Typical Day of Alexander Davey

It was a day like any other for Alexander Davey.

He just spent six hours in an interview room with someone who was spitting out complete and utter bullshit, and what's worse, this little punk wanted Alex to believe it.

Alex leaned back in his seat, watching the kid carefully. He thought of him as a kid, but there couldn't be more than five years difference between them. But Alexander was older in experience which brought him maturity.

Alexander was a special agent, one which no one knows about until they're thoroughly screwed. Moreover, he was the smartest and wittiest around, not to gloat.

Alexander pondered on how things used to be easier back in the day. Back before he even worked as an agent. Back when people were scared of authorities enough to tell the truth. Actually, Alexander's life was mostly unproblematic, until recently when he started working on this new case - case #713.

Case #713 drove him crazy. It was the bane of his existence for the last couple of weeks.

He found this case by accident as he was cleaning the archives after finishing his latest assignment and he came across this file. Paper in it was neatly placed in the white folder with a black rim, which was different to their standardised grey folders, hence it caught his attention. The folder was dusty and it looked as if it was untouched for years, tucked in the furthest corner of the shelf, but yet, the case wasn't closed. His boss, aka an agent who is too old to work in the field and who now only sits at the desk and tells others what to do, made him work on this case.

Alexander didn't think much of it at first. He is agent Davey after all, and there wasn't a case he couldn't solve. Or at least it was the case up until now. Case #713 was peculiar. Someone worked on the case four years ago, and it didn't make any progress since. Not like it made much progress then. It was a dead-end case.

There wasn't much evidence, and even then, the evidence that did exist was contradictory. Moreover, case #713 was about a very unusual subject, a girl named Cassandra. The files showed that Cassandra was a convicted serial killer and she was expecting a death row. But later she was offered an ultimatum where she would come and work for an agency and in return, her sentence would be written off. She agreed to it, and joined the agency, soon becoming one of the best agents there were. However, after a few years, she disappeared. Few people tried to locate her and investigated her disappearance, which only led to a series of ridiculous assumptions and hypotheses. Some of the conclusions drawn during the investigation went as far as suggesting that Cassandra never even existed.

The file had a series of documents that suggested her existence, including her birth certificate and her criminal records.

How could a person with such a record not exist, but yet how could she? It seemed to go against every fibre of existence of the agency to recruit a serial killer which they worked so hard to eradicate, never mind a child - she was 15 at the time her supposed training within the academy began.

And then, a few years after amazing performance within the agency, having the highest record of cases solved, Cassandra vanished. It was bothersome. A trained intelligence serial killer on the loose is never a good sign, never mind her breaking the terms of her contract. She was bound to the agency for a lifetime to escape death row. One of the latest documents suggested her death but the agent who worked on it at the time never managed to match the DNA from the scene to Cassandra. In short, the entire case seemed surreal and too ambiguous for it to be taken seriously.

Alex Davey should have never bothered with this dusty folder. He hated himself for ever opening it and asking his boss about it. His reputation was hanging on a tip of a hair as he was sitting in front of some youngster, wondering how his life got to this point. The kid in front of him couldn't be any more than twenty years old. Davey started to question himself and his abilities - why is this kid here? Did he really need to interview a teenager? The kid was probably playing football in the backyard when case #713 was a thing. Six hours of that kid's mumble was enough. Davey already forgot half of the crap he heard today. "That's enough," announced Davey his defeat. He rubbed his temples as if it was going to help his throbbing headache, which it did not.

"Can I go?" kid was happier than ever to hear Davey's despair to finish the interrogation, or an interview, as they were meant to call it nowadays.

"Yes." sigh of despair escaped Alex's lips unintentionally. Alexander started tidying up the notes he had on the desk into a neat pile.

"Mr Davey?" Davey slowly looked up to the boy who was by the door, ready to leave.

"Yes," he didn't want to admit it but he already forgot the boy's name and he couldn't be asked to check the file again. He was wondering whether he should even mention him in the report or whether it would be a waste of paper.

"You shouldn't look for her," the kid said before turning around and walking straight out of the door. Davey froze watching the door closing behind the boy. Once Davey snapped out of it, he ran out of the room and caught up with him. The boy looked at him with a smile, still looking relaxed and keeping his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants.

"What did you say?" Davey asked. He felt his heart pounding and his hands shaking. This is the closest he was to finding out anything about this case, maybe even finding a lead.

