by A. S. French
Astrid strode to the bottom of the road. She moved through the afternoon glamour of suburbia, passed the single mothers pulling their kids from the chocolate temptations decorating the shops, and glanced at the old men as they staggered in and out of the local pub. A few of the more energetic specimens of masculinity attempted to whistle at her, sounding like asthmatic steam trains rolling down their final broken tracks. She hated the suffocating constraints of the suburbs and all of their less than beautiful attractions, moving around the small dog attempting to copulate with a much larger version of its species and the middle-aged men who laughed at the canine pornography.
A few yards ahead, a wooden fence separated a large field. She climbed it before dropping onto the grass on the other side. The director’s home was two hundred yards away as she ran past the empty cider bottles on the ground. Dogs barked in the distance behind her as she reached the building and peered over the fence. The garden was overgrown as if nobody had paid attention to it for months. Weeds punctuated the gravel path, and an unkempt lawn greeted her feet as she climbed over, glancing for any sign of life.
The house was in darkness as she crept towards the window on the back door, eyes piercing the glass and finding nothing inside to concern her. She pressed against the glass for a minute, her ears tuned to the ambience inside the house, picking up no sounds at all: it was enough to convince her it was empty.
She ran back to the fence, placed her left hand on top of the damp wood and leapt over it with ease. It was a short jog back to the other end of the field and another jump into the car park at the back of the pub. The baying dogs and humans had disappeared, replaced by a hopeful Laurel Lee sitting on the wall and ignoring the leering loons inside the alehouse.
‘Another couple of minutes, and I’d have been inside the pub and smashing glasses over their heads.’ Weariness and irritation combined to make a heady cocktail in her voice.
‘Did you miss me?’
A mischievous smile danced across Astrid’s face and pirouetted towards the younger woman as the sound of somebody murdering Dancing Queen on the karaoke escaped from the pub. Laurel bounced off the wall with newfound energy.
‘There’s nothing suspicious outside the front of the house unless you count the three-eyed raven statues sitting in the neighbour’s garden.’
‘Great,’ Astrid said. ‘Are you good at climbing?’
She didn’t wait for an answer, and was back over the fence in a flash. Laurel mumbled something under her breath before following her on to the path. She got over in time to see Astrid disappearing over the other side of a fence down the other end of the field.
‘I hope you have a key?’ Laurel scrambled into the back garden of the missing Director Cross.
‘Will a code do?’
Astrid punched the six digits into the electronic keypad hiding inside the small black box on the wall. She kept invisible fingers crossed inside her head and hoped her friend hadn’t changed the code. She let out a tiny sigh of relief at the sound of a small clicking noise before pushing the door open.
Getting into his house was no problem. Jack Chill was the easiest of them to manipulate. Somebody who traded secrets to all and sundry had no qualms over who they took money from. There was no hesitation from him when I said we should meet in Budapest. I’d promised him a substantial fee, half upfront, for all the Agency’s dirty little secrets. It was an offer too good for him to refuse.
We met near the citadel, the day after I’d followed her up the same path. The dark glasses and large hat I wore were perfect protectors from the sun, as well as keeping my features away from prying eyes. The oppressive heat had tracked me to Budapest, forcing natives and tourists to seek shelter wherever they could. Hundreds of people flocked towards the calm waters of the Gellért Thermal Baths as I trudged upwards, wishing I could join them.
The two hundred and thirty-five metre walk took me past the peoples of the world as tribes of tourists went by me in all directions, my gaze and strength focused on getting my body up the hill in one piece and to my rendezvous on time.
A crowd gathered around the Liberty Statue, taking selfies and spending more time staring at their electronic devices than observing the beauty and history surrounding them. I moved past them, taking a brief second to look at the monument to those who fought the Nazis and resisted the Soviet occupation. Just around the corner was where I needed to be.
There was a stall selling souvenirs on the right, and to the left, some ambitious entrepreneur had set up a mini archery stand. Chill leant against the citadel wall. He didn’t recognise me as I approached, but he saw the hat I wore, adorned with a small badge of a monkey’s grinning face, which was the symbol to let him know I was his rendezvous. No words passed between us as I handed him the electronic code with the account details containing the rest of his payment: money he’d never be able to spend. He spent a minute checking the information on his phone before handing me the data stick with the Agency’s hidden files.
I slipped the stick into my pocket as he left in the opposite direction, descending into the heart of Budapest. He’d forgotten about me as I waited thirty seconds before following him, moving down the hill towards the Elizabeth Bridge and through the Garden of Philosophy.
He was just ahead of me as I contemplated what I was about to do to Jack Chill.
21 George
The cold inside the house sent a shiver down Astrid’s spine, making her back arch and fingers clench. It also triggered her first memory of the man who should be living there. It was six months of training and frustration before she got her first taste of an active investigation; and her first sight of Director Cross. Something important was happening across London, and the heads of the other intelligence agencies had made their way to the clandestine organisation hidden from the public.
‘Is this a COBRA meeting?’ she’d asked Agent Storm.
‘COBRA is what the public see,’ he replied. ‘This is CHAMELEON.’
