Kill a Spy

by Samantha Lee Howe

  Chapter Eighteen

  Mia

  They live on a new-build estate of large executive houses. With the welcome pack – probably devised by the person who decorated and furnished their new home – Mia has learned that there is a large park in the centre of the estate. Placing Freya in her pram, Mia goes out for a walk to explore the area. Even though she’s nervous to go out, Ben has reassured her they are safe where they are: no one knows they are here. She forces herself out, trying to establish some normality she can live with.

  Where she and Ben lived before, Mia had an acre of land to potter around on. She enjoyed gardening when she hadn’t been working. But her new smaller garden didn’t interest her as much as the larger one she’d had. She’d loved the wild flowers and mossy grass – less than perfect but as nature intended – much more than she cared for the immaculate lawns here.

  On this estate every house is picture perfect, every garden is neat. They are also all the same. The normality doesn’t feel real. Just like the sunny day. It’s all too flawless.

  Mia craves her lost life and former innocence. She looks back on it with new eyes – how was she so unaware? Mia recalls her parents with a feeling of distance. Hadn’t she always known the cookie-cutter life they’d created wasn’t real at all? It is clear now how detached they were. Their mother’s perpetual baking. The smudge of flour always on her cheek as though part of her daily beauty regime. It was so ridiculously 1950s that it should have been obvious.

  She found herself wondering if her parents were even lovers. Or what they actually did when Michael and Mia weren’t home. She tried to imagine them doing anything other than what she’d witnessed and couldn’t. They were too good at appearing normal. And in a way, Mia and Michael had taken them at face value. Like most children, they had paid very little real attention to the lives their parents had, accepting that they were just a normal boring couple when really nothing could be further from the truth.

  They are dead now and she can’t ask them any questions. Michael didn’t tell her how it happened, instead he said they were missing. But Mia suspects what really went down.

  As she pushes the pram closer to the playground, she finds herself thinking about a TV series she once dipped into. A perfect family, all assassins. All robots. She can almost imagine now that her parents hadn’t even been human.

  Where was the genuine affection? she thinks. She and Michael became detached from them as soon as they both left for university. And it hadn’t been difficult. There was little interaction between Mia and her parents during those years, and Mia and Michael moved out, never going home again after they graduated, except for one time when her parents moved to Cambridge.

  It was odd, but Mia can’t even remember the regular phone calls she had with her mother. Unlike her university friends, her parents weren’t desperate to hold onto her. They never made her feel guilty for not visiting. But there were calls, and the occasional meet-ups with Uncle Andrew. She just can’t remember what they talked about.

  Huh! Beech… their real father! What a total mindfuck!

  Mia’s mind skirts around the whole idea of it. She can’t focus on the important questions and so skitters away to think instead about the grass or the sunlight. The truth – when you look at it – isn’t all it is cracked up to be when it destroys your peace of mind.

  How much does it matter anyway?

  Mia glances down and smiles at Freya. The little girl is slowly drifting off to sleep with the movement of the pram.

  She pauses at a road crossing. The playground is just ahead and Mia can see a few mothers with toddlers using the swings and slides. Being outside makes her feel better and she pushes aside the looping study of her past life interspersed with random and distracting thoughts of other things as she crosses the road.

  There are no crazy drivers speeding through the estate. Even so, there is an iron fence all around the play area and Mia passes through the gate, closing it behind her. She wheels Freya towards a bench and she takes a seat, watching the other children running and playing over on the park.

  Freya makes a tiny sound, as though objecting to the sudden stillness of the pram. Mia looks at her, but the little girl is merely mewling in her sleep.

  ‘Sleep my little one…’

  Mia freezes.

  Her mind whirs and stalls. She has heard that before. Where has she heard that before? Her mother. It must have been. But no matter how hard she tries to remember she can’t recall her mother ever saying this to her or Michael. It’s not her voice she can vaguely hear in her head. It’s someone else… but who? She’s distracted by a child on the swings. Back and forth they go. Back and forth. Mia forgets what she was trying to think about.