"She's smart, agent Davey, smarter than you think. She will not let anyone find her if she doesn't want to be found. She would know that you're looking for her and she would start to play the game. If there's nothing turning upside down in your life and you don't feel like you're a puppet in someone else's show then she's not around" the youngster whispered looking at Davey seriously.

"Can you speak clearer?" Davey finally felt the tickling in his stomach that he always felt at the breaking point of the investigation.

"This girl you're looking for likes playing games. If she knows you're looking for her, she'll be right in front of you, manipulating you, leading you on, and eventually, she might let you find her. She'll then laugh in your face because of how long it took you to find her, only to disappear straight after that. So if that isn't happening right now, then she isn't here." The kid continued in a whisper as if he was letting Alex onto the biggest secret.

"What if she's not here? Where is she?" Davey couldn't stop his curiosity.

"She's either not interested in you as she knows you'll never find her, or she's gone for good."

"What are you suggesting?"

"She's dead," said the boy with a cold voice. Davey's hands were shaking and he couldn't think clearly at that point.

"What do you know about her?" Davey's heart started racing.

"Unfortunately, not enough to help you." The boy said apologetically. "I saw her once years ago but she's known in the circles. I've heard stories about her. But I haven't seen her for years. I don't know what happened to her." The boy walked away hurriedly leaving Davey in an empty corridor. Davey didn't move from the spot wondering whether he should chase the boy and try to get more information out of him, but then he remembered how unfruitful the last 6 hours of questioning were. Why on Earth would he tell him anything now?

"Davey!" an old and gargling voice sounded behind him snapping him back from his thoughts. He knew that this wasn't a good sign.

"Yes, sir" Davey answered respectfully, turning around to face the older man.

"Come in," said the older agent disappearing behind a door of his office. Davey changed his posture to the one of a kid who is about to get his beating and followed the older man. His office smelled of the seventies as if it was left rotting for five decades which was impressive because the older agent didn't occupy it until the past year and a bit.

"Is there a problem?" Davey asked quietly.

"I heard that you are still nowhere with your new case."

Davey knew that Jonathan Bilodeau was not a person to be lied to. He was a bit of a scary father-like figure at times and chilled granddad otherwise. He was wearing an old brown suit made of something that could have been mammoth's hair. He had a huge silver moustache and a little bundle of bushy hair on top of his bulky head. He didn't look that scary if you looked from a distance but when he gave you THAT look of disappointment from below his silver-ash feather eyebrows it made you feel guilty for even existing at that point. Davey looked up at Bilodeau wondering whether he should mention a youngster to his boss. The subject of Case #713 is most likely dead, as one other investigation concluded. But he had a big finding as well, she existed, she was real. He wondered what he should tell Bilodeau"I'm sorry, sir, I have only concluded that the previous investigation and conclusions were true. She must have never existed." Davey decided to listen to his guts and play this game on his own rules. Bilodeau chuckled a bit and looked into Davey's eyes as if he knew he lied. Davey felt shivers going all the way up to his back.

"Are you ready to close the case then?" Bilodeau looked at him with disappointment, again.

"I have to admit the defeat." Davey continued his lie. He definitely wasn't ready to close the case and even if Bilodeau agreed to it, he was planning to still work on it in secret. He was too stubborn to give up on it now. He was too deep in it to just leave it behind.

"Hmmm..." Bilodeau thought for a moment. He knew what he wanted to say but he wanted to phrase it right. Davey knew already that Bilodeau is not happy with him. Is he going to be made to clean archives again? "I think you jumped to a conclusion too early," Bilodeau said at last. As soon as Bilodeau said it, Davey knew that he will not allow him to close the case yet. It didn't happen to Davey before. Bilodeau never doubted him and his conclusions before. He only heard from his colleagues how it felt. "I want you to get on a new case after a weekend but I will not want this case rested just yet. For the next few months, I want you to look for any tiny detail you can find and treat it as your second case. Not any less important but not known to others."

"What do you mean?" Davey was surprised to hear the orders.

"No one must know that you are still working on #713. No one. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Davey said with a hint of surprise in his voice. He had never before had to pretend to not work on a case that he was forced to work on. It stroke him now, Bilodeau must have been one of those conspiracy theorists who believed that this case was a thing that would lead to solving all other cases of the series. And yes, there was a whole series of unknown files in the archives that were never solved, and some agents believe that they may actually be connected.

"Did you think of starting from the beginning with this case?"

"No," Davey said thinking how it was even possible to have conspiracy theorists among secret service agents.

