Captcha Thief (Amy Lane Mysteries)

by Rosie Claverton

  ‘I won’t keep each of you long.’ Bryn tried to placate her. ‘But we need to find the rest of her urgently.’

  Talia turned back to her work, gesturing at the man. ‘Noah, go first. Don’t be long.’

  Noah carefully backed away from the frame, disposed of his cotton bud in a bin liner stuffed full of them, and allowed Bryn to lead him to the other side of the workshop.

  ‘What are you using on it?’ Bryn asked, curiously.

  ‘Natural enzymes,’ Noah said solemnly, before laughing nervously, more hiccup than giggle. ‘Also known as saliva.’

  Bryn was stunned into momentary silence. ‘You’re cleaning a priceless painting with a bit of spit and polish?’

  Noah fidgeted awkwardly. ‘Not exactly priceless now.’

  Bryn took pity on the boy – who was probably in his early thirties, at least – and returned to his notebook. ‘Did you notice anyone hanging around the museum before the break-in?’

  ‘The other detective – Jenkins, I think – already went through this.’

  ‘I’m just being thorough,’ Bryn said, pleasantly. Unlike the boy revealing the conservators’ darkest secrets, Bryn intended to keep his methods to himself.

  Noah scratched the scraggly beard on his chin. ‘We don’t really see anyone. We come in at opening time and leave after closing. You want security for that.’

  ‘Anyone ask any strange questions at the talks? Bit too interested in the paintings?’

  ‘Oh no, that’s not me. I’m just a technician. Lia deals with all the classes. Her brain’s amazing – she remembers every little thing about every picture.’

  The star-struck wonder in the boy’s voice made Bryn suspect he appreciated more than just Talia’s artistic knowledge.

  ‘Talia did have an appointment though,’ Noah said suddenly. ‘The day the painting was stolen. You’d have to ask her about that, though.’

  ‘Did you see her visitor?’ Bryn asked casually. The details were always useful for double-checking between witnesses – or on camera.

  Noah nodded. ‘Tall, blonde woman, dressed really well. She had an accent of some kind – maybe a bit German? Does that help?’

  For the second time in as many minutes, Bryn was floored. He’d need to double-check the identification, but the boy’s description perfectly matched their NCA agent.

  ‘And you’re sure that was the day you saw her?’

  ‘Yeah, definitely. I remember because she came back the next morning, but obviously the police weren’t letting anybody in. I saw her in the car park – and then the next minute she was gone.’

  Bryn shut his notebook. ‘Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.’

  As Noah trotted back to his painting, Bryn struggled to process this new lead. Frieda Haas had lied about being assigned this case – she had already been in Cardiff, at the scene of the crime before it had even been committed.

  What else was the NCA agent hiding?

  Chapter 18

  Gangster diplomacy

  Awake for twenty-eight hours and counting, Jason was instantly revived by the smell of roasting meat and real Welsh ale.

  The waitress recognised Nye and gave them a nice table by the fire. The lunch trade was just starting up, locals passing the table and nodding to Nye as they took their regular Sunday tables. Jason salivated at the rich scents wafting from the carvery table, shredding his paper napkin as he waited impatiently for the waitress to take their drinks order.

  ‘Arrested him for smacking his missus last weekend,’ Nye said, as another man nodded to him. ‘Poor girl dropped the charges, though, said she’d made a mistake.’

  Frieda ordered a pint of lager, Nye a small orange juice, and Jason asked for water. He fancied a pint or three, but at his current level of exhaustion and with a roaring fire at his back, he was likely to pass out in his Yorkshire pudding.

  Finally, he could scurry up to the feast and only when he had cleared half the plate did he feel more human. Nye kept up a constant commentary of regular arrestees, the petty criminals and hidden abusers, all coming together for Sunday lunch like one happy Bangor family.

  Jason watched Frieda eat out of the corner of his eye. She ate mechanically – if the food were cardboard or caviar, she wouldn’t care. It felt more like a refuelling. She reminded him of Amy wolfing down pasta or toast, desperate to return to AEON and whatever offender or gamer’s reward she was currently chasing.

