Kills Well with Others (Killers of a Certain Age #2)

Chapter Six

June 1982

Pemberton nannies are renowned for two things: discretion and expense. They are trained for three years at a college in Kent where they learn how to soothe a toothache, potty-train a toddler, and de-escalate adolescent meltdowns. They are also taught how to thwart a would-be kidnapping, to disarm an intruder, and to detect unwanted surveillance. These are the super-nannies, employed by royal families, socialites, and power brokers all over the world. They move quietly behind their employers, discreet, attentive, and perfectly trained. There is no cachet quite like the smooth ride of a Silver Cross pram being pushed by a Pemberton nanny.

“I can’t believe we have to wear hats,” Natalie moans from the back seat. “I mean, the gloves are bad enough, but these hats. ” She leans forward to peer at herself in the rearview mirror. She tweaks the small porkpie hat to a different angle over the auburn waves of her wig.

In the front seat, Constance Halliday, mentor and trainer, turns her head slightly and looks back.

“Miss Schuyler, Pemberton nannies wear their hats at a very specific angle, which you well know. Please restore yours to its correct position.”

Natalie does as she’s told, flicking a quick eye roll to where Billie sits next to her. But Billie, her usual partner in irreverence, doesn’t meet her eyes.

As the long sedan glides through the leafy London squares, Natalie leans towards Billie, pitching her voice low. “Are you still sulking about Chicago?”

“I’m not sulking,” Billie returns under her breath.

“Pouting. Ruminating. Having an existential crisis—whatever you want to call it,” Nat says. “Are you still doing that? Because now is a good time to let that go. We have a job to do.”

“I know,” Billie whispers tightly. “And it’s my ass on the line if I fail again, so back off.”

Natalie would have flopped back into her seat, but two weeks of intensive training in the ways of the Pemberton nannies have ensured that her back is straight, knees pressing gently together and angled slightly. She, like Billie, has been carefully made up to look as if she were wearing no makeup at all. Her skin has a healthy glow and her eyes are bright. She presents a picture of calm competence, but she is fizzing with anticipation of the kill to come.

Outwardly, Billie looks much the same. She is wearing an identical uniform—navy twill dress with a navy cape piped in forget-me-not blue. Her white gloves are pristine, her black shoes highly polished. But Nat sees the twitch of the tiny muscle at the corner of her mouth and she reaches over to offer consolation.

“Anybody could have made that mistake,” she murmurs. “How were you supposed to know he had a cousin who looked like him?”

Billie doesn’t bother to answer. Anything she says now will come out as a snap or a snarl and Natalie is only trying to help. The most important weapon for an assassin is confidence, and Billie has lost hers. In the months since Chicago, she has undergone a formal review and been put on probation. Another infraction, no matter how small, will result in her dismissal from the Museum, an end to her career. The possible future stretches out before her like a blank map, and the very emptiness of it is terrifying.

Constance may sense Billie’s nerves, but she does not turn around again. Instead, she folds her gloved hands neatly in her lap and poses a question.

“Miss Webster, kindly relate what you know about the mark.”

Billie hesitates and Constance guesses the source of her concern. She nods towards the driver. “Theodore is a fully briefed member of Museum staff with the highest security clearance. Furthermore, he was trained at Benscombe by me. Personally. You need have no concerns about discussing the mission in front of him.”

Billie clears her throat. “The target is Isabel Tizón de Rivas, the wife of a South American politician. Her father is the former president, Eduardo Tizón, a strongman with a military background and policies modeled on those of Perón in Argentina. He moved his country from a flawed but functioning democracy to a dictatorship, becoming increasingly intolerant of opposition during his time in office. Those viewed as enemies of his administration were frequently targeted with harassment, and many fled. His term ended with his assassination in 1953.”

“And how, precisely, was he assassinated?” Constance asks.

“He was gunned down outside the presidential palace as he walked his daughter back from school. Life magazine ran a picture of her with her father’s blood soaking her uniform, and the photograph became a rallying point for his followers. The country has experienced seven military coups since his death, swinging between reactionary violence and experiments with liberal democracies.”

“Correct and succinct, Miss Webster. And our mark?”

“Rather than pursuing influence for herself, she has taken a more circuitous route to power. She married Major Luis de Hoyos, one of her father’s most devoted followers. De Hoyos became an advisor and ultimately a cabinet member in the administration of Aurelio Resendez, the president elected in 1971.” She makes air quotes around the word “elected.”