  Freya whimpers again.

  ‘You’re safe,’ Mia says.

  She looks around at the other mothers and children in the park. Over by the swings, two women cast her a casual glance. By the slide, as a little boy of three climbs the ladder and slides down, another woman – possibly the boy’s grandmother – looks long and hard in Mia’s direction. Mia casts her eyes around the playground. She feels exposed and observed. It’s the oddest experience she’s ever had. Is it just curiosity that a new family have moved onto the estate? Or are they all spying on her? Reporting back.

  She finds herself looking around, beyond the park, over to the other houses beyond the railings and across the road. Was that a glint of glass catching the sunlight from a top bedroom of the house directly opposite? Perhaps binoculars. She squints at the window, but the anomaly doesn’t happen again.

  I’m paranoid, she thinks. No one knows we’re here. This is just silly.

  But the sensation of being observed won’t dissipate and Mia stands up, and releases the brake on Freya’s pram. She walks out of the playground and heads back to the safety of her new house.

  Halfway home she finds herself looking over her shoulder. The street is empty, no one is following and yet she doesn’t feel alone.

  A car passes, and Mia watches as it heads away. Was it driving too slowly?

  As she reaches her cul-de-sac, she sees Jack Harman mowing her next-door neighbour’s lawn. Happy to see a familiar face, she waves to him as she passes. He smiles back at her.

  There’s a sense of relief as she reaches the front door of the house. This new build might, after all, be a haven of sorts.

  ‘Are you all right, Mrs Charter?’ Jack says, wheeling his father’s mower past her front gate.

  She looks back at the young man, his eyes show concern for her and Mia realizes she had been hurrying up the driveway to the front door as though something was chasing her.

  ‘I’m fine, thank you, Jack,’ she says.

  Jack nods. ‘Okay, but I’m around if you need anything.’

  Mia thanks him again and goes inside the house. Once the door is shut behind her she gives into a terrible trembling. Despite Jack’s offer she feels even more concerned. It was as though he were waiting for her to return and the mowing of the lawn next door was just his cover… He could be a spy. He could work for the Network. Anyone could.

  ‘What’s wrong with me?’ she says.

  She rests her back on the door as though barricading the world out. She takes a deep breath in and tries to regulate her breathing. She feels vulnerable, not an experience she’s ever had before. She looks back at the sleeping baby and an intense fear clutches at her chest. Is Freya safe?

  Afraid to let the baby out of her sight, she pushes the pram into the kitchen. Then she runs the cold water tap and fills a glass. Still shaking, she sits down at the breakfast bar and sips the water. Her hand shudders and she sloshes water onto the worktop.

  She can’t rid herself of the thought that Freya might be in danger. She reflects on this concern – a very real apprehension after all, hadn’t they been put into witness protection for this very reason? She decides that she needs to speak to Ben when he returns later. She’s sure he’s hiding the full facts from her. Without the full story
, Mia grasps at shadows and fears unknown phantoms.

  I have to know what’s really going on, she thinks. Only then can she truly deal with the change her life has taken. Only then will she know what to do if someone comes after them.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ben

  At least the weather’s held, thinks Ben as he pulls up in a spot by the kerb just down from the pub where he had agreed to meet his boss.

  Ben locks the car and heads into the pub. It had been agreed that Ben shouldn’t come into the MI6 offices in London for fear of being spotted and followed back home, and so when he has to report to Erik Steward, his boss, they arrange to meet in this somewhat out of the way and random rural village. The place is called Bassingham and it has a great little pub called the Five Bells which is on all sorts of ‘best of’ lists. It’s an hour’s drive away from their new home in the Lincolnshire Wolds and Ben sees it as something of a treat because it allows him to dip back into his old life. The place is lovely too: all ivy-covered outside, and wooden beams inside all interwoven with hops and objets d’art like stuffed animals, old books and firearms.

