A Question of Identity (Simon Serrailler 7)

by Susan Hill

‘Shit, yes. I’ve clearly been too tied up in CID trivia.’

  Half a dozen emails and messages had come through to his mobile but the signal on this side of the hospital was too weak to pick anything up. Simon walked round to the busy front entrance, the usual main highway of ambulances, patients in wheelchairs, paramedics, nurses and lost visitors. He would go to the League of Friends café, get a sandwich and another coffee, call that lunch, and answer his messages before he headed back. But then, down the long corridor, he saw Rachel, unmistakable to him even though he only glimpsed her back.

  When he caught her up in a few strides and touched her arm, she spun round with shock.

  ‘Darling? What’s happened?’

  She was pale and looked stricken with anxiety and confusion, almost uncertain even where she was or who he was.

  She leaned against him with relief, but then pulled back. ‘No.’

  He understood. ‘I’m going to get coffee – come with me.’

  ‘I . . . I couldn’t drink anything . . .’

  ‘Just sit with me then.’ He guided her gently forwards, his hand firm on her shoulder. The place was as busy as usual, but as usual, too, someone was always just leaving and they got a table.

  ‘It’s been the worst twelve hours of my life. Kenneth woke up hardly able to breathe and the oxygen didn’t seem to help him. The doctor came out – he’s pretty good, though I know it’s what we pay for, and he rang for an ambulance within a minute. He’s in intensive care – it’s pneumonia and he’s very ill but I came out because they were intubating him and it’s terrible to watch.’

  ‘They don’t want you to watch – it’s a tricky procedure.’

  ‘I was just wandering round wondering where to go or what I should do. I was going to get a paper or something but . . . I couldn’t even find my way to the shop.’

  ‘Do they know how to reach you?’

  She looked appalled.

  ‘Right. I’ll take you back.’

  He took her to the bank of lifts and put her into one for the intensive care floor. He did not touch her, just watched the doors close. Rachel could not look at him.

  Fifty

  THERE WAS A message from the press officer to call her, but as her lines were busy Serrailler drove back to the station and went down to her office instead.

  ‘Thought you might have been on my tail never mind me on yours,’ she said.

  ‘When do I get time to read newspapers? I look to you.’

  ‘Download the apps onto your iPad.’

  ‘Still wouldn’t have time. Besides, I’m old-fashioned, I like the nice crackle of newspaper between my hands.’

  ‘I bet you like the nice feel of a hardback book as well.’

  ‘Don’t start me.’

  ‘Yes, well, I wouldn’t read half the books I do, and I read a lot –’

  ‘– if you didn’t have a Kindle. Heard it all from my sister. Right, what’ve you got?’

  ‘You’re going to love this.’

  The daily papers were all on a big table. Anything of particular interest Simon could mark and it would be on his computer in electronic version within seconds. The Daily Mail was on top of the pile, opened at a large photograph of Nobby Parks.

  ‘Police use me as their spy,’ says man living in rubbish dump. ‘They’re even relying on photos from mobile phone I found, for “vital evidence”.’

  The interview with Nobby was colourful, rich in elaborate detail about his shack and its contents, outraged in tone, and implying that the Lafferton force was so cash-strapped it had to borrow Nobby’s phone, disregarding the fact that they knew it was stolen, and so undermanned and incompetent that they had to use him as an undercover night-time investigator. Simon imagined only too well what fun Nobby had had enriching the story of his own visit to the shack. How much had they paid him? Fifty? A fiver more like.

  Actually, more like zilch, except for a pack of his tobacco.

  ‘Fun, isn’t it? What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I’m assuming they’ve rung to get a comment.’

  ‘Phones haven’t stopped. That and “When can Lafferton’s old people sleep safe in their beds?”’

  ‘Do nothing. I’m not available for comment. This is all rubbish except the phone stuff and I was well within my rights to take that.’

  ‘He’s popped in as well, by the way.’

  ‘Nobby? What, asking when’s he taking delivery of his Queen’s Police Medal?’

