Present day
I’m in my office, just off the open plan central workspace that Beth has always occupied and where she would have several computers running, doing various searches at once. Ray had told me she would be sharing this with Elsa when she returned to work. Confirming that Elsa was here to stay for the foreseeable future.
‘There was flunitrazepam in the tea,’ Elliot says as though he can’t wait to share this information with me.
I look up from my computer and see him at the door. I wave him into my office.
‘Take a seat,’ I say.
‘How did you know by looking at her?’ Elliot asks sitting down on the other side of my desk. ‘Only the drug doesn’t have any smell and doesn’t leave any physical marks. I also found traces in the urine that was still in her bladder which confirmed that she’d definitely had some.’
I tell him my observations as voiced to Elsa before he’d arrived on the scene. Elliot nods, and I know it’s because he understands this as well as I do. He has also been trained to observe and theorize. The difference between us is that he can prove his findings with science, and I rely on him to back up the theories I make with medical evidence. Or from a psychological viewpoint, a similar case that confirms my ideas.
‘Was she… raped?’
‘No,’ Elliot says. ‘And there was no sign of her fighting off an attacker, or any bruising to show a struggle.’
I frown as I picture her again in the bath. ‘She was staying in the apartment alone, travelling from Ireland. Then she was targeted by our killer. But I’m having difficulty finding a motive. None of it makes sense.’
‘She hadn’t met up with friends?’ Elliot asks.
‘Not that I know of. The Irish Garda have taken it up over there. But I may need to fly over and examine the girl’s computer. Apparently her sister said she was talking to someone online and she thought she’d gone to meet them,’ I explain.
‘That’s odd. Possible grooming but no sexual motive,’ Elliot says.
‘Unless the death was sexual enough for the killer,’ I say.
Elliot shrugs. ‘Your department, not mine.’
‘Have you seen Beth?’ I ask changing the subject.
He looks sheepish, ‘Yes. Last night. I was worried about her being alone in the house. Especially the first night.’
‘Good,’ I say. ‘I was concerned too. But I think she was sick of my company at the safe house.’
‘Well there’s nothing like your own home, is there?’ Elliot says. ‘Anyway, I just wanted you to know what I’d found. The full report will be emailed across later today.’
Elliot stands up and goes out. A few seconds later Beth comes in.
‘Oh, you’re back!’ I say. ‘Elliot didn’t tell me you’d travelled in together. Now it makes sense why he came into the office and didn’t just call me.’
Beth blushes. ‘Yes, well. The shrink has given me the okay to return,’ she says.
‘How do you feel?’ I say.
‘Like… I need to get back to work,’ Beth says. ‘I just met Elsa…’
She lets this hang in the air waiting for me to comment. I don’t.
‘Well, it’s nice not to be the only girl around here now,’ she says. ‘And our workload has been crazy recently.’
‘It’s good to have you back, Beth,’ I say.
Beth goes out. A few moments later I hear her showing Elliot out.
I turn back to the pile of papers and folders building up on my desk. More cold cases have arrived this week than usual. We are still looking for links to the Network. But it is good Beth is back. Elsa is still so inexperienced and although having her around is better than not, she has a lot of training to do before she will become really useful to us.
I open the top file and see the face of a little girl looking back at me. The picture is black and white. A very old case – fifty-five years ago. This is a 5-year-old girl called Zaphire D’Aragon who vanished from her family estate in Toulouse, France. I can tell she has fair hair but not the exact colour. I study the child’s face. She looks like any child of that age, and the file doesn’t tell me much about her except… she was a twin. Interesting. The twin sister remained safely with the parents, but Zaphire was never found. If Zaphire was taken by the Network, it’s possible that one or more of her parents was involved with Beech. Which means they willingly gave over their daughter. Power and money are great motivators. I make a note to send this information over to our counterparts in Interpol to investigate further.
I shut the file and stare at the wall of my office, filled as it is with Post-its and photographs of all known Network agents. There is only a computer-generated photofit of Neva but I find my eyes drawn to it.
The assassin in me rises and that uncontrollable rage surges up once more as I look at the picture. I can’t shake how stupid this all makes me feel. Let alone the utter squirming embarrassment I continue to experience whenever discussions with Ray, Leon or Beth lead back to Neva. I can feel their eyes on me sometimes. I almost hear the unspoken questions that hangs between us like accusations. How could she have duped you, Michael? How could someone of your skills not know what she really was?
