The Villager

by Matt Kruze

  And yet there they were–the signs. The feathery touch at the back of his neck, the tightening of the skin over his triceps; they were his warning flags, and in his experience they always preceded danger.

  Four

  January 22nd, Sunday

  For Jason Ryle the only differentiator posed by the weekend was a variation in his work, not the customary forty eight hour respite enjoyed by the Monday-to-Friday set. This was the time to study his subjects, to watch them engage in the dispensation of their free time and, hopefully, to gain an insight which might lead to the identification of a suitable target. By the time he stopped for lunch–as usual a ham and mustard sandwich on white from the supermarket in the nearest main town–Ryle had acquired four potential subjects following almost five hours of covert surveillance and tailing.

  Just as well, because Sylexon had upped the quota from this particular village; they were efficient in their processing of the little tubes he sent to them, and had already concluded that this quiet, rural arena was a gold mine.

  Out-of-town areas, typically, were the most prolific–something to do with cleaner air and better water quality–and this village was a real find by all accounts because he had been asked to stay on here…indefinitely.

  He whistled quietly to himself. The place would look like a scene from Dawn of The Dead by the time he’d finished with it. It didn’t matter to him: work was work, money was money–it was all the same. And the risk of his being apprehended was negligible, because nobody could ever conceive of what was happening right under their noses. His was a crime far beyond society’s comprehension.

  Sylexon, his employer, was a pharmaceutical concern, based in Berkshire but with headquarters across the Atlantic in New Hampshire. Their niche was neurological medicines–drugs for the amelioration of Alzheimer’s as well as a number of psychological illnesses.

  At least, such was their cover.

  Recently they had ventured into the realms of a far less conventional field, one which served the shadowy departments of a number of government agencies, the necessity of whose clandestine work the public would never understand.

  Ryle wondered how many brains Sylexon had tested its extraction methods on before coming up with the perfect method.

  In truth, its government client base probably had no notion of the work Sylexon undertook to harvest this substance, nor even what exactly went into the drug they were buying. It didn’t stop them from paying very good money for it though. Of course even the directorate itself at Sylexon would at some point have been convinced of the innocence of the project. He could imagine the chill, caliginous discharge of Serus’s voice presenting a monotone case to the board that, although illegal and a very profound violation of human rights, the gathering of occipital tissue was harmless to the subject. By now they all would have known that wasn’t the case–if Ryle knew it, they with their white coats and test tubes would certainly know it too. But none of them seemed to care once the money rolled in. Ryle certainly didn’t. And should your conscience require mollification, at a stretch you could convince yourself that the end product was part of the greater good of national security.

  He swallowed the last mouthful of his sandwich and tossed the cardboard wrapping onto the back seat. Cars rolled by gingerly, tyres crackling over the sheen of ice, and pedestrians slipped and skidded on the treacherous footpaths. He wondered if it might be a pleasant village in the summer, perhaps somewhere to spend his very early retirement. It would be a quiet spot by then for sure, he reflected, stifling a laugh.

  * * *

  Sammy Faris finished his lunch and immediately washed up the plate, knife and fork, and pan. It was easy to keep things tidy when you lived alone, and he had no use of the dishwasher, not any more.

  His thighs ached and his calf muscles felt tight and hard but otherwise the run hadn’t stretched his body–and in particular his right lung–as much as he’d feared, and the five miles had taken thirty-eight minutes, which for a man with a bullet wound to the lung wasn’t bad at all.

  He retired to the sofa and resisted the urge to flick the television on. It was strange and disturbing to have nothing to attend to, and worse, the lack of pressing tasks opened a window through which dark thoughts entered, thief-like; he missed his wife; he worried about Andy–

  –And something else too. The grey car.

  For some reason it gnawed at him, seeping into the cracks of his introspection like black ink, darkly compelling.

  * * *

  Ryle left the village a little after 3pm, taking care over the occasional stretches of ice that gleamed treacherously on the road surface, glassy patinas worn smooth by the weekend traffic. He could ill afford an accident, and so despite his accomplished driving skills adopted a speed more cautious than many of his fellow road users.

  He would be able to settle at his secluded retreat earlier today, for no construction work took place on a Sunday, and he would have the area to himself for a few daylight hours–a rare luxury. Within fifteen minutes he had arrived at his refuge, bumping over the muddy, unfinished streets, ridges of tyre-tracked earth frozen hard into rough serrations.

  Ryle planned to spend the time marking locations on the village map, ordering them, and running through the addresses he had stored on his phone. He intended to take three, possibly four, subjects tomorrow, but he had a list of six in the event that a couple of substitutes should be necessitated. Then he would have the resulting sample tubes couriered to Sylexon, and within twenty-four hours of receipt, Ryle would be paid. They were very efficient remunerators.

  Work was plentiful, he reflected, satisfied–and there was no sign of its abating. He wondered, idly–perhaps a little greedily, he conceded–whether it was possible to harvest an entire village.

  Five

  January 23rd, Monday

  Monday dawned under a cold, leaden sky and a steady stream of stinging rain watered the village, obscuring the surrounding hills. Appropriate meteorology for the commencement of the working week, and also for the death of Andrew Smith, husband of Celia, son of Roger and Anne, brother of William.

