Captcha Thief (Amy Lane Mysteries)

by Rosie Claverton

  Jason never wanted to let Amy go, despite the fact she was a deranged moron with a death wish. Who tried to grab a sword with their bare hands?

  Bryn was reading Soo-jin her rights as Owain tentatively approached the unconscious Talia with another set of handcuffs. Jason held his T-shirt against Amy’s neck. The blood hadn’t soaked through the material, so she was probably going to be okay. She had better be okay, or Soo-jin would meet with more than trouble when she got to prison.

  He wanted to get Amy to A&E and then take her home for a cup of tea and as many biscuits as she could eat. And then they were going to sit down and he would tell her that she wasn’t to put herself in danger again, because he couldn’t bear to lose her. Because he hadn’t been just sleep-deprived as he got off the train from Glasgow, and he hadn’t been wrong.

  Because she was everything that mattered to him, and she needed to hear it.

  But when Amy asked Cerys for help, his heart stopped. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

  ‘What did she do to you?’

  Amy ignored him and spoke directly to Cerys. ‘I’m making this right. I can make a distraction but you have to get him out.’

  She was talking about him, he realised numbly. Amy was talking about him getting out, while she … what? Threw herself to the wolves?

  ‘Whatever the fuck is going on, I want to know about it.’

  Amy stood up, out of his embrace, leaning on Cerys’ shoulder. She looked fragile, empty, as if the world around her was falling into the sea.

  ‘This is for you.’

  She didn’t meet his eyes as she handed him the plain brown envelope from inside her hoodie. But he wouldn’t look at it, not until she stopped this shit.

  ‘Amy, what is going on?’

  ‘They’re going to arrest me,’ she said, as if she were describing the weather. ‘And if you walk out that door, they will arrest you too. I’m not letting that happen.’

  Jason wanted to throw the envelope in her face, rant and shout and scream that he would never abandon her, that he would go to prison again if it meant staying with her just a few moments longer.

  But he said nothing, the resolution clear in her beautiful eyes. He was suddenly certain that she would lie, beg and steal to keep him out of prison, to keep him safe. And that to go against her careful preparations for his safety would actually be the biggest betrayal of all.

  He looked down into the envelope, crisp notes and the maroon edge of a passport inside, wrapped in a thin strip of ripped paper.

  ‘You have to get to her before they do,’ Amy was saying, trying to capture his gaze. ‘Do you understand me?’

  ‘I don’t want to do this,’ he said.

  ‘I know. But someone needs to visit me in jail.’

  A sound rose in his throat, half-laugh half-choke, and before he knew it, Amy had surged forward and pressed a dry kiss to his cheek.

  ‘Good luck,’ she said and moved away, reaching for Soo-jin’s discarded sword and running out of the gallery.

  He changed his mind in an instant, moving to follow, but Cerys hauled him back.

  ‘Don’t let this be for nothing,’ she said, shaking him. ‘Let her go and live your new life. You’re no use to her in jail for the next ten years.’

  Jason did not resist, as his sister led him away, his eyes stinging at his traitor’s heart dying in his chest. Goodbye.

  Chapter 52

  Armed and dangerous

  She ran as fast as her legs could carry her because if she stopped for even a moment, she feared she would retreat and fall into Jason’s arms.

  Amy hesitated in the museum’s main hall, the bloodstained sword in her hand. She could’ve run away with him, but she would always be looking over her shoulder. If Jason escaped without her, she didn’t think Frieda would pursue him, not so hard and swift that he could not outrun their meagre resources.

  She would not let Jason go back to prison. She would do anything to keep him free from harm.

  Amy pushed open the front door of the museum, alarms blaring behind her, and she ran down the steps with the sword outstretched.

  Suddenly, the air was thick with voices, dark figures shining high-powered torches at her, blinding her, the beams reflecting off the metal of their guns.

  ‘Police! Drop it!’

  ‘Drop the weapon!’

