Watch Me

by Angela Clarke

  Saunders exhaled. ‘Do you want a lawyer, Gracie?’ She’d admitted she’d deliberately got the job to source personal information and contact details of those in the force.

  ‘He gave me a name – a lawyer I should call if I got into trouble: Webb and Cooper.’ The same lawyer Liam gave. ‘But I don’t want him. I need to answer for this. Oh god.’ She was babbling, tears falling down her face, cutting streams through her foundation. She let out a big sob. ‘I thought I’d be a whistle-blower.’

  Nasreen looked at Saunders. He raised his eyebrows: get back in there. She passed Gracie a tissue.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, blowing her nose.

  ‘Gracie …’ Nasreen kept her voice light. They didn’t need her to clam up now. ‘Who told you to get a job here?’

  Gracie looked up from her tissue. ‘Alex Black.’

  ‘You know him?’ Saunders said.

  ‘We met online. He contacted me about a sting: said I was the perfect person to do it. He’d seen some of my vlogs where I play two parts – it’s like a conversation between me and my psyche. He said he admired my acting.’

  Jesus. Nasreen thought of Are You Awake. Had Gracie’s name appeared there? People wanting obscene photos of a famous YouTuber? Did Alex Black look into her, find the stuff about her younger brother, see her impersonation skills and recognise a twisted opportunity? ‘You live in London, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Like twenty minutes away.’ She was close to their offices. Did that mean Alex Black wasn’t, or just that he didn’t want to get his own hands dirty? He couldn’t be here and taking Lottie at the same time.

  ‘Do you have contact details for Alex?’ Saunders had abandoned his calm stance in favour of writing down what Gracie was saying.

  ‘Only an email address,’ Gracie said. ‘He contacted me via my website.’

  ‘Where do you meet him?’ Nasreen asked. They could see if there was CCTV. If he selected the locations it would give them an idea of his potential patch; they could compare it to the GPS results from Lottie’s FitSpo.

  ‘I’ve never met him,’ Gracie said.

  ‘What?’ Saunders sounded disbelieving. ‘You expect us to believe you created a false identity, took a job with the police force and then shared sensitive information with someone outside – all for some guy you’ve never met?’ The final words were a growl.

  Gracie blinked, her lip trembled. ‘He told me it was better this way, that I wouldn’t get into trouble if I didn’t meet him. That I’d have deniability.’

  ‘You stupid girl.’ Saunders shook his head.

  Nasreen couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Why, Gracie – why did you do it?’

  The words hiccupped out of her. ‘You hurt Harry!’

  She didn’t understand. ‘Your brother?’

  ‘You hurt him.’ She stabbed a finger towards her.

  ‘I’ve never even met him,’ Nasreen said. Had Black lied to her? Lied about her? Why would he do that? Why was he fixated on her? She tried to remember if she’d ever met anyone called Alex, ever arrested an Alex, but there was nothing.

  ‘Cops like you!’ Gracie was sounding hysterical. ‘He’s ill, but they arrested him anyway, they hurt him. He was bleeding. It was Gross Misconduct! But no one wanted to listen. Society isn’t interested because he’s a young white man. You should be answerable for your actions!’

  Nasreen’s heart was racing, Gracie’s words felt personal; she was directing them at her.

  Saunders sounded calm. ‘The IPCC takes all accusations of misconduct seriously. Believe me.’ Had there been previous complaints against Saunders? Chips, she could believe: he clearly favoured the old-fashioned ways when they were necessary, but Saunders always felt squeaky clean. His face betrayed nothing. He sighed. ‘So you thought you’d go on a one-woman spy operation, is that right?’

  Gracie stared at him.

  ‘What exactly did Black say to you, Gracie?’ Nasreen tried.

  ‘He said he had proof, but that he needed someone on the inside to help him with the exposure. And that it had to be a woman.’ Gracie seemed to have exhausted herself with her crying, her words now landing flat and hard from her mouth.

  ‘Did you follow me into the ladies’?’ Nasreen said. She daren’t look at Saunders.

  Gracie nodded. ‘I could see when you were going from the security cameras.’

