The Assassin's Assassin Read online

a newly appointed Chief Executive Officer of the deceased’s firm expressed deep regrets. The sentence that caught the bridge-crew’s attention, though, was a mere space-filling line, stating that a young woman— Thamesis of course— had also been on board the fatal craft at the fatal moment, and yet survived unscathed.

  These hints of her renown were soon overwhelmed by outright fame, however. Thamesis, it seems, had become richer and richer, so much so that she thought nothing of hiring a luxury barge and sailing it majestically down the river to entertain her peers in wealth, with every allurement that art can imagine, cuisine can conjure, and exclusivity make enviable. It was after midsummer, and the late dusk burnished the water; but this barge was ablaze, and seemed to recreate the dawn as it lit the Thames to flame, while a birdless chorus of instruments sparkled into the sky: clarinets, oboes, flutes, each leading a guest to dance upon the decks; and the notes were so clear in the evening air that spectators along the banks joined in the festivity, dancing too, as delicious perfumes from the banquet aboard rolled ashore.

  How mesmerising it was to watch that splendid vision cruise by, as effortlessly as though waves could not impede it! How those happy, privileged guests were envied from the wharfs and jetties! How their money, their status, their luck, was coveted! What a hostess this Thamesis was— the floating queen of them all, with every pampered shipmate her mere tributary— a triumph in silk azure.

  As the barge passed Westminster the sun was set, and a brilliant moon rose to crown the scene. The progress was so languid that hardly a wake marked its passage, so it was almost like an illusion that the gleaming deck lamps seemed to descend towards the waterline; certainly, the guests continued revelling as though the tide were not creeping up to consume them— but when the first cold sheet of water skimmed over the side, I daresay they took the trouble to panic then. From the shore, however, the demise of the barge was as elegant as its debut had been: the illuminations gradually slipped lower and lower; the music paused, a little confused; there was a flicker and the lights were gone, suddenly leaving what seemed a blacker darkness in their space— but this moment was enough, and when the spectators peered again, the barge had vanished entirely.

  Then, almost immediately afterwards, a swarm of writhing notables and worthies rose to the surface, flailing and crying out for rescue. But one guest did not reach the air until it was too late. The strong undercurrents bore him downstream amid the submerged muck, to where a sharp bend in the course throws up any bulkier flotsam at a little inlet known as the Dead Man’s Hole— so named, of course, for its proficiency at landing just such catches. And that evening it disgorged a fine specimen: a fat, swollen captain of industry, drunk to his fill on champagne and bilge water. The disconsolate widow of this unlucky man (who had not attended the buoyant masque herself for some reason), sued the hire company into ruin as a tribute to her late husband, and was widely applauded for doing so.

  But what became of the hostess in all the calamity? Well, you should know that she was also washed into Dead Man’s Hole, shortly after her erstwhile guest’s corpse. Indeed, they say that he had only just been discovered and hooked out, when she, too, emerged. Somehow, it seems, she had swum clear of the wreck, and darted like a minnow free; she had kicked her shoes to the bottom and wriggled from the windings of her silken sheath— the very diamonds had slipped from her ears and sunken into the mud, so that when she eventually breached the air, she surfaced naked, like a goddess rising from the filthy wave. Thus was Thamesis saved— or saved herself.

  Well, a little over a month later, the widow I have mentioned, whose lawyers were just then in their first flow of attorney-enthusiasm to turn the tragic drowning to profit, left her splendid new house in Chelsea, ostensibly to get her nails painted, and proceeded into Soho, where, in a modest flat three flights above the shop-fronts, she kept an appointment with a younger man.

  This man was neither plain, nor especially attractive (he was not her lover, paid or voluntary); he was neither uncouth, nor noticeably well-mannered (he was not her friend, nor did his conversation interest her); and he had no enthusiasm on seeing the lady walk in, though he was not altogether apathetic either— he was a parcel of nots and negatives, and this suited him very well, because it was his business to be discreet and invisible: he was, by profession, an assassin, whose services were at the disposal of the extremely rich (as this widow doubly was, now) or indeed anyone with a grudge enough to stump up the money. He was of course impartial, private, and above all, thorough— he was one of the best, and our widow needed the best or no-one.

