sending a shower of sparks over the room, where they started to smoulder on the rugs and on the furniture. Hastily, I managed to put them out with the fire extinguisher. When the last of the glowing embers had been stamped out, I threw the extinguisher into the corner of the room in frustration and tore my hands through my hair.
‘What is it?’ I shouted angrily. ‘Circle 9! The Ninth Circle! I don’t know what it is, you fucking idiots! If you don’t realise that by now, then you really are the most fucking useless angels-’ I broke off suddenly, my hands clamped over my mouth in horror. Christ, what was I doing? What was I thinking, swearing at angels? What a vile, disgusting, unforgivable thing to do!
‘I’m… I’m sorry… I’m sorry. Forgive me, God,’ I stammered, head bowed, half fearing that I might be struck down by lightning where I stood.
And then I froze, finally realising in a flash of enlightenment what the angels were trying to tell me. Cold fear prickled on my skin. The computer disc that I had given to Toby, with
instructions for it to be handed back at a certain time… The disc that I had been unable to access because I did not have the eight-digit password… CIRCLEIX.
As soon as I came to this conclusion, the burning messages all disappeared from the walls and the furniture and the floor with a suddenness that made the ensuing quiet darkness seem strange and unnatural. I retrieved the disc from its hiding place in the cupboard, sat down at my computer and loaded up the programme.
And then I hesitated when the password box came up on the screen once again, tempted just to turn the computer off now and destroy the disc once and for all so that I might never know what was on it. But even as these thoughts filled my mind, the burning message appeared once again, with alarming ferocity, in the wood of the desk; and quite suddenly I found I was afraid of the angels and what they might do to me if I didn’t do what they wanted. I already knew that they were not above violence, and that they were not above killing people when they had to.
‘All right,’ I said aloud and at once the message disappeared, leaving identical burn marks in its place.
I typed in the password.
The box disappeared and a message came up to replace it: ‘Password Confirmed.’ Then the screen loaded up, and I forced myself to look as a list of filenames appeared on the screen. They were people’s names. Some of them were English, some French, some Chinese and Spanish, Korean and Australian… And then my eye fell on one name that I knew. Anna Sovanak. Automatically, I double clicked to open the file. It was a video file, no more than thirty minutes long. But it was enough. Enough to show me what had really happened to that woman, and what my connection to her had been. And I knew that the video spoke the truth. That it was not fabricated or doctored in any way. I knew because suddenly I could remember it all.
I remembered my real name: Gilligan Connor. I remembered renting that isolated villa on the Italian coast purposefully because it was quite near to the spot that Anna Sovanak and her family were vacationing. I remembered striking up a friendship with Anna on the beach — a meeting that had nothing whatsoever to do with chance, despite outward appearances. I remember sympathising with her as she confided in me about her problems with her husband. His rudeness, the way he took her for granted, the way he never did anything to help round the house, the way he didn’t romance her as he’d once done. And I listened patiently to her complaints about the problems she had with her children and her job and her friends.
I don’t think Anna was a woman naturally given to whining and complaining, but people like to talk about themselves and probably find something freeing in talking with a sympathetic stranger they are unlikely to see again after their holiday.
We met a couple of times down on the beach when she had stormed out after arguing with her husband. It did make it very easy for me, but I would have found another way if I’d had to. I always did.
I asked Anna to come back to my villa for a drink one day and she happily accepted, clearly hoping for an adulterous sexual relationship and finding the idea of a holiday fling appealing after the family problems she’d been having. And, of course, there was also the fact that I was younger than her husband, with none of his middle-aged fat since my body was well-toned from years and years of disciplined training. When we got back to my villa, I made her a drink and we sat down on the couch on the veranda.
The private white beach stretching out before us, the salty tang of the waves filling the air, and the muffled roar of the surf made it the perfect romantic spot. She’d only had a couple of drinks before she was kissing me. I laughed at her eagerness as her cocktail glass shattered on the floor and buttons were torn off my shirt. She sucked in her breath in pleased surprise as she ran her hands over the toned muscles of my chest and abdomen.
