Silence engulfed the car, an oppressive vacuum hanging over them. Annie Dvorak stared at Astrid, her face weary and dotted with bits of ash from the explosion. After months of imprisonment, George seemed happy to be in the open again, even if it was inside a car. He held on to Astrid’s arm and squeezed. Traffic had stopped, and Laurel’s face was frozen at the moment. The car wasn’t going anywhere, and with her hands riveted to the wheel, she spoke.
‘You think Cara Delaney is the Reaper?’
Astrid’s mind sprinted through all the times she’d spent with Cara, thinking about their life together and those things they hadn’t shared with anyone but each other. Outside, it was a complete gridlock of metal cans designed to go somewhere, but stuck to the concrete. Red and blue flashing lights were behind them before being joined by a cacophony of sirens. Her arm hung down her side, numb to the point where she’d forgotten about the pain. The tension increased in the car, with sighs of relief when the emergency vehicles whizzed past. She squeezed at the discomfort in her wrist.
‘You might as well turn the engine off, Laurel. We might be here for a while.’
Astrid rolled down the window as everything in front of them stopped. The cold air whistled between them, disturbing the silence, prompting Laurel to speak.
‘Cara Delaney is dead.’
George didn’t attempt to hide his anger. ‘Then she must be a pretty solid ghost or have a twin sister.’
‘Do we need to get you two to a hospital or doctor?’
Astrid peered into the back of the car, appearing to have no desire to expand upon the bombshell she’d dropped. George leant forward, putting his hand on her cheek as the tension coursed through her body.
‘I think you’re the one who needs medical attention.’
‘I’m fine, George. I need to get a bandage around this and take some of the pressure off. And painkillers would help.’
‘Cara Delaney is dead,’ Laurel said again.
‘No,’ Astrid said. ‘She fooled us from the start; a classic case of misdirection.’
I wanted to believe Cara was dead.
George’s skin shivered as he relived his ordeal. ‘I didn’t recognise her at first when she came to my door. I was half-awake, expecting a delivery, and she wore a disguise. She mentioned your name, Astrid, and before I could react, she was inside the house, and I fell to the floor. Then I was locked in a room, forced to listen to her tirades against the rest of the world. The hate she has for you, Astrid. She kept me there for months.’
Astrid grimaced at the sadness in his voice, his normal assertive tone eaten away by his captivity until it was a thin, wispy imitation of what it used to be. His eyes had shrunk into their sockets, so it wasn’t easy to see the vivid hazelnut shade of brown which lived there. She placed her hands on his, clasping his fingers, determined to bring his spark back, to reignite the vivacity she’d always known. She ignored the ache in her wrist, holding on to his hands until Laurel spoke again. Then she turned to face the woman driving the car.
‘What about the body discovered in Berlin?’
The lights flashed ahead of them, but the sirens had stopped wailing. Annie Dvorak breathed heavily in the back, her gaze fixed on the younger woman.
‘Cara was, is, the most resourceful person I’ve ever met. She’d suffer as much as she needed to complete her objectives.’ Astrid rested her damaged wrist in her good hand. ‘She must have planned this for a long time. It wouldn’t have been hard to find somebody of similar weight, height and facial features. Then she snipped her doppelganger’s fingers off and dumped them somewhere. While we all thought it was a serial killer collecting trophies, she used this to hide behind everyone believing she was dead.’ There was admiration in Astrid’s voice, regardless of how much pain it had cost her and those murdered agents. ‘And Frank covered up anything out of the ordinary in the autopsy or from the coroner.’
She remembered how much Frank Delaney hated her and how he said he’d do anything for his sister.
‘She killed her brother?’ Pain lurked in Laurel’s eyes.
‘They had a complicated relationship.’
Astrid opened the door and stepped onto the side of the road. Up ahead, the traffic was jammed as far as she could see. Laurel got out the car, walking around to stand next to her.
‘What aren’t you telling me?’
Astrid stared beyond the flashing lights, wondering how many were dead or injured. These feelings of concern and empathy were both wondrous and crippling, but she didn’t want them hampering her in the pursuit of Cara Delaney.
‘Cara is damaged. I’m damaged. It’s what drew us together.’ The slight tremor in her lips betrayed the calmness in her voice. ‘She was already broken when we met. I just created more pieces that she couldn’t put back together.’
‘Damaged, in what way?’ Laurel said.