The Agency was a hive of activity; people with gloomy faces and dread in their eyes scurried everywhere. The only expression of calm in a sea of worry belonged to Director Cross. He was a handsome man who could have spent his days lounging around on fashion shoots in the world’s most stylish cities, with his warm blue eyes, chiselled cheekbones and distinctive short grey hair. As he ushered his colleagues into a windowless room, she stared at him, and he gave her a smile which warmed her heart. She couldn’t understand why she was like that. Up to that day, she’d thought about running away again, fleeing another situation which constrained her. It was that brief expression of emotion from Cross which convinced her to hang around a little longer, to let the Agency provide some direction in her life.
It was another three months before he spoke to her, a cheery ‘good morning’ as they passed in the hall. By the end of her first year, she was sitting in his office, waiting for her initial appraisal. She’d expected it to be delivered by Joe Storm and was surprised to see the director walk into the room. Their friendship had grown from that moment. Grown enough for him to convince her that life in the Agency would eventually destroy her.
‘Once you accept the Agency’s invitation, you’re there for life,’ she told him. Astrid knew of agents who had tried to leave; they got their way, but not how they wanted. They didn’t return to a life of freedom, but were spirited away and never seen again to keep the Agency’s dirty secrets from an unsuspecting public. That’s why George initiated her disappearance from the Agency, until it had all gone wrong for both of them.
Astrid remembered his sweet smile as she flung the door open and marched into his home. Her hand stretched out to turn the light on as she stepped over the pile of unread mail scattered on the floor. Laurel kicked the paper on the ground to one side as she closed the door.
‘How long since you were here?’
Astrid continued into the house, decorated with floral prints and brilliant blue paint on the walls. The place smelt clean and fresh, with a hint of h
is aftershave lingering in the air. But it was only her imagination recalling her last visit to the house, her face pressed against his as they said their goodbyes.
‘A year ago, not long before I started my Vacation.’
Apart from a thin sliver of dust across everything, nothing had changed in the room: a medium-sized TV in the corner; table by the side of the wall adorned with plastic roses; small pieces of jewellery; and two porcelain ornaments of a mother and child. Grey carpet covered the floor, with a three-seater sofa accompanied by two single-seaters in the same patterned style of reproduction Art Nouveau. The walls were white and bare, reminiscent of a doctor’s surgery. Against the far wall was a large bookcase stuffed with volumes of all shapes and sizes.
Laurel slumped into one of the single chairs as Astrid sprinted up the stairs.
‘What are you doing up there?’
She did a quick sweep of the upstairs, checked everything was safe and clear, before heading down carrying a laptop.
‘Laurel, can you check the kitchen to see if there’s anything edible in there? And put the kettle on while you’re at it.’
It was more of a gentle request than a command. Laurel did as instructed while Astrid slumped into the sofa and opened the laptop. She crossed her fingers and hoped it was charged since she hadn’t been able to find the cable for it, sighing with relief when it sprang to life. She punched the password into the screen as Laurel returned, holding a couple of dusty tins of chilli beans and a packet of posh-looking rice.
‘These are out of date by a week, but it was the best I could find, unless you want some indiscriminate green fruit.’
‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’
‘If you hack into the Agency system with that, they’ll track us here. They’ve improved their search and destroy technology since you took your Vacation.’
The worry in Laurel’s voice drowned out the sounds of hunger in Astrid’s stomach; neither of them had eaten since they’d left Delaney’s.
‘Eventually, they would, yes. But I don’t need to get into the Agency files. There’s a perfectly good database on this computer; it’s just a tiny bit out of date. You’re not on it, for example.’
The grin transformed into a smile wide enough to catch flies. Astonishment consumed Laurel’s face.
‘What?’ Laurel said. Having a copy of the Agency database outside the building was a treasonable offence.
‘One of the first lessons George taught me was never to trust anybody you worked with or for, especially in our line of employment.’
She indicated Laurel should sit next to her. It was so she could show her what was on the screen, but she also had a sudden craving to squeeze her hips next to the other woman. Being in dangerous situations had always played havoc with her libido, and the current perilous state had thrown it into overdrive.
Laurel sat down, clutching on to the two tins of out-of-date chilli beans as if they were comfort blankets. The rice was lying in the middle of the floor where she’d dropped it at the news of Director Cross’s illegal and unprofessional activity.
‘Is this why he never returned to work because they found out what he was doing?’
‘I don’t know what happened to George; and I will find out, but I don’t think it was because he was collecting information he shouldn’t have. If it were the case, they would’ve found this place and what he has here.’
Laurel stared at the screen. ‘How old is the database?’
Astrid scanned the details. ‘It’s at least a year out of date. He must have prepared this not long after I left; I’m not on it.’
Laurel grasped the significance of that: everybody who’d ever worked for the Agency - current staff, deceased agents, those on Vacation, and all those who’d left in some ignominious way, including imprisonment - were on the Agency database.
‘He was going to use this to replace the existing one so you could disappear forever?’ Laurel’s eyes were as wide as Astrid’s grin.
‘That was the plan.’