I should have seen it coming. But Neva is not just a good spy, she is probably the best. But this knowledge doesn’t stop me feeling a great deal of self-loathing. It doesn’t prevent me thinking I’m a failure. Or from imagining I would kill her right now if I could get my hands on her.
My hands clench into fists. My jaw sets and I glare at the picture, imagining my hands around her throat, stifling her breath as well as her treacherous and seductive words. But the thought of ending Neva doesn’t give me any satisfaction. It just compounds my misery: I regret she’s gone, even though I now know the truth about her.
‘Hey,’ says Beth from the door. ‘Penny for them?’
She follows my gaze to the incident board. ‘We’ll get her Mike,’ she says. ‘We’ll get them all.’
I uncramp my hands and nod, straightening my tell-tale expression. How can I possibly explain my thoughts to Beth? They are so confused, even I don’t understand them.
I wish I had Beth’s confidence.
I’ve taken to wearing my Glock 17 full time now, as Beth and I, and perhaps everyone else in Archive, are no longer safe. Neva has learned too much about us.
‘Anyway,’ says Beth. ‘I came in to tell you, your sister Mia is on the secure line. Want to come and talk to her?’
‘Yeah. That’d be great.’
When I finish my call with Mia, I feel a little better. Mia is the one anchor in my life that remains constant. I would sacrifice anything for her and my beautiful niece, Freya. And, indeed, I had lost everything I had thought I wanted because of my loyalty to her.
A few weeks ago, Neva and I rushed to Mia’s side in a bid to protect her from the Network. I thought I was defending my sister, but there I learned all about the double life of my brother-in-law, Ben Cusick. A further blow and betrayal to us both. Ben had shown his hand when he thought I’d been triggered again by the Network. He revealed he had been working for MI6 and had lied to Mia for years. The revelation was a shock to both Mia and me and had almost crippled their marriage. But now they are working on it and Mia, Ben and their daughter Freya have been given new identities. Even I don’t know where they are but Mia is allowed a weekly call to a secure line in MI5 so that I can at least know they are safe and well. A situation that is very hard on us both. I’d sworn to protect Mia and Freya and now that task had been taken away from me. I’m dreading the day when the calls will have to stop because Mia will have to transition fully into her new life, without further contact with me. I’ll never be able to see or speak to her again and I’ll never see my niece grow up.
There is a rising panic inside me as I anticipate the approaching end of our small contact, and worse still that I will have to go through the rest of my life trusting that they are both safe, but never knowing for sure if that’s so.
Even so, I have to accept it is important that Mia disappears because once we both belonged to the Network, and now they want to call in their assets. Mia doesn’t know this. Or at least not all of it. She has been told some truths. Like the fact that the couple that brought us up weren’t really our parents. But she doesn’t know that Will and Annie Kensington are dead – executed by Neva. I chose not to tell her, just as I didn’t want her to learn that I was a trained killer, and that she might have been groomed as a breeder for the Network’s kill house.
Since Mia, Ben and Freya would be starting a new life, it wasn’t necessary to burden her with more. After I’d outed Ben, he told me privately that Mia had been suffering with anxiety that Freya would be taken from them. It’s likely to be caused by some deep-seated memory that she was drawing on from the conditioning. She is sheltered now, and the Network can’t find her. So, I hope my sister will never have to experience the trauma of giving up my niece to the house of killers.
But even as I tell myself Mia is safe, I regret her lack of full knowledge about our past. Forewarned is forearmed, after all. And one of the issues that stopped me leaving with Neva and going to Mia’s aid instead was that Mia didn’t know she was in danger.
For that reason, I didn’t take the decision to keep all of this extra baggage from her lightly. Mia’s marriage was on a precipice, more knowledge might be the burden that could tip it over the edge. Even so, it means that Ben can’t come clean about everything he knows either. An added pressure on him, though after spending six years lying to her already, I doubt he will find it that difficult now. There is always the fear though that Mia will learn he is keeping more from her. All of which isn’t good and she may see it as further betrayal. Can their marriage recover from more deceit and lies? I don’t know. All I can hope for is that they can rebuild their lives together and that Ben is strong enough to keep my sister and niece safe, no matter what.
But Mia’s call had been reassuring on that front. She’d talked about Ben and Freya and it appeared that they were getting back to normal. I hoped so anyway. They need to be united now more than ever.