“Luis de Hoyos served in the position of Minister of Information and was responsible for disseminating news and propaganda. He controlled television, newspaper, and radio. During his tenure, journalists, academics, students—essentially everyone with liberal leanings—were rounded up along with anyone who had been a vocal opponent of his wife’s father. They were never heard from again and are presumed dead. The country is strongly patriarchal, so a female appointee to a cabinet position would not be acceptable, but persistent rumors have indicated Isabel Tizón had considerable influence over her husband, directing much of the effort to suppress dissent from the shadows.”

Billie pauses for breath, considering the legacy of blood and ruin their target has left behind.

“And?” Constance prompts.

“In 1975, a coup of liberal young officers swept Resendez out of power and he was shot by a firing squad. Luis de Hoyos left for exile with Isabel and was convicted in absentia for treason and sentenced to death. He never returned to his home country and the sentence was never carried out. He died a year later of stomach cancer. Isabel has since remarried, a man named Julián Domingo Rosas. He is considerably younger and resembles her father, both physically and politically.”

“Gross,” Natalie murmurs.

“What?” Billie asks her. “The emotional necrophilia or the emotional incest?”

“Both,” Nat replies with a shudder.

Constance cuts in. “What is the country’s current political situation?”

“It has recently elected Gabriela Treviso, a young judge with progressive politics who ran on a platform of anti-corruption and accountability and who is wildly popular with the younger demographic. As a result, Julián Domingo Rosas is planning a coup against this president with an aim to installing himself as a dictator with Isabel’s backing.”

“What are his prospects?”

“Slim,” Billie says. “But with Isabel’s money and the nostalgia among the older people for her father, there is a chance he could succeed. Either way, his attempt to bring down a legitimately elected head of state will cost many more lives and destroy the fragile stability they’ve managed to build.”

“And the wider implications?”

“Geopolitical instability for the entire region.” Billie edges a discreet finger under her hat to scratch at the dark red wig pinned beneath.

“And what do we know about the target herself?”

“Godchildren,” Natalie pipes up. “She has dozens of godchildren.”

Constance holds up a finger. “Miss Webster, please.”

Billie takes a breath and carries on. “Unlike her idol, Eva Perón, Isabel has preferred to work covertly, presenting a public face of service and dignity, of devotion to her charitable causes and her godchildren. She has dozens of them, largely due to the understanding that asking her to stand as godmother will secure favors from her. At the very least, it ensures she does not become an enemy. On a more practical level, the custom has allowed her to build a substantial collection of jewels. She sends sterling silver spoons engraved with her monogram to each godchild for their christening. In return, the parents are expected to give her a piece of jewelry, preferably classic Van Cleef friends from play groups and various lessons, such as Mandarin and harpsichord; and mothers and babies from Cassandra’s antenatal group. There are seventy-five children on the guest list.”

“Anyone who signs up their kid for harpsichord at the age of four deserves to have someone murdered in their house,” Natalie puts in.

Billie carries on. “Most of the children will be accompanied by nannies or other childminders, and at least five of these are Pemberton nannies. The theme of the party is old-fashioned circus. There are fire-eaters, jugglers, and contortionists on the lawn, as well as a petting zoo and bouncy castle with a carnival for games at the bottom of the garden and a continuous series of entertainers. Inside the house will be refreshment rooms, baby eurhythmics classes, and a quiet room for napping.”

Just as she concludes, the car stops on a side street near the house.

“We are here,” Constance tells them. She adjusts her Pemberton cape and alights from the car, making use of her walking stick. Behind them, an identical car parks and two others get out—Mary Alice and Helen in Pemberton uniforms, also with wigs in varying shades of red. In an enormous house with dozens of guests, witnesses will never be able to tell four young redheaded women in matching uniforms apart. Their statements to investigators will contradict and confuse, exactly the effect the Museum is hoping to create.

The drivers, Museum members from the Acquisitions department, wordlessly open the car boots to extract a pair of prams that are expensive, highly polished, and gently worn. New prams might attract attention, and these should go unremarked. They are also empty. Nannies cannot enter a private party without at least the appearance of bringing in a child. After much discussion, it was decided it would be foolish to use mannequin babies and unethical to use real ones. So these prams are Trojan horses, allowing the nannies to enter bearing gifts—actual gifts for the birthday child purchased from Hamleys and Harrods and wrapped in Paddington paper.

