by A. S. French
He cried amongst the leaves as the clouds split asunder and the rain spat out a thousand waterfalls. Astrid left the playground, walking past the spot where she first saw Olivia’s smile. and headed towards the exit on the far side.
She peered into the trees. Is this what she’d gone there for, to find a childhood she never had? Shadows slipped from the bushes behind her, but she focused on images of Olivia. The surrounding greenery reminded Astrid of their back garden, of her earliest memory, of Courtney’s fourth birthday party and the gaggle of kids who turned up to celebrate it. Sunlight streamed everywhere as an ocean of blue overtook the surroundings. A group of older children dressed as Smurfs entered the festivities; it was as if a sapphire sea had swept the green grass into another world.
Then her father approached her, Astrid, all of three years old, and these were the first words she recalled anyone saying to her:
You’re incapable of love, so no one will ever love you.
She barely understood what he said at the time, but she knew from his face, from the void in his eyes, what he meant.
You’ll never be like your sister. Courtney is everything to us.
Her sister’s fancy-dress party was in full swing. He danced over the grass, a coronet of snakes gripping his head. Or did she only dream that part? He drifted from her vision and into the gloom. But he was always there.
Astrid shook the memory from her head. The experience with Olivia had confused the hell out of her. That confusion meant she was oblivious to the people following her from the murk and past the lake. It was only when she approached the exit and two more dark-suited men appeared that she realised her night wasn’t over.
Some people, weak people, fear death. What they cannot understand is how liberating it is. Think of a lifetime of disappointments and regrets vanishing into the next world. It’s the deaths of others which are redemptive. Ironically, my first was like giving birth.
The rhythm of the water held me in its sway. The body floating on the river mesmerised me, how the head peered into the liquid arms waiting for it. The tender cadence of the apple-green reeds matched the movement of my heart as the wind moved the grass from side to side, dancers in nature and observers of death. The hair floated out towards the shore, sleeping on the waves as if her spirit tried to find an anchor to the mortal world. It was an image I kept returning to inside my mind, finding comfort in the aesthetic of death.
The dead sleep with their eyes open; the living walk around with theirs closed. They begged for mercy, but were disappointed. They asked for absolution but received no answers. They searched for salvation, but couldn’t find it. Some of them desired to cleanse their sins, but no water was available. It was a new life for me, one which tormented me with panic, creating a fear that gripped me in a vice. Revelations greater than most could comprehend possessed me. The dark and relentless fate I’d envisaged for myself had withered into the ether. A fever of enthusiasm surged through me, heading towards a climax which would only reach fulfilment once she’d suffered at my hands. She had to pay for her sins. The water was too good for her. It was for the others; her iniquities would never wash away. She walked by the lake, and it made me think of the different rivers I’d visited, the hunger growing inside me once more.
I needed to get back to the red water.
3 The Shop
Astrid gazed at the dark bowl of the sky, all glorious with the blaze of a million worlds so close, but so far away. She used the movement to check the people observing her, surprised they’d kept their distance. The chill of the evening made the hairs jump on her skin, the scent of the park contrasting with that drifting off her new friends: fresh cologne and clean clothes, shaped to equal precision. She strode on, ignoring the shadows, past the manicured topiary, beyond the unicorn, Cyclops and mermaids, stopping at the teeth of the dragons.
You boys are too quiet in your walk, too studious in your movements to be riddled with drugs. So if you’re not with the little fascist, who sent you?
Had they come from her father, ordered to complete his revenge after all this time? He had the means to pay for it and was devious enough to have waited until the park exposed her like this. She tried to push his malicious grin into the shadows, but struggled to rid his taint from her mind. Astrid focused on the intruders instead. Perhaps they worked for her sister. Courtney had been happy enough to take their father’s money. Her love and supplication for him were opposite to Astrid’s hatred.
Others had sought revenge on her before, but this felt different. She ran through scenarios of who they might work for. There was the criminal organisation in the East End whose extortion empire she’d put out of business; the drug dealers in Manchester who’d suffer nightmares for a long time; the human trafficking gang in Sheffield she’d sent packing back to Eastern Europe.
She was running through the permutations when another two men appeared at the mouth of the largest dragon. Darkness oozed from between the trees, inky fingers creeping towards her. Silence filled the park, the aroma of flowers and freshly cut grass drifting in the air. They wore identical clothes, dark suits with grey shirts buttoned to the top, somewhere in their mid-twenties, both with the same extreme cropped ice-white haircut.
‘You boys look like quads from a John Wyndham novel.’
Astrid waited for one of them to say something; it wouldn’t matter which; they were cuckoos, and she was a bird of prey.
‘The buyer needs you back at the shop.’
His voice was low and shaky, nerves gripping his face, his skin pale and tense. His use of the coded language surprised her. With nobody within half a mile of them, it made no sense to speak in riddles. But now she knew who they worked for, she relaxed, releasing the tension in her knuckles and letting her mind drift back to that perfect time in the playground before the thugs arrived. Whatever they wanted, she could get rid of them in an instant; and then she’d decide what to do about Olivia.
