Double Identity

by Alison Morton

  ‘Excellent. All we have to do now is catch the bloody man.’

  * * *

  Although it was busy with early Sunday evening diners and gin drinkers, they found a corner table upstairs in the pub across the road. McCracken set about demolishing a massive burger, applying himself in silence. Mel ate more slowly and studied the other diners, most of them in their thirties and early forties. They were noisy; she overheard snatches of conversations about the latest game, their digital watches, favourite restaurant and the next trip to the Greek islands. Perhaps they’d consider her life exciting and glamorous, full of secrets and action, but at this moment she’d swap her heartache, sore arm and sense of frustration with theirs.

  ‘So if you were E, how would you escape?’ McCracken looked around after he’d taken a hearty swallow of his pint.

  ‘There’s no doubt he’s clever,’ Mel conceded. ‘Now the Home Office have released his personnel file, I checked his background. He’s an engineering graduate, specialising in electronic and mechanical systems.’

  ‘Blimey! So he could have made the Brussels bomb.’

  ‘That’s a bit of a leap and we’d need to have an expert opinion, but it’s more than possible. It also explains the bizarre symbols on the note about the tickets in Duchamps’s safe.’

  ‘Couldn’t resist being a show-off, doing that,’ McCracken said. What a prat.’

  Mel leant back against the padded bench. ‘But he’s obviously good at observing people and finding their weaknesses as he did with Duchamps and Gérard. I think he’d have foreseen something like this.’

  ‘So you think he had a planned escape route?’

  ‘He must have done.’

  ‘Nobody’s seen any sign of him at the ports, nor the stations or airports. Stevenson’s requested the security on transatlantic flight be upped to max. And Ellis’s car’s still in its garage, according to his wife.’

  ‘Yes, it’s very clean. But even the most carefully structured plan will leave traces.’

  * * *

  An hour later, in the incident room at Friars Green, Mel blinked heavily several times at the screens in front of her and yawned.

  ‘You know, there are much more enjoyable things to do on a Sunday evening than sit in a stuffy office and try to find something that’s buried twenty metres deep.’

  ‘Such as?’ He smiled at her.

  ‘Go for a run, or at least a walk, I meant.’

  ‘All for a bit of jogging whenever you’re fit to take part.’ He grinned.

  She rolled her eyes.

  ‘Clean your mind and let’s get some air.’

  They walked along to the little park which Mel discovered stretched back a considerable way from the main road. It was gone ten and only a few people were walking through, perhaps to the blocks of flats surrounding the green space. The streetlights highlighted the almost translucent leaves emerging from thick winter buds. Mel took a deep breath in to counter her tiredness.

  ‘Trees help me think. I knew more of them than people when I was growing up. Well, until I started school.’

  He said nothing, but took her hand.

  ‘If I was Ellis, I would have had at least two quick throwaway disguises packed in a ready bag,’ Mel said. ‘He’d need some cash, a bank or credit card in a different name. That takes planning in these days of money laundering regs. Or perhaps not with his contacts. But it will leave traces. Next, he needs a way either to go completely to ground here in the UK for at least several months or to get off the island as quickly as possible.’ Her eyes closed a few millimetres. ‘So that means a hire car or a vehicle stored in an easily accessible garage near here and not far from St Mary’s Hospital where he tried to terminate me.’

  ‘All the county forces have an alert for him,’ McCracken said.

  ‘Yes, but he’d have a driving permit, a licence, I mean, under a different name and probably a set of changeable registration plates. And they would be genuine. A fake number would flash up quickly on vehicle recognition systems.’

  ‘You think he’s gone for somewhere remote like Scotland? Or is that too far? I mean, it would take several hours.’

  ‘If I were him, I’d go straight for the Tunnel. Then I’d disappear into the forests – the Ardennes or Vosges. There are far fewer video surveillance cameras on the other side of the Channel than in the UK. ’

  ‘Yeah, we use them here to catch villains.’ He snorted.

  ‘Exactly. Once through, he could go anywhere in Europe and beyond, even the US or Canada.’

  ‘Right, back to the station.’

