Work Text:
# I.
14:20. Elizabeth Jennings entered the underground car park at Holmes Run Heights for a meeting with Larry Rank, an informant she had been blackmailing for six months now — ever since Rank had stolen documents from his employer's office to take revenge for the workplace bullying he'd endured, then sold those documents to another company, except that company had been a front for illegal operations. That was what had put Elizabeth on his trail. Most of the people who parked in those garages were employees working in the nearby offices or shopping centres. By half past two, they were already firmly at their desks. Nobody was coming or going from work. The parked cars were icons of the era: station wagons with wood-panel trim, Ford LTDs, Chevrolet Caprices, the odd Mustang or Camaro. The meeting had been arranged for Level C, the lowest. Larry was already there; before getting out of the car, Elizabeth cast a glance at her alias — she had put on a short-haired wig that perhaps drew attention to her features more than it concealed them.
- 14:30 Mila Culver left school and, with her Walkman playing a cassette of Madonna's *True Blue*, began walking towards her foster home — it was close enough (within a mile or two) to be considered a "walking zone", and so the school district provided no transport. First, she stopped at a newsagent's to buy, with her dinner money, the latest instalment of young-adult mystery fiction — Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys — she was a voracious reader of that sort of thing.
- 14:42 Larry explained that he would not be providing any further information, as there had been a change of management at the company where he worked — which also held a military contract — and the security level had been raised. Elizabeth tried to calm him down, telling him that if he supplied one more piece of information, she would return the evidence of his betrayal to him, and he seemed to relax slowly.
- 14:43:00 Mila reached the lowest level of the car park — which served as a pedestrian shortcut between one street and another, a well-worn route. But beyond that, she had a hiding place there. Somewhere she could listen to her Walkman without being bothered by the other girls from school, or where she could cry in peace — a corner between a concrete pillar and a wall, near a utility area, a small niche concealed from the main lane of the garage. She saw two adults — a woman and a man — talking quietly, shrugged, and headed for her usual spot.
- 14:43:10 Larry drew a gun — a Colt Python — and Elizabeth was forced to shoot him with her Walther .32.
- 14:43:11 Mila let out a whimper.
- 14:43:11/12 Elizabeth turned and found herself face to face with this small witness.
- 14:43:14 Mila opened her mouth but could not breathe — a faint *Papa Don't Preach* drifted from the headphones she'd pulled from her ears, or rustled through the still air of the car park.
- 14:43:16 Elizabeth raised her hand — her left, not her right; her right was ready to shoot her — palm open in a false gesture of peace. For anything else she would have let it go, but alias or no alias she could not leave a witness to a murder alive.
- 14:43:16/17 Elizabeth first heard and then saw a workmen's van coming down the access ramp; the newcomers could not yet see Rank's body but would have been able to see Elizabeth shoot Mila.
- 14:43:19 Elizabeth, calm and composed, got Mila into the car. Then, while the van crawled along looking for a parking space, still shielded by the central lane of parked cars, she knelt beside Larry Rank's body. The revolver had slipped from his hand.
Elizabeth picked it up first — a Colt Python — wiped the grip quickly against Larry's jacket and set it back near his fingers, angled unnaturally.
The van continued slowly forward.
Not a suicide. A struggle. She went through his pockets.
Wallet. Keys. Loose change.
She took the wallet and removed the cash without counting it, then let the empty wallet slip halfway out of Larry's coat pocket.
A robbery.
It could work.
She shoved the body under a car. There was blood on the ground, but at a casual glance it could pass for oil or petrol.
Then she got into the car, just as the van found a space and pulled away, to find somewhere to leave the vehicle and finish her work.
- 14:46:16 Mila said: *'You're going to kill me because you've seen my face.'*
- 14:46:18 *'No, I'm not. Don't worry…'*
- 14:46:20 *'You have to. I know the rules. But please, hear me out. I have a proposition.'*
- 14:46:19 Elizabeth, mildly curious as to how a child could know the game so well: *'What's the catch?'*
- 14:46:21 *'You can kill me with my permission if you look after me like a mother for twenty-four hours.'*
- 14:46:24 *'Twenty-four hours. And then?'*
- 14:46:28 *'And then I won't be frightened any more.'*
Elizabeth nodded thoughtfully. Behind them, far below on Level C, Larry Rank's body lay beside the car — wallet half out of his pocket, revolver on the concrete — waiting to become a robbery gone wrong.
