‘I’m sorry,’ Martin muttered. Goodnight shrugged.
‘My life is about something different now,’ she said, again cradling the small bump in her abdomen. ‘I have other priorities.’
‘But I don’t think that –’
‘Right,’ Martin said sharply, cutting Bill off and giving him a pointed look. ‘We have taken up enough of your time, Mrs Chambers. Come on Bill.’ Martin gestured to Goodie as he stood. ‘Don’t get up, we can find our own way out.’
‘But Martin,’ Bill hissed, ‘we should –’
‘Bill, it’s time to leave,’ Martin told him through clenched teeth. He didn’t want to hammer any more questions at this woman whose physicality, which had been such an important part of her life, was now stripped away. She was broken. There was no threat here: not any more.
‘Out with it,’ Martin said into the uncomfortable silence as they trudged back to their car from the house after the heavy door had been slammed in their wake. ‘Come on. You’re pissed off. You may as well just tell me.’
‘Why wouldn’t you let me ask any more questions?’ Bill said, his voice low but threaded with anger. ‘I’m the one who did all the research. Iknowher.’
Martin threw up his hands. ‘What more could we have asked? She’s visibly pregnant, hobbling around at a snail’s pace. Let’s just let her get on with her life.’
Bill stopped by the car and looked back up at the house, narrowing his eyes. ‘I don’t know. Something feels off. Did you see her IQ tests? Her resilience tests? Off the fucking scale.’
‘Let it go for Christ’s sake,’ Martin said. ‘What could she possibly do now?’
* * *
Goodie listenedto the slow beating of his heart under her ear and his breathing evening out, then lifted her head to prop it up on her hand and watch his face in the moonlight. She traced from his eyebrow down to his strong, stubble-covered jaw with her finger, and smiled. He was so beautiful and he was hers. She leaned forward and kissed his mouth lightly and he didn’t move. He was out. Goodie was not surprised; he’d certainly expended a fair bit of energy before falling into a deep sleep. She smiled again and was tempted to snuggle back into his chest but managed to resist. Turning away from him, she slid off the bed naked, and stood beside it on both feet before padding silently to the bathroom: no limp, no stick.
Once in the vast en suite she shut the door and turned on the light. She looked at herself in the full-length mirror and smiled again. Cheeks flushed pink with desire, rounded stomach with his child, long blonde hair falling past her shoulders; she looked content, she looked happy. He’d given her that; he and his family, and Goodie knew how to protect family. After all, she’d been doing it since she was a child. With one last look in the mirror she turned to the laundry basket and pulled out underwear; not the lacy, flimsy kind she tended to wear for Nick, but the kind of industrial sports bra and cotton knickers that could stand up to anything. Next she extracted some tight black trousers, and a black polo-neck jumper, which she pulled down over her bump. Once dressed, she pulled on her hard-wearing leather boots and secured her long hair in a bun before covering it completely with a black beanie hat. She opened her make up bag and started to cover her face in black camo paint. Soon the clear blue and white of her eyes was the only thing breaking up the unrelenting darkness. She smiled and her teeth stood out stark white against the dark background. She moved her hands to her stomach again.
‘Time to learn how Mummy protects her family, little one,’ she whispered in Russian, before grabbing her black leather gloves and pulling them on. She opened the door silently and moved to the window, where she stood looking down at her watch. The minute it hit two a.m. she slid up the pane and then threw a leg over into the night.
She perched on the stone windowsill, took one last look back at Nick, then turned and dropped gracefully until she was holding on to the sill with only her fingers supporting her weight. Swinging her body like a pendulum, she managed to gain enough momentum to reach the drainpipe at the side of the building. She flew through the air, caught hold of it, and slid down it. Once on the ground she flexed her neck to the side and shook out her arms. Salem was sitting waiting for her on the grass. She tousled the fur on his head briefly, then silently, gracefully, and with no hint of an uneven gait, she ran, Salem running beside her.
Goodie herself may have come out of the shadows, her life may be out in the open, but the image she presented was what she wanted it to be: weak, defenceless, and, above all, not a threat. It had made leaving behind the life she’d lived easier; even those idiots from Legoland didn’t question her for long. They saw a washed-up, broken woman; they felt pity. To some that would have been annoying, frustrating even – but not to Goodie. She had never cared about what people thought of her; to her, the only thing that mattered was having the power to protect what was important to you. That streak of fierce loyalty had always been one of the most prominent traits of her personality; and now, with the safety of her family in question, she was not going to fuck around.
