Authors: Lucy di Legge
Finally, Harriet said, “Charlie may have forgiven you, but I haven’t. And I won’t.” Without breaking eye contact, Harriet quietly said to Thomas, “You know what to do.”
“Just to be crystal clear with what you mean, Harriet…” Thomas said, and Harriet noted the way his lips stayed parted.
Harriet saw the look of doubt and concern in Thomas’s eyes, and she realized he couldn’t go through with it. She thought about retrieving the gun from the drawer, but she had always disliked guns. Instead, she walked over to behind Thomas, lifting up the back of his shirt, and removed the large, serrated knife she knew she would find there, clipped onto the back of his trousers inside a leather case. She moved back in front of Joanna, feeling the weight of the blade in her hand.
Looking into Joanna’s eyes, she said, “It’s all right, Thomas.”
Harriet felt the more than twelve years of anger and outrage. She felt the time that Joanna had stolen from Charlotte, and from Charlotte and her together, and the life that she had stolen from Daniel, Dillon, and those other poor souls. Harriet felt every wrong decision, every moment that she had trusted in Joanna, confided in her, laughed with her. She felt the certainty that Joanna would never give them the answers they sought, never tell them why she had committed such heinous acts, never give them the closure they so desperately needed. If there were any closure to be found, Harriet would have to find it herself.
Harriet pressed the tip of the knife against the center of Joanna’s body just below her breastbone, and noted with detached interest how little force was required to push the blade through her clothes and skin and into her body. She watched as Joanna’s eyes fluttered, opening wide and staring back at her as the veins in her face and neck bulged in anger. Harriet twisted the blade up and high behind her ribs in one violent motion, and then pulled it out. Joanna was trying to cough but with her mouth still taped, blood spurted out of her nostrils with each exhalation. Harriet watched the contortions of her facial muscles and, sooner than she expected, she watched as her movements slowed then stopped, and she slumped in Thomas’s arms, the midsection of her shirt rapidly turning a bright red. Harriet observed her still-open eyes.
“Get rid of the body,” Harriet told him, placing the knife on the counter behind her, not wanting to look at Joanna any longer. “And the evidence.”
“Yes, Harriet,” Thomas replied quietly.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Harriet heard Thomas downstairs but she didn’t want to know the details of what he was doing. Even though he hadn’t been able to kill Joanna himself, that didn’t shake her confidence that he would do what was necessary now. She showered quickly and delicately applied her makeup, and then sat on the edge of the bed, a towel wrapped around her body, as she drank directly from the bottle of scotch she kept in the nightstand.
When she felt sufficiently emotionally numb, she put the bottle back in the nightstand and proceeded to dress in her usual attire: a sapphire-colored blouse, a pencil skirt, and a pair of heels. She waffled over whether to wear her strand of pearls, the decision taking ridiculously long.
Thomas met her at the bottom of the stairs, requesting she send Ethan to fetch a list of supplies they would need. She nodded and silently left the house, looking to the world as though she was simply headed to work.
The air felt warmer than usual on her skin that morning as she headed for Bermondsey Street. The sunlight seemed dizzyingly bright and the teeming sidewalks of people seemed oblivious to everything around them. Harriet knew she would need to head to Westminster for an emergency afternoon session, where they would be meeting at Church House for security reasons, but at the moment it was a blur on her mind’s horizon.
She arrived at Bermondsey Street around 10:30 in the morning and was greeted at the door by Ethan, whose forehead was covered by a thin sheen of sweat. “Charlie told us what happened – how Joanna was at your house,” he said once they were both behind the closed door to his shop.
Harriet nodded and said, “Thomas will need your help taking care of the disposal.”
Ethan’s face betrayed the surprise he felt, but he recovered quickly and said, “Yes, all right. What do I need to do?”
Harriet rattled off the list of supplies that Thomas had requested: the hacksaw from the shop, several pieces of luggage, a change of clothes for each of them, plastic sheeting, and more duct tape. Ethan said he understood, and added, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, Harriet.”
Harriet squeezed his shoulder and replied, “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about. Are the others upstairs?”