  ‘When’s he getting a receipt for his mobile phone.’

  ‘Shit. I’ll do one and get someone round with it or that’ll be in the papers.’

  ‘It already is.’

  Fifty-one

  SIMON SHUT HIS door and asked for no calls. He then sat down and reread the summary of the files Nathan had supplied, including every detail of the Yorkshire murders, and of the last day of Alan Keyes’s trial, until he was doubly sure. Then he picked up the phone to the National Fingerprint Board. He was not going to delegate any of this.

  He gave Keyes’s full name, age and last-known address, and asked for a fingerprint check.

  In a small anonymous-looking office some distance from both Lafferton and the NFB, an alert flashed up on one particular computer. The message, that Lafferton Police had put in a query about the prints of ‘Alan Frederick Keyes’, came through to one particular officer, who logged it in a file, code-named ‘Jogging Sparrow’, only accessible by two passwords, known only to the same officer.

  The message came back to Serrailler. ‘No matches.’

  Keyes had been removed from the system. He no longer existed. He had a new identity.

  Apart from Keyes himself, only one organisation knew what that identity was.

  Simon made another phone call. It was answered by a woman. She gave no name, only said, ‘Floor Five.’

  When he repeated his details and enquiry, he was transferred.

  An anonymous voice said, ‘Forty-four.’

  ‘This is DCS Simon Serrailler of Lafferton Police. I am SIO on a murder inquiry, two separate incidents, two victims. The MO indicates close similarities with murders committed in Yorkshire in 2001. Alan Frederick Keyes was arrested and charged but acquitted on trial. I’ve reason to suppose that Keyes now has a new police ID and this is a formal request for information about that.’

  ‘Forty-four’ – whoever he was – had not interrupted Simon, nor given his name. Now he said, ‘Let me have your details again, please.’

  Serrailler gave him his full name, rank and number, contact details. ‘Can I stress the urgency of this? We’ve got two dead women. I don’t want any more, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate.’

  ‘Everything is logged. Someone will get back to you.’

  The man in the small anonymous-looking office closed down the file he had been working on and opened a new one, as a sub-file to ‘Jogging Sparrow’, and reported the call in detail. He then closed the file, and put through an internal request on the closed network for a check on Serrailler, and a second, for full info, via HOLMES, on the Lafferton murders. Both were headed ‘Priority’.

  He then accessed ‘Jogging Sparrow’ and began to read up details of the three Yorkshire murders. By the time the HOLMES report came through, he had the full picture in his head. He then read the details about the ongoing Lafferton cases.

  He accessed ‘Jogging Sparrow’ again, after inputting the two passwords, and immediately being given two new ones, for use the next time, via the computer.

  It was like opening a box within a box within a box, each with a different key. A lot of people would have found the process, and the information in the file, beyond exciting. But police officers who worked in this section were not easily excited. That was one of the reasons they were picked and why the work suited them.

  The screen opened up for the third time. In front of him were the full details of a man who had once been Alan Frederick Keyes. This was his new biography, details of his invented past, parents, birth date and pl
ace, his national insurance number, passport and driving licence, his school examinations record, dental and medical info – whatever anyone could ever want to know.

  The officer read it all through carefully again, memorising what he needed. On a separate sub-file were details of the ‘contact’ originally in charge of Keyes. That member of CID had retired. Keyes had been assigned to a new police ‘contact’, whose details were on the next page. They had not changed for the last four years.

  The officer wrote down a name and a mobile number, closed and locked the file. The next time he logged on, he would enter the new passwords, for one-time-only use.

  He filled in a further report, on a closed file, and sent it through to his boss. Then he switched off his computer and locked the system, closed and locked his office door, and went down to the canteen.

