Two days after Nancy Okorie saw Michael Foster, she left St. Mary’s Hospital at 2:00 p.m. and walked over to Hyde Park. She’d just finished a backbreaking set of double shifts. Working for the Foster family meant she had to make up hours she owed to the hospital. She finally got two days off. She would spend them traveling instead of relaxing. No matter. The journey meant everything to her. Two years in the making, but soon she would see him again.
She’d been able to save every penny she’d earned over the past five weeks. The money from the Fosters proved a godsend. Nancy had been extraordinarily lucky to land the additional employment. She pushed her luck, asking to be paid in cash. Suzanne Foster didn’t blink. In a startling display of trust, the woman even offered to pay up front. Nancy accepted with gratitude.
Today Nancy would betray that trust. She saw no other choice. Suzanne and Brian Foster went to great lengths to protect their family. She must do the same for hers.
Every day after work, she went through the same ritual. Even before she took off her coat, she sat on the edge of her neatly made bed in the tiny room of the boarding house she called home and pulled out a small tin box from underneath the mattress. She counted the pound notes. There was enough to settle her younger brother and float him a small loan while he looked for work.
She looked forward to taking him around to see the sights of London. What fun that would be! For all his book knowledge, Jonathon had little experience of the real world. She had no doubt the last week or so of traveling had been an education for him. And he hadn’t even arrived at one of the world’s grandest cities.
At Hyde Park, she picked up the tube to Piccadilly Station, transferred to the Jubilee Line, and exited across the Thames at Southwark Station. The trip took sixteen minutes. In some ways, she wished it had taken an eternity.
The area around Guy Hospital hummed with activity. South London was in the midst of a second wave of gentrification. The industrial plants, tanneries, and knitting mills of the nineteenth century had long ago disappeared; so did the filthy slums that inspired authors like Charles Dickens. Modestly priced flats and semidetached homes had taken their place, built to house an influx of early twentieth century immigrants. Now those were coming down to accommodate a slew of upmarket residential and commercial properties.
London, like so many other cities in Europe, was becoming unaffordable for most of the people who worked there.
Nancy turned away from the cranes and the bulldozers and walked toward Leathermarket Park. A bit of the early morning dampness had burned off. The soft winter sun made the stroll quite enjoyable. To take her mind off her task, she took note of the intricate walkways that crisscrossed the park. In late spring and early summer, strollers came upon a raised circular rose garden in the center as well as an array of flowerbeds.
Even in February’s dim sun, the place provided a welcome respite from the sound of nonstop development. Already, progress intruded in the shape of the recently completed skyscraper known as the Shard. Many architects and others praised its innovative design. Nancy didn’t much care for the way its sharpened point thrust skyward.
She took a seat on a relatively secluded park bench, one with a back she could lean against. She turned up the collar of her good tweed coat against the damp air and pulled her brown leather bag close. She found it difficult not to fidget. She glanced at her watch, patted her tightly pinned braids, and peered to each side, noting the absence of park visitors.
At 2:30 p.m. a man in a belted brown trench coat and a hat pulled low over his brow materialized out of nowhere, or so it seemed to Nancy. He sat down next to her and stared straight ahead. Had she not felt so afraid, she might have laughed. He looked like a character in a third-rate spy novel or a comedic film. She expected to hear him speak with an overripe British accent.
To her surprise, his voice was flat, the dialect American. A barely discernable emphasis suggested that English might not be the speaker’s mother tongue.
“Thanks for meeting me on such short notice, Nancy. I know you have places to be.”
Nancy didn’t appreciate the tone, which managed to be both brusque and snide.
“I do. Shall we get on with it, then? Here is the address you requested.”
The man turned to face her. He might be described as attractive, she supposed, with a straight nose, light olive skin, dark hair (what she could see of it under his hat), and a strong chin. Clean-shaven with wire-rim glasses. Somewhere between thirty and forty years old. His eyes caught her attention. They were a shade of blue that bordered on purple.
He reached for the piece of paper she offered and scanned it. Then he withdrew a lighter from his pocket and set the scrap on fire.
“Bloody hell! What have you done?”