  ‘Lay down on the ground. On the ground!’

  The chorus was deafening, a cacophony of sound and light. She felt dizzy and frozen, unable to move or speak in the spotlight and the storm of shouts.

  But she had to stall them. She had to kill time for Jason to escape. She had no hostages to provoke a negotiation – except one.

  Amy held the sword to her own neck.

  The shouts died away, the men shifting uncomfortably, their guns suddenly uneasy in their hands. Her eyes grew accustomed to the glare and she made out nine figures, arranged in a rough semicircle about one or two metres away from her. Beyond them, the shapes of several cars lurked at the bottom of the steps, a huddle of people blocking their headlights.

  ‘I want … I want to speak to Frieda Haas. Only her.’

  One of the men reached for his radio and relayed the stark information. And then they all waited in the cold September night, Amy shivering despite her hoodie. The sword blade irritated her wound through the T-shirt glued to her neck with her blood, throbbing in time to her slow, steady heartbeat.

  For once, she wasn’t anxious. She was outside and she was surrounded by men with guns but the worst had already happened. She had lost Jason.

  Or she had lost so much blood that her veins were now mostly full of diazepam and her heart couldn’t beat faster if it tried.

  After a few long minutes, Frieda came up the steps, flanked by a man in a suit that Amy vaguely recognised from the footage on the night Jason had handed over a kidney. A kidney meant for Soo-jin’s mother.

  ‘Stop this, Miss Lane,’ Frieda said, as if she were scolding a schoolgirl. ‘You can’t hope to gain anything by this.’

  ‘Gain?’ Anger rose in her, surprising her with the strength of feeling that could still be torn from her chest. ‘You’ve taken everything from me! You’ve as good as killed me!’

  Suddenly, the sword at her throat felt powerful, like more than just a distraction. Like a choice. Amy closed her eyes and, for a moment, it seemed like the only way to quell the anger, the hole in her chest.

  But when she closed her eyes, she saw Jason. Jason’s warm, patient eyes. It was enough. For now, it was enough.

  She opened her eyes again, to see a crack in Frieda’s façade. Amy was pleased to see she looked strained, off-kilter. This night had veered so far away from her plans that if she wasn’t delirious with pain, Amy would laugh in the icy bitch’s face.

  The man stepped forward – Matt, was it? He looked appropriately concerned, empathetic towards the trembling woman holding a sword to her neck on the marble steps of a museum.

  ‘Miss Lane – Amy – we need to get you back to the police station, sort this out. Is there someone we can call for you?’

  A burst of hysterical laughter bubbled up in her chest. ‘Who? I’ve lost all my friends because of you. And you know my family. What they’ve done.’

  They didn’t know what to do, she could see that. They wanted to lock her away somewhere where they wouldn’t have to look at her, deal with her. They wanted this to be someone else’s problem.

  ‘I solved the case, by the way,’ she said, for something to say, for time to drain away, for the sword to look less like an option. ‘It was Soo-jin who killed Paul, stabbed Corelia – Leah – but it was Talia who goaded her on. She orchestrated the whole thing. Were you in on it too?’

  The way Frieda flinched was satisfying, in its way, and Amy had precious little to amuse her right now. She swayed a little on h
er feet, saw the guns flicker as if they thought she was about to eviscerate one or more of them. She would be filled with a hundred rounds before she gave them a scratch. She could think of worse ways to die.

  ‘You’re bleeding. You need a doctor.’

  The way Frieda said the words, Amy could tell she had a very specific doctor in mind and not one who would offer a few stitches and a bandage. A psychiatrist. She shuddered at the thought, a hundred bad memories flooding forward all at once, the panic rising in her chest once more.

  She was very far from fucking calm now.

  Her heart leapt in her chest, proving it could still race like the wind. But her body had been through too much, had lost too much blood, was running only on benzos and coffee from hours before, and she collapsed as suddenly as a winter sunset.