  Fifty-two

  HE’D BEEN A night man for as many years as he could remember, starting when he was a miner on shifts. Always preferred the nights. When the pit closed and he eventually got another job it was as a nightwatchman. So he thought it must be in his nature. Maybe he’d been born at night? He never knew his mother after the age of five, so he couldn’t ask, but he had a feeling. Everything seemed to fit him at night, everything seemed to work better. He could hear more keenly, see further, and he had a sense of things happening, round the corner, on the other side of a wall or a patch of shrub.

  The man from the paper had dropped a copy off at the shack, and Nobby had read what had been written. It included a nice bit about him at nights. ‘Nobby Parks likes to look out for other people,’ it said, ‘especially when they’re sound asleep. He keeps an eye open. Many a burglar has been deterred, noticing Nobby wandering down the street at two in the morning. And when there was a late-night ram raid on a jeweller’s in Lafferton’s small exclusive shopping area, the Lanes, Nobby was around. “I was handy,” he says, “I saw what happened and gave them some useful bits of information.”’

  He had folded the paper up carefully and put it not among the piles of others but in the top drawer of the old sideboard, where he kept essentials – his reading glasses, his out-of-date passport, his pension book. A photo of himself in pit gear, coming off the very last shift the day it closed for good. The collar and lead from a dog he’d once had.

  Now, he had been twice round the perimeter of the Hill, gone in and out of the maze of streets called the Apostles, down the Lanes once or twice. He’d stood in the square watching the last taxi driver give up and set off for home, pressed back into a doorway when a group of drunken lads started a punch-up and the police sirens came wailing down. It was milder now, the sky cloudy but there was no rain and the towpath and verges were drying up a bit. He went down to what he called the Jesus Bus, by the printworks, got hot chocolate and a slice of cake, and had a chat to the lads, who knew better than to try and preach to him. Anyway, he’d told them he was a fully paid-up Christian who didn’t hold with church. After that, they’d given up.

  It was gone three when he finally made his way home. He was pleasantly tired. He’d have a brew, a roll-up and the last couple of chocolate Bourbons before getting into bed like a mouse into a deep nest, and sleeping the sleep of the just.

  No one about. He didn’t need any sort of torch or light to show his way. He knew every inch of this towpath. He heard a rat plop into the canal water, just under the bridge, saw a car go over, lights sweeping across the arch of bricks and away.

  A hundred yards to home. He might read the article in the paper again before he went to sleep.

  Fifty yards. The old lean-to against the warehouses was in deep shadow. The door was loose on its hinge and in a wind swung and creaked so much that sometimes Nobby had to get up and shut it and hold the broken padlock with a piece of stick. But tonight, it was still. The canal water was like glass. The air was moist and heavy.

  The lean-to door was open but he didn’t look closely enough to see a shadow within the shadows, or sense the slight flicker of movement.

  He pushed open the shack door and went in. He switched on his torch and went to the paraffin stove. Lit it. Lit the paraffin lamp. Put the torch back on the shelf, his coat and boots by the door. Then he made a brew. Rolled a cigarette, and sat back in the wicker chair, enjoying the peace and quiet.

  For a moment, something seemed wrong. Something was slightly different. He looked round. But the shadows of the lamp didn’t reach the corners of the shack and he couldn’t see anything unusual near to hand.

  He sat thinking. Pleased with himself. Pleased with events.

  It was another roll-up and twenty minutes before he got up, went outside to the dense patch of weeds and peed into them.

  It had begun to drizzle a little.

  He looked round but the cloud cover was too heavy for him to see anything. Even the movement of shadow on shadow over by the old lean-to.

  He went back inside, latched the door, half undressed, into his long johns, jumper, socks. Got into his nest of bedding and old coats, turned on his side and pulled them up almost over his head.

  Slept.

  Fifteen minutes later, the darkness, silence and stillness were disturbed by a single figure, moving swiftly. A small flicker. A flare. A carefully aimed lob. The flaming ball of material hit the wooden shack roof, swift as a falling star. Seconds later, the whole place was an inferno. The shadows were broken again for a split second as someone ran, along the towpath, under the bridge, across the waste ground and away.

