Death & The City: Heavy Duty Edition

By Lisa Scullard

Lara Leatherstone, not her real name, she got it from an internet Porn Star Name Generator - don’t ask why - is under obligation to kill paid contract killers, or as she refers to them ‘Hollywood Hit-Men’. For which she is not herself paid, having been recruited out of Care In The Community policing (as an issue, not a carer), but occasionally offered bribes of things like designer shoes, which she doesn’t need because she already has them all off internet sales, being smarter at finding a bargain than some. Her own time, when she's not under obligation or surveillance by Head Office, is spent juggling a night job in bar security, an only child with a zombie fixation, and what passes for a social life in the small hours in between. And the small matter of ongoing internal scrutiny by her own highly-self-monitoring personality disorders.

She is often distracted by her own psychotic train of thought while working, and frequently analyses the mostly dysfunctional relationships she gets to see in her job, because she’s never had one.

When her head office try to set her up in a team with a wingman, her main concern is they’re trying to manufacture a weakness that they can manipulate her with - not to mention once they agree on a working colleague, Pest-Control-sniper-turned-police-officer Connor Reeves (as it turns out, also not his real name), that he might be quite manipulative too...

This edition includes both Book One (Chapters 1-20) and Book Two (Chapters 21-40) in the series, with bonus material in the form of the original feature screenplay, Heavy Duty, written by the author in 1990 - when nightclubs were still run by The Old School...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lisa Scullard
• Release date: Apr 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458184467

Lisa Scullard

Writer, and stuff :) Likes Iron Fist shoes/clothing and Hell Bunny, Depeche Mode covers and remixes, Chinese food, Barbie (not so much in her puppy parlour phase), Holst's Planets Suite, graphic novels, ginger nut biscuits and Prince Harry - in any given order or combination.Awarded 'Honourable Mention' in the 2013 Jeffrey Archer/Kobo/Curtis Brown Creative 100-word Short Story Challenge, for the flash fiction 'Performance Car' published in Kobo’s free promotional contest anthology eBook along with the final round entries, prior to London Book Fair, April 2013.As well as zombie parody and literary satire written as Lisa Scullard, now writes romance under the pen-name Lauren Boutain (guaranteed no zombies - yet) :)

Book preview

CONTENTS

Book One: Chapters 1-20

Book Two: Chapters 21-40

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER 1: Postal

CHAPTER 2: Head Hunted

CHAPTER 3: Stalker Buddies

CHAPTER 4: Watching The Gods

CHAPTER 5: Define Human

CHAPTER 6: Wolf Tales

CHAPTER 7: Take Out Lunch

CHAPTER 8: Pregnancy Test Roulette

CHAPTER 9: Not Another Date

CHAPTER 10: Animal Instinct

CHAPTER 11: Psychological Review

CHAPTER 12: Highway Patrol

CHAPTER 13: Double Target

CHAPTER 14: What's In A Name

CHAPTER 15: Taken Out Of Context

CHAPTER 16: Mr. Darcy To The Rescue

CHAPTER 17: Next Day Delivery

CHAPTER 18: OMG

CHAPTER 19: New Dynamics

CHAPTER 20: Normal Relations

CHAPTER 21: The Dark Dimensions

CHAPTER 22: Vanilla Blackmail

CHAPTER 23: Karmachanic

CHAPTER 24: Undercarriage Of Events

CHAPTER 25: Under The Influence

CHAPTER 26: The Hollywood Method

CHAPTER 27: A Plot Full Of Holes

CHAPTER 28: Heat Seeking Wolf

CHAPTER 29: Alice Is Wonderland

CHAPTER 30: Dressing To Kill

CHAPTER 31: A Rice By Any Other Name

CHAPTER 32: Spanish Fly On The Wall

CHAPTER 33: Early Christmas

CHAPTER 34: The Mogwai Diet

CHAPTER 35: Fish Out Of Water

CHAPTER 36: Encounters Of The Nth Kind

CHAPTER 37: Invisible Man Syndrome

CHAPTER 38: Quality Time

CHAPTER 39: Capital City Of Moonlighters

CHAPTER 40: Short Notice Cases

SPECIAL FEATURE: HEAVY DUTY - The Screenplay

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the HarperCollins 'authonomy' team, for running their network site on which to gain so much insight and feedback, and for their live workshops in London. Also, thanks to Crime Fiction agent Camilla Wray, of the Darley Anderson Literary Agency, and film producer Sophie Neville, for sharing their insights.

In the same theme, I'd also like to thank Portsmouth Book Festival 2010 for running the speaker's Q&A event, Crime And The City: CSI Portsmouth, and the opportunity to talk to the genre authors (Graham Hurley and Simon Brett), and the professional experts in person – much appreciated.

I would again like to thank all the other upcoming writers that I've got to know so far, for their intellect, wit and creative support - including (alphabetically) Shalini Boland, Peter S. Brooks, Elspeth Cooper, Jessica L. Degarmo, Dan Holloway, Gerald D. Johnston, Penny Legg, Wakefield Mahon, Pete Marchetto, Karen Rigley, Robert Rowley, Adam Sifre, and Keith A. Smith, who have made a lot of sense (and nonsense!) during my inspirational delve into literary fiction. There's so many more to name (yes, you – Jane Alexander, Tollam, Jaen, Siamte, Steve Games, C. Matt Hewes, TL Tyson, Elle, Sessha, Frankie, Sandie, Lallie, Perdu, B. Worm, etc, etc!) that I'll need to write a few more of these books… Academic author-photo cardigans at the ready!

On another note, a BIG thanks to all my old SIA colleagues. I wouldn't be here without you, and some of you wouldn't be here without me ;)

…And my real-life family, and friends, for sharing their love, patience, and sense of humour.

Especially Caitlin.

BIOGRAPHY

Lisa Scullard spends her time when not writing, either working, parenting and commuting, or on trying to keep up with the gardening and housework. Occasionally things like reading, self-publishing, listening to music, artwork, knitting hoodies, customising shoes, reviewing other people's creative genius, and re-designing one-of-a-kind fashion dolls get in the way of this mundane routine.