  * * *

  ‘I assure you, Inspector, we’ve alerted the Tunnel authorities, the vehicle services at Folkestone and the passenger services at St Pancras as well as Ebbsfleet and Ashford.’ The Kent liaison officer sounded bored.

  McCracken scratched the back of his neck. ‘Yes, but this is a clever sod. He may be in a hire car or even a stolen one.’

  ‘Well, you’d be able to tell us if it was stolen, wouldn’t you?’

  Bugger. Why were smart-arses always on duty on Sundays?

  ‘This is a matter of national security,’ McCracken added sternly. ‘It’s vital we stop this person leaving the country.’

  ‘It always is, isn’t it?’ came the bored Kent twang.

  McCracken dropped the handset of the secure phone onto the cradle.

  ‘I’ll talk to Willem Leroy,’ Mel said.

  ‘Who’s he when he’s at home?’

  ‘Honestly, Jeff, didn’t you do the induction in Brussels? He’s the Belgian Federal Police liaison officer. You must have met him.’

  ‘No, I was too busy being beasted by those special forces nutters out at Heverlee.’

  She grinned at him while she dialled. She checked the loudspeaker was on.

  ‘Willem? Bonjour. Sorry to disturb you on a Sunday evening, but I wonder if you can help…’

  48

  McCracken had refused paracetamol for his headache but had agreed to take a taxi home. Mel didn’t think him fit to pull an all-nighter and she was nearly dead on her feet herself, if she was honest. She fell into bed as soon as she got home, only pausing to remove her arm dressing and brush her teeth.

  Next morning, when her phone alarm shrilled in her ear just before six, she felt at death’s door. Reaction, she supposed; the day after action, you were still taking it in, the second day was the one you had to watch out for. She would have given almost anything to fall back into oblivion under the duvet. She nearly did. But that wasn’t how her world worked.

  After a hot shower, two shots of coffee, some muesli and yoghurt, she made herself walk fast to Friars Green in an effort to pump some blood to her brain.

  At seven o’clock, the incident room was already full of smells of coffee, somebody’s floral perfume, paper and files as well as human sweat. Mel wanted to open a window, but they were reinforced and fixed. Clustered round Stevenson standing at the incident board were two analysis officers and Andreas Holzmann. Their bodies blocked whatever they were looking at. McCracken was leaning back in his chair, watching.

  ‘Ah, Mélisende.’ Stevenson looked up. ‘Some overnight leads. Sonya Darlston, the liaison officer I sent to see Mrs Ellis, spent several hours yesterday chatting to her about the past twelve months. I’m surprised Sonya hasn’t got tannin poisoning, the number of cups of tea pressed on her by Mrs Ellis. But she logged it all and Andreas and Joanna have married it up with your theory.’

  ‘My theory?’

  ‘You left some cryptic notes on the system last night about how you would go to ground if you were Ellis?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sorry.’

  Stevenson studied her face.

  ‘Are you fit to carry on this morning?’

  ‘Yes, of course, sir. My wound is just itching a little, otherwise I’m fine,’ she lied.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. His face looked full of doubt, but he didn’t pursue it. ‘Kent Police, geed on by Jeff’s call last night, reinforced the
original alert sent to the port authorities as well as customs and immigration both sides of the Channel. They reported back first thing this morning that they didn’t observe anything suspicious Saturday or yesterday. I’ve asked them to look through the CCTV recordings for the whole period.’

  ‘Bet they’re happy about that,’ McCracken called out.

  ‘Quite,’ Stevenson replied in a repressive tone.

  Mel took a step forward.

  ‘I called Inspector Leroy last night in Brussels. And sent him some photos of Ellis. Has anything come of that?’

  ‘Indeed. He put an alert out through the Belgian national police as well as contacting the gendarmerie around the French Nord region. Our second possible lead. Only digital capture, but we may have a sighting of Ellis.’

  Mel caught her breath. Had her theory been right?

  The other officers stood back as Stevenson pointed to a map of Europe, printed out over several sheets and not quite matching up. Red dots paralleled the route from Calais through southern Belgium to a red circle which had been drawn around Luxembourg City.