  He eyed his well-dressed visitor coolly, and waited for her to begin. He already had an idea of her purpose in coming. Women most often employed him for one reason alone— revenge. Her husband had been a bombastic, hot sort of man, given to bravado, and as a result had never taken much trouble to conceal his mistresses. The assassin made a reasonable guess: Thamesis had been his mistress too, and furthermore had been (however inadvertently) responsible for his death— this widow wanted her life to be forfeit in turn. The assassin always wondered at cheated wives like this: their outrage, fury and sense of betrayal were invariably directed at the other woman, rather than the philandering man, so it was no surprise to him when she began to state her intentions, and intimate that Thamesis must die.

  However, he was surprised when she went on to explain herself more thoroughly, because although his guess had been, in the main, correct, there were aspects to this client’s situation that he did not foresee.

  She sat down at the furthest distance his room would accommodate, and lit a cigarette. He sneered at the smoke (as a killer, he was naturally sensitive to being killed himself by any means, and valued his health highly) but knew better than to object to it, or make any movement. His clients were all, at a fundamental level, terrified of him, and might panic if he so much as stood up to approach them— yet at the same time they needed to maintain their own sense of power sufficiently to command him, so they were prone to these little displays of arrogance, such as the impertinent cigarette. Therefore he seldom interrupted them, which might risk losing their patronage. He merely fixed her with a stare of disdain. After all, she had no right to feel too comfortable.

  ‘Do you— know the woman I’m referring to?’ asked the widow, anxiously.

  ‘I know of her,’ he replied.

  ‘Really? But you’ve no objection to— to what I propose?’

  He simply returned his flat, withering stare.

  ‘I must warn you, though,’ she continued, ‘that in dealing with her you must be very careful— very discreet.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t shoot people from rooftops,’ he returned. ‘I’m not a gangster, and neither are you. This is England, and I’m an Englishman— do you think I don’t know how to be subtle?’

  ‘I’ve no doubt of your credentials, and your methods are your own,’ she replied haughtily. ‘But this case is peculiar. She must die for what she did— I owe it to him, and to myself—’

  He sighed with weary patience.

  ‘—But you should know that, from the outset, she acted under my instruction.’

  He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I set her on him. She was my revenge, you see— the last mistress he would ever take. She lured him in, and carried out the execution, exactly according to our contract.’

  Now he was intrigued, and incautiously leaned forward. ‘She killed him on purpose?’

  The widow smiled in something like admiration. ‘She’s a genius, you know. You mean you haven’t heard? She’s a legend in her field— your field, of course. Is this news to you?’

  He grudgingly confessed his ignorance.

  She nodded. ‘Nobody knows how she does it— but there’s never any room for suspicion. She’s quite fatal— but somehow impeccably innocent. Accidents are her speciality— and I suppose my husband was her masterpiece.’

  It was all true. Thamesis had found her vocation as a very special ki
nd of city-courtesan— city because she attended no court, but took prestigious bankers, merchants and magnates for her lovers— and special, of course, because not one of these lovers survived her, while their colleagues, families or rivals (her employers) prospered splendidly on their decease.

  The disgruntled assassin leaned back in his seat again. ‘If this prodigy has served you so well, why do you want me to remove her?’

  ‘I told you— I owe it to him, and to myself.’

  ‘To him?’

  ‘I don’t expect you to understand revenge— this is all a matter of calculation to you. Something in me cries out for the life of the one who took my husband’s life— there’s a kind of finality in it, which honours him and myself together. There, that will do. Now, you see why I must warn you to be cautious?’

  He assented, and paused to think for a moment. This was an interesting challenge, besides being an opportunity to remove a competitor from the market. Furthermore, he was flattered. This widow knew well that it takes a genius to outwit another, and she had come to him as the right man for the role. He was too wise to blind himself with pride, however: he had no idea whether his own skill was greater than that of Thamesis, but what he did have, which is really the fulcrum of the