  The resemblance ended there. Where Frieda was tall, blonde and strong, Amy was slight, mousy and shrunken. Frieda sported designer suits and an air of cool confidence, whereas Amy wore faded, nerdy T-shirts and ripped jeans with an overcoat of anxiety. Both had fascinating eyes, but Frieda’s were blue and chill while Amy’s were vivid, passionate green, her emotions flashing through them too fast for either of them to process.

  He was also currently working for both of them, a slave of two masters, but he wasn’t doing a very good job for either. He’d trashed Frieda’s bike and he’d drowned his connection to Amy. And despite disliking her, he had a strong attraction to Frieda which distracted him from thinking clearly around her. As for Amy…

  Amy was his friend. And when she was consumed with the glow of a case, she was radiant, all her fears and worries washed away by the love of the mystery. A love he had grown to share, which powered him from one case to the next.

  But she was also his dependent, using him as a crutch to get from day to day. She seemed broken, taped together and worn thin in places, threadbare. She had given him a sense of hope and optimism about his life again, but as much as he wanted to do the same for her, she was still fragile, delicate.

  Jason didn’t know how to fix that. Didn’t know if anyone could.

  ‘Your surveillance of the middle distance is excellent, but can we concentrate on the suspect?’ Frieda’s words broke his reverie, that teasing note back in her voice.

  Jason ignored her, turning instead to Nye. The sergeant was looking vaguely to his right.

  ‘Two o’clock,’ he murmured.

  Jason almost checked his phone before remembering that it was still drying in the police station and realising that was probably not what Nye meant. When they ran together, Jason and Lewis had briefly embraced clock position, mostly to shout ‘on your six’ while whacking each other’s arses with planks of wood. Simpler times.

  Jason looked slightly to his left. A table of young men, about his age maybe older, were laughing together over pints and cleared plates. The man facing towards their table had a stylised shark fin tattoo over one eye. If that wasn’t Jonah Fish, Jason would get that job-stopper scrawled over his own face.

  He was a scrawny boy, without the height and muscle of a lad like Jason. He was playing second fiddle to the other guys at the table, echoing their laughter and riffing off their jokes, but never brave enough to start something of his own. Years of being beaten down and told to shut up. Jason knew plenty of boys like him, had moulded a couple to be just that way when he and Lewis were running around Butetown like they owned it.

  ‘How do we get to him?’ he asked Nye.

  He was already sizing him up. The gang law and prison survival tactics never really left you, and Jason’s eyes flickered over him, assessing his weak spots, his pressure points.

  ‘I got a couple of things to try,’ Nye said, casually. ‘But I reckon his mam should do it.’

  ‘His mam?’ The word came out wrong in Frieda’s mouth, short and sour.

  ‘Yeah, she won’t be too pleased to hear about the girls. I think he’ll do most anything to avoid her getting another phone call from me.’

  Jason recalled vividly the day his mam had come to court, wearing the same suit she wore to his dad’s funeral. ‘Yeah, that should do it.’

  It turned out that Welsh gang runners were the same all over, and Jason hardly needed a reminder of that. He wanted
to say he’d been clean for months, years now, but his record said different. And he still pulled stupid shit, even if it wasn’t entirely illegal.

  Amy’s kind of illegal suited him better. At least no one got hurt her way. It was justice, in a warped way, with both the police and the private cases. She didn’t take on anything if she couldn’t square it with her conscience, championing the underdog. One time she’d been approached by a man wanting to fabricate an affair between his wife and the gardener while concealing his own mistress until after the divorce went through. Amy had followed the man for a week, jumping from camera to camera, before posting the dossier of incriminating photographs to the soon-to-be ex-wife.

  Jonah and his mates headed outside for a smoke, and Jason rose from the table. ‘Two minutes.’

  Outside, he removed his new tobacco, filters and papers, rolling up a thin one to smoke in the beer garden, now the sole province of smokers. The soft, warm rooms of the pub stood in stark contrast to its ugly exterior. The grass was damp with mist off the Menai Strait, soggy umbrellas striped with mould over rotting picnic tables.