The drivers on the opposite side slowed down to gawp at the accident before accelerating towards Portsmouth. The sun was low in the sky, with vast shards of yellow shooting through the blue and white canvas, warming them both as they stared at the destruction ahead.
‘I was twenty-three when we met. She was twenty-one. I was the first person to say “I love you” to her.’
Astrid stood at the roadside as the lights went by on the other side, her mind a jumble of sights and sounds of Cara Delaney: Cara’s eternal sobbing when she told her it was over; her anguished face when Astrid ignored all the pleading. The memories were as if she gazed at an alternative version of herself which didn’t exist anymore.
‘You ended the relationship, I get that, but why would it create such bitterness in her?’
Astrid turned to Laurel and told her about Cara Delaney’s early life.
‘Cara grew up in a household where she believed she was invisible. She was a non-person to her parents and her brother. Mother and father showed her no emotions, took no interest in her life beyond food, clothes and shelter. Whether intentional or not, they denied her the one thing she desperately needed. All her life, she cried out for love, and then she thought she’d found it with me. It was different for me. My parents were violent and abusive; nothing but negative emotions.’
Sorrow, remorse, sadness and regret saturated Astrid’s words. There was a stone in her heart, and she feared the weight would drag her into an inescapable abyss. ‘When Cara unburdened herself to me, I was struck by the similarities between us. There were many differences, but the emotional wreckage was the same. I thought Cara’s revelations would release my feelings from the crippling burden oppressing me, that they would produce a spark of empathy for the woman I wanted to love. But it was the opposite, forcing my memories back into the void at the centre of me and pushing Cara away. I knew I’d hate her for it if I didn’t get away from her.’
‘And that’s why you ended it in Berlin?’
‘I had to. Cara was starting to unravel, and I couldn’t help her. It had taken me a long time to get control of my past, and I wouldn’t let her problems resurrect mine; especially when she became obsessed with things beyond the reach of her memory.’
‘What things?’
‘She believed something terrible happened to her when she was a child. Cara didn’t know if it was real or if it was a false memory. Either way, it messed up her head at a time when she needed love and support from those who didn’t provide it. And that confusion never left her.’
‘What about Cara’s brother? What about Frank?’ The vehicles started to move ahead of them, and they would have to get back into the car soon. ‘Why would she kill him?’
‘Like I said, it was a complicated relationship. In the Delaney household, both kids were ignored, bereft of love and any encouragement. Frank handled it better than Cara, six years difference between them in age. She blamed him for not looking after her, forgetting he was only a kid himself and that the adults in the house never took any responsibility themselves. I think she resented him all her life, while he loved her, but was incapable of showing it.’
‘She was waiting for someone like you to come along and give her everything she’d wanted but never had.’ Laurel laid her fingers on Astrid’s right cheek.
‘And then I took it from her again.’ Astrid turned away and slipped into the car. Laurel got inside and switched on the engine as Annie and George sat silently in the back. ‘We need to get you two safe.’
The pain receded in her wrist, allowing her to move it a little. She was wishing she had more time to get reacquainted with George when something caught her attention. A tiny light flickered on his shirt, a few inches below his neck, and there was something similar on Annie. She reached across to him, placed her fingers on the top button, and found the miniature camera hiding there. She pulled it away in one go, turned her head to the front of the car, and held the device up to the light. She peered straight into it, knowing Cara was at the other end.
‘That’s an Agency surveillance camera,’ Laurel said.
‘She’s been spying on us the whole time.’ Hidden fingers clawed at Astrid’s gut as the car passed the debris of the accident. She stared at the device, hoping her piercing gaze would travel down the connection and smash Cara straight between the eyes. ‘This is good for us. George can take these into the Agency and they’ll be able to trace where she is, or perhaps retrieve some of what came through both cameras.’
Astrid clasped her fingers over the lens, obscuring anything Cara could see. She turned back to Annie, reached over and removed her camera. With both devices in her hand, she fixed on the windscreen. They were thirty miles from London, and the road was clear. She was about to drop the cameras into her pocket when they started vibrating inside her hand: sounds hummed from both of them.
‘What’s that music?’ Laurel asked.
Astrid opened her fingers, recognising the song as soon as the noise hit her ears.
‘It’s Suffragette City.’
The colour drained from her face, the pain returned to her wrist, and her voice trembled as if she was about to collapse.
‘The David Bowie song?’ George said. ‘What does it mean?’
Astrid had no doubt.
‘I have to save Olivia.’