His eyes followed the sound and for a moment I thought he would cry for help but he didn’t.

  I brought his attention back to me. ‘But I won’t kill your wife for nothing. If you tell me why you had my family killed I’ll leave Madeline alone. It’s not her fault; she’s blameless. A bit like my sister was. But if you don’t tell me anything then I will kill her. I’m not saying I’ll enjoy it, but hey, I won’t exactly have anything left to lose either.’

  I’d expected this to be more frenzied, but we were both calm. I was getting the impression he might have some grudging respect for me.

  ‘You might kill her anyway. How do I know you haven’t already?’

  ‘You know I haven’t.’

  ‘You’ll torture me whether I tell you what you want to know or not.’

  I mulled it over, remembering what Mark had said about torture. ‘I’d want to, obviously, but... it would be a waste of time. I don’t think it would be as fun in reality as what I’ve thought about in my head. All the same, I bet you wish you’d had me killed when you had the chance.’

  He smiled. ‘Yeah, I do... now you mention it and I’m tied up like a fucking turkey, yeah, yeah I do.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I knew this was going to happen sometime.’

  ‘What? You knew I was coming?’

  ‘Not you specifically but... someone. Someone was always going to do this. I’ve been expecting it for years. That’s what happens if you shaft enough people enough times.’ He shifted his weight from side to side, grimacing. ‘Obviously, looking around here, you can tell I didn’t keep any of the money for myself. It was never about just getting money. Care homes, proper ones, don’t come cheap.’

  I stood totally still, scared of distracting him.

  ‘Your father wasn’t a gangster, he just... saw something once. He saw something he shouldn’t have and he testified against someone he shouldn’t have and instead of going into Witness Protection straight away as he was advised, he wanted to simply move country... as if it were that simple, as if no one would follow him if it involved buying a plane ticket. But then he did go into Witness Protection eventually, or a protection of sorts.’ He looked smug. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t know.’

  There was a deep pain in my chest. ‘What did he see?’

  ‘Run-of-the-mill murder. His real mistake was being too stupid to back away from testifying.’

  ‘It’s not stupid, it’s brave. It’s exactly the sort of thing he would have done,’ I muttered.

  ‘Would you rather he be brave and dead or a coward and alive?’

  I looked away, unable to retort.

  ‘And what...?’ I took my hand away from my mouth, trying to compose myself. ‘You told them where he was? You’ve done it with other people? Is that what...? Do you do that for money? Sell out witnesses in Witness Protection to whoever is looking for them?’

  ‘You’d have done the same thing if you were in my place. I’d be prepared to bet my life that you’ve fucked over people for much less than your loved one’s health, girl.’ He laughed darkly. ‘Not that I have my life to bet any more.’

  I didn’t even have the excuse that I had fucked over people for someone I loved and cared about. Could he tell? Could he tell just by looking at me and talking to me that even compared to him I was morally fucking bankrupt?

  ‘Who were the people you sold us out to?’

  He shrugged as best he could. ‘I didn’t ask.’

  ‘And you came in to question me.’ My lip trembled a little. ‘Do you usually do that?’

  ‘No, but I had to check you hadn’t seen anything.’

  ‘And Leo...’

  ‘Piece of shit.’

  ‘Fuck.’ I chewed at one of my nails, getting more and more worked up. ‘You’re not even sorry, are you?’

  ‘What’s the point in being sorry?’

  ‘Because I’m going to kill your wife,’ I said.

  His eyes widened in the half-second before I swooped down upon him and held his mouth shut, stifling his exclamation.

  In the moment when our faces were close I repeated myself in a sing-song voice, ‘I’m going to kill your wife.’

  I plunged the dagger through his neck. As he died, gurgling, oxygen trying to enter and leave his lungs and meeting nothing but a wall of metal and blood, I kept my face inches from his. I felt his body heave and shake and give out underneath me. I stood up, pulled the blade out and leapt back to avoid the jet of crimson that sprayed the length of his torso.

  Then he was gone.

  In that moment I kinda understood why Mark liked to film his jobs. I wished that I could have seen my face. He was gone. My family were still gone. I expected to feel something like happiness, but physically I just felt dizzy and ill: a sensation similar to the one I recalled from the only time I’d been drunk. Emotionally, I felt nothing.

