By the tenth day, Astrid had covered half the ceiling with a swirl of colours, sketches and words in many languages. The centrepiece was a giant fox with text underneath written in Mandarin. Either side of it were small drawings of faces, more like caricatures when she stared at them from the bed. Astrid was a perfectionist in everything she did, but she’d had trouble with some faces. A lot of them were from her past, and she’d struggled to remember what they looked like.
She scribbled some words in Urdu underneath a few of them before lying back and staring at the space she’d left. Including the floor, there wouldn’t be enough to get through the next few days unless she eased off. But that meant slowing her brain, which was impossible. She’d contemplated a solution before the Agency presented her with one on the eleventh day.
Astrid realised Lee was outside the cell before she activated the security lock. Laurel was too silent for a rookie. A whiff of lemon and honey from her perfume, and Astrid was alert. She smiled as the door unlocked.
‘You’re a talented artist,’ Laurel said as she entered the room. ‘What does the artwork signify?’
Astrid moved from the bed. ‘Who says it has to signify anything; art for art’s sake and all that.’
‘I studied art at college. My tutors said everything artistic represents something.’
Astrid tossed out her hooks. ‘Is that why you joined the army? For a proper education?’
Laurel ignored the questions, inching closer to the centre of the room for a better look at Astrid’s work.
‘The fox seems familiar, as do some surrounding sketches.’ Laurel’s hands were on the wall, fingers moving across the artwork. Astrid laughed.
‘We both know the Agency have photographed all I’ve done from every angle, blown it up and pored over every inch.’ Laurel had left the cell door half open. Astrid moved closer to it, peering through the gap to see if guards waited for her outside. The corridor was surprisingly empty. ‘How many agents are there who read Mandarin or Urdu? Just a few, I bet, but they have computers to translate what I wrote, right?’
‘There are bits of your text they can’t translate, the important parts which add meaning to the sentences.’
Laurel pushed up on her toes, stretching like a giraffe to get a better look at the ceiling. She seemed oblivious to Astrid peering at her like a cheque waiting to be cashed. Astrid laughed again, quieter this time as if she wanted to keep it a secret between the two of them.
‘Doesn’t it worry you, Laurel, that even though I’m stuck here, isolated for over ten days, I can still outwit the thousands of people the Agency uses?’ Astrid wasn’t bragging, only curious as to when Agent Laurel Lee would have her epiphany about her employers.
‘You’re no ordinary woman, Snow.’ Her eyes sparkled as she spoke, and Astrid wanted to take a bath inside those clear blue waters. Just the thought of it made her realise how terrible she must smell.
‘Okay, I’ll explain everything, but only on one condition.’
Laurel paused for a second. ‘Which is?’
‘Take me for a shower; I must stink like holy hell.’
They smiled together, and Astrid was curious why the woman with the crucifix hanging around her neck wasn’t offended by her choice of words.
‘I didn’t want to mention it, but you do reek a bit.’ Her professionalism disappeared into puddles of laughter.
‘Thanks, but I’m sure it’s much more than a bit.’
They both grinned again, Astrid noticing how easily Lee had given in to the request. That’s when she realised Laurel was there to take her away. The watchers had finished with their observations. Agent Lee pointed at the large animal in the centre of the wall.
‘You’re very talented.’
Astrid wondered if Laurel was speaking only about the art as she gazed at her work. Inside her head, she had a gigantic map containing all the directions plotted for where her life might go from now. Most were grim and desperate, but two strands provided hope. The Agency’s attempt to deprive her of stimulation had backfired. She permitted herself a delicate smirk as she replied.
‘That’s Reynard the Fox; from Chaucer and European folklore.’ Laurel shook her head, which disappointed Astrid. ‘He was a trickster in a world of anthropomorphic animals, deceiving his fellow creatures for his gain. Do you know who the sketches are?’
‘Some; we ran them through facial recognition, but didn’t get them all.’
‘That’s my fault, but not a deliberate attempt to deceive. I struggled to remember what they looked like.’
Lee switched her gaze from the wall to Astrid. ‘They’re all agents you’ve slept with?’
Astrid fell onto the bed and creased up with laughter. ‘Jesus Christ, Laurel, is that how bad my reputation is?’
The convulsions decreased, and she was back under control, though her stomach and jaw ached. Astrid didn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so much.
‘I’m sorry, Snow, it was only a guess.’
Lee appeared crestfallen by her faux pas. Astrid pushed herself off the bed, stood up straight and inched closer to the other woman. She wanted to plonk both hands onto Laurel’s shoulders and give her a lecture, only stopped by the thought of those who would sprint into the room and pin her to the floor if she did.
‘I’ve slept with two of my colleagues.’ Astrid peered at Laurel. ‘Possibly three.’
