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  No. The boy seemed happy enough and well looked after. And even if her dead husband was a piece of shit, Victoria seemed to love the child like he was her own. Plus, it wasn’t as if Gayle had had the little one stolen away from her. She had consented into giving him up and had also made a tidy little profit from it too. Sold him up the river, but in a half decent boat with at least one good paddle.

  Estelle acknowledged that her little sister was no saint either. But she would check up on the boy, her nephew, from time to time and if anything didn’t sit right or felt just a tiny bit off, then Clark’s wife would have the blunt end of her knife to answer to. And if things got really bad, then the sharp end would swiftly come next.

  Once Estelle had finished her cigarette, she quietly stubbed it out on the nearby window sill, holstered her gun, and casually walked back into the cold dark night.

  Chapter 26

  The following afternoon Estelle arrived outside her cottage home deep in the heart of the Oxfordshire countryside. She was again seated in the back seat of the same black Audi with the same silent and aloof driver in the front. She pondered to herself just how good it actually felt to be home again. And how much she missed being around her family, especially her young daughter Clara, who she really didn’t spend enough time with. But she would try her damn best to change that now over the next few months and years.

  Estelle hadn’t had any face to face contact with her employers as of yet. Which felt slightly worrying to say the least. She’d heard from Nathan only once and very briefly at that over the phone before she’d left the safe house up in the Scottish Highlands. He still sounded disappointed with her AWOL actions the previous month. But his tone of voice seemed both firm and fair and gave away no hint of how she might be punished and dealt with upon her return.

  All that Nathan stated in their brief phone call was that she should finish whatever business she had left to finish up in Glasgow before returning home where she would be picked up the next again morning and taken to the secret location. Upon her arrival she would be reprimanded and her punishment for her unauthorized leave of absence dished out.

  Estelle had never been reprimanded before in her entire life by her employers, so she had no idea what to expect, but at the same time she felt content with it too. If there was any danger of herself or her family being hurt or punished for her actions just to spite her, then surely her employers would have done it by now. They’d had ample time to go through with it during her recovery period for sure.

  Estelle began to believe that she was a vital asset to her employers now. That she was something that they’d invested heavily in over the years and would stick by her through thick and thin, good or bad, or until there finally came a time in her life when they had no further use for her any longer. And only then would she know the true fate of her future and the true intentions of her employers.

  When the Audi finally pulled up outside her cottage, Estelle had a brief image of Clara bursting out through the front door and scrambling over to greet her before jumping into her arms and hugging her so tightly that she might reinjure one of her healing ribs.

  But nothing happened.

  No door opened. No curtains twitched. No husband and daughter came rushing to the front door to greet her.

  Estelle felt a little uneasy at that. She glanced over at the driver, but he continued to sit and stew in his aloof silence with his eyes fully focused on the road ahead.

  John knew she’d be coming home today. They’d finally spoken while Estelle recovered up in the Highland safe house less than a week ago. She’d told him that she’d been involved in a military accident with some colleagues, they’d been exposed to some chemicals and they all had to be quarantined for the past few weeks in a top-secret military hospital. Only then had they’d been given the all clear to return home to their families. Which John knew would be that very afternoon. She’d even told him that she’d explain everything in more detail just as soon as she returned, even though John had insisted that wasn’t necessary. He knew the score with Estelle and her work. He was completely used to it. He was just happy to hear from her and that she was alive and well after weeks without hearing a single damn thing.

  Estelle had even checked her secret camera footage from her phone that very morning too before she’d left Glasgow for her trip back home. She’d watched John get Clara ready for school, but it was already late in the afternoon and the two of them should be home already. John’s car was even sitting in the driveway, so they couldn’t be too far away.

  Before Estelle climbed out of the car, she quickly logged back into the secret camera device on her phone and brought up the live images of the cottage. Estelle flinched all of a sudden. She looked a little confused. The camera footage showed nothing but blackness now. Every single camera stream that should be showing footage from within was bizarrely off line.

  Estelle glanced at the driver again, but he didn’t flinch or move in the slightest. He just continued to keep his eyes dead ahead while patiently waiting for Estelle to exit the vehicle so he could leave.

  Estelle took a deep breath and stepped out of the vehicle. As soon as she closed the car door the Audi drove swiftly away, leaving Estelle standing all alone outside her eerie and quiet home. With a slight caution to her movements, Estelle put one foot in front of the other and began walking towards her front door. She felt a little surprised to find it unlocked. Especially with Clara at home. Estelle gently pulled the handle down and pushed open the door.

  She stepped inside.

  She didn’t know what the hell to expect, but her gut instinct told her something—something that she desperately tried to ignore at first.

  It was dark inside. All the curtains had been fully drawn like they hadn’t been opened for days, but Estelle knew that wasn’t right. John had opened all the curtains that very morning, like he always did. He was OCD that way. She’d watched him do it too with her own eyes as she sipped her morning coffee.