  Nobby Parks’s shack blazed like a tinderbox throwing flames high into the night sky.

  Stupid. Stupid. Fucking stupid. You never do that. You know it and you always knew it. You plan, you work it out, for weeks, months maybe, and that’s part of the whole thing. Part of the pleasure. You never let a single thing happen without a plan and you have backups to your plan, and you have an abort to your plan.

  Bad enough having one fuck-up. You could have waited. You weren’t sure she’d seen you, but you panicked. You never, ever panicked before. The reason it went wrong before was down to bad luck. Simple. Not you making a mistake, not the cops being clever. Bad luck.

  But now?

  This is not what you do. Not part of the game at all. Shit, what kind of a bloke would torch an old dosser’s shack with him in it, out of panic?

  He didn’t deserve that. Even if he had seen something. Heard something. Knew something.

  Yes, but if he had. If he did.

  You can’t take that chance.

  And how else was I supposed to shut him up? Tell me that.

  Fifty-three

  ‘WHAT ARE WE reading this time? I’m so behind.’

  ‘The Great Gatsby.’

  ‘Yes, I remember now. I read it donkey’s years ago, but I haven’t had a chance to read it again. I’d better not come.’

  ‘Judith! You missed last time. It’s in the bookshop tonight as well. Emma gets agitated if people miss. She’s having a tough time keeping an independent bookshop open . . . come on. You can just listen and if you start now you can get a couple of chapters under your belt.’

  I have got to get to the bottom of this, Cat thought, putting the phone down. Something is wrong, I have no idea what, but Judith is not herself and she won’t talk to me.

  Her stepmother had made one excuse after another for not coming to the book group, to Sam’s matches, Hannah’s play, lunch with Cat at Steeleye’s. Enough.

  She sat at the kitchen table reading the paper over her coffee, a fifteen-minute break before going back to her desk and working through more papers, trying to firm up some of her ideas for the PhD. She had taken Wookie for a long walk and the house was quiet apart from the distant churning of the washing machine.

  But she could not get Judith out of her mind, and if it was not Judith, Sam and Hannah probed their way in. Simon had told her briefly about his conversation with Sam and indicated that he thought things would now improve. Certainly Sam was behaving better, was less inclined to sneer at Hannah, grunt at Cat a
nd slouch off to his room rather than give any help. Hannah was still wary, and tried not to be on her own in a room with him.

  It was not the ideal setting in which family life could thrive.

  But Molly had emailed a couple of days before to say that she was coming down to see the medical school about taking her finals or possibly repeating her last year altogether. She asked if she could stay a night or two at the farmhouse.

  Cat was delighted. Molly sounded steadier and more optimistic in her email. If she had made enough improvement, there was no doubt in Cat’s mind that she ought to finish her qualifications and it would be good to have her about the house again. But she knew how careful the med school would be. PTSD did not vanish in a hurry. They had to be sure that Molly could cope, for their sake but most of all for her own.

  Wookie pattered after her into the study and turned round and round on his bed, which was in a patch of winter sunlight, before finally settling into a satisfactory nest and looking at Cat with one eye. After a moment, sensing in some way that he was there, Mephisto strolled through the door and climbed in beside the terrier. There was barely room and the cat overlapped the bed with his huge fluffy tail and forepaws, but his head rested on Wookie, without any protest from the dog. Both slept.

  Silke came at half past six. At ten to seven, Cat phoned Judith.

  ‘Are you ready? We can both park outside Si’s and walk through if you like.’

  There was a pause. ‘Darling, I can’t – my car seems to have something wrong with it.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘Making a sort of – grinding noise. I don’t want to risk being stranded.’

  ‘Use Dad’s.’

  ‘Heavens, you know what he’s like about anyone else driving his precious car. No, I’ll –’

  ‘Right.’ Cat said. She clicked off.

  Twenty minutes later she was driving up to Hallam House. She waited a moment.

  The lights were on in the back rooms and one on the upstairs landing but the kitchen was in darkness.