Lisa worked full-time as a nightclub door supervisor for seven years, covering various posts in the south of the U.K. at venues in Southampton, Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Winchester, Chichester and Guildford. She got a good reputation for First Aid, i.e, everybody survived. During the boring bits, she came up with the idea for Death & The City, based on the earlier screenplay she had written, Heavy Duty.

She also likes Iron Fist shoes/clothing and Hell Bunny, Depeche Mode covers and remixes, Chinese food, Barbie (not so much in her puppy parlour phase), Holst's Planets Suite, graphic novels, Star Wars, ice-cream soda, ginger nut biscuits and Prince Harry - in any given order or combination.

She still keeps a skateboard, and has no current intention of ever owning a dog.

For even less intimate information:

lisascullard.wordpress.com

voodoo-spice.blogspot.com

You can also find Lisa Scullard on Goodreads.com

and on Twitter: @aka_VoodooSpice

DEDICATION

…In memory of those who didn't make it this far.

DEATH & THE CITY: HEAVY DUTY EDITION

© Lisa Scullard

CHAPTER 1: Postal

I woke up on the fifth of April greeted by snow at 6:00 a.m, screwing up my plans already. I'd had a three-hour sleep and my black clothing ready on the floor by the bed. Off the top of my head, I had nothing white or remotely Siberian camouflage to wear.

I'd have to go in Halloween costume again. It wouldn't be the first time. I felt sorry for the sniper. He'd probably been up on that roof all night waiting - and now instead of a stealth attack, he was going to get a visitation by Jack Frost the Skellington, which was the costume with the most white on it. I didn't have time to wrap myself in toilet paper like an Egyptian Mummy, and the traditional sheet-with-holes-for-eyes would have got in the way. I also reconsidered the plumbing wrench and baseball bat. They didn't seem very Skellington. It should have been a sword at the very least, but there is something unspeakably premeditated about taking a sword anywhere these days. It might be a sea-port but you don't get admirals and pirates wandering about tooled up, not for the last few hundred years. But getting into character according to clothing is a terrible weakness, like being a Barbie doll who's just plastic and a pretty face, until you put her into a zoo doctor outfit and suddenly she's an expert on dromedary migrations. It's actions, not appearances that get the job done.

Does the sniper agonize over his sartorial killing style? I wondered if he owned a pair of lucky one-shot underpants, maybe with a smiley face on. Does he wear a Hendrix t-shirt or Lacoste socks? Does he never go anywhere without a Quiksilver ski mask? Are his gloves pro-golf? Does he wear thermals under his salopettes? Like a fisherman at sea, is he wearing his wife's 40-denier lock-knit tights to keep out the cold and creepy-crawlies? Is he wearing his old-school doorman's bomber-jacket, like the last three were?

Baseball bat AND plumbing wrench, I thought grimly, picking up my car-keys as I headed out. A Skellington can turn up carrying whatever he damn well pleases. And if anyone sees me climbing up the fire escape, they'll think it's a prank or that they dreamt it. It'd make a funny mobile phone photo for their Facebuddy account.

As I drove into town, I mused over what the sniper's agenda for the day might contain. Did he have to be down by 11:00 a.m. for the dentist's, then go to the supermarket before picking his kids up from school? Would his wife miss him if he wasn't back with the milk and washing powder by lunchtime? Did he lie there with his legs crossed wondering if he could leave his rifle for two minutes and run for a wee somewhere? Is he texting his girlfriend and debating what to get his mum for her birthday? Is he hoping his fee will clear in his bank account in time for the mortgage repayment to go out? Does he have a poker night with his pals tonight? In short, how soon will he be missed, if at all?

I like to project a life onto people I don't know. It makes my life of people-watching so much more fun. I imagine that they're busy, popular, efficient, effective people with the charisma to enthral a room, with homes that look like they've just been photographed for Grand Designs or Property Ladder, that they're the kind of people who others are pleased to see when they walk into a pub or are sad to see leave a party. The kind of person who still has Sunday lunch at his mum's, and is on speaking terms with his entire extended family. A person whom they would never guess earned a sordid wage lying on rooftops pooping himself until his target appeared, swearing every time a seagull landed near him, and worrying whether he had a parking ticket when he came downstairs.

In reality, these guys do seem to take themselves seriously. They think they're Hollywood hit-men. Most wear Calvin Kleins and smoke Camels. They don't impart any more of a life onto their targets than their cash value. They still wear their gold chains and sovereigns. A few wear their ex-Army tags. They favour peroxide blondes of a certain age, and most are very much Mummy's Boys at the same time. It's all about The Code, some sort of secret unspoken solidarity of old school doormen, which in my experience means saying what you like about anyone while they're in prison, or a woman. They expect respect for being old school, disregarding what happened amongst doormen in the old school days. They don't expect the new school to know about any of the old stuff. They don't expect the new school to have any new stuff to contend with.

They don't expect to find old school in the new school.

And they never expect a woman.

Especially not in Halloween costume.

It's not done, and it's not the demographic. Send a thief to catch a thief, they say. He's looking over his shoulder for the glamour and the nemesis, the big menacing shape of someone matching his own history, empathy in competition and justice. He doesn't want to find himself on the end of a teenage police constable's notebook, an ex-girlfriend's DNA test for child support, or a junior doctor informing him about prostate cancer treatments. These guys want to end up in the pages of The Code History, old school meets old school in final battle, revenge and reunion and a sympathetic demise. They like to imagine they've commanded the top cash value in the book when the final taxman comes for them to end their career.

Not me. They're a blip in my day. A blip that got through a doorway they shouldn't. It's my job to close that door on them. End of story. I don't have a history with them, or a background story that qualifies how I got to them before any of their former mates are paid to. I don't have to get friendly with them, or stalk them, or do any personal research. They're just there on my To Do List. Things to see, People To Do list. I just turn up in what I'm wearing with whatever's handy. So - nightclubs seem to be the place to go in fancy dress, any freak incident could end up with a fairy wand inserted into the ear hole. The daylight ones like this one just piss me off. It's like they want the balaclava and the hit-man showdown out of me, trying to get me into stereotype and take myself seriously. But that would be my downfall - I'd just be one of them, wearing lucky underwear and sitting at the bar between snipings trying to emit an aura of both charismatic danger, and having at least one in-law or third cousin convicted of manslaughter. Driving stolen or dodgy cars and having credit cards and identification in more than one name, claiming benefits and disability allowances on top of my illegitimate gains. Heartlessly breaking hearts of partners and kids, and giving the impression of a misunderstood loner who quite clearly would bang anyone in a broom cupboard standing up given the opportunity, kind of the opposite of antisocial and a loner when you think about it.