  And then he’d left the house and taken Clara to school.

  There was no reason for the curtains to be drawn again in the middle of the day. John wasn’t like that. He enjoyed his natural light and wide-open spaces. He loved nothing more than gazing out of the window while pondering over what to write next.

  Estelle stood silent and still in the hallway for a very long time. She listened carefully to her surroundings. Trying to make out the faintest of noises or even anything alien or out of place. Why couldn’t she hear Clara playing or singing or dancing or watching some annoyingly loud children’s TV show that she always loved to sit down and watch during this time of day?

  The bad, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach was growing worse by the second the more she listened to nothing but an eerie silence engulfing her entire home. Something was wrong. Something was seriously wrong.

  After almost a minute of standing still, Estelle finally moved.

  Trying to make as little noise as possible she gently placed one foot in front of the other and stepped further into the spacious and open-planned cottage. She checked the combined living room and kitchen. But nothing suspicious or out of the ordinary caught her eye. No dishes waiting to be washed. No left-out food or half eaten kids’ chocolate bars.

  Estelle moved towards the bedrooms at the rear of the cottage. All the doors were closed firmly shut. She took a deep breath as she opened Clara’s bedroom door first.

  Clara wasn’t inside.

  The curtains were drawn here too and her bed neatly made, but there was absolutely no sign of her daughter.

  Estelle still couldn’t decipher if that was a good sign or a bad one. Perhaps John and Clara had simply gone out for a short walk in the nearby forest and had lost track of time.

  Estelle left the door open and turned around to face both her own and John’s bedroom door. She casually moved towards it. The bad feeling in the pit of her stomach expanded way up into her chest now, which was weird, because she was usually so good at controll
ing those feelings. Especially nerves, anxiety, and stress.

  Estelle took another deep breath. She placed her hand down upon the door handle and gently pushed it open.

  Then her heart sunk down, deep down into the very bottom, sullen pit of her stomach.

  Clear as day, she saw John, fully clothed, but gagged and bound to a hard-sturdy chair right beside the bedroom window. The chair itself had also been securely bolted to both the wall and through the carpeted floor. There was absolutely no way he could struggle free with or without the chair still strapped to his body.

  Immediately John tried to shout and struggle out through his gag and firmly secured straps, but it was to no avail.

  Estelle couldn’t understand a single word of what he was trying to tell her in panic, but she quickly realized the gist of the situation completely. She knew in a heartbeat that her employers were behind this, one hundred percent. Christ, she’d done the same thing herself to countless other people in the past. The smell of her own handiwork even lingered in the air.

  Before she could think about where her daughter might be or even think about taking another step further inside the bedroom and towards John to remove his gag, a phone suddenly began ringing out from the bottom of the large double bed in the center of the bedroom.

  Estelle stepped towards the ringing phone instead of towards her husband.

  As she calmly approached, she could clearly see now: lying right beside the ringing phone, a fairly large, sharp hunting knife. Estelle ignored the brutal and vicious-looking blade and casually picked up the phone.

  An incoming video call from a private number was calling up on the screen.

  Estelle didn’t recognize the phone itself as being one of her own or one of John’s. But she knew exactly who was calling her before she’d even pressed the answer button to the video call.

  Of course, she’d expected some kind of punishment and retribution for going against her employers. Nathan had even told her that with those very same words. But she absolutely and positively did not expect this… Never this. Not by a long damn shot. Oh, how she had seriously underestimated her employers and the leeway she’d thought she’d had or what she could and couldn’t get away with.

  Estelle answered the video call and was instantly greeted by the stressful images of a little girl’s tearful and very scared-looking face. It was unmistakably her daughter Clara. She’d been gagged at the mouth, just like her husband John beside her, and securely tied with thick black straps to a large chair inside a very dark room.

  As the camera slowly zoomed out from Clara’s terrified little face, a man, presumably one of her employers—Nathan perhaps—wearing a black suit and a black balaclava over his head, gradually came into view. He was standing right behind the little girl and held a large hunting knife, too, in his right hand, which hovered intimidatingly close to the back of Clara’s neck.

  Once the camera had fully zoomed out the man began to speak.

  “You left us with a big shit-storm mess to clean up after your recent trip up to Glasgow, Estelle.”

  She recognized his voice now. It was indeed Nathan.

  “And when we spoke on the phone the first time, I hinted to the fact that there would be repercussions if you didn’t come back home effective immediately. Did I not? But instead you chose to ignore my orders… Well here are your repercussions, Estelle.”

  “Simply choose which family member to save. Swiftly and efficiently and that’s all. Kill your husband and you’ll see you daughter again exactly one year from now. Or don’t kill your husband and start a new family again in your own time or whenever you get over the loss of your little one here.”