  She knew it. ‘Did you look at my phone, Gracie?’

  ‘Yes.’ The girl nodded.

  Black had used this girl to get information on them and they still had virtually nothing on him. ‘And you never communicated with Black in any other way? Did you ever speak on the telephone? Text? Anything?’

  ‘No, I told you …’ Gracie sounded exasperated. ‘He said we had to keep contact between us to the email address only.’

  ‘We’re going to need that email address, and to look at your phone and your computer at home,’ Saunders was saying. But Nasreen knew they wouldn’t be able to track the email: every form of communication he’d used so far had been encrypted.

  ‘And you didn’t know he was planning to take Lottie?’ Nasreen asked.

  At the sound of Lottie’s name, Gracie started sobbing again. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I emailed him, but he’s not replied. I thought … I don’t know. I hoped it wasn’t how it looked. That, like, maybe she was in on the sting as well?’

  ‘Jesus,’ Saunders said. ‘What do you think this is – James Bond?’

  ‘I thought it’d be like WikiLeaks – a whistle-blower. DCI Burgone seems nice, like maybe he was involved and this was to draw someone into the light? I don’t know. I didn’t know what to think.’

  Nasreen couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He’d got inside Gracie’s belief system. Convinced her she was doing the right thing. So that even when Lottie was kidnapped she still thought it might be part of the plan. She thought of her staring at Lottie’s face on the news. She would have seen the frightening message of her he’d sent: it was everywhere. The blood. The tape. Her eyes. ‘Why didn’t you say something when he released the photo of Lottie – you must have known then that something was wrong?’

  Gracie started to cry again. ‘I didn’t know what to do. If I told you what I’d done I knew I’d be in trouble.’

  Nasreen’s heart hardened. If Freddie hadn’t spotted the ring, made the connection, they might not have realised. Presumably ‘Lorna’ would have just stopped turning up to work. Even if they’d found compromising things on her computer, it could have taken them weeks to find the evidence linking Gracie to Alex Black. ‘You chose to save your own skin.’

  Gracie didn’t reply, she just cried harder, the sobs racking her body. Another victim of Alex Black.

  ‘I’ll get an external officer – one who’s not known to you, to formally charge you,’ Saunders said. ‘PC Goldstein will sit with you till then.’

  Once they left the interview room, Nasreen leant against the hallway wall. Gracie didn’t know who Alex Black was. They hadn’t been able to reach Daisy Jones. No one at Romeland High School would be in until later that morning. They were running out of options and time. She took a deep breath. There was one thing left to try. But it was the very thing she feared the most.

  Chapter 41

  Thursday 17 March

  06:00

  T – 3 hrs 30 mins

  Gracie would be charged with conspiracy, as she’d signed part of the Official Secrets Act when she joined the admin team. She had found herself collateral damage in the faceless Black’s plan. Freddie shuddered at the thought that he might not be a stranger at all. That it was his face that haunted her nightmares. She dug her fingers into the car seat, the brushed fabric pushing under her nails. She couldn’t believe this was happening. The sun had risen orange and angry, turning clouds into vivid gashes over the neat grass verges of Thamesmead. White flats and houses clumped together as if for warmth. What was it like to live so close to a category A prison: where they kept killers, rapis
ts, terrorists? Where they kept the Hashtag Murderer.

  Nas’d hoped for a Skype interview, but when his chief prison officer had woken him, the Hashtag Murderer had said he’d only talk if they came in person. Both of them. Nas and her. Her skin crawled with the memories of what he’d done: the terrifying messages posted online, the ticking clock, the slaughter. With only four hours left to save Lottie from a similar fate, what choice did they have? Every fibre of Freddie was screaming to run as Green turned off the dual carriageway into Belmarsh prison.

  There were barriers, roundabouts, no-entry signs, and spreading away from them were the yellow-bricked squares of the prison complex. It could have been a nineties university, were it not for the high fences and mounted CCTV cameras. It echoed images of concentration camps Freddie had seen. Had he known they would come? Had he engineered all this?

  Green pulled into the hedge-lined car park.

