Captcha Thief (Amy Lane Mysteries)

by Rosie Claverton

  They caught the bus to the train station, sitting together in companionable silence, Heddwen’s floaty sleeve brushing against hers. It tickled, but she didn’t move away. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat next to someone on the bus, someone who had chosen to be there.

  The train was a slow, local chugger which wended its way along the south coast of Wales from Swansea to Cardiff. They sat across from each other by the window, watching the coast go by. Heddwen took a few snaps through the filthy windows, probably focussing on the grime rather than the beaches behind it. Corelia had never met someone so fascinated by dirt.

  And she’d never been so fascinated by another human being. For the most part, she had grown up alone, a military brat with her older siblings having long flown the nest. Unnoticed, except for when she was in trouble – for climbing the fence at the barracks, for backchatting Dad’s CO. She wanted to be noticed for different reasons, better reasons. Cracking the UK Treasure Hunt would make her father realise she was worth something, more than another female trophy to trot out for occasions. Like her stepmother.

  Using Ada to achieve those aims was a dangerous game, but Corelia was not above playing dirty to win. Once she had the Welsh clue, she would be the victor. The plaudits, the recognition would all be hers.

  And Heddwen’s. Standing slightly behind her, with her camera.

  ‘Do you want to be famous?’ she suddenly demanded of her companion.

  To her surprise, Heddwen laughed. ‘I prefer being behind the camera.’

  Corelia grinned. One less competitor for the limelight. And Ada didn’t want the exposure, a ghost lurking in the shadows. They might be a team, but Corelia was the public face of victory.

  The platform at Cardiff Central was busy, packs of men in rugby tops alongside heavy-laden university students and their clinging relatives. Corelia took Heddwen’s hand – so she wouldn’t lose her in the crowd, that was all. Heddwen’s palm was clammy, her cheeks flushed from her knitted layers and hefting her lenses. Corelia led the way, the pathfinder through the throngs and down into the tunnel below.

  Something collided with her back, the sharp edge of a bag or a swinging arm.

  ‘Traitor.’

  She wanted to confront the clumsy oaf, the owner of the hissed word, but she was frozen, dizzy. The air was suddenly thin, the tunnel too hot, and Heddwen was shouting through a thick cloud, clutching at her arms.

  ‘Help me! Please … please…’

  The ground flew up to meet her, her legs crumpling like a soggy paper doll left out in the rain. She wished Heddwen would stop crying like that, shoving at the bruise over her back. It hurt, but dull and far away, like a dream happening to someone else.

  ‘Ein Tad yn y nefoedd…’

  She’d just close her eyes. Rest them a moment.

  Fame could wait.

  Chapter 41

  Collateral damage

  Too ashamed to head back to Amy’s, Jason slunk home to his mam, endured her fussing and feeding, and spent the night in his old room. He caught the first train to Glasgow, keeping his head down while furtively checking that Frieda wasn’t on his trail.

  He was no closer to discovering her true motives. What did an NCA agent want with him? Despite what Bryn and the rest of Cardiff thought, he didn’t have gang connections anymore, no inside knowledge of crime or access to its architects. And he hadn’t done anything wrong, nothing that would draw the attention of a national investigation. What the hell did she want from him?

  It was only after he changed trains that he realised he hadn’t heard from Amy. She usually kept closer tabs on him than this, constantly monitoring his position and demanding to know why he wasn’t where he ought to be. Maybe she was more off her game than he’d first thought.

  He itched to call her, to make sure she was okay, but a selfish part of him didn’t want to admit that he wasn’t in Scotland yet. Every delay to the investigation risked the painting, and potentially more innocent victims. If this man was willing to kill over a game, then the rules could change at any time. They could end up with more than a painting held hostage.

  He finally arrived in Glasgow just after midday, his open-ended ticket giving him a little breathing room. Amy had given him starting coordinates and he used his new geocaching app to bring up the location. He opted to walk across town, wanting to see a little bit of Scotland before he was inevitably summoned back to Wales.