‘Aren’t you lean?’ she teased me. ‘You must work out all the time!’
‘Every day,’ I acknowledged with a smile, speaking softly in her ear.
She giggled as I drew her away from the cream couch, towards the beach… What are beaches there for anyway? She had asked me this bitterly one day while complaining of her husband’s inaction. I had never seen the attraction of beaches, myself. But this was for Anna, not for me. So we went down together in the sand, her eyes shining in excitement at the vile deliciousness of cheating on the person you’re supposed to love. I was aware of her hand caressing the back of my neck as, slowly, one by one, I teased the buttons of her shirt undone
… Then, while her hands were busy fumbling with my belt, I reached for the knife that was concealed at my ankle, and stabbed her in the neck with it.
We lay there, still for a moment, while she bled out under me. I knew where to do it so that her death would be relatively painless, almost instantaneous. The hidden video camera set up on the veranda caught everything. It was quite easy to wrap up her body in the plastic sheeting, put her in a crate, put the crate on board the little fishing boat I had rented, row out a little way and then drop the crate overboard into the Mediterranean.
I had planned for it all to take place on the beach because the ocean would wash away the bloodstained sand without my having to take any action to clean it up. The villa was filled with cream furniture and white sheets that would not have been so easy to clean — and it would never do to have mess. Mess was inefficient and led to too many questions.
I scrubbed and scrubbed at my hands in the bathroom afterwards so that not a drop of Anna’s blood remained, not even traces beneath my fingernails. Then I took all my clothes off and dropped them into a bath full of hot water to soak. As the water slowly turned red in the tub, I showered and removed all traces from my hair and skin. I do this every time. I can’t stand to be covered in someone else’s blood and, as I said before, it just doesn’t do to have mess.
Why did I kill Anna Sovanak? Why did I do it? Had she wronged me at some point in the past? Was she responsible for the death of someone I cared about? Was I in love with her? Was it jealousy? Envy? Spite? Was it a crime of passion? I believe I could have almost lived with myself if it had been a crime of passion. A crime of passion was still inexcusable, still inherently wicked… but at least it was understandable. There was some human element in the act. But the truth was, I felt nothing for Anna. No like or dislike. Nothing. I killed her because somebody paid me to.
The government, to be more precise — as they had paid me to commit countless other murders. We were not like James Bond. It was made quite clear to all assassins from the very beginning that if we ever got into trouble we’d be on our own. The government would not formally acknowledge us in any way. The Queen was never going to pin medals on any of our chests… We were the ones who got our hands dirty, and our superiors were grateful for that because it took the pressure off them, but at the same time — of course — it meant that they did not want to touch us.
I didn’t dare to open any more of the video files, but as my eyes ran down the names, I remembered each and every one of them… The poison, the guns, the knives, the strangulation, the blood… My employers insisted on video cameras where possible to make sure we didn’t back out as a consequence of becoming too attached to our marks. It had been known to happen, although never to me.
I couldn’t prevent the memories cascading in with a force that dazzled me, blinded me. I am an assassin. Life and death within the same body. Truly, a person of the In Between. I stared at the computer screen for a moment, wishing I could doubt it. Wishing I could deny what I knew to be true. But I remembered this. There was no Nicky. There was no Luke. They were just stories created to placate me, and then elaborated upon by a demon trying to manipulate me. I’ve only ever lived in grotty little flats or motels by myself. I am an orphan, as he said. I never got the chance to have a real family. After the incident at the orphanage, I had been almost overcome with the horror of what I had done, so far as my childish mind could truly grasp what had happened. It was not my fault he’d fallen. I was not to blame. But still it marked my life for ever.
And I had had no choice when the secret services had come to take me away from the orphanage. I had
