Angel waited in the silence and the instruction came to him, and to all of them.
Aiden should tell her, and Conner should go with her to Paris.
So that was how it would be. He made no judgement on the merits of the instruction he received; it was the Lord’s will. On cue he bent down close to Alex’s right ear and whispered something into her mind and heart.
“Well, thank you everyone,” said Alex.
“Perhaps,” said Caleb thoughtfully, “you might want to tell us what your opinion is, my dear. Everyone else has had their say.”
“I think we have made the right decision; I think she should go, I always did. But maybe someone needs to go with her. I want to send Conner along for a couple of days to help her.”
“Conner?” said Caleb. “Interesting. Isn’t he touring then?”
“Not until after this fashion event,” said Alex. “He can take a break from rehearsal and go and see the sights with Daisy.”
“Well,” said Caleb, “I think that feels like the right decision. We should agree some budget for her, for them, and then someone needs to tell her our decision. Do you have any ideas about who that might be?”
Daisy sat in the corner of the café, her designs spread out in front of her across the table.
She knew that that they were going to say no, and she was going to sit here until someone came to tell her. She had enough self-awareness to realize she was preparing herself for bad news, defending herself from the shock, but it was still true; she still thought they were going to turn her down.
Looking at it now, all her work seemed flimsy and inadequate. She wished she had added more in terms of colour and detail to some of her drawings; she wished she’d been more assertive in putting forward her case; she wished she hadn’t mentioned some of the likely costs.
Actually, she wished she had done a lot of things differently, but it was all too late now.
She didn’t see Aiden come in, and wander up to the table where she sat; he had a ten-pound note folded in his hand.
“Do you want another drink, Daisy?”
“No,” she said.
“Are you sure?” said Aiden. “We have some things to discuss.”
She looked at him for a moment, trying to read his intentions.
“Americano, please,” she said.
He returned with two coffees.
“The board have agreed to your proposals,” he said, “and that you should get on with the project now, and go to Paris for Première Vision.”
“What?” she said.
“Your project is approved,” said Aiden, with half a smile. “We need to discuss your travel arrangements and expenses.”
She stared at him. “Approved?”
“Yes,” said Aiden. “Come on, Daisy, you’re up! This project of yours is happening!”
“Oh God, YES!” she said. Customers turned in her direction as she jumped up and flung her arms around Aiden. He blushed and staggered with her weight around his neck, pulling him over the top of the table.
“You’re welcome!” said Aiden.
She looked at the drawings on the table in front of her, and she saw them once again as works of genius.
“What did you think they should do?” she said, staring at him.
“I told them your project must be approved, and you should do it this year, now,” he said.
She looked back at him, and many things crossed her mind, and she said none of them. She realized as well that she was actually shaking in her excitement and she tried to relax.
This was it. She was going to get a chance to design and make her own clothing. She was going to go to Paris for the greatest fashion material show on earth – Première Vision.
3
Lench’s group gathered, as usual, at his country home. They abused themselves and each other in their usual manner, and then disbursed, each of them nursing their own particular form of damage.
They had chatted together immediately after the formal gathering, and the Assassin had been there, standing at the edge of the group while most of the others had their backs to him. He was conscious, once more, of being the outsider, superficially one of the group and yet also the alien amongst them. He increasingly felt this alienation as Lench packed the group with his own types, the rich, the arrogant and the entitled.
From early childhood the Assassin had always been on the outside looking in, kicking hard against the rest of the world. The others in the group sensed this separation, and they both feared and despised the killer amongst them, perpetuating the Assassin’s view of life and his place in it. Some of the old members of the group had shown him a pleasing degree of deference, even understanding, but the current lot treated him with snobbish disdain. It was especially true of some of the new women, they were the worst; they really made him angry.
And even in another, darker, plane of existence the Assassin’s separation was confirmed. The demon hordes that attended each of Lench’s other associates cast their baleful glances at the Assassin and the legion that fed off him; they in turn stared back, bitter, vengeful, held in place by an unspoken and ancient discipline.
Lench had instructed him to be here this evening, to meet with him personally afterwards. If it hadn’t been for this summons, he might not even have turned up.
Some of the group grunted a farewell to him as they left, and he nodded to them, distracted from his brooding about the meeting he was due to have with his leader. He knew he would be subjected to the usual indignities that Lench seemed to enjoy provoking him with when they were alone together.
“Not quite the team player, are you, Josef?” he would say, in that arrogant, understated way of his. The Assassin would respond with a look as patient as death, and even Darius Lench could not hold this man’s gaze forever.
Josef, or Josef Xavier Durand to give him his full name, considered himself to be a mongrel. He was a racial cocktail of French and German-Austrian blood and for most of his life he had been marginalized because he was not quite enough of any one of these races. When he mixed with the French, they suspected he was German; and when he mixed with Germans, they knew he was French; and in Britain he had simply been treated as foreign.