He said that they were, and Harriet thanked him and then headed up to the fourth floor.
She passed by Rhys and Marta, who sat at Rhys’s desk and were apparently going over footage of the bombing. They looked up at Harriet expectantly but she walked straight into her office, where she found Zoe and Charlotte sitting on the couch. Zoe had her arm around Charlotte in a comforting kind of way, but she let it drop when she saw Harriet enter. Harriet heard Rhys and Marta follow her in, wanting to hear what she had to say.
Harriet settled into her chair, pulling her bottle of scotch out of the drawer and setting it atop the desk, not caring that it was only mid-morning. Still feeling suitably numb from what she had already drunk that morning and not because she worried what the others would think if she had a drink, she momentarily left the bottle alone.
Harriet knew she couldn’t delay the moment any longer. “She’s dead,” she told them.
Charlotte looked over at Harriet from the couch and asked in a shaky voice, “Was it me? Was it from the head wound?”
Harriet shook her head, wondering how Charlotte could still have such compassion for Joanna. She replied in a low voice, “No, it wasn’t you.”
Zoe cleared her throat and asked, “But… shouldn’t we have tried to question her?”
Harriet glared at Zoe in response, even though a part of her respected Zoe’s fearlessness in asking.
Rhys interjected, “She obviously had to be stopped. She wouldn’t have given up any information. Besides, once you cut off the head of the snake….”
Charlotte buried her head in her hands and then said, “I can’t believe we’re just sitting here and talking about this… like it’s nothing.”
“It’s not ‘nothing,’ Charlie,” Harriet said quietly.
The room was silent for a long moment as, apparently, none of them knew what to say, and Harriet had nothing that she wanted to say aloud.
“Where’s Ethan?” Marta asked.
“He’s gone to help Thomas at the house,” Harriet replied.
“I need some air,” Charlotte said, abruptly getting up and walking out of the room. The others looked at Harriet with concern and she got up and followed Charlotte.
Charlotte’s footsteps were naturally faster than Harriet’s, and Harriet hurried down the stairs, catching her arm before she reached the ground floor landing. “Talk to me,” Harriet said.
Charlotte looked down to the front door and then up towards the higher floors and then finally met Harriet’s gaze. Harriet saw such sadness in her eyes. “I didn’t think things would turn out like this,” Charlotte said.
“How did you think things would end?” Harriet asked softly.
“This… just isn’t the life I imagined for myself. I never wanted to be part of anyone’s… murder.” As she spoke, a deep wrinkle creased her forehead.
“No one wants that. And I never wanted it for you. If there had been any other way.” Harriet said, her voice trailing off. Harriet added, “Joanna took that choice away from us.”
“Is that what you truly believe?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes, it is,” Harriet replied.
Charlotte nodded to herself and said, “I need to just… walk… for a little while.”
“All right,” Harriet said, letting her hand drop from Charlotte’s arm and watching her descend the last few steps. “Charlie?” Harriet called, just before she reached the door.
Charlotte looked back at her.“Thank you – for this morning, for coming into the kitchen when you did. You saved my life.” Harriet swallowed, finding the words difficult to have spoken aloud.
Charlotte nodded again and went out the front door.
#
Harriet waited for Charlotte to return to the Bermondsey Street house for as long as she could, but with the minutes ticking by, she eventually had to leave for Westminster. She also hadn’t heard from Ethan and Thomas, but she trusted they were doing what was necessary.
The emergency session at Church House was less frenetic than Harriet expected, aided by the discovery that one of the bodies found in the bombing was identified as a member of a rebel terrorist organization that called itself the Sisters and Brothers of the Revolution. Her colleagues, much like herself, felt like knowing who was to blame gave them control over the situation. No longer was this some unknown assailant; rather, they could point to a specific person, and group, and label the reason why they had attacked.
The session closed with a pronouncement of a period of mourning for those lost in the bombing and a commitment to dismantle the terrorist organization. Of those present, only Harriet knew that the organization was as good as dismantled already, that its leader was dead.
Nick hustled over to Harriet as the session adjourned. He inclined his head toward her as he said, “I was sorry about your intern. He seemed like a bright young man.”