  “We would have just done it ourselves, of course. Made the choice for you. As I’m sure it’s pretty damn obvious which one you’re going choose when push comes to shove, but I really insisted to the others that we make you do it with your own hand, just in order to drive the point home and make sure we’re all on the same page here. This way we can greatly discourage the chances of this situation ever arising again. Can’t we Estelle?”

  “So, you have thirty seconds or less to make your choice and then I will do what I need to do at my end. Leave the phone on or off, it’s entirely up to you. We can still see what’s happening there thanks to your secret security setup. So, it’s not a problem.”

  Estelle gently nodded. What the hell else could she do? She felt bad for her husband John, terrible in fact, far beyond words. But she felt even worse for her daughter Clara who, because of her recent off-grid antics and AWOL exploits, would now be without a mother for up to a year and without a father for the rest of her life.

  But in the back of her mind she had secretly prepared for this moment ever since her employers had encouraged her to have a family of her own. And of course, if she had to choose between the lives of one loved one over the other, then to her, it was a complete and utter no contest. Her daughter would come up trumps every day of the week and twice on Sundays. There was no question in her mind of that.

  Estelle felt nauseous all of a sudden while her insides felt as if they were being tightly squeezed from the inside out. Like a thousand huge hands were crushing every single part of her internal organs, all at the same time. This was her fault. This was all her mess and now there was only one way to clean that mess up.

  Estelle closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and picked up the large knife from the bed. Without any emotion or hesitation, she approached John who was still crying and sobbing out frantically from behind his gagged mouth and restrained body, his deeply anxious facial expressions desperately pleading with Estelle to at least hear him out, but there was very little he could do to stop the inevitable.

  Quite simply, she had no time to hear anyone out. She had to make the call immediately before her employers did. And she had made the call already, even before she knew what was actually happening there, that very day. She knew.

  Estelle grabbed John hard by the back of his hair. In her mind she just pretended that he was another interrogation victim that she was finally done with and needed to dispose of ASAP. Whatever worked, she told herself just to get her through those next few moments.

  Estelle whipped his head back to expose the entire length of John’s throat and Adam’s apple. Without even pausing or thinking further about what the hell she was doing, she made a deep and devastating gash straight into his throat, before severing a wide hard slice all the way from one side of his neck right across to the other.

  When it was done, Estelle froze for a long time as she watched her husband die and the life drain out of him, right in front of her eyes. She watched with very little emotion as his thick blood oozed from the deep wound on his neck all the way down his shirt and onto the cream carpet floor beneath his feet.

  From the speaker of the phone, still lying on the bed, Estelle could hear the muffled sobs and distressful moans of her daughter through her own gag restraint. She’d obviously witnessed the entire damned freak horror show. How would a young child ever get over something like that? Witnessing their mother brutally butcher and murder their own father in cold blood.

  In a fleeting thought, she secretly hoped that her daughter might come to understand one day in the far, far distant future. If they did indeed both ever make it there. Perhaps, in time, she was still so young, that she might come to forget such a horrifying event. Probably not. Only time would tell.

  But in reality, what else could Estelle have done? It was one or the other. And she’d already made the decision in her head years ago, just in case the scenario had ever presented itself, like it had done today. No matter what happened in the future, she had saved her daughter’s life. Although, it didn’t quite feel like much of a consolation prize in that moment.

  Estelle broke away from her trance and made her way back over towards the bottom of the bed and towards the mobile phone. She picked it up and gazed, without words, directly at her crying daughter, who’s sobbing anxious face still filled up
the majority of the screen.

  “Good job, Estelle,” said Nathan, his cheerful words stinging Estelle’s ears as he uttered them through his black balaclava. “I think you made the right choice. Your daughter will be well looked after for the next year and we’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning to prep you up for your next mission. But only if you’re feeling well enough to return to us here that is, of course. So, take all the time you need?”

  Without words, Estelle just nodded gently. Of course, she wasn’t fit enough to go back to work, mentally or physically, but she would. Just to show those fuckers that they couldn’t break her. That they couldn’t get to her through their insane games of life and death and lunacy. Not one bit.

  She would go back to work and she would keep her head down, work hard, get back into her employers’ good books and eventually have her daughter back in her life and arms again just as soon as it could be possible.

  “In that case,” Nathan replied a little too smugly, “see you tomorrow then, Estelle. Over and out.”

  The video call cut off and the phone went dead in Estelle’s hand. For a long time after, Estelle just stood there. Staring down hard at the dead, blank phone in a complete hollowed silence.

  After what seemed like hours, but could’ve just as easily been ten minutes, she finally sunk herself down onto the bedroom carpet floor with her back against the bottom frame of the bed before sinking her face deeper and lower between her bent knees.

  Once her face was completely covered and hidden out of sight, Estelle began to sob, quietly at first then harder and more unrestrained as every single terrible emotion she’d ever felt in her entire life came flooding back to haunt her with an absolute vengeance.