As they assemble on the pavement, the others make scant eye contact with Billie. It is her fault they are here, working as support for Constance rather than making a kill of their own. They are nothing more than a piece of theatre, a bit of visual trickery to keep the guests uncertain of what they’ve seen, and after all the months of training and the success of their first mission, it stings to have failed so badly on their second.

With one final nod, they each depart from the rendezvous point on foot. They will enter through the garden gate, slipping into the party already in full swing. Mary Alice goes first, maneuvering one of the prams, followed by Natalie, then Helen. Only Constance and Billie are left, and as Billie prepares to go, Constance lays a hand on her arm.

“Miss Webster, I know you think it is a punishment that you are here, supporting me in this mission rather than carrying it out yourself. I want you to know that it is.”

Billie says nothing. Shame curdles any speech she might have made.

“All of us make mistakes, and you were fortunate that yours was not worse. You killed an unsavory young man, but he was far too insignificant for our purposes. We might have targeted him at some point, or he might have turned his life around and escaped our attention. It was, frankly, a waste of your talents. And I am sorry to think the cause may be distraction.”

She pauses, letting the implication sink in. Taverner . The subtext is that Billie rushed the job because she was thinking of a man.

She says nothing and Constance continues to speak, certain the barb has pricked just where it should.

“When you were recruited, I had high hopes for you. I still do. But you faltered at the first jump and nearly fell.”

Billie remembers the crisis of confidence she suffered during training. The possibility of a life bigger than she had ever imagined had been dangled in front of her, dazzling and almost within reach until Constance, in a smooth and silken voice, offered to take it all away with the suggestion she would be more comfortable in secretarial school. Perhaps you’d like bookkeeping. That can be rather fulfilling, I’m told. The possibility that she could fail at the only thing she’d ever really wanted had been enough to push Billie into becoming more than she’d imagined she could. And now it was in jeopardy. Again.

“You took the correction I offered and made something of yourself,” Constance went on. “Now you have tripped again, and the question is, Will you find your footing or will you stay down?”

“I want this job,” Billie tells her. “You know that.”

“And yet something within you is struggling.” Constance tips her head and considers Billie with birdy, beady eyes. “Is there a part of you that wants to be normal, Miss Webster? Is that what this dalliance is about? Do you want the proverbial picket fence? Baking lemon drizzle cakes and picking out furniture with someone?”

“No,” Billie says emphatically.

“It is perfectly natural if you do,” Constance assures her. “Most people are not like us. Most people want those things.”

“I don’t,” Billie insists.

“Good. You cannot reconcile them with our life, not if you are a woman.”

Billie’s eyes widen. “That’s sexist.”

“No, it is pragmatic. A man can easily vanish for months on end for work. Women’s obligations are different. Such disappearances, away from home and family, would excite too much interest, raise too many questions. We will not interfere in your private life so long as your private life does not interfere in the work. But we are also realists, Miss Webster. We know what the world is.”

“So do I.”

Constance pauses, the expression on her face almost sympathetic. “Do not grieve for the life you have not chosen. Very many people can reproduce, and they quite frequently do. We have different gifts and we are called to a different path. The world needs us, Miss Webster, to remove what stands between good and decent people and chaos. We are necessary monsters.”

And in that moment, the something within Billie that allowed herself to be soft and human and hopeful gets ruthlessly strangled. She will never again allow anything to interfere with the mission.

Constance carries on smoothly. “The job, Miss Webster, is everything. Today you have the chance to rectify the mistakes of your last mission. I will dispatch our target myself, and you will observe. I shall be making a full report to the disciplinary committee when it is finished.”

“It isn’t fair,” Billie says quietly. “I was the one who screwed up. The others—”

“The others were assigned the mission with you and they failed to remove the target. They also failed to harness your impulsiveness. Next time, one hopes they will try a little harder. Now, to work.”

Billie swallows down her feelings and collects her pram, following Constance around the corner and through a small gate. If Isabel Tizón de Rivas’s security detail had been present, Billie and Constance would never have passed without credentials. As it is, the junior gardener tasked with keeping out gate-crashers looks up from his meticulous clipping of a box hedge, sees the Pemberton blue uniforms, and immediately waves them in.

They have memorized the map of the house and grounds and there is no discussion of where to go. They deliver their wrapped present to the heaving gift table on the lawn and Billie parks the pram behind a rosebush. Anyone who sees them walking around the party will assume they belong, the advantage of a uniform. A uniform , Constance reminded them during their initial briefing, purchases acceptance, and—if one is lucky—invisibility. People who wear uniforms for a living are forgettable and largely anonymous, two qualities essential in our work. And they are underestimated. Use that to your advantage.