  Below the map was a grainy printout of somebody filling a car with fuel. A Peugeot?

  ‘Can I see the original video?’ Mel said.

  The white video date stamp showed 19.32 yesterday evening. Why had Ellis needed all that time to get to Luxembourg? That made it well over thirty-six hours since he’d attempted to strangle her in the hospital ward. She studied it for a few minutes, watching as the figure got out of the car, pushed the nozzle in the tank, then disappeared into the shop. The video cut to the view from behind the shop counter and she watched as the figure walked up to the counter and handed over cash. He kept his head down, then walked back out. He was wearing a peaked bargee cap which obscured part of his face. She reran it several times, stopping it in different places.

  ‘Well?’ Stevenson’s voice was sharp.

  ‘Yes, I’d say it was him. The walk, especially. It’s very difficult to disguise your gait. That’s the first thing I used to analyse at GAOS. Also, the way he twists his wrist, the set of his shoulders and the way he holds his hand out for his change. Plus—’ She hesitated.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s not very scientific, but the cashier simpered at him. Not a smile, but a flirty look. Ellis is well known for eliciting that response.’ She tried to sound as formal as possible. She sat back and looked at Stevenson. ‘Have they pulled him in yet?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. He disappears from the motorway CCTV system after that.’

  ‘Which means he’s taken to the minor roads,’ Mel said. ‘Damn. That’s why we haven’t seen him before now and why he’s taking so long. Trying to look like a tourist. Clever. I suppose he thinks we’d assume he’d tear along the motorways.’ She ran her finger along the higgledy-piggledy international boundary. ‘You can drive along the borderlands of France and Belgium easily on smaller roads. When you get to the Ardennes, even easier. It’s densely wooded with steep valleys and not very well populated, so not very visible from satellites. But you can’t always find petrol stations in these villages and certainly not open on Sundays outside cities.’

  ‘Wonder where he’s headed for,’ McCracken said.

  ‘We don’t know, but Sonya flagged up Mrs Ellis’s remark that Ellis had a couple of private appointments with a Doctor Eliane Lafrentz in London last year about plastic surgery on his ears.’

  ‘Oh, what?’ McCracken snorted. Another officer giggled.

  ‘Don’t be so quick to dismiss it, Jeff,’ Stevenson said. ‘Doctor Lafrentz was doing a year at the Royal Free here in London studying advanced techniques in reconstructive surgery. She’s now back in Switzerland, as an associate professor at the university in Basel just inside the Swiss border. But she also runs a private clinic for cosmetic surgery.’

  ‘Oh, bollocks, he’s going to have a face job and disappear.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  McCracken strode over to the map.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t that good at geography at school but that’s a strange way to get to Switzerland. Why not just go straight through France?’

  ‘Because he’d have to go through cities and travel on the motorways,’ Mel said. ‘Unlike most ordinary roads, both of those do have good video surveillance. If he made a bad driving move or exceeded the speed limit, there’s a far higher chance of being stopped. In the country, nobody cares much.’ She shrugged.

  ‘If I may, Director?’ Andreas Holzmann said. ‘If Ellis is sticking to a covert route to Switzerland, he may have left Luxembourg and driven through the Saarland on the German side of the border. There are more roads than on the French side. The downside for him is that we have more advanced and widespread CCTV in Germany and so opportunity for us to track him.’ He smiled at Mel. ‘No offence, as they say here.’ She smiled back.

  ‘He’ll have to cross the northern Vosges at some point, though,’ she said.

  ‘Agreed,’ Holzmann replied. ‘The national park in France would obscure him well, but then he must get through Strasbourg to carry on south to Basel.’

  ‘It is possible to take minor roads and stay relatively covert round Strasbourg – we trained round there,’ Mel said. ‘But it would take a long time.’

  ‘He must know we’re after him,’ Stevenson said. ‘On his magical mystery route, he must have taken some time to rest, but I feel we only have a day at most before Ellis is literally a changed man. I will liaise with the Swiss FedPol to keep a watch on Doctor Lafrentz’s clinic and university faculty. However, if we have to dig him out of Switzerland, it could be a protracted process.’ He gripped the arms of his chair. His eyes were hard, almost unfocused. ‘I want him caught now.’