  As he lit up, the lads were making plans for a curry and a drinking session Monday night. Jason caught Jonah straining to be included, invited, looking forlornly between each of them. Eventually, one guy cracked.

  ‘You coming, Jonah?’

  Immediately, his demeanour changed, with an attempt to look bored, disinterested. ‘Nah, mate. I’m going down Cardiff tonight. Won’t be back in time.’

  ‘Another one of your specials, is it?’ a young lad asked, obviously impressed – and a little envious.

  Jonah just tapped the side of his nose, as if he were actually secret keeper for nuclear launch codes. The others, despite themselves, appeared a little in awe of Jonah’s work on the side, even if none of them would want to take on the risks.

  ‘You’ll soon be treating us to nights out, cash you’ve got coming in,’ the lad continued.

  ‘Hazard pay.’ Jonah was revelling in the attention, preening like a peacock at his elite job status. ‘There’s two of us, just in case.’

  Two of us… Jason didn’t react, took another drag of his cigarette, and thought fast. The crowd were returning indoors and little Jonah, a medium fish in a small pond, brought up the rear.

  Jason stuck his foot out.

  Jonah went flying, face crashing into the cracked tiles at his feet as he tried to save his pint over his nose. His mates watched and laughed, as Jonah turned over and stared accusingly at Jason.

  An expert in broken noses, Jason figured it would take another few hours before he had two beautiful black eyes, too swollen to see much of anything – and definitely not fit for a drive to Cardiff.

  Jason reached a hand down to him. ‘Sorry, mate – feet like a clown’s, me.’

  Jonah warily took his hand and let Jason pull him to his feet, saying nothing. He wasn’t brave enough to start a fight with a bruiser like Jason, and his mates figured it wasn’t their problem.

  ‘Let me buy you a pint, yeah?’

  Jonah’s supposed friends abandoned him to his fate, as the two of them drank their pints in a secluded corner of the pub. Frieda and Nye hadn’t moved, and he didn’t look at them again. He was flying solo.

  ‘Guess you’ll have to give Cardiff a miss,’ Jason said casually.

  Jonah lowered his pint, knuckles white on the glass. ‘Don’t know what—’

  ‘Come on now.’ Jason smirked at him, a technique of interrogation perfected on snot-nosed kids with too much lunch money. ‘You wouldn’t lie to a man while drinking his beer, would you?’

  ‘What do you want?’ Jonah said, finally understanding the game being played.

  ‘The man I work for has an interest in the man you work for. He’s sent me to find out what’s going on.’

  ‘I’m no grass,’ Jonah said quickly, as if afraid he’d chicken out if he held it in any longer.

  ‘Of course not. Which is why I’m going to Cardiff in your place.’

  Jonah gaped like his marine namesake. ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘Why not? You’re unfortunately injured. You’ve got a mate who can help out this one time. I do the job, tidy like, and everyone’s happy.’

  ‘If my boss finds out—’

  ‘If you don’t help me,’ Jason said, casual, as if Jonah hadn’t spoken, ‘your mam finds out you’ve been dealing in whores. What do you think she’ll say to that?’

  Jonah blanched, a spot of blood welling on his lip where he’d bitten it. ‘You can’t. It’d kill her.’

  ‘Which is why you’re gonna be a good boy and play the game.’

  Jason drank his pint in silence for a minute or two, just watching Jonah and working out if he’d pressed the right buttons. Blackmail, extortion – old tricks he’d grown out of, but Jonah was a little shit and Jason couldn’t quite feel guilty about it.

  ‘I can … introduce you. It’s up to Kyle whether he takes you or not.’

  Still got it. ‘Where’s the meeting point?’

  ‘I’ll pick you up here, half-eleven or just before. Kyle hates it when we’re late.’

  Jonah chugged the rest of his pint and bolted, almost knocking Frieda over in his haste to be out of that pub, away from Jason and his charged words.

  Jason calmly finished his pint as Frieda sat opposite him.

