England's Finest

by Christopher Fowler - Bryant

  ‘Yes. When I put on the light I saw that her face was badly bruised. She wouldn’t say more because Lily was due home right about then. I noticed that all of the family photographs had been removed from the mantelpiece. Patricia told me Lily took them down and wouldn’t let her put them back up. She wasn’t being allowed to leave the house. I hadn’t seen Lily since the operation.’

  ‘What operation?’

  ‘She went away for a month to a clinic in Austria. They rejuvenate you. I guess it’s a mix of surgery and lifestyle changes. You’re meant to look and feel like a different person afterwards.’

  ‘So Lily Marshall underwent surgery?’

  ‘Yes. I wasn’t allowed any contact. They made her give up all social media, because the procedure is patented and lots of celebrities go there. I guess they don’t want lawsuits. I tried to find them online and it’s like they don’t exist. Afterwards Lily was sent away to recuperate, so I didn’t see her until that night at her mother’s flat. When she came in I just stared at her in astonishment.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’d never seen her before in my life.’

  ‘You mean because she’d had so much work?’

  ‘No, I mean she was someone else.’

  Longbright tried to suppress a look of disbelief and failed.

  ‘Look, I know everything about Lily and this wasn’t her. I mean, she looked a lot like her and in some ways she was exactly like her, the movements mainly, but other things were all wrong. She was surprised that I’d turned up unannounced. I explained that I’d tried calling, and had come because her mother wrote for help. “Oh,” she said, “that explains everything.” She took me into the kitchen and told me that Patricia’s Alzheimer’s had worsened. She was having accidents all the time and made up outrageous stories to cover for them. She couldn’t go out or stay alone in the house for long. Lily said she’d had to impose rules on her mother for her own safety. She’d removed the photographs because they upset Patricia too much. But I knew Lily was an imposter and lying to me.’

  Longbright decided it would be best not to contradict the suspect at this point. ‘So where was the real Lily?’ she asked. ‘Why didn’t you come to us?’

  ‘What would I have said? I thought it would be better to stay for a couple of days and look after her mother while I tried to work out what had happened. I wanted to think it through logically. The first thing to do was get someone else to admit that she’d been replaced.’

  ‘You say she looked physically different,’ said Longbright. ‘How much different?’

  ‘I guess she had the same bone structure and height, but everything else…eyes, nose, voice, nothing was how I remembered.’

  ‘It had been a while since you last saw her, yes?’

  ‘Yes, but you do more than just recall the way a person looks. You know them from the inside. I tried talking to her. Lily told me she’d burned her old clothes and letters because the clinic encouraged her to make a completely fresh start. I tried to trip her up by talking about the past. A holiday we shared in Mallorca in our early twenties. When Lily made a mistake she just said I’d remembered it wrong. I asked her about how we met, taking photos of Monet’s Water Lilies, and the time she blacked out at a wine bar, but she wriggled out of every question I threw at her. There were other details that convinced me she was an imposter. I think she changed her phone because it had a facial recognition system. I went through her iPad looking for old photographs but there weren’t any.’

  ‘Did you ask her mother?’

  ‘Patricia said she had some old physical photographs but she couldn’t remember where she’d put them. I wondered if I could force Lily to have a DNA test. I went to see her brother, Charlie. He told me she’d suddenly become unfriendly towards him.’

  ‘But he didn’t think she looked different?’

  ‘He’s a junkie, he doesn’t know what he thinks about anything. Lily had stopped drinking and become a vegetarian. She was dumping her oldest friends to make new ones. I began to think it was me. Lily had been paranoid about losing her edge so she’d had some work done, so what? Then I had an idea. I decided to throw her a surprise party and invite some old friends. Most of them turned me down but I went ahead anyway. Lily handled it brilliantly. She’d told them about her surgery, so they expected her to look different. They were willing to accept an improved version of her without asking questions. Only her mother refused to believe her. “That creature is not my daughter,” she told me. She said after Lily came back from her treatment she threw out all her old shoes.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘Because they didn’t fit her anymore.’

  ‘People’s feet don’t suddenly change size.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. And just when I couldn’t be more suspicious, Patricia died.’

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘She was found lying at the foot of the communal staircase in her building the night after the party. She was pronounced dead in the ambulance. The doctor blamed the fall on her frail, confused condition. But Patricia had told me she never felt safe on the staircase so why would she suddenly use it now, and at such a late hour?’

  ‘Did you talk to the latest boyfriend, Will? If anyone noticed the change in your friend it would be him.’

  ‘Of course I did. He came to the party. He said she had changed and he was delighted—their sex life was suddenly amazing. He told me I should mind my own business. Then I did a dumb thing. I accused Will and Lily of working together to try and fool everyone.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Longbright, checking her notes on Gail Barker’s history. ‘It wasn’t the first time you’d accused someone of—’

  ‘I made a mistake a few years ago and have regretted it ever since,’ Gail explained. ‘This was different.’

  ‘How did they respond to the accusation?’