  As the back of her head thudded against the steps, she was suddenly, swiftly grateful that she hadn’t been shot. That she still had a chance to fix this.

  ‘She needs an ambulance. Get a blanket and some tea.’

  As darkness swept over her eyes, Amy wanted to cry, to laugh. Maybe a cup of tea really could solve everything, but could it put Amy Lane back together again?

  Chapter 53

  End of an AEON

  Every step he took away from the museum felt like another stone in his pocket, weighing him down until he was forced to sink to his knees in defeat.

  But Cerys didn’t have time for that. She’d snatched the Micra keys from him and driven them away just as a riot of sound and light came from round the corner of the museum.

  ‘That’s Amy,’ he said distantly.

  ‘That’s a distraction,’ Cerys countered.

  Jason wasn’t sure if she meant to enable them to get away or to distract him from his task of running as far away as he possibly could.

  As she drove up North Road, away from the city centre and back towards Amy’s house – their house – he looked inside the envelope again. He counted £1,500 in assorted notes and an additional €500, because Amy clearly thought running away involved the Channel Tunnel. The passport and driving licence were in the name Bradley Thompson, with an address somewhere in Newport that could feasibly fit his accent. The photograph had been lifted from an arrest mugshot from his late teens, when he had a little more muscle and a lot more hair.

  The strip of paper wound around the cash and passport had a long code of numbers and letters, which were completely meaningless to him.

  ‘What is it?’ Cerys asked, leaning over his shoulder when she was meant to be looking at the road.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  But then Amy’s parting words returned to him. He had to deal with AEON.

  He realised almost too late that Cerys wasn’t driving him to their house.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘Airport,’ she said. ‘You have a passport, don’t you?’

  ‘I need to go home first.’

  ‘Are you insane? There’ll be cops all over that place!’

  ‘I have to do something. It’ll only take a minute.’

  Thankfully, the street was deserted, all the cops in Cardiff attending Frieda’s party at Park Place, with Amy the guest of honour. Thinking about her hurt, so Jason tried to stop, but that only made it worse. She couldn’t be surgically amputated – it would be like losing a limb.

  Jason considered a clandestine route, breaking in through Amy’s grandmother’s old house or hopping the back gate. In the end, he decided that time was more important than stealth, entering through the front door and straight into the elevator.

  He shook AEON awake with minimal fuss and entered the long code where it asked for a password. However, instead of logging him in, a black box with white writing appeared in the centre of the screen:

  CONFIRM SELF-DESTRUCT? Y/N

  Jason hesitated, his hand hovering over the keyboard. Erasing AEON, wiping the server that housed her identity, was like killing a part of Amy. Yet leaving it here would sign Amy’s life away, damning her with the evidence housed within AEON’s dark spaces.

  In the distance, he heard sirens. He had no idea if they were coming for him, if this was the end, but he had to make a decision. He couldn’t let Amy’s battle charge be in vain.

  He hit Y.

  AEON didn’t start a countdown, no possibility of reprieve. Just a long empty bar that slowly filled with white. Jason couldn’t wait for the final flatline, switching off the monitor and walking away. He stopped only to drop his phone on the sofa, leaving behind anything traceable.

  They would live to fight another day. But right now, Jason would give anything to see Amy at home, with him, cup of tea in hand. But there was no tea and no happy endings.

  Jason closed the front door and walked out to the car, the rain falling on his bare head like a baptism.

  Amy woke in A&E, handcuffed to the gurney like a five-star criminal who might bolt at any moment.

  She had drips in both arms, one clear and one red with rich blood, effectively pinning her down even without the cuffs. Not that she was sure she could even stand up right now. And where would she run? She had nowhere to go, no safe spaces anymore.

  In two days she would be twenty-six. She had hoped this year would be different, that she wouldn’t have to spend another year alone in the dark. But wishes were horses, cantering off into the distance, out of her reach.