  As he walked under the glass-walled railway bridge over Argyle Street, Jason drank in the sights and sounds of Glasgow. It looked like a chimera city, beautiful yet dangerous, cultured achievement side by side with desperate deprivation. It was a darker, wilder Cardiff, on its transformation from ashes to a phoenix, but still snarling and vicious by night. Jason was reminded of Cardiff Bay, how the bright new buildings sat cheek by jowl with shabby Splott and the remnants of the old Tiger Bay.

  In Glasgow, he had the shining surface of the river on one side and a wall of office blocks on the other, eventually giving way to flats and then hotels. Amy’s coordinates brought him out in front of a brilliant glass-fronted arena topped by a silver crown. It looked like a space-age hotel, backing onto a giant silver armadillo that reminded Jason of Cardiff’s own Millennium Centre down the Bay.

  A nearby sign told him this was the SSE Hydro and the armadillo was the Clyde Auditorium. Amy had completed some rough work on the last lines of the clue, cracking the code to reveal ‘FCB58’. Jason wasn’t entirely sure a meaningless string of letters and numbers counted as ‘cracked’, but she was adamant that was the solution.

  The first part of the clue instructed him to ‘seek water and then shun it’. Jason headed for the river, a few paces along the service road. The Clyde was much wider than the Taff as it ran through the city centre, a slim bridge crossing the water, roofed over with more fancy glass.

  If you shunned something, you turned your back on it – so Jason leaned back against the railing, gazing back at the buildings he’d just left with a cool breeze playing over the near-bare skin of his head.

  The next lines made no sense to him:

  Look for the large armoured one there,

  The true winner between tortoise and hare.

  He removed his phone to Google the strange references only to find he’d missed a call from Cerys. He hesitated a moment before calling back. His sister was more stubborn than he was – if she was calling him, she must have a good reason. Something bigger than their last argument.

  She answered in a fluster. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Glasgow,’ he said bluntly. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘What the fuck are you doing up there?’ Her voice was a hissed whisper, as if she didn’t want to be overheard, and he heard a crowd die to silence behind her. ‘You have to get back here.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ His stomach dropped through the floor. ‘Is it Amy?’

  ‘No, she’s fine – well, probably, I don’t know. It’s not about her.’

  ‘Stop playing games, Cerys,’ he snapped, his nerves fraught. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Corelia. The schoolgirl Amy sent me to find? She’s been stabbed.’

  Jason froze, his heart seized with fear for that cocky girl and her shy admirer. ‘Is she…?’

  ‘In surgery. Knife hit her lung, maybe damaged her spine. She was stabbed in a crowd at Cardiff Central – no witnesses, no nothing. But she had ticket stubs from Belfast in her pocket marked for today.’

  Which tied this directly to Amy and what she’d sent her to do. The chances of this being a random stabbing were almost zilch. Knife crime in Cardiff was about fights between gangs and the rare mugging, but not stabbing a schoolgirl in the middle of a train station.

  He said nothing.

  Cerys’ breath hitched and the strained silence spread between them, like an accusation. ‘Was she … Jason, did Amy…?’

&
nbsp; She didn’t ask and he couldn’t answer. If Amy was implicated in Corelia’s stabbing, there would be questions. Bryn and Owain had made their positions clear – Amy would be on her own. Sure, she’d have a lawyer, but she wasn’t herself right now. A stiff breeze could blow her down, mind lurching about like her body, drunk and overmedicated.

  ‘Jay?’

  ‘I need to know whose side you’re on, Cerys.’

  ‘A girl’s been stabbed! How can you talk about sides?’

  Jason closed his eyes, praying he was doing the right thing. ‘Corelia was hunting down a cache in Belfast. That’s all I know about it. I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt her.’

  ‘Does Amy?’

  Jason felt his stomach clench, resisted the urge to punch the fence behind him. ‘I’m not answering that,’ he said, indignant.