But I'm too chuffing busy to get into that kind of character, it would involve more sitting around staring into space trying to project enigma and flashing of dodgy cash and confiding in people of mysterious imaginary details to spice up their image of me than I can be arsed with. My job already involves hanging around enigmatically waiting for someone to be sick, fight, or fall over. My past is weird enough without imaginary embroidering, and it's more about going about my business while hiding my true nature than creating one to intimidate people with. I'm too busy doing my life to act another one out, in other words. If I'm called upon to close the door on someone who got past the usual rigorous checks, and I happen to be knitting or cooking at the time, you can be sure it won't involve much more ceremony than a No. 9 needle or a spatula, and I may not bother to put on my shoes or a coat when leaving the house. I'm a busy woman. It only disrupts my day if I come home to find I've locked myself out. I like normal and ordinary life. It takes my mind off all the other things.

I sometimes think they might know about my history, and it's me they're trying to catch out and erase for having made the transition. That they're out to prove for the old school's sake that this is no job for a woman, particularly a psycho one with her own morals. That I'm the kind of person the old school Code doesn't recognise, and should stay unseen and unheard.

But women throughout history have confounded men and expectations. Cleopatra seduced Rome. Helen of Troy launched a thousand ships. Elizabeth the First sent the Spanish Armada limping home. Queen Victoria made mourning a national pastime and maintained her dignity until death. Boadicea rode around on a cart with pointy things sticking out of the wheels and generally intimidated people. Women with a certain skill and personality can make the dirtiest jobs look clean and elegant. It's as if they completely detach from their own personal feelings, ego and pre-menstrual tension and focus entirely on the job, the appearance of the job being done, the efficiency and thoroughness of the job, and do it all without moaning, complaining, or bragging about it afterwards. Like a loving caring mum changing a nappy - it all looks effortless and easy, a blip in their day. They go back to what they were doing without a thought, care or analysis, while others are in awe of them. They listen to the voices and expectations of the people, and improve upon and deliver the goods on schedule. They are the ultimate in customer services, with standards others can only dream of.

I think I have this ability to be the classical and aloof warrior queen demographic in my night job, but when I'm 'daylighting' undercover, the hit-men get the short straw - the cut-price version. I'm tired, depersonalised, scruffy, detached, want to be in bed or in the bath, often hungry, bored or generally frustrated, and I haven't paid the bills or done the housework. Not to mention also fed up, lonely, uninspired, and the last thing I want to be doing is swinging elegantly into action like Catwoman or Batgirl taking out the bad guys - I have been known to do it wearing Snoopy pyjamas and go straight back to bed cuddling my baseball bat until I have to get up and change to do the school run. I am at times a sulky and resentful hit-man's nemesis, while being a cordial and good-natured bouncer. I have a split personality - not exactly by nature - but have assigned my personalities to roles opposite of stereotype. The glamorous side of me puts on a black uniform and throws people out of nightclubs. The surly antisocial sleepyhead puts on anything on the floor by the bed and throws snipers off rooftops. The businesslike side of me does the parenting. The avoidant aspect is assigned to housework, which is why everything is a work in progress. I was bullied and a rebel at school both at once, someone who wanted to be invisible but resented the fact that I wasn't. I like my own company. I would just be slightly disturbed to meet someone the same as me.

The bad guys don't deserve my customer service glamour girl skills anyway. They're the few guys that mean I put up with black eyes, and no back-up, and complaints from inebriated customers in the first place. They don't deserve an acrobatic stunt display, a sexy outfit, or a personalised bullet. If anything, an escaped mental patient with a grudge should damn well be the last thing they ever see and I don't care if they know it.

I slide the car sideways into a parking space on the snow and get out, pulling the Skellington hood over my head and face, and lock the car, catching my reflection in the car window. I look determined and businesslike and efficient through the eyeholes, like I know too well what I'm doing, sulky and resentful or not. I always surprise myself that I don't look desperate or anxious. Why don't I look scared of people, of what I'm about to confront? Maybe because I'm wise to the fact that the scariest things are inside my own head. I look like someone who has read a hundred psychology books and understood them all, and turned my own mind inside out applying all of the rules and finding the answers. I look like I know what I'm thinking and why. I look like I gave the laws of nature a fair chance, analysed all of the options and possibilities, and I'm just here to iron out a small kink in it, change a light bulb or battery to set the order of the Universe back to rights, replace a fuse. Not so much as even rewire a plug or do any painting. Something so minor that anyone with the right knowledge could have done it. Nothing to get dressed up for or flash any special identification, or make a big song and dance about. Nothing to advertise on the side of a Transit van, or open a shop for, or launch a website to tout for business on. I look like I'm just stopping off to buy an extension lead that no-one else has thought of on my way to a party, which will turn out to be crucial later on. Even on a bad day, I look like I know what I'm doing and that's the reason it's me there doing it. I intimidate myself, seeing that in the mirror every day. I think I'm the person who expects more of myself than everyone else expects of me. And that's the reason I expect to look nervous, because I FEEL nervous, on the inside. I just don't understand why it doesn't show. I guess something in my past taught me to hide emotions.

I pass a postman as I head towards the City Centre Council offices, swinging my baseball bat cheerfully. We both grin and say good morning. He thinks I'm walking home late from a party. I think he's a postman. It's all good. Just goes to show, there could be a postal services employee tied up, minus his clothes in the back of a van somewhere, and someone was about to get a very special delivery. Anyone can put on a uniform. It's the conduct of the person wearing it that counts towards its reputation. Postal uniform at 7:30 a.m. indicates postal worker going about their business. Skellington outfit at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday indicates party straggler. We share a humorous thought about the snow falling around us but don't voice it. It would be too much like stating the obvious. The eye language says it all, the snowflakes melting into his sideburns, the flurries stirred up by the loops of my bat as I swing it. Snow in April. Wicked.