I know what I’m going to do. Plans have been made and set in motion; the plane ticket and new passport wait for me at the hotel. I’ll keep the photos I took today of the kid, and that will do. It’s not my job to look after her. And surely Courtney wouldn’t let any harm come to her daughter?
The same thoughts echoed inside her head as the group stood and scrutinised her. The bloke on the right had a repeating facial tic most people wouldn’t have noticed, but to her was a rock tumbling downhill. His twin opposite folded his arms, hands moving uncontrollably, his flesh straining against the jacket a size too small for his impressive bulk. The two behind her were motionless, arms glued to their sides like human biscuits wrapped and ready to be eaten.
She hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours, her mind in constant need of stimulation. Astrid checked the faces of her new acquaintances, surprised at their youth, before remembering how young she’d been when introduced to this clandestine world.
A gleam of light dropped from the moon and skimmed off the lake. She controlled the hyperactivity in her brain and focused on what she might face in the next five minutes. Inside her mind, she stretched into the corner where she kept her maps. She’d developed a process as a child, compensation for dealing with events far worse than anything these trespassers could threaten her with. Her brain mapped out two different scenarios: refuse their demand and deal with the consequences, or go with them and see what develops.
As the night engulfed them, Astrid observed the tiny neon lights coming from their shirts’ top button; everything was being recorded and beamed live to the shop. She chastised herself for falling into code inside her head. Her annoyance grew by the second: not only had they ruined her experience with Olivia, but they’d used her as part of a training exercise.
‘Tell your buyer I’ve got enough for now, and I don’t appreciate the hard sales technique.’
The reply came straight from the echo chamber.
‘The buyer needs you back at the shop.’
There was something wrong in what he said, within those
eight simple words, and she couldn’t work out what. The joy of seeing Olivia had affected her reasoning, slowed down her brain.
Never let your emotions cloud your judgement.
That’s what they’d said when recruiting her into the Agency, or the shop when described to any outsider. And she was an outsider now, having stepped away a year ago. She was eighteen when her handler spoke those words, and the advice was as redundant as a cassette tape in a teenager’s bedroom. She’d already buried all her emotions when she walked into the Agency the first time.
You can walk away, but you’ll never leave, was one of their other phrases of wisdom. Technically, what Astrid had taken was a Vacation, and Vacations were of indiscriminate length. Once your Vacation finished, they would demand your return. And then Astrid identified what was wrong with his words.
‘Repeat it,’ she commanded. He didn’t hesitate.
‘The buyer needs you back at the shop.’
There it was: needs, not demands or wants. Needs. This twilight meeting with The Midwich Cuckoos was a request. It put a fresh perspective on things. Boredom had been threatening to overcome her in the last few weeks, and she needed extra stimulation. A request could only mean Director George Cross wanted her back, and she couldn’t refuse him anything. Not when she owed him so much.
He was the one who had made her forthcoming escape a reality; she couldn’t have done it without his help. So, had something changed? Was he in trouble? He’d taken significant risks to help her; risks which could lead to both of them ending up behind bars for a long time. Perhaps this gloomy park gathering was his covert way of getting to see her. If so, she couldn’t let him down.
‘Okay, take me to your leader.’ None of them smiled. ‘Did the Agency grow you boys in a lab?’ None of them replied.
Something must have happened to George for them to come for me. Had he changed the plans we agreed on a year ago?
Something terrible gripped her heart, sending pain into her skull and confusion through her limbs. Astrid kept trying to regain control until she recognised what it was, an emotion she thought she’d consigned to another life a long time ago: fear.
Not fear for herself, but for Olivia.
Astrid strode forward. Inside her head, she searched through her collection of maps, finding the one she needed. The chill crept into her bones and memories as she stared at the first plan she’d ever created, looking at the childish paths heading from the darkness and into the citadel of light. It resembled the Disney castle from the movies she watched every night locked in the family home. Those movies soothed the bruises he’d inflicted along her shoulders and legs. He was smart, her father, the chief superintendent, always knowing the best spots to hide what he’d done to her. He didn’t need to conceal them from her mother and Courtney because they didn’t care and encouraged the sadism. But he understood how the world would look unkindly upon what he’d done to his younger daughter.
Her neck ached as she shook her head. She breathed out as her feet crossed the grass in the real world and the inside version of herself skipped down the yellow brick road she’d created years ago. It was a five-minute walk in silence from the park to their car, the four of them keeping the same distance in front and behind like pallbearers at a funeral. When they reached the vehicle, the bloke who’d spoken to her slipped into the rear seat and indicated she join him. Two flanked her in the back while the others got in the front. It was a tight squeeze.
Blacked-out windows obscured her view, but there was only one place they’d take her: the Agency headquarters on the edge of the city. She ignored the quads while she delved into her recent memories, concentrating on more pleasant thoughts: the images of Olivia from a few hours ago. Astrid put them on repeat until they came to a dramatic stop outside their destination, an impressive building three storeys high with four more underground. It was perfect for the Agency, miles from the populace as their cover as an IT company. Astrid’s bodyguards slipped out of the vehicle, and she followed them towards the entrance.