‘You don’t know?’ Laurel’s voice trembled.
‘It gets confusing sometimes, but it doesn’t matter. They were all mistakes, and I learnt valuable lessons from them. Plenty of others wanted to and tried, all of whom failed.’ Astrid pushed her shoulders back and put both hands on her hips. ‘No, my badly drawn boys and girls are all agents I’ve worked with, about thirty of them.’
Laurel appeared puzzled, lowering her eyes and staring at the head sketches. ‘You’ve only worked with thirty agents?’
‘All people I’ve worked with and pissed off.’
‘Oh.’
‘You believed it would be more?’
‘No. I never thought that at all.’ Laurel crossed her arms and clenched her fists.
‘Okay, enough flirting; take me to the shower.’
Astrid walked past her and out the cell before Lee replied. She stared at both ends of the empty corridor, picturing a smaller version of herself running down her map of possibilities as if at the centre of a board game. Where she stood now only led to jail, another cell, worse than the one she’d spent the last eleven days inside.
‘I didn’t flirt with you.’
Laurel closed the door behind her, and they went to the lift. Astrid said nothing until they were inside and it was moving up.
‘But I flirted with you.’ Laurel turned a fresh pink. Astrid could touch her in this confined space, and nobody would do anything about it, but she didn’t, getting tantalisingly close enough to hear Lee’s increased breathing. ‘Is there room for two in this shower?’
Astrid grinned, planning on how to get out of the building as the younger woman’s skin transformed into a vibrant red.
The second one was harder than expected. After Agent Storm and the unforeseen pleasure of choking him, I believed everything else would go smoothly, but I didn’t anticipate how attached I’d get to her. We took the flight to Berlin with assumed names and fake passports and shared the hotel room for three nights like a new couple. I’d spun a story of my recent fortuitous inheritance, a long-lost aunt who’d fallen from the Eiffel Tower while attempting to take an elaborate and extravagant selfie.
‘Lavish and ravish,’ she’d said between raucous laughter and intoxicating champagne.
‘Have you visited Berlin before?’ I asked.
The mischievous glint in her eye sent a shiver through me. ‘I’ve had good times and bad times here.’ She reached over and took my hand. ‘But, as the song says, life’s what you make it.’
The sex was fantastic, the best I’d had for years; she had no inhibitions, open to all my suggestions. I didn’t remember the last time I was so happy, my mind shifting into dangerous thoughts and wondering what it would have been like if we’d met under different circumstances. Berlin is beautiful at night, the lights shining around the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag, illuminating them to where they weren’t mere buildings anymore, but constructs straight from the Twilight of the Gods. I expected the Valkyrie to swoop down and whisk me away. How joyous that would be to feel the lips of a Hell Maiden against mine. And I remembered the history of where we were, holding hands together as we stared at the bullet holes in the Reichstag; feeling our hearts tighten at the memorial for those who’d died under the Nazi occupation; walking solemnly through Brandenburg and down the street of lime trees.
The joy on her face told me she was as happy as I. She talked tentatively about plans for us. And that’s when I grasped why I was so pleased: I understood we had no future together beyond Berlin; knew she’d die at my hands; knew I was in complete control. The realisation was euphoric, and when she gazed into my eyes, she saw it too, knowing it was all for her, but mistaking the reason.
On the third night, I suggested a romantic interlude at a secluded spot by the river. She thought I meant sex, but I had something much more pleasurable in mind, the anticipation of it more magnificent than any orgasm.
‘You’ve made me feel loved again,’ she said as I readied for her death. ‘I never thought I would, but there’s something about you which lifts my heart so I can forget the past.’
She was kidding herself; none of us could ever forget our past. We might fill our heads with new experiences, cram our brains with drugs and alcohol, but those memories which forged who we are would never leave us. And that’s why I was using them to recreate myself in the image I should always have been.
I slipped my hand into my pocket and touched the plastic, the greatest prophylactic ever. I told her to kneel and close her eyes, the moonlight reflecting off the water and providing me with enough illumination to slip the bag over her head. She was easier than Storm, not struggling at all as if she’d given up on life and our trip away was a brief prelude to her voyage into the next world.
‘It’s better for you this way,’ I said as the light dissipated from her eyes. I perceived my actions not as banal evil things, but as precious moments of relief for those I blessed with my touch. They were still only cogs spinning towards my goal, but now I had a greater understanding of the gift I had; the gift I delivered.
When it was over, I slipped her body into the river, and it floated like a Viking funeral without the fire. I smelt her fragrance of lavender in my hair and on my lips as she drifted from me. Her fingers were in mine as she disappeared out of sight. It had become a ritual.
A ritual I’d never sacrifice.