  ‘Will told me I should leave them alone for everyone’s sake. That was when I realized they all preferred her this way, as an upgraded version of the old difficult Lily. I was the odd one out, not her. I didn’t buy it.’

  ‘But if she was happy and everyone else was happy, why didn’t you just leave it there?’ Longbright asked, already sensing the answer.

  ‘Because I was sure she had killed my friend and taken her place, and pushed her mother down the stairs to shut her up.’ Gail dropped her head into her hands. ‘I know how that sounds. Crazy.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I figured the clinic was the only place where the switch could have happened, so I tried calling.’

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘I couldn’t get hold of anyone. I couldn’t even find the right number. But I had another theory.’

  ‘Which was what?’

  ‘I think Lily died of complications during surgery and the clinic was somehow cleared. Lily sometimes—well, she sometimes used recreationals on weekends. If the autopsy found cocaine in her system maybe the clinic wasn’t liable. The new Lily didn’t want to speak to me, so I ambushed her on the way home at London Bridge Station. That was where I got her to admit who she really was.’

  ‘And who did she say she was?’ asked Longbright.

  ‘Someone who’d been following Lily on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn for years, someone who just wanted to be her.’

  ‘Wait, you mean a total stranger took her place? How would that work?’

  Gail shook her head. ‘I’m not sure. I think she followed her activities on a daily basis, maybe for years. There was all sorts of footage posted. I think maybe she found out that Lily had died in surgery and just turned up in her place. Lily’s mother didn’t believe it, but everyone knew that Patricia wasn’t well. Her brother, Charlie, was so wasted that he couldn’t even leave his flat. He was once robbed whil
e he was sitting in the living room watching TV. I thought about it. Lily had dumped her old friends. She was between jobs. She stepped out of her old life. Will kept his mouth shut because he preferred the new version. It seemed like everyone was happy except me.’

  ‘So, yesterday evening on the platform. What did she say to you?’

  ‘She said she nearly messed up at the birthday party because she lost a coloured contact lens down the sink. She said, “You don’t know me because I’m nobody, just someone who admired your friend. I knew everything about her. There’s nothing you can do because no one will ever believe you.” That was when I lost my temper.’

  ‘You pushed her.’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t mean her to fall under the train, I didn’t even realize it was coming in, I just saw this—liar standing before me.’

  ‘It’s a hell of a story,’ said Longbright, shaking her head in wonder.

  ‘I need you to prove it,’ said Gail.

  * * *

  —

  ‘There are a number of practical things we can do,’ Longbright said. She and John May were standing on the Unit’s flat roof, virtually the only place in the building where they would not be interrupted. ‘Fingerprints, teeth, skin markings…’

  ‘Marshall was electrocuted as well as crushed. There’s nothing much left of her head or hands,’ said May. ‘DNA would only be useful if she’d been typed. Did you find the clinic?’

  ‘There’s nothing under “Younger Woman.” Her death would have been registered. I’m waiting for a callback on that. I tried getting hold of this TV presenter Gail talked about, but she’s not in the country.’

  ‘I’m sure you can put something together eventually, but there’s no time,’ said May. ‘We’ll be charging her just before eleven P.M. Do you think her story is remotely plausible? That someone could just step in and take over a life like that?’

  ‘I want to believe her but I don’t see how it’s possible,’ said Longbright. ‘Some women do start to look alike after thirty. Hair dye, capped teeth, straightened noses, Botox. Surface impersonation is easy, but fooling a lover or relative would be impossible unless they were in some way impaired—’

  ‘Like the mother and the brother.’

  ‘—or were willing to go along with the subterfuge.’

  ‘A stalker can find out every last tiny detail about you, and Marshall’s life was all laid out online.’ May thought for a moment. ‘There are plenty of priors in that area. Remember that guy who was accepted back into his family after going missing, and nobody questioned the fact that he had different-coloured eyes and a French accent?’

  ‘Frédéric Bourdin,’ said Longbright, ‘known as the Chameleon. He had over five hundred different identities. Dan’s trying to access Marshall’s old online posts, but he says getting information out of Silicon Valley will take time and cost a fortune.’

  ‘It’s ridiculous,’ May complained. ‘There must be some way of proving or disproving…’

  ‘I’m going with the most obvious solution,’ said Longbright finally.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Gail Barker was always jealous of her friend, then one day Marshall went in for an expensive surgical upgrade and started dumping her old social circle—including Barker—to improve her own career chances. Nobody wants to think they didn’t make the grade. Gail couldn’t handle it so she confronted her and pushed her under the train, then made up a cock-and-bull story for us. Maybe she created this fantasy and genuinely believes it. It’s the only way she can handle the rejection.’

  ‘At least she’s in custody,’ said May. ‘Arthur and I don’t have any time to spare you. We’re up to our necks in the Hampstead Heath murder. You’ll have to do it alone.’

  As Longbright headed back downstairs she began to have doubts about closing the case. An identity should be an easy thing to prove, she thought. What would Mr Bryant do?

  The answer came to her in a moment. He would not spend any longer in the interview room. He would start looking for an answer from the other end of the case.

