The Darkest Day

FOUR

The woman advertised her age as twenty-five, but was at least ten years older. The soft glow provided by the low-wattage lighting helped the lie by smoothing out the fine lines in her face, and generous make-up covered the dark bags beneath her eyes. Victor went along with the deception. Neither did he comment on the fact the photographs on her website must have undergone extensive retouching. There was no need to be impolite.

Still, she was an attractive woman with long dark hair and blue eyes full of life and ambition. She opened the front door to her second-floor apartment on Pařížská Street, off Wenceslas Square, wearing a silk robe and an enormous smile. Her teeth were bleached white and too straight and perfect to be her own.

She advertised herself as an escort. It was a soft, almost harmless-sounding word. Victor understood the need for it in the same way he understood why people like him called themselves mercenaries or shooters or hitmen. He only thought of himself as a professional killer. He had no need to soften his means of employment any more than he had his use of prostitutes.

She took his hand and led him inside without a word, gesturing him to go on into the lounge area while she closed the door behind him. Victor didn’t like to give anyone his back, but he was playing the part of a typical client and did as she asked to preserve the illusion of normalcy. A significant part of his life was spent acting; even so, pretending he was just another regular guy while maintaining a permanent guard was a difficult balance to achieve. He never liked to increase his vulnerability if it could be avoided, but sometimes it was better to be a little more vulnerable in the moment to ensure continued survival outside of it. Now was one of those times.

He rubbed his hands together in a sign of nervousness and because they were cold from an afternoon spent following the prince’s accountant around the city.

The woman’s apartment was small but furnished with expensive pieces in a clean, modern style. It was so spartan he wondered if it served only as a place of business and she lived elsewhere, but bookshelves filled to capacity contradicted that assessment. Maybe she just liked the minimalist approach.

‘You know my rate for the hour, yes?’ the woman asked as she followed him into the lounge.

She spoke in English, but with a strong Czech accent. Her high heels clicked and clattered on the bare flooring. In them, she was as tall as he.

He had already turned to face her, positioning himself so he was near to the same wall as the west-facing windows, at an acute angle so as not to be in the line of fire for a marksman across the street.

‘Yes,’ he answered.

‘Then I’d like to see my gift now,’ she said with a smile that made it seem as innocent a request as the way she phrased it.

‘Of course.’

He withdrew his wallet and counted out crisp banknotes.

She approached and took them from his hand, still smiling, but the smile slipped away as she turned to count the money and put it out of sight on a bookcase between two hardback novels. Historical fiction, he noted.

‘I take it you read all the rules,’ she said without turning around. ‘What’s allowed and what’s not.’

‘I did.’

‘That’s good to know. I don’t like having to repeat myself. It wastes our time.’

‘I’m not here to waste time,’ he said.

She turned around and regarded him in a different way, as if assessing his desires and perversions from the way he stood and the cut of his suit. Maybe it was a game she played with each client, having long grown used to what makes a man tick.

‘What shall I call you?’ she asked as she toyed with her hair.

Victor remained silent.

The woman said, ‘You can tell me your name, honey. I won’t tell anyone, I swear. Discretion is all part of the service, I assure you.’

Victor said, ‘Honey will be fine.’

She tilted her head to one side. ‘Is that what you want me to cry out in bed?’

‘There’s no need for you to pretend.’

She smiled. ‘I don’t think I’ll need to with you, will I?’

He’d heard it all before, of course. It wasn’t his first time paying for sex. It was sometimes necessary in a life where he could allow himself no real connection with anyone, but could not afford to be distracted by desire for too long. It was one impulse he could do little to control with will alone.

He smiled with her because that’s what she expected him to do and he was playing the part of a regular client — a businessman cheating on his wife, maybe, or a politician living out a sordid cliché of a personal life — not a professional killer who used hookers because he couldn’t risk a relationship, or even a friendship. Any personal connection created a gap in his defences and at the same time put that person at risk from those who meant Victor harm. The last time someone had wanted to get close to him he had convinced them the feeling was not mutual.

‘Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?’

He gestured to a small table where a lead crystal decanter sat on a solid silver tray; Scotch, judging by the pale yellow colour of the liquid.

‘No,’ she said in return. ‘I’m afraid that whisky was a present from a dear client. It would be rude to share it with another. I’m sure you can understand that.’

He nodded.

‘What do you like?’ she asked, and he could feel the expectation of her words. She wanted to see if she was right in her previous assessment of him.

‘I prefer to show, rather than tell.’

This seemed to catch her by surprise. ‘That sounds… promising.’ She tapped her bottom lip with a long red nail. ‘And there was I thinking you were going to be boring.’

‘I can assure you I’m a painfully dull person.’

‘I think I’ll be the judge of that,’ she said.

They stood in silence for a moment.

She gestured with her eyebrows, which had been plucked and drawn back on. ‘Bathroom’s that way.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Victor said. ‘Clients need to shower first.’

‘That’s what my listing clearly states.’

‘What if I told you I don’t like showers?’

‘Then I’d politely bid you farewell.’

‘No refund?’

She smiled and said nothing.

‘Do any clients refuse?’ he asked.

‘It happens on rare occasions. Most men accept my rules. Most behave as a gentleman should.’

‘And what happens on these rare occasions?’

‘I show them the door.’

Victor said, ‘Even very dear clients?’

She carried on smiling, but did not answer. ‘Help yourself to a robe.’

He nodded and circled through the lounge so he did not have to pass in a straight line across the window. His route brought him close to the woman. She brushed his arm as he walked by.

The bathroom was off the hallway. He stepped inside and shut the door. He slid the little brass bar across to lock it. Not that such a mechanism had any strength to resist a forced entry, but he did not want the woman entering and interrupting what he had planned.