Josef Durand represented at least the third generation of a family schooled in the brutalities of life. He was born and spent his early years in Marseilles. His grandmother arrived there in the winter of 1958. Pregnant and alone, she had been determined to seek some kind of life for herself and the child she carried. She found some accommodation, and the baby was born, a girl who would become his mother. She grew up amidst the sights and smells of the sea and those who lived by it; and the teeming atmosphere of a busy, raw port town was the first and only thing she knew.
Josef’s grandmother had died when his mother was fifteen, not quite old enough to protect herself from those who might make use of her pretty smile and slim figure. Dreams of college and a loving husband slipped away before the necessities of survival.
She had become pregnant with Josef during the course of her trade and done what she could to protect him and bring him up, as her mother had done for her. Josef had no idea who his father was; probably one of the lean and restless men who liked to spend a night on shore when their ship docked; his mother had talked about an Austrian sailor who visited her occasionally when he was in port.
As a young boy he quickly learnt the benefits of being useful; running errands for his mother’s pimp and finding ways to enter and leave premises unnoticed. He became a proficient thief before he could read or write.
His mother was murdered by one her clients just before his eleventh birthday. He could still remember the overwhelming confusion and anger that came over him when he returned home from an errand and discovered her corpse. It was the most profound feeling, full of loss and rage, a feeling that defined his approach to life from that day onwards. He discovered a new level of motivation, fuelled by anger and the lust for revenge. For the next twenty-four hours he did not sleep
; instead he visited all the places where he had contacts and asked questions and kept his eyes open, hoping the murderer had not already gone back to one of the many ships that disappeared out of the harbour each day.
Josef felt a thrill in his gut when, the evening after his mother was murdered; someone whispered to him that the man who had most likely murdered his mother had not yet left port. The vessel he was crewing on was still waiting for cargo and would be leaving in the morning. The police were still in the early stages of a perfunctory investigation when they found themselves with another murder in the city, a body was found on the dockside, a clumsy gunshot from a stolen weapon, and then someone had beaten the corpse, the face and body bruised and swollen. Reflecting on the kill some years later, Josef had disapproved of the clumsiness of it, but had applauded his younger self on his courage and commitment.
The boy Josef found that he had enjoyed the kill. He revelled in it in fact, the justice of it, the fear in the victim’s eyes, the finality of the act. That night he became a convert to the idea that it was violence, not talk that achieved results. He continued to look for, and find, injustices meted out against him and his associates, and he used those injustices as a spur to practise his new beliefs in a brutal and uncaring world.
He became an efficient assassin as well as a proficient thief, and although his circumstances changed, the anger that drove him, that made him lethal and ruthless remained constant.
In later years he gradually realized that vengeful anger, like all sinful indulgences, demands a price for the benefits it brings. He had no regrets and paid that price willingly. In his case it was a gradual release of control, and a gradual submission of the will to the other forces within him. Violence and the love of violence had become the taskmasters, driving him with a relentless cruelty and precision towards all forms of destruction, including self-destruction. In the process, his capacity for obedience clashed with his need for violence.
Recently the tension between these opposing forces had tormented him almost to the point of breakdown, and he knew that within the group his reliability was under question; he strived to maintain his usefulness, but the discipline and restraint he need to do his job, to prove himself amongst Lench’s friends, was leaking out of him as his character wore away.
It was these doubts about his continued usefulness that plagued him as he waited in the reception hall of Lench’s home. He looked around, at the images and the décor. This hall was bigger than his entire flat. In the pictures on the walls, men gazed down with cold, sharp eyes; dressed in the finery of different historical periods. Their lifeless eyes gazed down on him in unforgiving judgement, and some of them seemed familiar to him. There was evidence of Lench’s other passion here also, a large glass cabinet holding a collection of very old surgical instruments: blades and saws, needles and hammers. The cabinet was locked and alarmed, and he speculated for a moment on how he would break into it if he had to.
He let out a long sigh and looked around at the trappings of wealth. Just being in this place made him angry in ways he could not define, and still he waited as the minutes passed and the others were long gone. He had learnt to be patient during the course of perfecting his skills, but it wasn’t something he was comfortable with. Looking at the paintings again he suddenly realized where he had seen eyes like that before. He remembered again the faces of some of his mother’s clients; the clothes were very different, but the eyes had that same hard look about them. He thought about his mother, and to his surprise he found that the memory stirred at the sediment of the love he once felt for her.
The thought of it made him restless and he started to pace around the table at the centre of the hall. On the table was a vase of dried flowers, and he was leaning forward examining the flowers when Lench emerged from his study.
“Fingers off the table, Josef, there’s a good chap,” said Lench, and the Assassin straightened up and stared at his master.
Lench smiled and walked over to where Josef stood. He indicated the table.
“Do you know what this is?”
The Assassin looked away; here was one of Lench’s games, and he wasn’t in the mood for any of it tonight.