  Ben takes a seat at their pre-booked table and waits for Steward who arrives a short time later.

  A young waitress comes over and out of habit Ben and Steward order tapas to share and soda water to drink.

  ‘You weren’t followed?’ asks Ben. Although he knows that Steward would have made sure, he still worries.

  ‘It’s safe,’ he says. ‘How are you getting along?’

  ‘Okay. Mia isn’t very happy in the new house. But it’s probably just a period of adjustment,’ Ben says. ‘She was happier once we allowed her contact with Michael.’

  ‘We have him under full surveillance,’ Erik Steward says.

  ‘What have you learned?’ Ben says.

  ‘The woman Neva hasn’t tried to make contact with him. And Ray Martin gave him full security clearance again,’ Steward explains. ‘We have Martin’s office tapped, thanks to Leon.’

  ‘Tchaikovsky is now working for you?’

  Steward nods. ‘He was happy to help.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ Ben asks.

  ‘For the moment you need to lay low, but if Michael leads us to Neva, we may well get access to the Network’s committee and bring them down in one swoop. If that happens, maybe you and your wife will be able to return to your old home. If it doesn’t, however, then you might have to accept this as your new normal.’

  ‘I can do some research and paperwork for you at least,’ Ben points out.

  ‘Of course,’ says Steward. ‘But, back to your brother-in-law. Ray is convinced he’s now deactivated and the Network can no longer coerce him to act for them. The conditioning he experienced as a child was pretty intense though.’

  ‘You believe he’s still a danger?’ Ben asks.

  ‘We can’t know for sure. With regards to Mia…’

  ‘Mia is off limits, Erik. You know that,’ Ben says.

  ‘Naturally. But you haven’t seen anything unusual in her behaviour that might be cause for concern?’ Steward says.

  ‘No. And as I said, she’s not part of this discussion.’

  Steward takes a sip from his soda water.

  ‘The thing is, we need to talk about her. Is she coming apart, Ben? I have to know,’ Steward says.

  ‘Of course not. She’s upset though. And scared. She’s been pulled away from everything she knows. How can you expect her not to be? She doesn’t understand the extent of what was done to her and Michael and honestly, I don’t want her to. Why shatter her illusions even further?’

  Steward nods.

  ‘She’ll be fine eventually,’ Ben continues. ‘It’s a big change for us all.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that,’ Steward says.

  ‘But less for me than Mia. I, at least, still have contact with my old life and job. Mia can’t even tell her friends where we are, or ever see them again.’

  Ben stops talking as the waitress arrives and deposits a two-tiered tapas stand onto the table. It’s a house sharing platter with various starters and a favourite of the two men when they meet up.

  ‘Thank you,’ says Steward to the young girl.

  When she’s gone, they help themselves to a portion of food from the top tier: chicken liver pâté with ciabatta. They appear to anyone who cares to look at them, like any two friends meeting for lunch.

  ‘What else have you learned from your spying on Archive?’ Ben asks.

  Steward laughs. ‘Office gossip… Bethany Cane is sleeping with the pathologist, Elliot Baker. They have a new girl on the team. She was on the radar for MI6 a few years ago, but for some reason she wasn’t recruited. Perhaps because Ray had already called dibs on her. Anyway, Elsa Stevenson is her name. She’s got a lot of potential as an agent, though they aren’t giving her much responsibility.’

  ‘Is she fitting in?’ Ben asks as if he already knows the answer. Steward gives him a sideways glance.

  ‘Not sure, Michael isn’t that warm with her and neither is Beth. The latter I understand, as Beth’s nose could be put out of joint with her sudden appearance. Michael’s problem I just don’t know.’

  ‘Is Michael still in a safe house?’

  ‘Yes. And Beth is on permanent security detail for fear that the Network will try to take her again. All in all, Archive is currently quite compromised. It’s a wonder Ray can keep working with two of his agents at such risk,’ Steward explains.