I look up at the roof of the Council offices. So, he's up there now, with the seagulls and pigeons, thinking about his career and how it had led to this. Inflating himself psychologically, whether he was compensating for something deficient elsewhere or not. He's earned the right to be up there, in his world and his life and in his mind. He's styled his life and image and personality around it, seamlessly meeting his destiny, waiting patiently 300 feet above the nearest decent toilet - while 300 feet above him he IS the nearest decent toilet for the sky denizens that like to crap on the town from a great height. He's got through eight cans of Red Akuma just to get through the night, and will be lucky if he doesn't have a stroke driving home afterwards. Who'd be a hit-man, I ask you?

He doesn't look very comfortable as I step over the parapet. Looks like cramps, possibly a dead leg. A nice massage would sort him out. Shame I'm not in therapist mode. Could have made a good future customer contact. He looks itchy and cold and tired and that snowfall wasn't on his agenda either. How do you expect a clear shot 300 feet below you through snow? Any normal person would have gone home. He obviously wants this one badly. Either for his ego or his reputation. The cold obviously means higher likelihood of his gun jamming through metal contraction anyway. He'll have frostbite, cramps, probably break his collarbone if the gun actually fires with the kind of recoil it would give him, and the dead leg would mean he won't be able to make a nice clean escape. He'll be a sitting duck, 300 feet above a dead or injured body, with the police looking speculatively upwards while he tries to rub pins and needles out of every limb. If he had a plan before, I'd have loved an insight onto it.

I cut the City Council flag down with my penknife, wondering why he hadn't thought of using it to keep himself dry and a bit warmer, then I walk up behind him. I don't hesitate, exactly - I just sort of wait a moment. Maybe it's just me. I always speculate about this. Natural selection. A tiger never attacks from the front. The survivors are those with eyes in the backs of their heads.

I look over my shoulder. A seagull is watching me from the parapet, and I put my finger to the lips - or rather teeth - of my Skellington mask. I look back at the sniper lying at my feet. He hasn't looked up, and I'm disappointed. I've yet to meet another doorman with eyes in the back of his head. Some of them even seem to have problems with the ones in the front. I guess it's me that's waiting to meet my match, at the end of the day. When one of these guys finally turns around and clocks me standing behind him, I'll have met my match. Then again, I probably don't deserve that, doing what I'm doing. Maybe no-one's coming for me. Maybe I'm alone in the Universe. I'll get to the end having erased all the undesirables from the List, having made no friends out of it - just done what was expected of me, finished the job and gone home.

Momentarily I see myself from the outside, a comedy skeleton standing over a death dealer, knowing that one of us has the loneliest job in existence, and one of us is trying to build a reputation and a life around them. One of us could have reached out to the other, finding common ground in a shared career, if it wasn't for the fact that one of us has a chauvinist pig attitude, and the other doesn't fit the demographic that wants to identify with anyone who has that attitude. Yeah, life sucks sometimes. But building a reputation based on outdated ideas, and a human nature that only impresses others under the influence while the bar is open, has no place in daylight on a street with no bars or clubs. It's brainwashing others, under the influence of alcohol and drugs, into the cult of You. So that on the off chance, men will quake and women will bang you in a broom cupboard standing up. Reputation equals sex and money equals power. But from where I'm standing, I see a guy at the point of selling his soul to get that reputation. He's in pain, and doubting, and he doesn't have a plan. It's snowing. It'd make a good story, if he survives. But he doesn't have eyes in the back of his head. He's wearing a Renault promotion baseball hat, I notice, worn backwards. First car I drove was a Renault, when I was fourteen. Reversed out of the driveway for my mum.

I get bored of waiting for acknowledgement, and throw the flag over his head before hitting him once with the bat. There's nothing, no groan, or grunt - just a small sigh after a slow second. It sounds almost like relief. The peeing his pants part definitely was.

Must have drunk a lot of Red Akuma.

I don't care if he's dead or not. My job is to stop certain things happening, that's all. If he's going to wake up later, I'm not particularly interested. He just won't have his gun anymore when he comes round. That's going to be tucked up safely in the boot of my car from now on. Nice of him to have brought it in a fishing tackle bag.

Even in the old school days, there must have been more women bouncers than just me. They never get mentioned. If we really were invisible to men all that time - while they looked at the customers in their miniskirts and hot pants, and bragged about the fights they broke up or finished off - then it's ironic that we're the ones coming after them now. They couldn't see us back then, and they still can't see us. We really are invisible. All we were on their teams was a social inconvenience, stopping more women from approaching them, getting in the way of their fights.

I really shouldn't think like this while I'm working. I change my mind about leaving him for half dead or unconscious, and shoot him through the Coat-of-Arms before putting the gun away. I look for his wallet, and find a few credit cards, none of them under any matching names, and leave them on the roof next to him. One day I might put a name I recall against one of these guys. For now they're simply Persona Non Grata.

And yet I still do it as my regular job, with the new school and the old school who graduated successfully. Still like my team-mates and think they're decent guys. Still have an open mind about human nature, that there could be normal people without that kind of ego in the job. Resent being made to feel that I'm the bad guy watching them, waiting for judgements to come through and sentences to carry out. Dislike having to hide things about myself. Wish I had something normal to chat about when we sit around for a drink afterwards, have something they can identify with about me.

I'm halfway down from the roof when the next one comes through, and answer my mobile as if it's normal to be on a fire escape with a gun and a baseball bat.

Number 47 Linden Road. The postman's got a special delivery. No survivors today please, this is his second outing after escaping with concussion last month.

Yeah, I guessed. I passed him on my way over.

No other casualties to find, he's a bona fide postal worker now. Abuse of genuine uniform privileges. Check his van anyway, for the usual.

Sure.

Any problems with the weather?

No. It's all good.