---
## II.
Elizabeth left the car in a multi-storey car park a few blocks away, on a street that had no reason to remember her. She wiped down the steering wheel, the gear stick and the interior handles, got out without hurrying, wiped the exterior ones discreetly, checked that Mila was following, retrieved a large bag from the back seat, and walked away without looking back at the car. Compromised number plates were abandoned just like that — without ceremony.
They walked a few minutes in silence. The afternoon sun was still high and the air had that warm, faintly lazy flavour of late September.
'What now?' said Elizabeth.
Mila considered the question with a gravity disproportionate to it. 'An ice cream,' she answered at last. 'I'd like an ice cream.'
Elizabeth looked at her sideways. Then she nodded, as though the answer had an internal logic not worth contesting.
The ice cream parlour was called Sunny Cone and had four white plastic tables on the pavement, with red-and-yellow striped parasols that the breeze barely stirred. It was the sort of place that had nothing in particular to offer except that it existed — and for the moment, that was enough.
Mila ordered pistachio and chocolate. Elizabeth took lemon, almost out of obligation, as though the ice cream were a price to be paid.
They sat down. Mila licked her cone with that absolute concentration children bring to things they find delicious. Elizabeth waited. She watched the street, the light afternoon traffic, a woman pushing a pram, two boys with rucksacks. Then she brought her gaze back to the child.
'What's your name?'
'Mila.'
'How old are you, Mila?'
'Eleven. I'll be twelve in November.'
Elizabeth gave an imperceptible nod. 'What school do you go to?'
'Roosevelt. It's on Maple Street.' Mila said it without hesitation, as though there were nothing to hide — or as though she'd already decided that hiding served no purpose, in that particular situation.
'And do you live near the school?'
'Close enough.' A pause. 'At the home.'
Elizabeth didn't immediately ask what the home was. She let the word sit there on the white table, between the two ice creams.
She waited for Mila to finish the first flavour before going on. She did so in a voice barely lower than before, almost casual.
'Earlier, in the car park — you said you knew the rules.'
Mila looked up from her cone. 'Yes.'
'How do you know them?'
The child reflected, as though weighing up how much to explain. 'I read,' she said at last. 'Nancy Drew. The Hardy Boys. And older stuff too — Agatha Christie, something by le Carré I found in the library, even though it was difficult.' She shrugged with a disarming naturalness. 'In detective stories it always goes like that. If you see something you're not supposed to see, you're a problem. And problems get dealt with.'
She said *get dealt with* with the same intonation she might have used for *you fold the paper* or *you turn off the light*.
Elizabeth studied her in silence for a moment. The wind shifted the striped parasol. Somewhere far away, a lorry braked with a long hiss.
'You've read a great deal,' she said finally.
'There's not much else to do at the home,' Mila replied. And she went back to her ice cream — the chocolate now — as though she'd already said everything there was to say.
When Mila finished, Elizabeth asked her what she would want a good mother to do at that moment.
Mila thought it over, with the same seriousness with which she seemed to approach everything.
'She might buy me something.'
Elizabeth opened her mouth — *you're very American* was already there, ready, with all the weight that phrase carried for her — but held it back. Instead she stood up and beckoned Mila to follow her to the bus stop.
'Where are we going?'
'To do what you wanted. A bit of shopping.'
Mila nodded, solemnly, almost as though ratifying an agreement. Then, while they were waiting, without looking at Elizabeth, she asked in a low voice what she could call her.
Elizabeth didn't reply straight away. She stared at the edge of the kerb, the passing traffic, anything but those waiting eyes. When she spoke, there was something imperceptible in her voice — a small tremor, almost nothing, the kind of crack that only someone who knows how to look for it can see.
'You can call me Mum, if you like.'
Mila gave a small, almost happy smile.
