In the meantime, she finished removing her disguise and went to take a shower in the ensuite. When she came out, she lay down on the bed, drifting off into a deep sleep before she knew it.
She awoke in a panic later, the room dark around her. She glanced at her phone, afraid she’d overslept and missed her meeting. She was relieved to see she still had plenty of time left and got up to get dressed and changed. If she hurried, she’d have time to grab a sandwich from the shops and eat on the bus to her destination in Bootle.
She passed her new landlord on the way down the steps, bringing up another guest, and hesitated, realizing that she looked nothing like the woman who had rented a room only hours earlier. The woman looked directly and her and nodded but said nothing. Deidre smiled to herself, realizing that the woman either didn’t realize she was a guest rather than a visitor or just didn’t care—perhaps both.
She made a hasty exit out the front doors and headed down the street to find a bus stop. She boarded and paid her fare, settling into the upper deck and looking down over the city as she made her way to the address she’d been given. She looked around apprehensively as she got off at the nearest stop to it.
The streets were dimly lit, reflecting off buildings that hadn’t seen repair in decades, if their facades were an indication of their interiors. Her destination was only a few blocks away, according to the map on her phone, but it was through a neighborhood that wasn’t going to make any top places to live lists.
She stiffened and began walking, encountering no hassle beyond a few catcalls and a man begging for change. She tossed him a two-pound coin and kept walking, finally arriving at a house that looked condemned. She glanced back at the address on her phone to make sure she was at the right place and then knocked on the door.
A woman opened it and looked her up and down. “Deidre?” she asked.
“Aye.”
“Let’s get you in then,” the woman told her, moving aside for her to enter before taking another look around the outside and closing the door. “This way.”
Deidre followed her through the empty house, its wallpaper peeling to reveal block walls beginning to crumble underneath. There was no light other than the gas lantern the woman carried in her hand, so it was hard to see much of anything beyond that. Deidre’s heart was in her throat as she continued to the back of the house and opened a door that seemed to lead down to a cellar.
“Down here,” the woman barked.
Deidre looked at her uncertainly. The woman was dead-eyed. She looked like someone who’d seen nothing but grief and pain in her life. Deidre found that she was afraid of what she might find on the other side of the door but knew she could break her way through it if forced to shift and do so.
“Go on then. Ain’t got all night,” the woman urged.
Deidre began to descend the stairs. She could see light flooding back up from the bottom and went toward the source, ignoring the sound of the door above her being closed and its locks snapped into place. She paused for a moment and then finished her descent.
“Hello, Deidre,” a man’s voice said as she rounded the corner. “Let’s not waste time. Just stand in front of that screen for me, would ya, love?”
Deidre took a quick look around. For all of the crumbled upper exterior, this space was quite modern. It was well lit and full of electronic equipment. Unlike the woman upstairs, who could have passed for an extra in Les Misérables, the man was tall and handsome, dressed in jeans and a crisp blue button-down shirt that brought out the blue in his eyes. She stepped in front of the screen and waited, not sure if she should attempt conversation or just do as she was instructed.
“I have a choice of two names, both clean and originating in the UK. One is from Essex and the other is from Ballymena. How are you with accents?”
“Terrible,” she replied. “I’ve never been much of anywhere beyond Southern Ireland.”
“Well, you’ll want to work on that then. Which would you prefer?”
“Essex. I don’t want anything tying me to the island.”
“I’d suggest a voice coach. You’re a lot farther from an Essex accent than you are Ballymena. In the meantime, you’ll need a good excuse for that Dublin accent or you’ll need to keep your mouth shut.”
“Aye. Fair play,” she replied.
“Right,” he told her. “Look into the camera in front of you.”
Deidre did as he said, waiting as he snapped several photos of her and asked some more questions he’d needed answered for her documents. When he was done, he closed the book he’d been writing in and pulled a small thumb drive from the computer, dropping the device into his pocket and turning toward her.