  Having set off on the twenty mile drive to work, on the outskirts of the village he had failed to stop at a T junction. Police investigators would conclude that he’d simply driven straight onto the bisecting carriageway and into the path of a class I HGV, which had side-swiped his car at fifty miles an hour, killing Andy instantly and shunting his vehicle almost sixty metres before coming to a halt. There was no trail of skid marks behind Andy’s car, suggesting he hadn’t braked suddenly and was therefore probably unaware, at that instant, that he was approaching a junction. Moreover, several witnesses stated that his car did not appear to slow as it approached the junction, instead simply maintaining its fatal course onto the carriageway.

  Sammy didn’t find out about the accident until later that afternoon, when a neighbour of the Smiths called him to explain the tragedy.

  As soon as he put the phone down he started to dial Celia’s number but checked himself; if she had instructed a neighbour to contact him, on her behalf, it meant she didn’t want to talk. He paced the sitting room, moving in circles around the coffee table, then slumped down onto the sofa, blinking in incomprehension.

  His friend. His best friend.

  Andy was…dead?

  He rose on unsteady legs, fists clenched. Andy wasn’t a soldier, hadn’t signed up to danger. Just like Marie. Where was the damn justice?

  Closing his eyes Sammy wondered what more was the world to throw at him?

  * * *

  Ryle heard of the accident and assumed that, in all probability, it was the recent subject. They all died in the end; some sooner, some later. But death was a facet of conflict, and his current vocation was unequivocally a form of conflict, a cog of war. Illegal and not recognised by any other nation, but then you could say that of so many wars in recent history. Also, for him, the associated rewards far outweighed any of those he had received in the line of official duty
; in fact, he was becoming quite rich.

  After they had asked him to stay on in this village he had considered the additional risks–which were minimal–and promptly suggested a pay rise from his employer. Serus had made a show of contemplation but when he came back to him half an hour later there wasn’t even a negotiation. Ryle would now receive £12,000 per subject.

  He wondered if he ought to have asked for more, so acquiescent had Sylexon been to his demands. They must have turned out a considerable quantity of pills from each of the little phials he sent them if they were willing to pay so much. And what of the charges to their clients? Astronomical, he speculated.

  He picked up his mobile phone, scrolled to the list of addresses and deleted the two subjects he had already taken, then focused on the next address. There was time for one more this evening. The lady who lived alone–that would be easy–and then he’d leave for the night, returning to the village in the morning.

  * * *

  Sammy had done nothing at all for the rest of the afternoon. Sat, stood, paced, even attempted to distract himself with a piece of coursework but quit after five minutes, submitting to the inevitable abeyance of his studies.

  Finally, a little after 8.30pm, he left the house with the intention of going for a run but within half a mile cantered to a halt, barely panting, and stood under a street lamp. His chest burned acutely, the silent protest of his injured lung, but the pain was manageable; he had come to a halt simply because he lacked the motivation to go on.

  Rather than return to the silence of the empty house, he began walking. Better to get some crisp night air and a change of scene, if not any real aerobic exercise. He wandered some of the village’s little cul-de-sacs and avenues, many of which linked up, a few of which were dead ends, just pacing aimlessly with his thoughts, breath misting before his face.

  It was twenty minutes later that he sighted the grey Ford, facing away from him, parked in the shadows just beyond the cone of orange light thrown from the nearest street lamp.

  Disturbingly, he could distinguish the silhouette of a man’s head in the driver’s seat.

  Sammy slowed his step, not coming to a sudden halt, and moved close to the fence, into darkness. A straggle of foliage poked out of the slats, too meagre to conceal him in daylight but adequate for night time, and he stopped behind it.

  * * *

  Ryle got out of the car and, satisfied the subject was alone in the house, approached the driveway. As usual he had parked in the shadows so that on the off-chance the operation went wrong and he had to abort, the subject would not get a look at his number plate.

  They never went wrong though. He was too accomplished, the job too simple. And the great part–the real pièce de résistance–was that once the occipital tissue had been taken, the subject wouldn’t recall the moments leading up to it. The boys at Sylexon had assured him that sometimes as much as the entire previous day was dumped from the memory, but he was sceptical of that. In any case, it didn’t matter; they forgot everything he needed them to forget. They forgot him.

  * * *

  Sammy leaned against the frosted slats of the fence, frowning into the darkenss.

  He knew when to trust his instincts, had received the better part of ten years’ training to develop them. And here was a threat–not that he needed to rely on the alerts from his subconscious to identify it; the man who had recently exited his vehicle was carrying a strange, weapon-like device at his side. It looked like a handgun, but was too skeletal, too delicate in structure. Nonetheless there was something menacing in its appearance, and, too, in the way the man held it out of sight, concealed.