"I'll see you around, Davey," Bilodeau said hinting that this meeting is over. Alex stood up and left the room to be hit by the freshness of modern offices. He walked across and entered his own office. He looked at his messy desk with dissatisfaction. He had a pile of papers spread across his desk with lots of sticky notes, blu-tac and string that he used to connect information between files. He was very old-fashioned when it came to his work style. He liked having physical files and evidence spread across the office. It was far from it being environmentally friendly, but there was something about holding the paper that no computer could quite replace.

Davey collected some of the papers and put them in a white folder with a black rim in an attempt to make his desk look tidy. This barely touched the tip of the pile of papers spread across it.

Alex Davey still pondered on how his entire career led to the point where he had nothing better to do than look through an old and outdated case. Alex was lost in his thoughts for a few moments before he looked at his digital clock on a desk which was showing 17:03 in red eager lines. His phone was right next to the clock. Alex clicked the home button only to discover a message and a missed call. He felt instantly nervous, only to notice that the message was from Linda. The image of Linda popped into his head replacing any irritation. He smiled subconsciously, reading the message from her, confirming the time at which they were meeting tonight. He was happy to have an escape from work and hence he was looking forward to their dinner together but right now he felt depleted. His enthusiasm waned off as quickly as it appeared. He wanted to treat Linda to that dinner, but just not tonight. Tonight he would rather collapse on a sofa at home.

But he knew that he couldn't do that to her. He barely got to see her as it was. He was so busy recently that he only saw her about once a week if that. Another sigh left his mouth.

Alex hid the folder in his briefcase.

He left his office and went down to the styling rooms located on the second floor of the building. He didn't like it but these rooms were his only escape from his life as an agent. The walk-in closet was packed with various styles. He looked for the batch with his name tags. He soon found his section and looked through the clothes with a scowl. He wondered why that witch in the styling department chose the clothes for him that she did. Why would she think that he might like Hawaiian shirts? He hated them with passion. But that's the thing. Alex might've hated them but his alter ego, David, wore them all the time. The thing about his level of work was that very few people could know his real identity. On the outside, he was David Hermer. Even Linda knew him as David, the banker who worked hard to earn his next promotion, and who liked Hawaiian shirts and collecting stamps.

Eventually, Alex chose a loose shirt of the indecisive colour of somewhere between pink and purple and he changed his black, smart trousers to denim jeans. He tried his best not to look like a twat, and he almost succeeded. He looked in the mirror and flinched. Sometimes he forgot about it. He forgot that his face had a deep long scar running across the left side of the face. It ran from just the left of the tip of his chin all the way up to just above his ear. It was deep, deformed and risen in some areas. It was like an angry vine twisting across his face. At least it didn't hurt so much anymore. Most of the time Alex could forget all about it. He learnt to not look in the mirrors as he hated his reflection, but it still caught him off guard.

He had this scar for about three years now. He hardly remembered anything from around the time of the accident. He still had nightmares which quite likely were of that accident, but he could hardly make anything out of it, besides of the screams and darkness and pain.

Alex looked away quickly, regretting that he even caught a glimpse of himself, now feeling self-conscious. His self-esteem hit a rock bottom because of his scars. The one on his face was unconcealable, but he hid his other scars pretty well.

Because of how focused he was on his scars, he hardly noticed that he was rather handsome. He had dark thick hair, thick eyebrows, a chiselled nose, and a well-defined jaw. His blue eyes were under the long eyelashes which made them seem even more hypnotising. And for many, the scar didn't look as bad as Alex viewed it. It was noticeable but not as off-putting as he convinced himself to be.

He was tall and very well-built. As he was part of the 'Specials' he was required to keep up to the highest fitness level. The oversized shirt just about hid his muscular build.

At last, he left the building with a briefcase in his hand. He followed the busy street until the end and crossed the road to pass through the market. He loved the smell of baked goods, but the overwhelming smell of meat made him regret his choice of the route. He rushed through to the exit and walked out in front of the bank. He walked by its walls and followed this urban maze for the next ten minutes before getting on a bus for another fifteen. He got off at the bus stop and stepped into the middle-class restaurant that he actually adored. It took a glance across the room for him to spot the girl he dated. She wore a simple black dress and she was sipping on a glass of wine as she sat at the tables hidden in the dark corner. Linda was simple and hence magnificent. She was average at everything, really. But this made her just right. She didn't stand out. She wasn't driven by ambition. She was content in her job as a receptionist at the dentist's office. She lived a life like millions of others.