  ‘Well?’ she asked.

  Jason grinned. ‘I’ve got a date.’

  Chapter 19

  Loose ends

  Amy woke to AEON’s alarm, her face smushed against the keyboard, and three pages of Vs in the middle of her notes.

  The coffee hadn’t helped, her mouth parched, and a distinctive red wine headache at her temples. She dragged her dry carcass to the kitchen for water, paracetamol and a couple of diazepam. She needed to keep the edge at bay, just a little longer. Hangovers always brought the tremors back, the uncontrollable fear of life outside her front door.

  She struggled now to remember her last trip outside. It would’ve been with Jason, a short drive to somewhere within the city, but the details escaped her, the date, the feeling. How had she ever had the confidence to step outside the door, voluntarily, with only her assistant at her side? How had she not collapsed in panic, stared at by everyone in the street, knowing her flaws so entirely?

  Because Jason was her equilibrium. And she was feeling off-kilter because he was miles away and out of contact. The promised phone call had yet to materialise, adding to the churning in her gut. But she couldn’t wait for certainty, not with a murderer and thief on the loose.

  Shoving down her anxiety, Amy shuffled back to AEON and checked out the source of the alarm. She found two new alerts – the museum staff’s basic profiles completed, and the school’s Instagram photos scanned for her elusive suspect.

  She looked at the photos first – two matches only, both within the last week. Another blurry background shot, adding no new detail, and the other…

  It was a perfect portrait. The girl sat cross-legged on the grass, her phone cradled in her hand. But she had looked up for one moment, some blur in the air catching her eye, and she had smiled. The picture was simply captioned ‘prydferth,’ which a quick Google search revealed to be beautiful in Welsh.

  The photographer was anonymous, no distinguishing aspects to the profile. The other pictures were artistic but had no human subjects. He had a few followers, but none who went to the school, and Amy knew a loner when she saw one, recognised a kindred spirit. But obviously he knew the girl – and liked her. He would be able to identify her, or so Amy hoped.

  But how to reach out to him? Amy connected his email address to several other social media accounts, including a dormant ask.fm account which only held a couple of questions about photography techniques.

  She composed the message carefully, debating the use of Welsh – but online translators we
re dire and she didn’t have time to wait for the human touch. In the end, she kept it simple:

  I saw the picture you took on instagram. I really liked it. Let’s meet after school tomorrow – prydferth.

  While waiting for an answer, Amy looked over the museum profiles. A few speeding tickets, one outstanding parking fine and a couple of minor shoplifting offences. One count of domestic violence, but the archaeologist in question was on secondment to Rome.

  Then Amy saw it, and a grin spread her lips, the dry skin at the corners cracking with the movement. Talia Yeltsova’s work visa had expired three years ago, and her last employer was registered as Oxford University in 1999. Putting her in the perfect place for the millennium heist.

  Amy focussed her efforts on Talia, digging out her social and professional networks and setting AEON on a path to dig dirt. She needed much more than a coincidence for Bryn to work his magic, though the expired visa was leverage in itself. Without an assistant on the ground, however, Amy was reliant on the police to do her legwork.

  Owain and Cerys had not returned, which she tried not to dwell on. Clearly, they had better things to do, even when a murder was involved, and she tried to rein in her anger, her envy. Her emotions were rumbling too close to the surface, though the pleasant buzz of the diazepam soothed her slighted feelings as well as her anxiety.

  AEON beeped. It was too soon for Talia’s search, so Amy checked the ask.fm reply.

  C u there x

  Bryn’s attempt to find information on Frieda Haas was tedious and fruitless.

  Talia had slipped out while he was talking to Noah, denying him the chance to interrogate her. The NCA would only confirm Frieda’s status as an agent, and he had no colleagues within their ranks to push for information. The rest of her career history was unknown to him and he had no way of checking it out on a Sunday afternoon.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true, was it? He had Amy, but he was strangely reluctant to share this new lead. How could he tell Amy that his latest suspect was running around with her assistant, while she had no way to reach him? The panic alone might kill her.