Nice one. They hang up. It's as if they think I'm an Imperial Stormtrooper. Sleeping and eating in my armour ready for action at forty-five seconds' notice. This is why it's nice to have a real job with a rota at the same time, so I can go looking and feeling civilized, not fall out of bed like the aforementioned mental patient. There's a refreshing lack of code words and namby-pamby avoidant slang over the phone. They have a sense of humour but everything's in plain English, as if it's a Police Crime Scene line. Then again, it's best to keep the instructions word-for-word without the need for a code dictionary or internal translator. You don't want the message 'Take out the blond guy stacking shelves on aisle seven' misinterpreted as dating advice. They're more likely to say 'Put a corpse in aisle seven where the blond guy is currently stacking shelves'. To me, that's a clear instruction. These guys have done their homework on me too. They know my language and my interpretation. I wonder if they know what that means, in psychological terms.

I return to my car to deposit the gun and bat, but reconsider the plumbing wrench. It's now nearly 8:00 a.m… Scamways will be open. Skellington with plumbing wrench might be interpreted as disgruntled party straggler locked out of own flat by extremely imaginative early shopper, but not by unimaginative junior constable buying station tea-bags.

I go unarmed instead. After all, I go unarmed to work every night. This should be fun.

Number 47 Linden Road is a student house. This sucks. Why is a student in any shape or form a target? I don't care what religion they are or what subject they're studying. I ring the doorbell, hoping I got there first.

A girl in a pink dressing gown answers the door.

I'm really sorry, I'm staying a couple of doors down and I don't have the keys, and my friend and her housemates are still not back, I say. Do you have an old Nokia phone charger or adaptor I can plug into for a few minutes while I make a call? Just right here in the hallway is fine. Sorry if I got you up.

Of course there's a phone charger and adaptor, and she was just getting up, preparing for a Uni Library Open Day. She kindly offers me a coffee too, and asks me if it was a good party. Another of her housemates gets up and says good morning, and they disappear to the kitchen right at the back of the house.

I pretend to plug in my phone and leave the front door slightly ajar, and ring head office.

Nice one, you're inside the house, they say approvingly. We like your style. What are you, the Avon lady?

How come you can see the targets from space but not me? I stand out a mile. The girl brings me a coffee and a piece of toast with strawberry jam on and pads away back to the kitchen again. How far away is he?

Five doors up.

Is it a recorded delivery packet?

Yes.

Who's the receiver? I take a bite out of my toast.

Cherzia Lucy Adams. They pause and I hear typing onto a keyboard. She's a nightclub promoter studying Law. Looks like it's personal. Maybe he suspects she knows something about this guy from working in the same clubs.

Or maybe he doesn't like rejections, I suggest.

She's recently had an abortion, they tell me. Possibly they were closer than you think.

Or again, he might have a jealous streak, I suggest. Maybe he was playing unrequited therapist to her helpless damsel act. Sure this isn't a contract job? Has she got influential parents?

She's got frequent Facebuddy activity online. Lots of photos. He's in a number of them, looks like she has quite a doorman fetish. I think it's his privacy he's concerned about.

Yeah, that would do it, I sigh. Takes one to know one, after all. A reputation is all good when it's good, but when it's bad or dodgy in the wrong way, you'd rather be anonymous.

He's on the front step, they say. Stay on the line.

I open the door, phone to my ear, and he stops with his finger reaching for the doorbell. My Skellington mask is pushed up on top of my head, and our eyes meet.

I recognise him, but he can't place me out of context. As far as he can tell, I'm just another student. He always was useless for remembering faces.

Recorded delivery for Cherzia Adams? he says.

Yeah, that's me, I say.

He knows it isn't me, because he knows her, and he looks hesitant.

Where do I sign? I say.

He takes out his electronic pad slowly and hands it to me, looking uncomfortably over my shoulder into the house. This wasn't his plan. I draw a smiley face onto his pad and hand it back. He doesn't look at it.

Post? I say, as he continues to look over my shoulder. He drags his gaze back to me, blankly, and I forerun the conclusion for him. Wrong target, right house. A warning is as good as a direct hit. His hand goes inside his fluorescent jacket as I do the thinking for him. I reach out, slowly, as if for the post, and close my hand around his, while it's still inside his orange vest. My finger finds his trigger finger and closes over it before he can even comprehend that I can see not only through his mind but through his hi-vis. I tighten the grip, and he shoots himself in the chest, right there on the doorstep.

I take away my hand and flex it, looking him squarely in the eyes as before, as devoid of expression as I usually muster for the occasion. It's my lack of expression that he finally recognises me for.

Lara, he mouths, without sound, and collapses on the doorstep.

Nice to be remembered. Pity it was never my real name.

Why are you dressed as Jack Skellington? head office query. Have you been to a party? Without inviting us?

There's lots you don't know about me, I reply mildly, relieving the postman of his gun and shoving it into my bra inside the costume. I unplug the phone charger back in the hallway, wind up the flex and put it on the stairs. Then I drain my coffee and shout thanks to the girls in the kitchen, before leaving and closing the front door behind me. I step over the body as I head down the pathway, back the way I had come. Can I have a lift back to my car? I'm starting to feel a bit conspicuous.

Can get you a coin-op sat-nav street car in about forty minutes, they tease.

That's a bit of a long wait, I remark, cheerfully. Also I don't think I have any spare change in this Skellington costume. Not to mention I can walk faster than one of those things.

There'll be a uniform at the top of the road.

Oh, you wanted me to check the mail van too. We'll have to stop off there first.

No problem. They hang up.

I get to the top of the road, and a police car pulls up. The driver beckons me to the passenger seat.

I get in.

Busy morning? W.P.C. Drury asks.

Not bad. I adjust my bra and take the gun out. She only raises an eyebrow. You?

Domestic and a missing OAP. Hoping he'll be around Broad Ash somewhere, just driving around hoping to spot him. Seen any old guys in purple dressing gowns on your rounds?

I shake my head.

All this snow about, he'll think he's in Narnia, I remark. There's our guy's postal van. Have you got a crowbar?