Right now she was looking down at the menu. Alex walked towards her and kissed her on the cheek only to make her finally look up at him. She was nothing like him. He was always watching everything and everyone, and here she was, unaware of what was around her, immersed in her little world.

"Hi, David!" she said with a smile appearing on her face. "how was your day?"

"Usual stuff, you know." Alex had to think hard to remember all the lies he had told her before. But he was already tired and he struggled to focus. One wrong word and it was going to end. That's how the sorry went. Slipping up could lead to someone from outside knowing of his job and him becoming a target to many more people. One wrong sentence and his girlfriend would be in danger and will be moved into witness protection, taken away from her own life and him. He saw it happen once before. It was a tragedy for many involved and it ended up with the agent and his family losing their lives. "Cheques, accounts, clients. All the usual." Alex added quickly with a shrug.

"I'm sure if you look closely not every day is the same." she said optimistically. She didn't know that he didn't work in that bank he passed every day on the way home. She couldn't.

"Only you can do that," he replied putting his briefcase down and sitting opposite of her. Her optimism was charming, but it didn't spread to him. Linda was quick to start talking about her day as Alex was looking at her. He looked at her studiously. Linda Morgan was the gateway to a normal life, or at least David Hermer's life, not Alexander Davey's. She couldn't know his name, his work, his secret service stuff. Thinking about it, Alex hated his life even more. He couldn't switch it off. Even now he wondered about Cassandra. Did no one else spend their lives worrying about serial killers on the loose? "David, is everything okay?" her question snapped him out of his thoughtful state.

"Yes, Cassandra," he said without thought. Linda's face changed suddenly. "Yes, Linda" he corrected himself. But he knew it was too late. She heard him. He swore at himself internally. How could he let himself slip?!

"Who's Cassandra?" she asked. Alexander couldn't tell her that Cassandra was a girl missing for four years, who was thought to never exist, but today, for the first time, he met someone who might've known her, a youngster, who he accidentally came across. He couldn't tell her that Cassandra was his case #713.

"My new co-worker. I was teaching her how to look up customers on a database today." Alex continued swearing at himself in his thoughts, trying to come up with believable lies. That was an issue with being around Linda. As normal as he pretended it was, it was all a facade. Linda knew David who worked in a bank, not Alex.

"So, something interesting did happen at work today! See!" she almost shouted with enthusiasm. Her interest was thankfully short-lived before she continued talking about fashion, a new tv series she watched, and some other things Alex didn't care much about. The night continued easily from there, with Alex mostly nodding in agreement.

Alex felt uneasy all of a sudden. His instinct kicked in. He looked around quickly taking note of anyone suspicious. No one within the restaurant acted odd. It was a split second, or less when he looked outside and caught a glimpse of someone crossing the road - a woman. Her brown eyes were imprinted in his mind immediately. It wasn't how she acted or what she did that made him shift uncomfortably. It was a feeling. He looked at her ever so briefly but as he did it felt as if his stomach twisted. It was a mix of danger and… familiarity. She disappeared into a crowd within moments but he couldn't focus again for the rest of the night. The feeling hasn't left him, and neither did the image of hazel-brown eyes that ever so briefly landed on him.

Two hours later, they finished their dinner and started heading towards the door. She hopped in a cab leaving Alex standing outside the restaurant. Alex stood still lost in thought. He was definitely more distracted lately. He looked around as if the woman with hazel-brown eyes was still somewhere around. Then, he slowly walked around the streets, aimlessly, until the night fell. He needed time away from papers and screens. He needed time to clear his head.

At last, he walked into the apartment block. He decided to take the lift. He knew that he shouldn't, and his trainer will be fuming but he didn't care. He walked into a dark and cold apartment. Turned the lights on to make it feel less lonely, but it didn't help. Alex locked the door behind him and made his way through to the living room. He hated this place. Modern furniture set-up was nothing more than that, a set-up. He sat down on a barely touched sofa and took a folder out of his briefcase. He started to look through all information again until he fell asleep.

Falling asleep on a sofa was his nightly routine. He couldn't be bothered to take those few steps to the bedroom. But also, he often fell asleep while reading the documents, mid-sentence. He worked as much as he could as if this could help him numb his inner voice. He had it for a while, the voice, which became louder and louder and more intrusive. The voice kept telling him how worthless he was and how pointless his life was. The repetitive voice dragged him down more than any real person ever would. The less time he spent relaxing or resting, the less time the voice had to speak to him. But that wasn't always the case. The voice found its way into his thoughts through the littlest of cracks. As soon as he didn't pay attention to his thoughts, it came back with a thump.