  ‘You all right to stay in the car?’ Nas opened her door.

  Green loosened her grip on the wheel, but didn’t take her eyes off the blue, sloped visitor building in front of them. ‘With pleasure, Sarge.’

  Freddie’s heart quickened. She wanted Green with them. She wanted as many people between her and him as possible.

  ‘We won’t have our phones with us inside,’ Nas said. ‘So make sure you’re ready with updates as soon as we’re out.’ Green nodded.

  ‘Why won’t we have our phones? What if we need help?’ Freddie’s voice betrayed her panic.

  ‘We’re in a high-security unit, we’ll be perfectly safe.’ Nas sounded normal, but the tension in her face said otherwise. Freddie’s blood was hurtling round her body; she could hear it. Thump. Thump. Thump. Sweat pooled in her lower back. He would know. He would smell fear on her. She touched her scar.

  In the reception, a tall, white prison officer who looked to be in his fifties, his square face riven with wrinkles, met them.

  ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Nasreen Cudmore and this is Freddie Venton. We have a Visiting Order, in relation to an active and time-sensitive case. I rang ahead.’

  ‘We’ve been expecting you. We aren’t used to receiving visitors so early.’ He sounded surprisingly friendly. ‘You’re here to see our James. You’re the first visitors he’s accepted.’

  Every muscle in her tightened. He wanted to see them. He wanted them here.

  ‘I’ll need my colleague to pat you both down.’ The officer indicated a po-faced woman behind him. Neither offered their name. What was it like to work here? To be with these people every day. Her mouth went dry and she felt her breath quicken; she wasn’t sure she could do this.

  Nas held her arms out while the female officer worked along them with gloved hands, then down her back, round her bra. Freddie swallowed a joke about over-friendly welcomes and airport security: it wouldn’t go down well.

  ‘And your ID, please. We ask that you remove mobile phones, electrical items and watches, and leave them in a locker.’ The officer was reeling through a practised speech. ‘Do you have permission to use a Dictaphone?’

  ‘No, there wasn’t time to obtain written authorisation,’ Nas said. ‘I have two pens and some paper.’

  ‘Fine. Keep hold of them at all times and do not pass anything to the prisoner.’

  Freddie thought about what the Hashtag Murderer had done the last time he’d got hold of a pencil: he’d stabbed it into someone’s eye.

  ‘Two officers will be with you at all times in the interview suite. No other prisoners will be allowed out of their cells while you’re in there.’ The officer smiled.

  She couldn’t even nod. Her legs automatically followed behind Nas while the woman took their fingerprints, made them stare into a camera and added their information to the system. A UV stamp was pressed onto their hands, like they were about to enter a club.

  She had to get control of her breathing. He’ll know. She saw again his hand swinging down towards her. Blood. Lottie. Breathe: one, two, three. They passed through the metal detector.

  ‘He’s in the HSU,’ said the male officer.

  ‘The what?’ Focus on questions. Talking was better.

  ‘The High Security Unit. It’s separate to the main prison,’ Nas answered.

  ‘Home to the country’s most dangerous criminals,’ the officer said with pride.

  ‘How many are there?’ Most dangerous.

  ‘We can house up to forty-eight.’ The officer was almost four times the width of Nas. And taller. A solid giant of a man.

  They reached a gated door and waited while another uniformed giant unlocked it from the other side. They stepped through and it was locked immediately behind them. Clunk. Clink. Freddie swallowed. It was hot in here. Oppressive.

  ‘How many prisoners have you got now?’ Nas asked.

  ‘That’s confidential. But I can tell you we get the high-profile ones: those who make the front pages.’

  Another gated door. Clunk. Clink. There were cameras everywhere, watching them. They reached another locked door. Clunk. Clink. Another. Clunk. Clink. They were getting deeper into the prison. The air felt heavier. Old. It smelt of bleach and metal. And dry sweat. They hadn’t passed a window for some time. No sky. No views of the outside world. What if they had to get out?

  ‘Do they share rooms?’ Nas was making small talk, keeping the conversation going. Trying to act normal, but her hands were gripped tightly together behind her back.

