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 struggles 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.
‘It’s a tight squeeze, but I think I can fit in,’ Astrid said from the other side of the steamed glass.
She stepped inside; their bodies pressed against each other again. Unlike the first time in the lift back in the Agency, there was no resistance from Agent Laurel Lee, just blissful consenting acquiescence.
Astrid shampooed the younger woman’s hair. Her fingers created a gentle foaming caress through Laurel’s locks, and then moved down to her neck. Her delicate touch moved across Laurel’s breasts, over that flat stomach and down until she found expectation and desire combined into one. They pushed up against the glass, letting the water wash over their skin and the heat consume them.
Thirty minutes later, they were eating microwaved chilli beans and rice. Laurel clutched at the cross around her neck, and Astrid’s curiosity got the better of her.
‘Do you regret what happened?’
She told herself she wouldn’t be disappointed if the answer was yes, but it was a lie. Those pesky new emotions were playing with her heart again.
‘Quite the contrary; it was the best time of my life.’
Laurel held on to the cross as she shovelled a solidified block of rice into her mouth. Astrid noticed her eyes wandering around the room as if somebody on high had seen everything she’d done.
Laurel laughed with a smile which melted any last resistance Astrid had. The sex was great, there was no denying it, but the sensations coursing through her were worrying. Emotional attachments were things she avoided whenever and wherever possible; she had too many scars to want to get burnt again.
First, it was her niece, and now there was this. And she should be focusing on finding who’d framed her, what had happened to George and checking on Olivia’s safety. She tore her eyes and mind from Laurel and went to find the laptop she’d left in the other room. Laurel’s fragrance was still on her skin, and it was glorious; the touch of her fingers lingering across the nape of her neck. She loved the sensation, but it played havoc with her thoughts.
She turned to religion to clear her mind.
‘Have you always been a believer?’
Laurel held on to the cross as she sat next to Astrid. ‘My mother gave this to me. She had unwavering faith; I fluctuate between believing and not believing. It’s the same with people.’ There was melancholy in her face, seeping out through the small amount of shadow she’d applied around her eyes and the unusual vibrant pink lipstick Astrid only just noticed. ‘Director Cross has a great choice of products in the bathroom cabinet. I wanted a change from Agency dullness.’
Laurel placed the top of her fingers on those succulent lips, distracting Astrid for a second from the digital screen she was peering at. Astrid’s soft lips stretched into a smile which didn’t quite reach her glowing eyes.
‘It suits you. George would approve.’ She stretched out her arm and took Laurel’s hand in hers. ‘Make sure you bring it with you on our road trip.’ Laurel gripped back.
‘Where are we going?’
On the screen were the seven names Astrid had filtered through the Agency database, the same female names she’d written on the piece of paper in the Delaney house.
‘The furthest away is in the wilds of Scotland; the closest is about ninety minutes down the road in Portsmouth, so we’ll start there.’
Her mind worked on that plan of action as Laurel leant in closer, her shoulder pressed against Astrid’s arm, their heads separated by the smallest amount of space.
‘Are these potential victims or suspects?’
‘Could be both, could be neither, but we have to start somewhere.’
Laurel stared at the name and address of their next destination. ‘Anne Dvorak; thirty years old and runs an upmarket art gallery in Portsmouth. That’s not a bad cover identity to have.’
‘Better than I ever had.’
‘So, what did she do to offend you?’
Astrid closed the laptop and handed it to Laurel. ‘We argued over the aesthetics of contemporary art versus Art Nouveau. I told her Mucha and Klimt had more artistic merit in their little fingers than anything produced in the last thirty years.’
She moved to the living room window, staring outside as her mind jumped back to her last meeting with ‘Sophisticated Annie’ Dvorak. They were working to find stolen paintings. Dvorak’s expertise in that field was supposed to complement Astrid’s considerable expertise in everything else.
‘That doesn’t sound too problematic.’
Laurel relaxed into the comfort of the sofa. Astrid continued to look through the window: something was wrong on the other side, but she couldn’t work out what it was.
‘It wasn’t, until I whacked her over the head with a small recreation of a Damien Hirst shark.’ Laurel was a picture of shock and amusement. Then she burst out laughing. ‘The idea of me hitting a woman with a small plastic half-shark amuses you?’
‘The image of it will never leave me.’
‘I had a fierce temper then.’
She peered through the glass. Laurel switched on the TV and searched through the channels. Astrid tuned out the chattering heads on the screen, pressed her head against the glass and listened to find the noise from before; and there it was again, the low growl of dogs preparing to bark. Familiar sounds to her.
‘Fuck!’ Laurel dropped the computer onto the floor. Astrid didn’t turn around.
‘I know; it’s the dogs from outside the pub.’ She spotted them running across the road and towards the house, followed by their owners; the same men who’d ogled her earlier. ‘We’ve got company.’ If they weren’t from the Agency, then they were brave local thugs.
‘No, look at this.’
Laurel’s high-pitched voice forced her to turn and stare at the screen. She recognised the scene at once: it was the outside of Frank Delaney’s house, joined by many flashing police cars and an ambulance. Across the bottom of the screen ran a ticker tape of information which had one large headline:
THE REAPER STRIKES AGAIN.
Astrid was about to swear when there was a knock on the door, and a group of boisterous dogs barked against the wood.