  ‘Then I’ll ask her.’

  ‘Cerys, no!’

  He wanted to protect Amy from this, as long as possible. No one could say it was her fault, no one – except her. And he wasn’t there to support her, to shore up those fragile defences when the self-doubt set in.

  ‘Someone has to. This madman has proved he’s willing to keep killing over this bloody thing, and now there’s a schoolgirl caught up in it all. It has to end.’

  ‘I’ll tell her. I’ll ask.’ It was the last thing he wanted to do, but it had to be him.

  ‘Do it fast. And then I’m going over.’

  The line went dead and Jason stared at the building in front of him, not really seeing it, a sheen of water blurring the silvery image beyond recognition.

  An inappropriate bubble of laughter filled his throat as, out of nowhere, he saw it. Of course. Armadillo.

  But he had no time for games now, not with Corelia’s playtime all run out.

  He dialled home.

  She’d set up an alert for news in Cardiff. She wouldn’t be caught out again, hearing about Jason’s miseries second-hand from Bryn, hours after the fact and with every major news reporter already on the scene.

  So, when a volley of beeps burst from AEON’s speakers, she checked her news feed first. Schoolgirl stabbed in Cardiff Central Station. More to follow.

  When she saw it, she knew. She reached for her phone to dial Corelia’s number, then stopped. The police were not her friends anymore. She couldn’t take the risk.

  Instead, she pulled up the GPS locator in Corelia’s phone. University Hospital of Wales. No … no…

  The darkness embraced her like a lover, smothering her, drawing all the air from her lungs and sending her heart beating out of her chest. Corelia was dead, and the killer was coming for her next…

  She couldn’t protect herself. The house wasn’t safe. Jason wasn’t here.

  Corelia’s dead.

  She had to get out, to move. If the killer could find Corelia, he would find her.

  Her throat closed, and she gasped for breath, desperate to live. But she was rooted to her chair, to AEON, her fingers clawing at the edge of the desk as she fought to regain enough composure to flee. But she was lost, spiralling down and down until everything was dancing spots across her vision, and the blackness swallowed her whole.

  Corelia’s dead because of me.

  Her phone was ringing. It was distant, muffled, and she opened her eyes to see the organised chaos of AEON’s cables under her desk. Her face was pressed against the carpet, limbs sprawled awkwardly from where she had slid off the chair, crumpled on the floor like a puppet with her strings cut.

  Like Corelia.

  The ringing paused for a second before it started up again, refused to let her lie, dragging her back to her life – her responsibilities. Jason.

  She snatched at the phone, bringing it down to her, in the shelter of AEON’s protection. She answered without saying a word.

  ‘Amy, listen. There’s something I have to tell you.’ Jason sounded worried, on edge.

  He knows. He knows what I’ve done.

  ‘Corelia.’ The word was choked, thick in her throat, suffocating her.

  ‘You heard. Did Bryn—?’

  ‘The news. Everywhere. They all know. What are we going to do?’

  ‘I’ll get the next train back. Cerys is coming over. Don’t open the door to anyone else.’

  ‘Do you have it?’ Her brain was slowly coming back online, the circuits realigned to their primary mission.

  ‘Have what? The cache? Forget the fucking thing.’

  ‘We need leverage. To protect ourselves.’

  ‘You want to negotiate with him? That bastard stabbed Corelia! How can we trust him not to come after us?’

  ‘We need to prove we’re still useful. I’m … I’m fine. Tell Cerys I’m fine.’

  ‘Cerys is not up for discussion. She’s staying with you until I can get home.’ He paused, before muttering ‘fuck’ under his breath. ‘I’ll get the cache tonight and get straight on the train. I’ll be with you by morning.’

  ‘Morning?’ The bitter taste of adrenaline coated her tongue, fear rolling in her stomach. ‘Why the delay?’

  ‘I need to wait for the concert to start. I’ll explain when I come home. Just hold tight. And … find out what’s happening. With Corelia.’