  All movement stopped. Mel wasn’t the only one staring at Stevenson. McCracken coughed loudly. After a second, Stevenson blinked and turned to Holzmann.

  ‘Andreas, have a word with your colleagues at Wiesbaden. Send them these latest photos and tell them to instruct the local police to look out for any British-registered Peugeot on those back roads. Of course, he’s probably changed plates or even cars by now, but if he’s hired another one, we should be able to trace a licence scanned somewhere. Get to it, ladies and gentlemen.’ He beckoned Mel. ‘A word, Mélisende, please.’

  * * *

  An hour later, Mel was at St Pancras boarding the Eurostar for Paris. She’d been blue-lighted to her flat, given twenty minutes to pack, then on to the station. McCracken had looked puzzled as she’d hurried back to her desk, closed her terminal and grabbed her mini backpack. She hadn’t had a chance to say a word to him, just press her hand on his shoulder, then hurry out where the car and two police officers were waiting. She knew Stevenson had been talking to the French defence minister in Paris when she’d left his office. As he’d been able to second her to the EIRS in the first place he must have enough influence to initiate the operation she was going to head up.

  As the train was about to plunge into the Tunnel her secure phone pinged with her formal deployment order from EIRS. Before she got to the Gare du Nord, she’d received details from her old unit. She turned her phone face down as the attendant offered her coffee and a pastry. Dieu, this was going to be strange. But she’d get the chance to get that bastard Ellis. She fingered her throat. And if he got a good kicking in the process, then so much the better.

  She was first at the train door when it slid back at Gare du Nord. She jumped out, shouldering her backpack. Right in front of her was a male soldier in standard combat uniform porting a FAMAS assault rifle. She caught her breath, but there were one or two others in the concourse as well as fully armed gendarmes looking stern. She’d been in London too long with smiling street policemen and had forgotten how uncompromising France liked to appear in its current state of anti-terrorist emergency.

  At the Gare de l’Est she had barely ten minutes to spare before her train left to travel east, but then she had no suitcase to lug, only a backpack to store on the rack. She leant back and closed her eyes
. In an hour and three quarters, she’d be back in her old role.

  Emerging from the bulbous glass frontage of Strasbourg station just after three, she spotted a familiar figure. She hadn’t seen Caporal-chef Barceaux since she’d been here last December for her re-enlistment trial. She pulled her shoulders back.

  ‘Salut, Sergent-chef,’ he said, then grinned. ‘Come back for a bit of proper action?’

  ‘Don’t start, Barceaux.’ But she smiled back.

  49

  Shedding her jeans, T-shirt and trainers, Mel scrambled into the combats the quartermaster had prepared for her. He’d given her sand boots; her feet were too soft now for standard leather. As she pulled on the green undershirt, Barceaux, who had been bringing her up to date with unit gossip, stopped mid sentence and pointed to the dressing on her upper arm.

  ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘Nothing. Just a scratch.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Leave it.’ She quickly shrugged on smock and trousers, clasped the belt and webbing around her top half and ignored the soreness and itching. At the armoury, she was issued with an HK416 assault rifle and a Glock 17. She fired some clusters with the pistol in the indoor range, then sighted the rifle. The last time she’d seen one was when Fennington asked her to inspect a crate of them in that north London warehouse. Despite her gym sessions it felt heavy. The sooner she was rid of the soft living in London and back here training properly the better.

  Colonel Vasseur was as abrupt as usual. Mel thought him a good officer. Under all that gruffness and talk of mission priorities, he had never yet neglected to bring people home, alive or dead. His family had been pieds-noirs for many generations; he’d been born in France with no longing or wish to live in Algeria, but he had that inbred toughness from a colonial background.

  ‘Nothing yet from London about your target,’ he began. ‘But they emphasise a short, sharp operation, extraction preferred, but you are authorised to terminate if unavoidable. Maximum discretion. You’ll be airlifted in using a training Colibri.’