‘But people would remember you.’ She sounded as if she didn’t believe they’d get away with it.
‘Of course, they would. But if I weren’t officially in the database, they’d assume I’d moved on to another pseudonym, another identity. And if they were brave enough to ask at the highest level, George would say it was need to know only.’
She relaxed into the sofa as the laptop warmed her legs. Laurel dropped both tins of meat into her lap, only aggravating Astrid’s hunger for something more than food.
‘Why would he do this for you? Risk everything he had, that he’d built over the years, for somebody who worked for him?’
Astrid’s mouth quivered for a fraction of a second, highlighting the vulnerability inside her. It was a liability she perceived as weakness, something she’d erased as soon as she’d left home. At least, she’d thought she had. It pained and warmed her at the same time. Fearful it would cost her everything, she was also glad of the new pleasurable sensations it had given her: first with Olivia, and now with Laurel. To feel protective of somebody else, like she did with her niece, or to know that somebody was concerned for her generated a type of happiness she’d rarely experienced before. Before now, George had been the only person she’d cared about. She thought long and hard before answering the question, hesitant to open herself up to anybody.
‘Because I was like the child he’d always wanted but could never have. For me, he was the parent I’d dreamt of since I was a kid while my biological father hurt me and my mother laughed.’
And my sister conspired against me, smiling all the time she did.
Wherever George Cross was, she was determined to find him.
Laurel took the laptop from where it sat on Astrid’s legs and placed it on the floor next to the tins. Then she took Astrid into her arms, and they held on to each other into the night.
22 Sing me to Sleep
In life, Jack Chill had a ready smile, knowing eyes and the convincing charm of a duplicitous man. In death, he was alabaster white, lips turned from pink to blue like the colour of leaves springing from summer to autumn. His eyes glared at me through the frosted plastic; his last gasps clutched the inside of the bag. They were desperate eyes, ones I recognised from a thousand broken mirrors, a thousand broken dreams.
I leant in closer than I intended, hoping to see phantom words scratched on the inside of the material which had ended him. But all I saw was the last of his spittle stuck to the sides, and of course, it was me who’d killed him, not the unmoving plastic.
An overwhelming sense of despair infected me, and I didn’t know why. My body lacked control, and I hated it, not being in charge of my emotions; not controlling who I was. I removed the bag from his head and laid it on the dirty wooden floor of the house he’d rented. He’d been shocked to see me at the door, not realising the danger to him until it was too late and the metal was pressing against his skin. A frigid kiss from my hand touched one of his cheeks while the gun’s silver ice caressed the other one.
Pearl-shaped tears rolled out of his wide luminous eyes, his mouth babbling something unintelligible as I forced him to turn from me. I so much wanted him to gaze into my eyes as I throttled him, but I wouldn’t be able to catch the full glory of the life slipping from him through the plastic bag. Plus, I wasn’t confident that he wouldn’t grab me or clutch at his throat if he was facing me.
So I stuck to the method which had worked so well up to then, pushing him down onto the floor, pulling the trigger back on the gun when he plucked courage from somewhere and tried to protest. My knee forced him down while I dropped the bag over his head and pulled back until he stared at the ceiling. I’d perfected the technique, and his thin frame was no deterrent to what I did. I guess they hadn’t fed him too well while he’d been inside a cell.
He clutched at the wall, drawing blood from his broken fingernails and cracked skin. The muscles in my arms and legs were tense, forcing his life into mine as his last flailing strugg
les dissipated into the ether. When it was over, a gloom overcame me, and I didn’t know why. Sadness slipped through my veins, and it discomforted me. It certainly wasn’t for him, but it left me confused.
I stretched out my feet until they were only inches from his head, my thoughts returning to the others. They were cold, so cold. The life which had dwelt within them had disappeared, and they’d gone from the challenges of this world. No more love for them, and I knew how that felt. But there’s still one who loves me, who is dedicated to me.
And then I understood where my despair had come from. Death wasn’t kind, and neither was I. I wasn’t feeling the pain because of what I’d done, the people I’d killed; I experienced it because the body next to me was the last of it. It wasn’t death I’d planned for her; she had to suffer a lot more than that. But I’d grown accustomed to the pleasure murder had given me, and my heart sobbed at the thought of never feeling that way again.
But it didn’t have to be like that. I stared into the sleeping eyes of Jack Chill as I lay next to him and dreamt of my eternal sleep.
Astrid awoke in the most comfortable bed she’d ever slept in, not that either of them had got much sleep. Her body ached and every inch of her tingled with Laurel’s delicate touches. The bed was empty, but Laurel’s contours were still there, embedded in the sheets like a fabric spirit which had entered into her life, and then flitted away into the atmosphere.
She panicked for a second, her heart gripped by invisible fingers while a voice whispered terrible things into her ears. Sounds drifted in from the other room, the noise of water bouncing off the shower and a voice singing a mournful lullaby.
‘Sing me to sleep,’ Laurel sang as Astrid crept towards the shower, still naked apart from the multitude of thoughts sprinting inside her head and the palpitations pounding in her chest.