“It’s a Victorian Burr Walnut Sutherland table,” continued Lench. “A simple piece in many ways but eminently practical. One might say that it has its place.” He paused for a moment. “Come in, Josef, and sit down; we have things to discuss.”
The Assassin followed Lench into his study and stood opposite an expansive desk. The leather surface was buried under papers and folders, and there were also a couple of screens tracking markets and prices across the globe. Lench eased into his seat at the other side of the desk and looked at Josef in the way a Headmaster might look at an errant child.
“I’ll come to the point,” said Lench. “I have discerned the master’s will in the matter of crushing our enemies, and now we must act.”
The Assassin stayed silent, watching with a steady gaze; maybe the boss was about to give him some new assignment. He would welcome that; a little focused activity would be good for him.
“I am ready,” he said, “I am ready to get to work.”
“Ah, well,” Lench smiled with feigned embarrassment, “there’s the rub; I’m afraid you are going to have to play second fiddle on this job. You see it’s Marie who will take charge of your involvement this time.”
Josef stared straight ahead of himself and said nothing.
Marie? He thought. What could she do?
Only a slight twitch of his left eye betrayed the confusion swelling within him; he knew of course that protest would be useless. Lench was conveying the master’s will, not a point for discussion.
“In fact,” continued Lench, “you are going to have to do what you are told, by her.”
Still the Assassin was silent.
“Do you understand what I just said, Josef?” Lench leant forward and raised his eyebrows.
“Yes,” hissed the Assassin.
“Pardon?” said Lench, who had genuinely not heard the words. At that moment, something broke in the Assassin’s mind, some final safety value fractured. Lench stared in shock as Josef’s eyes widened considerably and he let out a bellowing scream of a response.
“I SAID YES!” As he spoke, the flat of his hand came down, hard, on Lench’s desk, making the stacked papers jump and the screen flicker.
Lench was genuinely startled. “Contain yourself, Josef! While you are in this house, you will conduct yourself in a fitting manner. Do you understand?”
The Assassin was silent.
“Do you understand?” said Lench, he stood up and stared straight at the Assassin.
“Yes,” said Josef finally, then he took a deep breath and tried to calm his heartbeat.
“Good.” Lench took a deep breath too, unnerved by the vehemence of the outburst. “Now, as I said, you are going to have to work with Marie, and do what she tells you. Is that going to be a problem?”
“No.” The Assassin clenched his right fist behind his back.
“Do you?” said Lench, coming around his desk to stand next to the Assassin. “I want to be sure that there is no confusion here. No possible misinterpretation of my directions.”
“You have made yourself clear,” said Josef.
“Good.” Lench reached into the top left-hand drawer of the desk and withdrew one of his favourite Don Alejandro Havana cigars. He took his time lighting the cigar, and after three puffs, he called out in a clear, authoritative voice, “Come in now please, Marie.”
Josef looked round in surprise as the door adjoining the office opened, and a young woman walked in. She wore a very dark grey executive suit and her brown, slightly wiry hair was tied back, accentuating the sharp features of her face. The suit could not disguise her athletic build, the muscle tone under the clothing. There was determination in her lips, and her dark eyes concealed something of her personality in a way that Josef found strangely beautiful; around her neck on a thin silver chain she
wore the symbol of her faith.
“Marie,” said Lench casually, “thank you for joining us. I was just explaining the arrangements to our friend Josef here.” He turned to the Assassin:
“I want you to understand,” he said with mock patience, “we are going to be subtle in our approach this time, and Marie is most suited to the particular requirements of the situation. There might be a role for you, from time to time, if Marie thinks it is appropriate. Is that clear?”
The Assassin could feel the moisture on his brow. The room was warm and the scent of Lench’s cigar hung in the air. He didn’t want to react to what he knew was a test, an attempt to bait him.
“So, let me be clear as well,” he said. “Will she slip in and out of places undetected? Will she dispatch people at your command?”
Lench glanced over to Marie and she gazed at Josef and smiled.
“I will be the judge of who does what,” she said, “and you will do what you are told, under my instruction, as you do under Darius.” She turned away from him as if the matter was closed.
But the Assassin would not accept this kind of dismissive treatment from the woman; he took one quick step towards her so that he stood just behind and to the right of her. He was disappointed that she did not flinch or turn to him.
“You will never presume to tell me the master’s will, I do not answer to you,” he hissed, making flecks of spittle settle on the lobe of her ear.
Still she did not turn. “By submitting to me, you are submitting to the master’s will.”
Lench observed but did not intervene; this contest had to play itself out, and he was quite confident in the abilities of his new protégé.
A maniac grin cracked the Assassin’s face and he moved so she would only be able to see him from the corner of her eye.
“Were it to take my fancy, MAR-EE,” he pronounced her name with a deliberate awkwardness, “I could overwhelm you, here and now, on this desk, and take you for myself.”
Cain's Redemption Page 4