She lends me an asp and I use it to break in. Nothing. Not so much as a stripper's thong, or a compromising Polaroid or anything exciting at all. Just bags of mail for the next block down after Linden Road.

I check his recorded delivery list clipped to the board on the dash. 47 Linden Road is on there with a highlighter dot next to it. There is another highlighter dot next to 113a Corporate Square.

I know this address. It's the security agency office that I work for.

The recorded delivery items are bagged separately, and there's only four on his list. I open the bag and see a shoebox-sized parcel for 113a. I don't touch it.

I go back to the police car instead to give Drury her asp back.

Could be one for bomb squad here, I say. My phone rings. I swear, and answer it quickly. Guys, any chance you got something that can scan this van right now for a potential device? Hope it's not triggered by a phone signal either. He had a second marked item for Heavy Duty Security in there. Maybe his first target sussed out he had a surprise for them in store.

Yeah, the current Heavy Duty contract value is right up there, they tell me. On the freelance market. But you of all people would know that none of the desk jockeys or area managers are on the To Do List. Your rooftop guy earlier was trying to take one of them out on another private contract. If he'd succeeded, and a bomb had been delivered as well, these two would have been fighting for the fee on his noodle. Hmm. Satellite isn't giving us much, it could be plastique of course, or a biological pollutant. Anthrax, perhaps.

Bomb or biohazard, I pass on to Drury, who nods, already on the radio.

Old age escaped pensioner just turned up, she grins. Sitting in a sat-nav street-car on the City Centre taxi rank shouting 'Home, James!' while the A.I. told him to insert coins or credit card and confirm destination.

No chance it could be a warning or intimidation, a severed head or anything? head office suggest. We weren't expecting a hit there today.

Might be a severed foot, it's in a shoebox, I say wryly. What's in the post tomorrow?

I hear the typing again.

Oh yes. Special Delivery for Heavy Duty tomorrow. Post must have come early.

Or he moved it forward thanks to his friend Cherzia stalking him on Facebuddy, I remark.

Yeah, that sounds more likely, they agree. Okay. Nice work, number one. You can go home and get some sleep now. Uniform can secure the van and whatever's in it. Working tonight?

Yeah.

You'll have lost one of your regular team, okay?

Sure. HD will send us a new boy scout, no fear. I wonder if I took out one of my workmates on the roof this morning, or if he was dealt with by one of the others on the same detail as me. How long before you need me again?

Typing, typing.

Looks like Thursday.

I don't like this Facebuddy activity, if people are juggling dates because they're paranoid about privacy and being found out, I say. Can you let me know if the targets are online, and especially if they have a Cherzia in their pocket?

Well, there are always the short notice cases. Cash in hand in the pub, you know the drill.

Those are the easy ones. It's the premeditateds that go and tell some bird to impress her into dropping her knickers, then she tells her housemates and her Facebuddy pals that she's shagged a hit-man and he's going to kill his boss on Thursday. So he moves it up to Tuesday, or does it a month later instead. Last week you said Friday, then cancelled it, then rang me while I was in the bath Wednesday afternoon, saying 'Thirty-five minutes, grab a towel.'

Yeah, there was a leak on Facebuddy. Another Cherzia, you might say. Four girls were discussing it on their wall posts, and the guy changed all of his plans twice. Nearly pulled out altogether - then the satellite saw him heading up to the flyover hoping to catch the commuter traffic.

I'd nearly had a plan for the flyover guy, when the plan was for Friday. I was going to jog past and push him off. As it was, I got into my car on Wednesday wearing only a bathrobe and with my hair soaking wet, had to stop at the petrol station in said bathrobe on the way, drive into town like a nutter to beat the commuter traffic, go around the roundabout under the flyover, and shoot him from the driver's seat. I had to go around twice because I missed first time. I missed him by so much, luckily, he didn't even know about it. Too busy waiting for his biker target to look at dirty white Toyotas driven by mad women in bathrobes.

Technically, I'm not supposed to know anything about their targets. Neither are head office. But in a game of people-watching by computer and satellite, the stories unfold like Chinese Whispers. We just know they're after someone, and you look at where they've been, who was there, where they're going, who they email or talk to - every case is a little soap opera all by itself. The speculation makes everything so much more entertaining. Head office don't get out much - they analyse satellite and computer information. But they're human and humans like a bit of entertainment. Telling themselves stories about the targets, and asking me to play guessing games with them about their lives, and motivations, makes it fun for them. I'm like their interactive Sims friend that they watch from above, telling them how much blood I can see on the ground in front of me, and who said what to who in what tone of voice.

I walk back to my car, still small-talking shop with head office.

We're working on your wingman still, they tell me. Got a good candidate. Asks a few too many questions about you. Thought we might trial him this Thursday. Give him the short notice back-up call. We haven't told him you're a chick, you know what men are like for superiority complexes around a woman.

I don't really mind. I suggested you get me a psychopath, not an egomaniac or a narcissist, I reply. There's a difference. A psychopath will focus on the job being done thoroughly. An egomaniac or narcissist will only focus on his image and appearance of doing the job, and how it looks to his Facebuddy pals. If he's on Facebuddy at all I don't think he's much of a psycho, to be honest.

He's not on Facebuddy. Kind of a wacko in the workplace. A self-control freak on the front door, but socially unpredictable. Keeps himself to himself. Has a tendency to bottle things up inside. More of an introvert.

It sounds like me, I think uncomfortably.

Is he single?

Inescapably, by the look of things. Girls think he's boring, and a workaholic. Except for the usual sluts.

Sounds like someone I know, I think even more uncomfortably.

It's not Jason Harris Green? I hazard a guess. He's not a psychopath, he's a dissociative identity type. It takes compartmentalising your lifestyle to whole terrifying new levels.

He's old school and new school, like you. He can empathise with the need to clean up the job.

Jason Green wouldn't know 'empathy' unless it was the name of a Porn Star, I say. He's delusional. He's the kind of guy who'd beat you up for teasing a dog, then go home and microwave his cat to restore the balance of the Universe.