The tears she had had in her eyes for the agents when she talked about limping down the aisle at her wedding, about being carried up the stairs, had been genuine. The pretencedidmake her sad, but it was necessary, and Goodie was patient. Really fucking patient. Keeping things from Nick was difficult, but he would not understand what she was doing and he would stop her. Also she sensed that, for a while at least, heneededto take care of her; he wanted to carry her up the stairs. Yes, he would be pleased when in a few years she slowly recovered her function, but for now he was happy with her depending on him to some extent, and she was happy to give him that.
How had she done it? Bruce the physio had not always been a physio. When Goodie was out in Iraq on a private contract she’d been deployed with his unit of the marines; and she saved his life. He owed her and she called in that debt as soon as she flew into the UK. They worked together in the gym and the pool Nick had built for her. They were both underground and there was a lock on the gym and pool door. Nick had once asked why he couldn’t watch and help her train. She’d told him she didn’t want him to see her like that: weak and struggling. When he pressed the issue she’d only had to let her face fall once and give a half sniff before he gave in. He never asked again.
Her other partner in crime was Arabella. People always underestimate children. Goodie did not. She went to the woods with Arabella and Salem everyday. Under the cover of the trees she carried on training, running, lifting logs and branches. Even lifting Arabella, much to her amusement. Goodie had told Bels that she needed to be strong to protect the family, that there was one more thing she needed to do and that nobody could know she was better. Arabella didn’t breathe a word; she loved her family, she wanted them protected, and she trusted Goodie.
After two miles in the woods Goodie and Salem came out into a field, then continued with care so as not to be visible from the road. As the house they were aiming for came into view they crouched in the undergrowth and waited. It took twenty minutes but eventually a guard walked past. Goodie lifted a hand, palm down then lowered it, and Salem dropped to lie on the ground. Then she moved out into the open, padded over behind the guard. When she was close enough she uncapped the needle at the end of the syringe she had between her teeth and stabbed it into the side of the guard’s thick neck. He grunted, clutched at his neck and whipped around, but she was too quick, staying out of his line of vision. After a moment he stumbled, and then with a long groan he fell to the floor.
Goodie watched him for a few seconds until she heard him give out a loud snore. She turned to Salem who had raised his head with his ears pricked forward. Lifting both hands palm down this time, she lowered them and Salem’s head dropped back to his paws. Goodie nodded towards the man lying in the grass and Salem turned his head to watch him. She looked up at the large, imposing mansion and the scaffolding erected along the side wall, and she smiled.
* * *
Dmitry feltthe weight settle on his stomach and smiled in his sleep. He loved the frisky ones. He blinked open his eyes and tried to focus on the dark figure looming over him, but the room was pitch black. As he swam up to full consciousness he frowned: he couldn’t remember bringing a woman home with him last night, and anyway he wasn’t in London. He hardly ever took women back to the country house. It was then that he felt something cover his mouth which sealed his lips together with implacable force. Panicking now, he grunted and reached up to pull the tape off, but felt the cold metal against his neck.
‘You should have done as I asked, Alexandrov,’ a woman’s voice whispered into his ear, and he froze in terror. ‘You notice I speak to you in English. This is because we, both of us, liveherenow. When you live somewhere you abide to their laws, their customs.’ She paused for a moment, then continued in Russian. ‘But you didn’t do that, did you, Dmitry? You stuck to the old ways, and you hired someone from the old country to do your dirty work. I made the exception for him and I will make it for you too. I’m happy to revert back to how things were if that’s how you want it: happy to do things in the old way. Do you know how I earned my name?’ The Russian nodded carefully against the knife. She leaned forward over him until he could feel her breath on his cheek before she whispered in his ear:‘Spokoynoy nochi zhopa.’*
*Spokoynoy nochi zhopa– Goodnight, asshole
Epilogue
Call me Goodie
‘Look,I’m sorry. I know it’s not exactly fair but Mum isnutsabout Christmas,’ Mikhail said as they pulled up in front of the massive house.
Emma smoothed down her dress, avoiding eye contact with him, and stared out of the window at the stone steps and the huge entryway. ‘My family are also quite keen on Christmas, Mikey,’ she muttered, pushing her red hair behind her ears and then letting her shoulders slump. She’d been with Mikhail Chambers for nine months now. They met on the wards over a patient and had had an immediate flaming row. She was a surgical trainee, he was medical; she thought her patient should go to ICU, he thought they should be referred to palliative care. Annoyingly it turned out he was right, and what made her even more furious was when he’d looked down his nose at her and muttered: ‘Surgeons: bloody muppets,’ as he left the ward. She had been sorely tempted to fling the over-full and loosely capped pot of urine in her hand right at his blonde, handsome, arrogant head.