The bus moved slowly through the afternoon traffic. Mila kept her Walkman on her lap and watched the buildings going past through the window; then she turned to Elizabeth and whispered, in that low, serious voice of hers that seemed too large for her body:
'Mum… it doesn't make much sense for you to buy me something, if in a few hours you're going to…'
'Shh.' Elizabeth didn't look up. She held her handbag on her lap, hands still. 'Don't think about that. Just focus on here and now.'
Mila opened her mouth.
'It's by no means certain that it'll happen,' added Elizabeth, and her tone was the kind that closes doors.
Mila nodded quietly and turned back to the window. Her fingers slipped onto the play button of the Walkman, but she didn't press it.
---
## III.
In the shopping centre the lights were white and cold and people moved with placid indifference. Elizabeth walked at a steady pace; Mila was half a step behind, as though still deciding whether to keep up or not.
They stopped in front of a shop window. There was a little dress displayed on a small mannequin — old rose, with a collar of fine lace.
Mila said nothing. She just looked at it.
Elizabeth didn't go into the shop; she simply handed Mila a hundred-dollar note.
When Mila came out she was clutching the carrier bag like a trophy. She opened it on a bench, took out the dress and held it against herself, looking at it with shining eyes.
'It's lovely,' she said, but her voice wavered.
Elizabeth nodded. 'Try it on later, at the hotel.'
Mila folded it with excessive care, then all of a sudden she pressed it to her chest and began to sob — not loudly, but deeply, as though the old rose had reminded her of something beyond repair. She buried her face in the fabric, her shoulders trembling.
'Mum… sorry… I don't know why…' she mumbled through her tears, using the word *Mum* like a very young child who says it for the first time and immediately loses it.
Elizabeth stood, took her by the shoulders.
'It's all right. Breathe.' But Mila clung to the dress, rocking it back and forth — a regressive gesture, like a four-year-old clutching her favourite blanket.
'I just wanted… a new dress… just once… Mum promised me… but then…' The rest was lost in sobs.
Elizabeth let her cry for a good minute, glancing discreetly around — mercifully the few shoppers nearby seemed too distracted to notice the scene — then gently removed the dress from her hands and folded it back into the bag. *Come on, no tears, please — it's a waste of perfectly good suffering*, she caught herself thinking incongruously — it was a line from a film she'd seen. She'd gone with Young-Hee. Young-Hee… Instead she simply said:
'You'll have it. Now let's go.'
Mila wiped her face, sniffled noisily, got to her feet. But she walked more slowly, dragging her feet as though her legs weighed twice as much.
---
## IV.
Elizabeth found a telephone box near the entrance to the shopping centre. She opened the glass door, leaving Mila just outside — close enough to keep an eye on her, far enough not to hear.
She dialled home. Waited for two rings.
'It's me. There's an emergency at work, I can't get back tonight.' A pause. 'No, I don't know how long it'll take. Carry on without me.' She hung up without adding anything.
The second call was shorter. She asked for a double room, confirmed the name, said they'd arrive by nine. Then she came out of the box and stopped in front of Mila.
'Good news,' she said. 'We're sleeping at a hotel tonight. We'll be there by nine.'
Mila looked at her without answering straight away. She was still clutching the Walkman against her side, the headphones wound round her wrist like a clumsy bracelet.
'In the meantime,' Elizabeth continued, 'we can stay here for a bit. If you're hungry we can eat here, or we can head back towards the centre. Whatever you prefer.'
Mila looked up at her. There was something in that look — not fear, not any more, but something older and more tired than fear.
'Whatever you like, Mum,' she said.
Elizabeth didn't flinch.
Elizabeth guided her to a bench in the central corridor of the shopping centre — one of those fake-wood ones with beige plastic armrests, put there for bored husbands and tired grandmothers. They both sat down without either of them announcing it, as though it were obvious.
For a few seconds she said nothing. She let the noise of the shopping centre wash over them — piped music, the squeak of a trolley, distant voices — until Mila stopped holding her shoulders up.
'What's the name of the home?' she asked at last, in the same tone one might ask the time.
Mila told her.
Elizabeth nodded slowly, as though filing it away somewhere. 'How long have you been there?'
'Nearly two years.'
'Right. Listen — in your experience, after how many hours of absence would the home take action? And what would they actually do?'
The child hesitated. Not out of fear, it seemed, but because she was choosing where to begin — the way people do when they have a complicated story and have already turned it over in their minds many times.