Yeah, well, he's not the only wildcard we've ever put money on. We wanted someone who'd apply some logic to the job, not a loose cannon. Even if his own particular brand of logic only makes sense inside his own skull.

I feel slightly queasy, speculating about the contents of Jason's skull. It's not a place I ever felt I'd be happy having the freedom to wander around the inside of. I'd want a police escort just for a brief reccy.

Trial him Thursday if you want, I say at last, trying to sound dismissive. I think he'll do all right. I just don't like the thought of what the job'll do to his brain and personality. He's fucking weird enough already.

Maybe he'll turn out to have a talent for it, they chuckle. You did.

CHAPTER 2: Head Hunted

I'm frowning for a good reason, scanning the signing-in book at work. Everyone on the regular team is in. They said someone would be missing.

One of my contemporaries has goofed up today. It's not a good thought.

Lara. It's Melanie, the bar manager. There's a phone call for you, in the office. The police want to ask you about some CCTV footage from last week.

I nod and go through to the back office, and pick up the receiver.

Eric Dylan, head office say abruptly. He mustn't leave the venue tonight.

They hang up. I've just been told to kill the deputy head doorman. And I've come to work unarmed.

I do my routine scouting around the venue and perimeter checks. Eric's Chrysler is parked in the alleyway out back. I've taken his keys already from his coat pocket in the cloakroom, and disarm it before opening the boot.

Paydirt. Now I'm armed.

I close the boot again and slash a couple of his tyres with a Stanley knife from the office toolbox, then go back to return his keys to the cloakroom and get on with work.

After signing out at the end of a long night, it's not unusual for me to skip a staff drink and leave first. I move my car around to the far end of the alleyway, so anyone glancing at my usual space will guess I'm gone.

I lean against a skip full of empty bottles and wait for Eric Dylan to emerge. He never seemed like much of a bad guy. A bit arrogant. Girlfriend was a local pole-dancer. Liked his gold jewellery, not to mention teeth. Kind of a Hollywood East-Ender. Liked to boast about his kids in Thailand - the mum never agreed to marry him and move over here, for some reason. Didn't want to be a tracksuit-wearing skivvy, when she could be a bikini-wearing hooker earning her own wage and supporting half her home village on the income.

He doesn't notice the flat tyres until he gets into the car, starts her up and puts it in gear - he gets out to have a look, shouts a few choice words into the empty alleyway, kicks the wheels, then goes around to the vehicle's rear.

I let him pop it open before I shoot him in the head, and his body slumps forwards into the trunk. It's a nice bit of timing, and I walk up behind him and drop his own gun back inside, next to his body. Stranger things have happened. It's not too difficult getting the rest of him inside the boot and closing it on him. The beauty of it is it's a tow-away zone during the day, and the scene will be cleared for me by 10:00 a.m, courtesy of the City Council.

I go back to my car, and reverse out of the alleyway, changing my route so I don't pass the front doors of the club.

At the first set of lights I change my music CD from Nine Inch Nails to Type O Negative. Checking my rear-view mirror, I get a shock. This isn't Jason's route either - and he's sitting right behind me in his car, with one of the barmaids in the passenger seat, who he's evidently giving a lift home. I hope her hand's in his lap, distracting him from wondering why I'm at the wrong lights in my car forty-five minutes after technically leaving. As I pull away though, he flashes his headlamps at me before turning the other way.

Trust Jason not to let a little thing like a hand-job distract him. He'll be asking where I was going next time I see him, thinking I'm concealing a secret liaison. He's a suspicious bastard. We're not even friends and barely nod at each other on the door. He's just one of those creeps who likes to think he knows everything - as long as he believes everything people are doing matches his fantasy about them, he manages to appear sane. I hope I get to wing him on Thursday now, when he shows up for wingman testing. See if I can pierce his ear or take off his little finger.

My phone rings in its cradle on the dash, and my music subdues automatically. I press Speakerphone.

Nice job, made great telly on the satellite, head office enthuse.

Why the cock-up? Did we lose a guy today?

No, an RTA delayed him. Luckily Dylan also missed his target due to the traffic. He was aiming for one of the area managers. Heavy Duty head value has gone up 800% in the last forty-eight hours. We're trying to find out why, looks like it could be economic to do with the hostility industry over all.

Hospitality, I correct automatically.

Yar. Area manager for south-west was due to knock it on the head late at the office tonight, I think Dylan was planning a drive-by after work, so you cleaned up for us nicely. Are you free for dinner tomorrow night?

Why, are the Borgias cooking?

No, we need a meeting. To discuss upgrades. You're our inside man on Heavy Duty - it's now on Priority status. Uniform will pick you up at eight, wear something nice that doesn't make you look like a hired escort.

As if I know what that would be. I'll have to go on Boogle Images to make sure I don't resemble a hooker now.

High heels and trench coats, never a good look. Librarian meets school teacher meets slut. Power suits, we don't like those either.

I'll see what I can do.

Good girl. Sweet dreams. We're going to follow Jason and watch him bang that bar ho in his car.

Goodnight. The call ends and the music volume increases again. I turn it back down. I'm worried now that all women's dressing-up clothes are construed as slut clothes. It's entirely possible that head office will be getting a date with Jack Skellington tomorrow night.

I wake up with reactive arthritis from a flu virus. It's horrible. I'm autoimmune by nature, and everything in my body that moves or is useful my antibodies have tried to attack at some point. I really hope I'm not called up today on any short notice incidents. A bout like this can turn me into a cripple for a week.

Miserably I look into my 'eclectic' wardrobe. Jack Skellington and Jason Vorheese look at me hopefully from their coat hangers, but the name 'Jason' gives me a mild shudder. I could rearrange something nice out of my dressing-up box. It's only putting certain items of clothing together that makes a fancy dress costume out of regular daily attire. I would love to go out on a date dressed up as the Friday 13th serial killer. I'd feel it was as honest as I'd ever get to be about revealing something personal of myself in my appearance. Better than any hair extensions, acrylic nails or fake tan, and a book on dating etiquette. This is me, take it or leave it.