“I’ve seen it and I’ve committed it to memory, Nancy. That’s all that matters.” The man stamped at the fallen embers, brushed the ashes neatly into his gloved hand, and pocketed them.
She tried to calm her thundering heart. “I’ve given you what you asked for,” she said, her voice stern. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take my brother’s papers now.”
“Papers?”
“Don’t play coy with me, you. I’ve done your bidding. Your end of the bargain was to get my brother out of jail and into France. Which you’ve apparently done. I received word yesterday he’s waiting in Calais. I just need the proper UK documentation you promised me, and I’ll be on my way. In fact,”—she made a show of looking at her watch— “I really need to move along.”
Her fear emboldened her, allowing her to stare at this violet-eyed man who held her brother’s fate in his hands. He smiled. He had a beautiful, chilling smile.
“Right, right, the papers. You see, I’m afraid we’ve run into a bit of a stumbling block. That phone call you got? A ruse. Your brother died in prison six weeks ago.” He shrugged, as if apologizing for a reservation mix-up or an overdue library book. “Probably for the best. Given how they tortured him, I’m surprised he made it that long. The news pretty much broke your mother’s heart, as you can well imagine. She passed away yesterday. Condolences to the family. Although you don’t seem to have one, do you? Dear me.”
Nancy felt as if she might shatter. All of the turmoil she’d repressed, the concern, excitement, the anticipation and yes, the guilt she felt over betraying the Fosters rushed to the surface in a tsunami of grief and anger.
“You knew. You lying piece of trash. You knew this whole time.”
“I did. Although there’s no need for name-calling.”
She wanted to kill him. She at least ached to smash his teeth and pummel the life out of him. She didn’t dare.
She rose to leave. The good-looking, violet-eyed man grabbed her by both arms and pulled her down to him. She struggled, but he tightened his grip and shook her so hard she felt as if her entire body might break.
“No more fun and games, Nancy. You will be quiet and stay still. We don’t want a scene. This is hard to take, I know. Frankly, I wouldn’t want to live with the kind of pain you must be feeling right about now. Fortunately, I won’t have to, and neither will you.”
He pinned her with one arm. He produced a syringe and jabbed it into the back of her neck before dropping it back into his pocket. In an oddly intimate gesture, he brushed a strand of hair off her shocked face and leaned her back against the bench.
Unable to speak or move, she watched the man dust himself off and straighten his hat.
“The serum won’t take but a minute. It shouldn’t even hurt too much, although I’ve never asked the others.”
Nancy stared.
“It’ll look like a heart attack,” the man continued. “You’re young for it, but you’ve led a difficult life.” He stood and patted her on the shoulder. She couldn’t feel it. “Good day and godspeed, Nancy Okorie.”
The violet-eyed man pivoted and walked away.
A flock of starlings took flight from the oak tree across the walkway. She watched them rise into the afternoon sky. She let out one last sigh. The breath that escaped her lifted into the air and disappeared into the shadow of the Shard.
~
“It’s done.”
“You completed the task?”
“Yes. As you requested.” He lit a cigarette and leaned against the stone facade of a café, out of the eye of any probing security cameras. He’d picked up the burner phone from a storefront five minutes ago. Holding it to his ear, he surveyed the crowds of retail-hungry and brand-savvy shoppers clogging Oxford Street. Commerce, meet acquisition. The same in every city and every country in every part of the world.
“How is the weather?”
He shifted his position, hunched his shoulders. “You know how it is,” he said to his employer. “Damp and thoroughly unpleasant.”
“You should be used to it after the winters you endured. You won’t have to put up with it much longer. I’m sending you someplace warmer.”
“Thank God. Where’s Gabriel, by the way? Still in Florida romancing the crone?” He chuckled at his own joke.
“I’ve just sent him to New York on an errand.”
“Not one like mine, I hope.”
“Don’t be difficult. You each have your strengths. Gabriel is going to see a man who has information vital to us. He can be extraordinarily persuasive. Besides, he has some leverage. Don’t worry. He won’t be involved with anything dangerous. I foresee a positive outcome.”
The man with the violet eyes stubbed out his cigarette and pocketed the remains.
“I hope you’re right. We don’t need to contend with any more bodies.”
“On the contrary, Lucas. I think we do.”