Like A Charm by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller
Published: 2004-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

The International Departures lounge was chic and modern, but one small escalator ride up took Anya into Waterloo train station itself, a grey, cavernous building filled with a yellow light filtering slowly down through the dirty glass above. Disease-ridden pigeons and pedestrians intermingled, all feeding and waiting. It was nine thirty a.m. and the commuter traffic was slowing down.

Anya perched on the coffee bar stool for a long time, watching the women come and go from the toilets across the concourse, looking for someone of her build with luggage. She had seen a couple of hopefuls, but one woman only had a briefcase with her and the other was too fat. The train was leaving in thirty minutes when she finally saw her, a perfect match; the woman was petite, had a suitcase, a red coat and matching wide-brimmed hat. She was well dressed, which pricked at Anya's vanity. The hat would be the perfect way to hide her face.

She slipped off the stool and walked across the busy concourse, ducking past and around people. She dropped a twenty pence piece into the turnstile and followed her into the ladies toilet. The tail of the red coat swished the bottom of a cubicle door. She was hanging it up. Anya waited silently, watching for an attendant, although there didn't seem to be one, listening for other customers. The place was empty. Everyone was gathering down by the platform, waiting to get through customs before the train embarked. The toilet flushed behind the door and the end of the red coat was lifted up.

Anya slipped into a cubicle opposite the sinks, pulling the door to. The woman walked across to the basin and turned on the water, rolling first one hand and then the other under the tap, watching her hands as she did so. Anya had her hands around her neck before she even realized she was not alone.

The woman struggled, but not for long and not too hard. She can't have had a lot of breath in her to begin with because she was unconscious in thirty seconds and dead in two minutes. As she slumped into Anya's arms her hat fell to the side. The woman's face was covered in small scars, like healed paper cuts. They were all over her neck, rioting up her chin and cheeks, swarming into her mouth.

Anya dragged the body backwards to the cubicle and sat it on the toilet, peeling the coat off her, taking her money and papers, shutting the door on it firmly. She stood in front of the mirror and fixed the hat on her own head. It was a little bit big but it would do. She tipped it to the side at a jaunty angle and noticed the heavy charm bracelet that she still wore. It was all wrong, too vulgar for the cashmere coat and matching luggage. As she left the toilet she let the bracelet slide out of her hand into the mop bucket, the splash barely audible, a flash of gold swallowed by the black water.

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