  I took my dagger into the kitchen and washed it, pulling my dark cardigan over my hands to touch things.

  The sun was still up. It wouldn’t take long for the corpse to begin to smell and rot.

  I tried to think of something cool to say to him on the way out, but the sight of his body made me nauseous so I left in silence. I couldn’t even work out if it had been worth it. I wished that Mark were here so I could ask him about it but there was no one left for me to talk to now.

  35

  I was on the tube on my way to the Underground when I was struck by a paralyzing thought: I hadn’t packed my passport. It wouldn’t be at the club in my bag. It would still be on my bed in Mark’s flat, where I’d probably fallen asleep on it before I decided to call Seiko and become distracted.

  I banged a fist into my leg, resisting the urge to snap, ‘Shit!’ out loud. How could I have been so fucking stupid? I looked around me at the other passengers, as if they could offer me a solution. But there was only an old Indian woman and a man in paint-stained dungarees. I was going to have to go back.

  Muttering to myself under my breath, I stormed out of the carriage at the next stop and changed direction.

  I didn’t think enough time had passed for anyone to have fully understood what had happened yet, I thought... I hoped. It wasn’t as if I had a choice in going back, but I wanted to be at an airport that evening and the end of the day was creeping up on me; like a rapist at a deserted train station it was creeping up on me.

  It was still uncomfortably hot and beads of sweat were running down my face by the time I reached Mark’s building. My phone had rung once: it was Daisy but I ignored it. It rang again and it was Mark but I ignored that too. I took the lift up and, with a deep breath, let myself back in.

  There won’t be anyone there, I kept telling myself. There won’t be anyone waiting for me. I’d just get my passport and—

  But there were people waiting for me.

  I guess I deserved it: to die because of my own stupidity. I hesitated, with the door half open, and wondered if I could run. But it would only make things worse, so I came further inside and shut the door behind me.

  The driver, I recognized. The other man, I didn’t.

  There was no point in being tense or ready for a fight so I sat down instead. I crossed the room in silence and sat on the sofa with my hands in my lap and my bag on the floor.

  I sighed. ‘So... I guess you’re here to tell me off.’

  The taller man, the one I didn’t know, wasn’t exactly handsome. More... compelling. He had strangely shaped lips, pale skin and neat dark hair. His suit jacket looked expensive and the heat didn’t seem to be affecting him. Everything about him was meticulously placed and I could tell from how he held himself that this was the man in charge.

  ‘Seven,’ he said, in a soft Ru
ssian accent that wrong-footed me. ‘It is Seven?’

  ‘Well... yeah.’

  ‘I know your full name but if you want to be called Seven then I will address you as such. You have met Mr Yakimov.’ He held a hand out to the driver, who was still wearing sunglasses and said nothing.

  ‘Um, yes.’ I wasn’t sure what he was aiming for with the pleasantries but it was definitely making me feel worse. My insides were knotted and I was finding it hard to sit still. ‘Look, if you’re going to kill me then you might as well get it over with. I just don’t cope very well with suspense and it’s been a bit of a weird day.’

  Maybe it didn’t really matter if I died now? I’d done what I wanted to do; I’d killed the man who’d killed my parents and sister. Did it matter that much if I stayed alive, just existing out of an attachment to routine?

  The man indicated for the driver to sit down opposite me, but continued standing.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked, like some celebrity.

  ‘No.’ I figured it would be appropriate to know the name of the person killing me. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Roman Katz. Alexei and Isaak, and this good man here, work for me. Well, they did work for me, until you put on your show. It was very clever, you bringing Nic Caruana. What did you tell him to make him help you?’

  They both listened with attentive expressions.

  I stammered, becoming more and more short of breath. ‘Um, well I knew he was watching the house so I... I, er... went to him and said that I’d overhead some guys talking in the club about raiding a house. I made out that I wanted to warn them... so that when he saw me going in he’d think it was just me. So he came in after me.’

  Katz smiled at Yakimov. ‘It is very clever, yes?’

  Yakimov didn’t seem quite as amused as his boss. He said something in Russian, sounding irritated.

  Katz waved away his protest. ‘You are from Japan?’