  The lone cop at the end of her bed had fallen asleep, his head nodding with every snore, a wisp of cotton from his jacket fluttering with every breath. She envied his rest.

  Beyond the hastily drawn curtain, she could hear voices, including a couple she recognised.

  ‘Prints are a match to the Oxford millennium heist,’ Matt said. ‘Yeltsova is up to her eyes in this. She used that poor girl’s desperation to steal a priceless painting. Aiding and abetting doesn’t even cover it.’

  One small victory. Bryn had been right, and Frieda would not escape with her reputation unsullied. If Amy was going down, she was taking the NCA agent with her. Of course, she would rather remain vaguely afloat, treading water until the storm passed. If that was an option, even if it meant Frieda walking away without a blemish, she would be okay with that. Anything to bring her closer to going home.

  Unseen, Frieda’s voice was clipped and taut. ‘We can deal with her later. Search it again. He must be inside.’

  Amy grimaced, the action pulling at her face muscles and stiffening the bandage around her neck. They’d given her painkillers, she realised, dark liquid joy that numbed the pain from her wound. But not yet her heart.

  Jason was gone. Far, far away from Frieda’s clutches.

  ‘We have all units on the museum, except for the retrieval unit.’

  ‘Concentrate on the server. We need it in custody to compile the charges.’

  Her supposition had been correct – Frieda had enough for a warrant, more than enough to hang her for Corelia’s misadventure, but didn’t have everything to condemn her for the bank robbery. Amy had a chance, a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless that she might escape jail time. That she could call Jason home and they could be partners again.

  Equal partners this time, as they should’ve been from the beginning. An understanding that they needed each other, like breathing.

  Maybe she’d had a few too many painkillers. Or maybe the truth hurt and they had merely numbed it, allowed her to taste it.

  A nerve-jangling ringtone, all discordant strings and too much bass, carried through the curtain and was cut off mid-screech.

  ‘Hello? What do you mean it’s silent? Maybe it’s hibernating or something. Find the on switch!’

  They were in her house now. Looking for the key to unlock AEON, her server. But if Jason had understood her message, if he’d performed one last task for her before slipping off into the night…

  ‘What the fuc
k do you mean it won’t work?’

  And Amy smiled, a leisurely smile that brought a corresponding leap to her heart. Jason had killed AEON and now he was gone. Waiting for her to get better, get stronger, start again.

  They would start again. As long as Jason was out there, dodging the cops and keeping out of trouble, she could get through this. She could get them both through this.

  The curtain was pulled aside, the copper starting to his feet and Amy clutching at the bedclothes. But it was not Frieda or any other officer who greeted her, but a tall East Asian doctor wearing a peculiar three-piece suit. Unusual attire for A&E at three in the morning.

  ‘You’re the shrink,’ she said, and he made a self-deprecating gesture.

  ‘You can call me Doctor Chin,’ he said and sat down across from her.

  She could lie, of course, tell him everything was fine, she was fine, nothing to see here, move along. But part of her was sick of hiding, cowering in the dark, afraid of her own shadow as soon as she stepped beyond the door.

  She wanted to be better. If they were all getting a second chance, she wanted to do this right. She wanted there to be something other than a wreck for Jason to come home to.

  ‘Do you need anything before I ask you a few questions?’

  Amy let out a breath, flattening her faintly trembling palms on the bed. It would be all right. Time to confess, Amy Lane.

  ‘Cup of tea would be nice.’

  About the author

  Rosie Claverton is a screenwriter and novelist. She grew up in Devon, daughter to a Sri Lankan father and a Norfolk mother, surrounded by folk mythology and surly sheep. She moved to Cardiff to study medicine and adopted Wales as her home, where she lives with her journalist husband and pet hedgehog.

  Also by Crime Scene Books

  Inspector Truchaud series by R.M. Cartmel:

  The Richebourg Affair (2014)

  The Charlemagne Connection (2015)

  The Romanée Vintage (2016)