She thought about Olivia, wondering how safe the kid would be in that home with the sister who hated Astrid for what she’d done to their father.
Courtney hated me long before that.
The chill of the night cut into her cheeks. The rain had vanished, but her skin was still damp. Her escort continued in the same formation, two at the front and two behind. Astrid followed them through the doors, aware that secret cameras recorded her every move. Then she stepped into the lobby of the Agency and knew she’d made a terrible mistake.
4 Holiday Destination
Disappointment overwhelmed Astrid as she entered the building; an unpleasant and heavy sensation gripped her heart. Fleeting touches of something alien and intrusive wormed their way into her brain, and she found it disturbing.
Is this what it’s like to care?
It was a curious and unsettling feeling, and she wasn’t sure whether she liked it. She headed for the gate, holding up her arms as she stepped through the electronic scanner. One quad met her on the other side of security.
‘In here.’ He pointed towards an interview room. It confirmed what she’d suspected during the drive: she’d returned to the Agency not as a colleague, but as a person of interest. Inside her head, she kicked herself for forgetting her objectives.
So damn sloppy.
She entered and noticed the circular table in the middle and the four chairs around it. Astrid sat in the first one, removing her phone. If she didn’t keep her brain busy, her head would flood with crippling memories. She was diagnosed with ADHD when she was seven. Her mother struggled to understand what the doctors were telling the family, while her father dismissed it as, in his words, mumbo-jumbo nonsense. Astrid failed to comprehend what was wrong with her, only knowing her head was always so full of information that she found it difficult to sleep. Courtney appeared amused with the whole thing and would whisper into her sister’s ear, telling her all sorts of nonsense she knew Astrid would find hard to forget.
It took two years for Astrid to find something which helped ease her condition. It was Courtney’s tenth birthday party, and their father bought her a portable compact disc player. Astrid borrowed it when her sister was out and used the music to focus her mind; having the sounds so close to her head made it easier for her to drown out the constant din. Astrid used the music as a crutch, quickly discovering a history of tunes which never left her, but it couldn’t erase her condition. Her inner voice would drown out everything else unless she found the right triggers to dial it down.
Her hyperactivity exhibited itself in different ways: fidgeting, squirming, needing to walk frequently, mood swings, insomnia, plus violent episodes. Sex and alcohol were ways of escape, but sometimes morbid horrors would assault her senses, and she’d need to use one of her maps to regain sanity. The photos of Olivia on her mobile occupied her emotions until she chastised herself again for being so foolish not to follow the kid instead of ending up in this predicament.
I can’t make sure Olivia’s okay if I’m in here.
As the door opened, Astrid closed the phone. She leant into the chair designed to be as uncomfortable as possible, the fabric of it sticking into parts of her back it shouldn’t. It wouldn’t have been out of place in torture rooms she’d visited; torture rooms she’d controlled. She expected to see her mentor, Director Cross, but he wasn’t there.
‘Thank you for coming, Agent Snow. I’m Director Davis, and these are Agents Lee and Lincoln.’
Astrid glimpsed an undercurrent of scorn inside the director’s words. Agent Lee was a blonde woman with the appearance of Tinkerbell in a regulation Agency dark blue suit. Astrid guessed her age to be early twenties. Agent Lincoln was the opposite, in his fifties with a face of crushed leather and obsessive eyes, bald apart from three strands of wispy hair combed across his head. Astrid and Lincoln had a history together, none of which was pleasant.
‘Where’s Director Cross?’ His non-appearance worried her. She’s L
ost Control by Joy Division played at the furthest reaches of her mind.
They know what we did.
Davis placed her hands on the table. ‘That’s classified information, Snow. We have more pressing matters to discuss.’
‘What?’ Astrid gripped the chair. Something serious must have happened if this sourpuss had replaced George. Davis gave Agent Lee a nod, prompting the agent to touch her digital screen before showing it to the director.
‘You made a trip to Europe last month; visits to Berlin, Prague, Vienna and Budapest.’ She said the names as if they were places to avoid.
‘You’ve been keeping tabs on me.’
‘Can you tell us what you did in those cities?’
Her lips hardened, turning into a façade of a grin. Astrid struggled to get a read on the woman. The void of her face, her lack of expression and those dull eyes made it difficult to decipher the contents of her head. Astrid picked up her phone and opened the photo gallery.
‘I’ve got pictures if you want to see them. I should warn you some are risqué and may not be suitable for people with sensitive dispositions.’ Astrid glanced at Agent Lee, hoping for a reaction but getting nothing.
Davis took the tablet and read from the screen.
‘You drove to Manchester Airport, left your car there, and then flew to Berlin. What did you do next?’
‘What’s this about?’ Astrid asked.
‘All in good time; if you can answer the question first.’
Davis poured a glass of water while she waited for Astrid’s reply.
‘I took a train from the airport to Berlin central station. Then a ten-minute walk to the hotel, where I dumped my bag before finding a bar for food and drink. Do you want to know what I had?’ The memory of it made her stomach rumble. Davis shook her head. ‘After that, I headed further into East Berlin.’