'Um, when Thomas disappeared they waited a couple of hours then rang the school, asked his classmates, checked whether he was somewhere in the neighbourhood…'
'A couple of hours.' Elizabeth reckoned the process would get going at around six. And by eight they'd have contacted the local police for a runaway report or a missing person report…
'Yes. Though as far as I know, it wasn't until the next morning that they really started looking for him properly, you know.'
'Mm. Let me guess: for an eleven-year-old from a group home, given that you're all seen as "problematic" or habitual runaways, no full-scale manhunt kicks off straight away unless there's evidence of abduction.'
'Yes. Though with Thomas they were wrong.'
'How so?'
'Someone had taken him to an abandoned house and killed him.'
'I'm sorry.' Elizabeth felt a flash of anger. 'And even so, they often think "she'll come back on her own" or "she's run off again"…'
'Yes, Mum. You see — I haven't got you into trouble.'
'No, you haven't. But a bit of disguise is needed for you as well.'
'Hang on… but you're not… um…'
'Au naturel? No. My hair is long.'
'Oh.'
'Speaking of which…'
---
## V.
The ladies' was on the ground floor of the shopping centre. Grey walls, the smell of air freshener, a cloying sweet note that caught in the nose.
Elizabeth opened the door and held it with one arm. Mila went in.
They did the quick circuit one always does in these situations — Elizabeth did it professionally, so it didn't look like what it was. She checked under the cubicle doors. All empty. She went to the last one, at the far end, and pushed it open.
'Go in,' she said.
Mila obeyed without speaking. She had learnt quickly that with this woman, words were to be used sparingly.
'Put the bolt across,' said Elizabeth.
The metallic click of the bolt was the only sound for a few seconds.
'Good.'
Elizabeth took a penknife from her pocket, gave a small smile, and shook her head at Mila's inevitable stiffening; she opened the carrier bag with the blade, working until it became a single flat sheet which she spread on the floor — the little dress went into the rucksack.
She sat Mila on the toilet seat facing the wall, took out her hair with the knife and cut it so that it fell only to the jawline.
Suddenly a small sound escaped Mila — a soft moan.
'Does it hurt?' asked Elizabeth.
'No… it's just… it feels like I'm disappearing.' Mila pressed her hands hard over her eyes. Tears seeped through her fingers. 'I look smaller… like when I was really little… and Mum used to brush my hair… but then she stopped…'
'You're not disappearing. You're just changing shape.'
Mila raised her swollen eyes.
'But you're still going to kill me?'
'No. I've changed my mind. We'll wait till the very last moment and then I'll take you back to the home.'
Elizabeth thought of when she had told Philip to tell Martha she would follow her to the USSR in a few days… *that woman needs hope right now* — that had been the reason for her advice.
Mila began to rock again, sucking her thumb for a second — an automatic gesture, forgotten for years — before noticing and pulling it out sharply, embarrassed, though she smiled.
Elizabeth nodded, surveying her work, then gathered Mila's hair into a small ponytail with a clip. She then rolled the plastic bag very carefully so as not to leave too many traces. There would be some — it was unavoidable — but nothing to draw attention. Not too much, at any rate.
'Right. Now get changed. Put your clothes in your rucksack and then turn your anorak inside out. I'll wait outside.'
---
## VI.
When Mila came out she looked different — not radically different, but reasonably so. Even if they had started looking for her, if the first few hours had been just slightly half-hearted, they could count on going unnoticed at least until the time Elizabeth had planned to remain in the shopping centre.
The child seemed a little sad about her hair, but Elizabeth was too absorbed in a train of thought to pay it much mind. She had, in fact, asked herself some questions and given herself some answers. Satisfactory answers, certainly, but perhaps a touch too optimistic.
'Right. Now we carry on looking round. Just to browse the shop windows.'
'Of course, Mum.'
They walked for about ten minutes, making comments on the various windows, moving slowly.
Then they turned into a long corridor they hadn't visited yet.
'Tell me, Mila — before the home, who were you with?'
There was a flash of pain in Mila's eyes that Elizabeth pretended not to notice.