  Six

  January 23rd, Monday

  Sammy Faris had no doubt that here was a situation in which he would have to intervene. Somebody was in grave danger from the man in the grey Ford, of that he was certain. He skirted the little bush, keeping into the shadows so that his right shoulder brushed the wooden fence, and approached the driveway. The man was already at the front door, raising his free hand to the brass knocker, lifting it on its hinge, orange light glinting off the metal–

  –to be overcome by the sudden wash of a white, brighter glare. Shadows slanted across the road, slipping across the front of the house. An approaching car. Sammy watched the man slowly release the door knocker, setting it back to rest soundlessly, before calmly turning and retreating back down the driveway.

  The approaching car swung in at the house next door, braked to a halt in front of the garage, and cut the ignition and lights. The driver climbed out, cast a brief glance at the man who had just left his neighbour’s house, idly speculating to himself over whether she might have a new boyfriend, before entering his own home.

  Sammy released his breath in a shaky exhalation. Thirty metres from his barely-concealed viewpoint, the Ford started and pulled away at a calm, measured speed. There was no chance of pursuit while he was on foot, and in the darkness he could not make out the number plate as it disappeared into the night. It should have been illuminated but, perhaps not surprisingly, that one bulb appeared not to be functioning.

  Not usually prone to indecision, Sammy now found himself wondering how to proceed. Certainly he constituted a suspicious presence here though, lurking among the shadows and bushes of this quiet cul-de-sac, so he emerged into the light and with a bold gait, headed for home. He would call the police and report the strange behaviour of this new and darkly menacing presence in his village. Really, that was the only option.

  * * *

  Exiting onto the High Street, Ryle slammed his fist against the dashboard and hissed a curse through clenched teeth. What were the chances? Why did the neighbour have to pull up at that precise minute? That was all he needed, just sixty seconds, and the idiot picked those sixty seconds to return home.

  He took a deep breath, shaking his head ruefully at the missed opportunity–at the £12,000 he had just had to walk away from. He knew he shouldn’t dwell on it–tomorrow was a new day and would bring new opportunities. Dammit though–it was frustrating.

  Clear of the village he depressed his right foot and accelerated away, towards his night time hiding place.

  * * *

  With his breath still coming in shuddering exhalations, Sammy snatched the phone from its base unit, about to dial 101. He pressed the talk button, then the first of the rubber number keys. He paused, wondering what he would say to the operator. What would the police do? What could they do?

  He tapped the phone lightly against the palm of his hand.

  They could keep an eye out, maybe send a car in to patrol the village. And if they happened to spot the grey Ford and its driver they might question him. But that was all–they had no power to search the vehicle, certainly no grounds for arrest. And perhaps the driver would be warned off, but more likely he would only be warned. He would have the advantage then, would alter his modus operandi to counter the threat and then continue whatever sinister operation he was involved in.

  Reluctantly, Sammy pressed the disconnect button and dropped the phone onto the sofa. By not raising the alarm, he realised, he retained the advantage. The man had no idea that his presence had been noted, and that made him a far easier target for surveillance.

  Nodding to himself, Sammy went upstairs to run a bath. Tomorrow he would make his own reconnaissance and try to establish exactly what the stranger was doing here in the village.

  January 24th, Tuesday

  Ryle was also intending to spend the day engaged in reconnaissance.

  He had slept poorly. It had been cold in the car, so cold that by morning the inside of the windows were rimed in a membrane of ice; but he was used to the cold, had grown accustomed to it over the years and had even been on training ops in Alaska, Canada, Norway. What troubled his sleep was the turmoil of reluctant logic. He knew what he should do, the right precaution to take, but it rankled on his impatience.

  In any case, reluctantly or not, he had drawn the conclusion that Tuesday would be spen
t scouting the village. Preparing. Because he had been so frustrated with missing that opportunity last night, so desperate to make up for lost time–and yes, lost money–that he surely would have botched the next one. Or at the very least taken some reckless, unnecessary chances. So he had made a pact with himself to avoid any hostile action the next day, whatever opportunity presented itself, and instead retain his professional equanimity by resisting the temptation of a hasty consolation.

  In the darkness of early morning, before the construction workers arrived, he fired the ignition and waited for the windows to thaw.

  * * *

  At 8am, as first light began to leak into the day, Sammy left his house and began walking to the end of the street. The sky was a bowl of pale, brittle blue and the tarmac glittered with ice, but on the horizon a rank of cumulus clouds was boiling, as though gathering strength. The weather forecast suggested a rise in temperature, and the ominous grey clouds supported the prediction. The clear nights of the past week had seen temperatures plunge to minus ten.

  Sammy had no idea what he was hoping to see today, or how long it would take before he gave up and returned home. He decided he would patrol the village until midday, return home for lunch, and then try again. As it transpired, though, it would be less than thirty minutes before he happened upon the grey car.

  Seven

  January 24th, Tuesday

  Ryle drove into the village shortly after sunrise and commenced a slow patrol of the winding streets. It is harder than most people might imagine to cruise at a speed sufficiently measured to permit proper observation, yet not so slow as to draw attention. He avoided the little cul-de-sac where he had so nearly taken another subject the previous night–not because he believed with any real conviction that he might have aroused suspicion, but simply because it was good practice. Better to be over-cautious than to take unnecessary gambles. In any case, there were so many quiet, sheltered lanes to choose from–he could afford to be selective.