Billie expects to make a quick circuit of the party before finding their target, but almost as soon as they park the pram, they see her, ladling punch for shrieking children. This is where she is often found at parties, dispensing food or beverages since it gives her a chance to see and be seen, to talk to everyone, to preside. She is pouring punch into small glasses, smiling benevolently, aware of being watched, but completely unalive to the fact that she is being hunted. From this moment on, Billie will cease to think of her as Isabel Tizón de Rivas, as the child in the school uniform stained with her father’s blood, as the architect of misery to so many in her country. For Billie, she is now only an objective, the reason for the mission. The target.

Her goddaughter, the hostess Cassandra, is moving like a pinball, levered from garden to house and back again as she puts out fires and finesses the finishing touches. Natalie, with her gift for sleight of hand, has been tasked with creating a reason for the target to go inside where Billie and Constance will be waiting. She hovers behind the punch table like a ghost, waiting for her moment.

Constance and Billie slip into the house to find a dozen nannies on the floor, bouncing toddlers in time to music on a videocassette recorded specially for the occasion by the Wombles. Assorted mothers who have desperately dieted themselves back into pre-baby shape circle the buffet tables with eyes like hungry sharks. They do not eat, preferring to sip kirs and smoke in the conservatory. The nannies are too busy to eat, so the only food being consumed is by the children, whose faces are smeared with chocolate sauce, ketchup, and custard. Billie has never been happier to be child-free than she is at that minute.

The space under the main staircase has been fitted with a slab of marble to serve as a counter. Tucked below it are mini-fridges, each set at a different temperature, perfectly selected for the white wines and champagnes inside. Above are racks of reds and crystal glasses in assorted shapes. Laid out on the counter with the precision of a surgeon’s tray are accessories—vacuum corks, foil cutters, and corkscrews of various shapes and dimensions, some with novelty handles. Billie trails her fingers along the tray as they pass.

The downstairs powder room has been set aside for partygoers, but Helen has locked herself inside, feigning digestive trouble. Mary Alice has taken care of the maid’s bathroom behind the kitchen, stuffing a hand towel down the pipe and flushing several times until water cascades over the rim and floods the floor. In the ensuing confusion, Constance and Billie make their way upstairs to the guest suite. Under Constance’s direction, Billie does a quick sweep of the bedroom, but it is empty. The windows overlook the back garden and Billie glances out just in time to see Natalie tip the punch bowl onto the target.

In fact, Billie sees nothing of the kind. Natalie manages to give the impression that she is feet away during the disturbance, only turning when the target gives an exclamation of surprise and annoyance. Natalie attempts to daub at the punch stains on the white pantsuit, but the target waves her off impatiently. She stomps quickly towards the house, her heels making stabbing motions in the grass.

“Target is en route,” Billie tells Constance.

Constance does not reply. Her gaze is fixed on the wall, intent upon nothing more interesting than a few square inches of toile wallpaper.

“Shepherdess?” Billie ventures. It is Constance’s code name, the only one permitted during missions, and one she has answered to for more than forty years.

Constance’s mouth opens and closes without sound. She moves nothing except her jaw, open and closed again and again, struggling to find her voice. When it does not come, she swivels her eyes towards Billie, eyes full of an emotion Billie never expected to see in her mentor. Panic.

They have thirty seconds, maybe a minute before the target reaches them. Billie helps Constance to a chair, guiding her to sit, as they hear the target approaching. They do not hear footsteps, the house is too thickly carpeted for that. But her voice is raised as she calls downstairs in irritation and as soon as the target enters, she marks their presence with a look of annoyance.

“Did you not realize this guest room was in use?” she demands.

“I do apologize,” Billie says. “My friend needed a little air and the WC downstairs was flooded.”

The target flaps an impatient hand and moves straight past them into the bathroom. “If your friend needs air, take her outside,” the target calls. She half closes the door as she strips off her jacket.

For an agonizing minute, the target runs the tap, sponging cold water on her ruined jacket as Billie stares at Constance, willing her mentor to move. But Constance simply sits, motionless. She might have been a statue except for the eyes, imploring as they rest on Billie.

Billie’s hand slips to her pocket and her fingers curl around the corkscrew she lifted from the wine bar. It had been an impulse, one she would never be able to explain. She takes the corkscrew from her pocket and twists it, ensuring the worm is fully extended. Half a dozen quick, silent steps take her into the bathroom where the target turns, her hands still plunged in the pink-tinged water.