Harriet nodded and said, “I really hadn’t gotten to know him well.”
They walked out onto College Green, where the grass had been judiciously maintained over the years. Neither one of them said anything for several minutes.
Nick broke the silence by saying, “I’ve been wondering for a while why you don’t make the leap and take an active role in the SDO.”
Harriet maintained the same careful expression that got her through the emergency session and the “news” about the Sisters and Brothers. She replied, “I’m not a member of the SDO.”
“Right, right. I know, officially, you’re a Labour Co-operative Party member.”
Harriet didn’t say anything in response.
“Harriet, I
know
. There had been rumors about a former leader, and a few people remembered what she looked like. And eventually I found someone who would tell me this mythical leader’s first name.”
“What do you want, Nick?” Harriet asked sharply.
His lips parted in surprise before he said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean for this to come out the way that it’s sounding. I guess I was just wondering why you left the organization.”
Harriet watched people walking across the grass, looking over at the setting sun, and engaging in equally private conversations as the one she found herself pulled into.
“I didn’t leave,” Harriet told him. “But it was prudent to take a less visible role.”
He took a moment, apparently processing this new information, before he replied, “With what happened – with that Sisters and Brothers of the Revolution group – I’m concerned about the future of the SDO, about whether we’ll be lumped into the same category of terrorist organizations.”
“Again, you mean. Besides, I wasn’t aware that you were even thinking of joining the organization.”
“Perhaps the SDO needs a representative in Parliament. Perhaps it’s time,” he said.
“Perhaps,” Harriet replied.
“I meant you,” he said.
“I know what you meant,” Harriet responded.
He sighed and was quiet again before asking, “By the way, that friend of yours – the ex-prisoner biochemist who used to be a member of the organization?”
“What about her?” Harriet asked, hearing her voice constrict. Of course Nick realized that she hadn’t simply known Charlotte through the EBC. She held her breath, waiting for him to make some sort of outrageous demand.
“I had a board meeting before I came to Westminster today. I checked up on her with human resources, just to see how she was doing, knowing that she’s a friend of yours. It seems she turned in her letter of resignation this morning.”
Harriet kept her eyes focused across the far side of the grass, willing herself not to allow her reaction to show on her face. Charlotte was leaving her job? What did this mean? And why didn’t Charlotte talk it over with her?
Nick asked in a hushed voice, “Her resignation – it doesn’t have anything to do with what happened here, does it?”
“No,” Harriet said. “Of course not.” She could feel him looking at her and so she made herself meet his gaze. “She’s been looking for full-time employment,” she added with a shrug. “Sorry she’s leaving so soon after starting the job.”
#
Harriet made her way back to Bermondsey Street that night, only to be told by Rhys that Charlotte had come and gone. “Did she leave a message?” she asked him.
“She said she’d be at Erin’s flat. I don’t know which Erin,” he replied, looking worried about how she would respond.
“That’s fine,” Harriet said. “I do.”
Rhys added, “Thomas and Ethan were here earlier, down at the incinerator in the cellar.”
Harriet nodded and thanked Rhys for the information. She went to her office and flipped on her desk computer, noting that her bottle of scotch was still out. She poured herself a glass and drank it almost in a single long gulp. She set the glass down and stared at her hands, still feeling the weight of the knife in her palm, still seeing the blood that she had washed off hours ago. She watched as her hands began to shake and, with difficulty, she poured herself another drink.
She called up her diginotes and read one from Anna, providing her with information about Dillon Macpherson’s family and wondering if she would be attending the memorial service. She switched off the computer without replying.
It took her longer than it ought to have to make her way to Erin’s flat. The long walk, though, provided Harriet with time to sober up from her scotch.
She knocked at the door and Erin opened it wide, frowning but allowing Harriet to pass. “She’s in the kitchen,” she told Harriet.
Erin called to Charlotte to say she was going out and would be back in an hour or so. Even though it was the middle of the night, she would find somewhere to go. Most shops and many restaurants remained open twenty-hours, having never readjusted their schedules from the days when so many people worked nights.