  Ben scoops out chicken and chorizo from one of the dishes. He adds it to his plate, then takes a mouthful. He chews, staring ahead as though he’s considering Steward’s words.

  ‘That’s interesting. Especially as they are letting Michael work on, and not just insisting he goes to ground for a while,’ Ben says.

  ‘What do you deduce from that?’ Steward asks.

  ‘Ray isn’t stupid. Michael is still walking around with a target on his back. But maybe that’s the point. He hopes to draw out his enemies,’ Ben says.

  ‘You think Ray is capable of using Michael like that?’ Steward says.

  ‘He’s a spy. What do you think?’

  Steward looks down at the plate of food in front of him, he takes a mouthful of bread, chews and swallows. Then he sips at the soda water again while he considers Ben’s words.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ says Steward. ‘The only thing I’m not sure of is whether Michael knows?’

  ‘You’re recording their conversations, so haven’t they discussed it?’ Ben asks.

  Steward shakes his head. ‘That doesn’t mean he’s not a part of the ruse. Ray may suspect we are monitoring them. Or fear someone else is.’

  ‘Who else could?’ Ben says.

  Steward doesn’t answer. Ben stops eating and looks at him.

  ‘You think there’s a mole?’ Ben asks.

  ‘There’s been rumours for a while. Someone very trusted. My intel is usually reliable. But who knows? Misinformation is the weapon of our enemies.’

  ‘But if there is… then Michael isn’t safe. And Mia isn’t either,’ Ben says.

  ‘We’re keeping her safe,’ Steward says. ‘Even now there’s eyes on her.’

  Ben looks at Steward again. ‘What eyes? The more people who know where we are, the more in danger Mia and Freya are.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We have only the best on it and as always only on a need-to-know basis.’

  Ben finishes his food. Steward’s revelation makes him feel uncomfortable and he is itching to be on his way home. After all, it was MI5 who had relocated them. Steward wasn’t supposed to know where that was, and Ben, despite keeping in touch with his boss, hasn’t revealed their location. He finds himself questioning Steward for the first time since he started working for him ten years ago. How has Steward found them? And if he knows where they are, does anyone else? With the Network’s reach, could anyone really be trusted?

  Chapter Twenty

  Michael

  ‘Her name was Nicole Sheri
dan,’ I say.

  I place Nicole’s picture up on the investigation board next to Lizzie and Sinead’s. Surrounding the previous two women is a series of white-board pen notes of things we’ve learned or leads we are chasing. I notice that Elsa has written a note on Lizzie’s side saying ‘No camera footage of poss perp’. And so, that course is closed to us as well.

  ‘Nicole was 34 years old. Lived alone in East London. No family. Hobbies… a gym membership. Like clockwork she went on the same days, to the same classes, every week. She was found dead in the locker room of the gym late last night.’

  I describe what I saw at the gym when I was called in after hours. Nicole was naked in the shower cubicle with fifteen knife wounds. The attack was brutal and frenzied which I know the autopsy will confirm. The killer had finished her off by slitting her throat. Such anger and violence and force had gone behind the knife that it makes me aware that the killer is losing control.

  ‘The cleaning staff found her after closing time. She must have been the last person in the ladies’ changing room and can’t have been dead for more than half an hour at that point. Ray and I looked at the security footage of the last people to leave. There was a couple of women that left together. We have their details and plan to interview them today. There was also one man. He wasn’t caught clearly on security, and that late at night, staff aren’t always diligent on the checking-out system. This guy didn’t sign out, or in either.’

  ‘A starting point then,’ says Beth. ‘I’ll have a closer look at the footage and see what I can pull up.’

  ‘I’ll have it sent to you,’ I say.

  ‘If it isn’t anything to do with the mystery man, then we are drawing a blank. Footage of the corridor outside the changing rooms doesn’t show anyone going in or out after the time that Nicole was left alone in there,’ I point out.

  ‘What did she do for a living?’ Beth says.