“What—”

Before she can finish the question, Billie plunges the corkscrew into the base of her throat, careful to seat it in the little notch where the clavicles join the sternum. The target’s hands rise to Billie’s wrists, but she has no strength in them. The shock of what is happening to her paralyzes her reactions, and Billie hooks a foot behind her knee, buckling the joint and causing her to collapse. Billie holds her close as the target falls on her back, landing on a fluffy pink bath mat. She looks up at Billie with imploring eyes. She cannot scream—there is no air to reach her larynx—and her death is almost entirely silent. The only sound is the metallic ratcheting of the corkscrew as Billie turns the worm, securing it in the trachea. Then the terrible gasping suck as she pushes down on the arms of the corkscrew, forcing the trachea up through the hole. The target lies gulping and immobile as a frog ready for dissection as Billie removes the corkscrew. With one deft motion, Billie flicks open the foil blade and plunges it into the subclavian artery. She twists it and pulls it out again. Blood begins to pour over the floor, rivers of it, flooding the pink rug and the channels between the tiles. The flow moves on, spreading outwards as Billie retreats from it, careful to keep her shoes out of the gore.

It will take the target less than three minutes to die, but Billie does not wait to watch. A rupture of the subclavian artery cannot be mended by first aid. It cannot be reached for compression. Only immediate surgery can save her, and there is no time even for an ambulance to arrive, much less for her to be taken to hospital. Whatever happens, the target is doomed and Billie is looking at a woman who is just barely alive and only on a technicality.

So Billie turns to Constance, who still sits, eyes wide with fear.

“Shepherdess? Can you hear me?”

Something flickers in Constance’s gaze, and Billie knows she is in there.

“You’ve had a turn of some kind. Probably a small stroke. I have to get you out of here.”

Constance blinks rapidly and Billie removes a handkerchief from her pocket. She returns to the bathroom where she dabs it daintily in the blood. She holds it to Constance’s nose as she helps her to her feet. Constance is able to stand with her help, and Billie guides her to the door. There is a rumbling in Constance’s throat, a protest, Billie knows.

Museum protocol states that any member of the Exhibitions team unable to get out of a mission under their own power should be left behind. Other agents must not be compromised.

Billie tightens her grip on her mentor. “I know what you’re trying to say. Forget it. I’m not big on rules, remember?”

There is a wheeze from Constance, which Billie only later thinks might have been a laugh. She manages to get Constance downstairs, giving the tiniest sigh of relief as they reach the ground floor. She doesn’t dare take her through the garden and the rest of the party, so she makes her way to the front door.

Just as she puts her hand on the knob, she hears a voice.

“Leaving already?”

She turns to see Cassandra Ketcham-Flint, the hostess, smiling in a harried way and hurrying forward with a lavishly wrapped bag.

Billie gestures towards the bloody handkerchief in Constance’s hand. “Nosebleed. She gets them often, but this one was a devil,” she says in a thick Lancashire accent. “A bit of a lie-down and she’ll be right as rain.”

“But where is your charge?” Cassandra asks suddenly. “Surely you came with a child.”

Without a pram or toddler in tow, it looks as if Billie and Constance are leaving a child behind. Billie smiles.

“Oh, we came with Dorothy,” she says, plucking a name out of thin air. “She’s in the bouncy house with the children. I am about to take over for her, so I’m shadowing her for a fortnight. Nanny here”—she nods towards Constance—“is technically retired, but she does love to come see the little ones when they have a day out.”

“Of course,” Cassandra says, already past caring about the domestic arrangements of strangers. She holds out the bag. “Don’t forget your favor.”

“Thanks very much,” Billie murmurs as she reaches for it. A thin line of the target’s blood is etched beneath her fingernail, a crescent of scarlet.

“You’ll want to wash that,” the hostess says, her mouth set in an expression of faint distaste as she sees the blood. Her gaze goes to the older woman with the gore-stained handkerchief clamped to her face.

“Yes, ma’am,” Billie says in a tone of embarrassed deference. “Good afternoon, ma’am.”

Cassandra opens the door for them, but doesn’t wait to see them down the front steps. She closes the door smartly and returns to the party to harass the caterer about a tray of vol-au-vents that were unsatisfactory and to see if the housekeeper has managed to reach the plumber after hours. When she discovers her godmother’s body, an hour will have passed, and the blood on her bathroom floor will have begun to congeal, ruining the grout. She will have forgotten everything of significance about the pair of nannies who left together.

They were only the help, after all.