'Before, I was with my mother,' she said at last. 'Then she met another man. Not my father. Someone else.' She shrugged. 'And she went off with him.'
'Where did she go?'
'I don't know. Somewhere.' A pause. 'She didn't take me. She comes to see me at the home sometimes. But less and less.'
Elizabeth didn't say *I'm sorry*. She didn't say it because it was of no use, and Mila would probably have felt it as something false. Instead she asked: 'And your father?'
Mila shook her head slowly, the way one shakes one's head at a question that has no answer — not *I don't know*, but simply: the question was wrong. 'Nobody knows where he is,' she said. 'Nobody's ever known.'
They were silent for a moment. Around them the shopping centre went on with its indifferent life — neon lights, shop fronts, a mother pulling a child by the hand.
Elizabeth looked at Mila's shoes. They were clean but worn down more on the left heel than the right.
'What's your full name?'
'Oh… Mila Vera Culver.'
'You kept your father's surname?'
'Yes. My mother is called Jessica Gardener.'
Elizabeth glanced around, as if to mark that this particular line of conversation had been exhausted.
If Mila was hurt by it, she didn't let it show.
But then Elizabeth added: 'You know, I'm quite sure your mother would take her revenge if something bad happened to you.'
'But Mum, you're a professional. Jessica…'
'Perhaps. But love can do anything. In the end, nothing is going to happen to you.'
'Oh. Thank you, Mum.'
Elizabeth's expression didn't change.
'You're a strict mother, you know.'
Elizabeth asked:
'Why?'
'Because you almost never smile.'
Elizabeth allowed herself the ghost of a half-smile.
'Children are best brought up when they have respect for their parents. We're not your friends — we're your teachers. Come on, we'll go back to the loo and then get some supper.'
---
## VII.
Mila raised no objection to this return to the ladies', even though she feared something — perhaps a new and more drastic haircut.
This time, the lavatory was on the second floor and looked more neglected: dirtier, darker. Grimmer.
Elizabeth repeated the procedure, except that this time she was the one who sat on the toilet seat, behind Mila.
'Don't open up for anyone,' she said quietly. 'Not even if they knock.'
'What if it's an emergency?'
Elizabeth didn't answer. She acted, and that was enough. A couple of seconds sufficed; then she moved to the adjacent cubicle and came out.
She looked at herself in the mirror for a moment — just a moment, no more — then straightened her jacket, put her hands in her pockets and left.
The door closed behind her with a pneumatic sigh.
In the silence that followed, from beneath the door of the end cubicle, two worn gym shoes stuck out — still, toes pointing forward, like those of someone standing and waiting for a train whose arrival time they don't know.
She went to sleep alone.
In the end cubicle of the shopping centre lavatory, the worn gym shoes would not move again.
---
## EPILOGUE
The hotel room was the one she had booked the previous day: single bed, thick curtains, the muffled sound of traffic outside. She slipped off her shoes without turning on the light, lay down fully dressed on the bedspread, and remained still, staring at the ceiling in the dark.
She didn't sleep. Or perhaps she did. It was difficult to tell, with her.
At ten to nine she opened her eyes.
She got up, laced her shoes, checked the holster. She looked at herself for a moment in the mirror: a middle-aged woman with dark hair and a firm jaw. Nothing more.
She left.
She stole a car from a car park not entirely unlike the one where she had killed Rank — but then, all car parks look alike — and set off.
Jessica Gardner's address wasn't far.
She parked two blocks away and reached the front door on foot, hands in pockets, the walk of someone coming home.
She settled in to watch.
It didn't take long.
The police officers who were supposed to report back to her arrived and left within barely five minutes. Of course: the parents — in this case the mother — were the first suspect when a minor went missing, but obviously in this case her position had been cleared almost immediately, thanks to some alibi like work or perhaps an evening out with a friend.
It was down to her now.
Jessica was washing up when she sensed a presence. She turned and met the gaze of a stranger who showed no anger — only an absolute calm. Then the silence closed gently, like a door.
As Elizabeth walked back to the car, the sky was already losing the pale luminosity of the winter afternoon.
The twenty-four hours were up.
She had kept her word.
She had been a mother to her for exactly twenty-four hours.
And mothers always avenge their daughters.