My clothes bring back memories as I rummage through them, but not the kind of recollections most girls have. When I'm not wearing my uniform, or pyjamas, or a fancy dress outfit, I like to feel girly, and imagine I'm an ordinary single mum who likes to look nice and feel happy in herself. I like to remember occasions when I shopped at Matsu-Bara, or went to the cinema, or read a book on a train, or built a sandcastle by myself. Even pruning the garden. Makes me feel human and normal. I have girly tops and jeans I wear because I have happy memories of days I went shopping and didn't kill anybody.

I don't care that no-one else was there watching me be human, that I haven't shared things like that yet. I vaguely suspect a satellite might keep tabs on me, but unlike Jason Green, I'm not doing exciting things like having sex in my car yet to be noteworthy for. But those snippets of human life are what I treasure. Not being at the beck and call of various agencies demanding my Stormtrooper Clone training skills. I treasure every accomplishment, like a sink full of washing-up, or a neatly-folded and tidied-away batch of laundry. I think being a housewife was my main ambition while at school, and I relish any moment I'm actually doing it.

It's a strange life, being a hit-man of hit-men. Is there another level up, I wonder? Above me and head office, is there a Magnus Dei group of even more select Dispensable Manpower Selectors, assessing the efficiency of us Stormtroopers, and erasing us if we snooze on the job? I get the feeling it wouldn't be anything as crass as being shot on the way to work either. You'd see a blinking light in a crowded nightclub, and suddenly have no memory of there being any such thing as a To Do List, and changes in your door team would just mean people had moved on, or didn't show up for work, like any useless dickhead. They'd be the Men In Black, with numbers instead of names, who ensure the dirty work is cleanly done by the dirty work brigade. When you think about the potential hierarchy above you, it makes the freelance contract game at the bottom look anything but the glamorous Hollywood gold-chain lifestyle the snipers seem to think it is.

I can't think of anything to wear, and my whole body is caning like an Eton headmaster's office. I take some painkillers with a cup of tea, and run myself a bath, looking up suitable home aromatherapy oil treatments for rheumatoid arthritis. I mix up lemon, rosemary and juniper berry oils in an olive oil base, give myself a massage, and throw the remainder into the bath for a nice half an hour's soak. I don't know if it's the oils or the painkillers, but I do feel slightly better afterwards.

I heat up my hair straighteners and watch LW. They're debating whether second wives get a better deal than first wives. The McGiff isn't on it today. She'd probably have had something interesting to say about that. The Northern lass that sings on cruise ships reckons it's the man that's checking he's getting a better deal second time around, and wives need to buck their ideas up generally if they're going to expect good treatment. The old child-star-turned-agony-aunt just has a moan about her husband as usual, while the gravy-browning lady says it's all about maintaining respect and having good self-esteem. An answer for everyone watching. The presenter, a former Radio One Chart Show girl, even has her say on this subject. That second wives might learn a lot about their husbands from meeting the first wives. I insert my own private mental note on this one. If he's left his first wife, perhaps she wasn't all that knowledgeable about him. If she left him, perhaps there's stuff on him worth finding out.

By the time the programme has finished, my hair is straight and shiny. It took four years to grow until it looks like extensions. People always ask me if it's my own, and are shocked when they find out it is. Times certainly change. You'd think girls were brainwashed by hairdressers from the age of seven now that hair doesn't naturally grow below shoulder length. I can sit on mine, if I'm not careful. Recently I started streaking it blonde, since finding white ones. Stress. Too many late nights and early mornings, hoping to catch people like the postman doing unscheduled deliveries.

Nine years ago was my first job doing this for head office. I was in receipt of a courier, who tried to shoot me through a padded envelope. The night before, my car had been taken from outside a club I was working in, and used in a drive-by shooting. Then, it was (very kindly) returned, before I finished work, meaning that I was none the wiser. Until next morning when a revenge hit-man was sent round. I won't repeat exactly what I did to him, except I gaffer-taped him to a police station when I'd had enough, emptied his bank account, stole his motorbike, used his gun, and buried all the evidence in some woods belonging to someone that I wanted arrested for the crimes. Head office called me and said they had photographs of my fun and games, and that I had to go to 'Anger Management Anonymous' which turned out to be a recruitment school for Imperial Stormtroopers. My first job was finishing him off the day he walked free from court having got a smart-assed lawyer paid for by his drug baron buddy - who'd hired him to hit me in the first place. That was the day I went back to bed cuddling a baseball bat, and left my bloody machete in the gutter above the front porch for a week hoping it would rain and wash it - until head office phoned up shouting at me to take it down, because the neighbours two doors up had a window-cleaner coming who would see it from his ladder while washing the Velux.

I never did get the stains off until I burnt it poking the bonfire, and instead got some nice wavy rainbow discolourations on the blade, which were more attractive. But somehow head office took a shine to my way of doing things. Maybe because I didn't sit in the pub or go on the internet bigging up myself as a Hollywood hit-man. I didn't call them up and cry for attention, or behave like the misunderstood loner, or damsel in distress. I didn't play the secretive assassin either. I've stood in a queue for the checkout at Scamways, on the phone, arranging to return a shotgun before the farmer missed it, and his cartridges. I have a deadpan way of talking in public that means people eavesdropping think I just have a dark sense of humour. Honesty pays off better in the long run, not just from day to day. Uniform can always find me, satellite can always find me - even without a wingman so far, I've never been alone or at a loose end.

I'm really not comfortable with the idea of Jason Green being my wingman, or sidekick. Emergency back-up. The guy that takes the shot when you miss. Watches to make sure nobody's got a gun trained on you. My impression of him personally has never been great. From the first time we worked together, I felt like he was my stalker. Seemed to have more to think about me than to say to me. Anything he did say, or ask me, sounded like he'd mulled over it for too long already, on his own in a darkened room surfing porn sites. He's a good doorman - just a single-minded creep when it comes to women generally. I can't help feeling that given the opportunity, his basic fantasy about me would involve handcuffs and his bedroom, shortly followed by a shovel and his new patio. I'm glad he's only one guy in the twenty-five-man team I work with. It's easy to avoid workmates in a bigger team when they creep you out, than if there's only two of you on the door of a Winterspoons pub. He's