  ‘I will,’ she swore, to him and to herself.

  She would find the killer and she would bring him down. Before someone else fell before her hubris, victim to her incompetence.

  Before she had to bury Jason in the ground because she had failed.

  Chapter 42

  Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

  The girl was dangerous. She had to go.

  As soon as Truth had seen the triumphant post on the UK Treasure Hunt site, she’d become suspicious. But when the email had come through only a few minutes later, giving away the location of that exact cache, she’d known. The girl was using Truth’s trusting nature to stall her, solve the puzzle ahead of her. Deprive her of the prize money.

  Tracking the child was easy. She’d posted the update from her phone, revealing her true identity and placing the unsecured GPS location in Truth’s hands. The signal had disappeared for just over an hour before reappearing outside Cardiff International Airport. The movement of the signal after that was fast, too fast for a car, and Truth realised she was on a train.

  The main station was crowded, choked with bodies, but the girl’s voice carried clearly, arrogance dripping from every word spoken. Truth had recognised her lying face instantly, slipped behind her and drove her knife into the girl’s spine.

  She would die. Die like a traitor deserved.

  The second time was easier, killing someone. She had known what it would feel like, the cold rush of adrenaline and the bitter aftertaste in her mouth. Painful, but necessary. Another secret for her to carry, another necessary evil.

  Not only had she erased her only competition, she had secured her identity. The child had seen the face of Truth and she could not allow that. If she’d known the girl’s plans, she would’ve moved on her before she’d stolen her Belfast crown.

  The time for games was over. She couldn’t afford to let anyone take away her victory, let the prize slip through her fingers. She had too much at stake for that, too much judgement set to fall on her head. She had killed a man, stabbed a girl, and for what? Nothing. She had to win this or she would lose everything.

  Truth was running out of options. She must either sell the painting or win the geocaching competition. But she still had yet to hear why the painting transaction had failed and she was losing her grip on the geocaches. How was she to buy her mother’s health?

  Stabbing the girl had been rash. She’d now lost her accomplice in hunting down the caches, lost her advantage. Risked leaving evidence that might implicate her in the crime. Her usual calm and control was slipping. She had to make it right.

  Truth called up
her email – and was surprised to see a new message, sent only a few minutes earlier from an address she did not know. She opened it, her heart high in her throat.

  I helped you because I wanted to see The Blue Lady returned. You stabbed my friend. If she dies, you die.

  Truth choked. The girl wasn’t the one behind this – she was working for someone else. A power she could not reach, one who was now after Truth’s blood. What had she done? She had opened herself up to ruin and she had nothing to show for it, nothing left to give. Nothing to ensure her mother lived, finally proving she was a worthy daughter.

  But she could not show herself vulnerable, not to this unseen power nor to the vultures circling. She held all the cards – if she could only be patient. She, who had killed twice, had the power now. Not this unseen taunter.

  She had to prove to everyone that she was strong, untouchable.

  help me and no one else will hurt.

  The email flashed up on her screen and Amy hesitated before opening it.

  The price for no more bloodshed was her continued cooperation. But why then had Corelia been targeted?

  Amy sat back in her chair and steepled her fingers like a supervillain. Perhaps they had made an error in assuming the killer’s thoughts made sense, that he was entirely sane. But then he was able to plan an art heist, solve complex geocache clues and track down Corelia. Amy had been in enough psychiatric hospital waiting rooms to know that when a person’s logic fell apart, most of their function went along with it.

  She was sure there was a method in the madness, but she couldn’t quite see it. What was driving this desperate hunt for the geocache? Why steal the painting at all? And why hunt down Corelia?

  At least Corelia wasn’t dead – yet. Amy had found her father’s name from her phone registration details and, from there, uncovered her operative’s legal name: Leah Martinez. She pretended to be a distraught aunt to get information – not a difficult role to play with her head spinning like a top – and learned that Corelia was in surgery, still breathing.