  She called Patricia Marshall’s doctor. He confirmed that she had fallen down the stairs, and supported the verdict of accidental death. Banbury also tried to find a number for the clinic but had no luck. Gail Barker was taken downstairs to the PCU’s only holding cell. The clock was ticking.

  Finally, Longbright grabbed her coat and headed out, pulling up Gail Barker’s address on her phone.

  There were so many gaps in the story that investigation was almost impossible, but Longbright did not have time on her side. On the train to Dalston she made notes.

  If Marshall really died, where is body?

  Wouldn’t some member of family have flown out to Austria?

  Did clinic hush up death?

  Who attended birthday party?

  Did no one honestly notice change in her?

  By the time the train reached its destination, Longbright was even more convinced that Barker was lying, either unintentionally or deliberately. Everything was against her story. If there was more time, she would be able to pull it apart systematically. She had to hope that something in the flat would point her to the truth.

  Any area with coffee bars and graffiti could call itself the new hipster quarter, but as Dalston was just a stone’s throw from London’s financial centre, gentrification here was well under way. Longbright found Gail Barker’s flat in a street already in the throes of redevelopment.

  Letting herself in, Longbright switched on the lights and looked around. Clean, tidy rooms, fresh flowers, a perfectly kept desk, a recipe book pinned open on the kitchen counter. The more she thought about it, the more she began to despair. This wasn’t how evidence searches worked; you looked for proof of guilt: bloodstained clothing, weapons, drugs. What she sought could never be found so quickly. Proof of mental aberration, delusion, obsession. She honestly had no idea what to do next, so she followed standard methodology.

  Wardrobe, desk drawers, kitchen and bathroom bins. Gail’s desk was covered in penguins of different sizes. Pinned on the wall behind her were a dozen penguin postcards and several calendars featuring the birds diving, sliding and generally falling over one another. If you make the mistake of confiding in a friend that you admire birds of any breed, Longbright thought, you’ll be given them every Christmas and birthday for the rest of your life.

  Looking at the backs of the postcards, she realized they were all from Lily. Little messages. ‘Bet you haven’t got this one!’ ‘Here’s another emperor!’ ‘Cute chicks!’ There were no recent ones.

  Longbright remembered her own schooldays, spending lunchtimes in the library looking at photos of old movie stars instead of talking to her classmates. She’d had a best friend, Polly, who would do anything for her. Longbright had treated her thoughtlessly, knowing she would always be there. Polly had married someone boring so she’d let the friendship slide. She wished she hadn’t now.

  She found a laptop in the desk and took it. There was no time to start trawling emails and website history; Dan had software that could do the work in a fraction of the time. Beneath it were drawers of letters and old photographs: Lily by the Monet painting, Lily and Gail at parties in clubs and on holiday together. Of course, Gail had photographs even if her friend did not. What Longbright needed now were shots taken at the surprise party, so that she could make comparisons, but there were none in the drawer. She checked her phone: 9:55 P.M. She had just over an hour to find proof of Barker’s innocence, but what did it look like?

  Perhaps it wasn’t a definitive item but something less tangible, something that would show she was unstable, a risk. Barker had caused trouble once before, wrongly reporting a colleague for harassment, but it was hardly proof of an ongoing mental condition.

  She called the Unit and got Gail on the phone.
>
  ‘I’m at your flat,’ she said. ‘Is there anything here that can confirm your story?’

  Gail took so long to reply that for a moment Longbright thought she’d rung off. ‘I sneaked some photos of her. I never got around to uploading them.’

  ‘So they’re still on your phone? Do you have cloud storage?’

  ‘No—and I lost the phone a week ago. I’m on a Pay as You Go.’

  ‘Gail, if you can’t think of anything that will clear you, you’ll be formally charged with murder in less than an hour. Did Lily always send you penguins?’

  ‘Yes, everywhere she went. If she travelled on business she still found time to post one. She stopped when she was replaced. The new girl wouldn’t have known about them because, well, postcards, they’re so old-fashioned.’

  And analogue, Longbright thought. She had no way of knowing they’d been sent. It means that this other person, if she existed, was monitoring online feeds but not physical activity. She watched from a distance. From another city, maybe even another country.

  ‘Is there anything else that Lily’s “replacement” might not have known about?’ she asked.

  ‘Not that I can think of.’

  ‘OK, I’ll keep working on it.’ She rang off.

  In frustration she pulled out every drawer from every cupboard and turned them over on the floor. There was no time to examine everything in the piles she made, so she flicked through items and threw them to one side.

  The letter was one of several that had been kept in a shoebox under the bed. Reading it, she made a grab for her phone.

  ‘John, you can’t charge her for the murder of Lily Marshall.’

  ‘You found something?’

  ‘No big revelation, I’m afraid, not the kind that Mr Bryant prefers. But I think it’s enough to warrant further investigation. I’ll be there in a few minutes.’

  * * *

  —

  Gail was sitting on the corner of her cell bed, staring miserably at the floor. Longbright sat before her on a stool. ‘You addressed this to Lily,’ she said, flattening out the page. ‘When did you write it?’