  ‘No. There are four “spurs” to the block.’ The officer pauses for another door, still smiling. Clunk. Clink. ‘Each spur has twelve single-occupancy cells. Your boy has a whole wing to himself.’ Clunk. Clink.

  ‘Why?’ The white walls are bleaching Nas out, making her paler, as if she’s fading.

  ‘We had some issues when we first moved him in. He’s been deemed too violent to encounter other prisoners.’

  Freddie’s ribs squeezed around her. ‘I thought this place housed the most dangerous criminals in the country? It’s not nursery school, is it!’

  ‘Too violent and too troublesome. He got a couple of the inmates to do things for him. To attack the others.’ Clunk. Clink. Fourteen gated doors.

  The hot air caught in her throat. What else had he got people to do? The image of the knife slashing towards Lottie played on loop as they reach a double-height crossroads. This must be the centre of a spur. Four walkways stretched away from them. Green-painted floors. White bars like the teeth of a comb slice through her vision. Somewhere else, someone is moving. The clunk clink echoes through the halls.

  ‘What about officers?’ Nas asked. ‘He could manipulate them too.’

  ‘We cycle them out of the HSU. Move them to the main prison. No one does longer than three years. And we don’t use names. If you don’t know my name you can’t accidentally use it in front of him.’

  Not knowing a name wouldn’t be enough to stop him. They had let him talk to other prisoners: did they really know what they were dealing with?

  ‘Is it normal for a prisoner to have the whole wing to themselves? Clunk. Clink. Fifteen doors.

  ‘It’s only happened once before.’ The officer stopped in a small, carpeted reception area. ‘With Charles Bronson.’ Britain’s most notorious and violent prisoner. What illustrious company to be in.

  ‘Okay, ready?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Nas was rigid.

  No. No, no, no. I can’t do this.

  ‘Look up at that camera please. The lads in the office just need to match your faces against the biometrics we have of you on the system.’

  The cameras whirred as they zoomed in. Freddie’s eyes darted about the room, looking for an escape. Fifteen locked doors between her and the outside world. Her breath was so loud the others must be able to hear it.

  When she was little they’d taken a family holiday to Jersey, visiting the underground German war tunnels. It smelt of death and decay. Despite the disinfectant, and the state-of-the-art security software, this place smelt the same. As if the air was running o
ut and they’d all slowly suffocate in here. The biting throb of her scar sliced across her face and down her spine. Nas gave her arm a quick, comforting squeeze. Think of Lottie. Blood trickling over skin. Think of Lottie.

  Freddie’s thoughts were speeding up, spiralling away from her. The floor squeaked. Too clean. As if spilled blood had just been wiped up. What was on the other side of these walls? There were doors. Small Perspex windows showed cells; a man in maroon jogging bottoms leaning back, watching a small telly. A metal toilet – no seat. A window that looked at a brick wall. Another. And another. They were inmates. Locked in their little boxes. One turned and caught sight of Nas, who was walking with purpose. Showing no fear. He hammered against the door. ‘How come my lawyer don’t look like that!’

  ‘Keep walking, please.’ The officer directed them to a small room at the end of the hallway. A table and three chairs: like the interview room at a station, except everything was screwed to the floor.

  Nas took a seat and Freddie followed suit. Instinctively she wrapped her ankles around the chair and tried to move it away from the table. Away from where he would be. A camera purred above: everyone was ready.

  They had said there would be two officers with him at all times. In case he did anything. What if he’d got one of them onside? What if all this – Chloe, Lottie – was a ruse to get them here? This small locked box inside a myriad of other locked boxes. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. What if he had designed this? What if this was his revenge?

  A noise rippled towards them. Voices. A roar. Growing louder. She gripped the chair. The room reverberated with the sound of forty-eight men jeering, chanting, banging on their cell doors. The walls felt woefully flimsy. Jesus.

  ‘Here he comes.’ The officer smiled. ‘Always causes a bit of a fuss with the lads. Bit of an enigma is our James.’ The roar mushroomed, then fell away. The silence was worse. What’s happening now? Clunk. Clink. The officer took a few steps away as the door opened.