by Eva Dolan
We air-kiss and I point him to the sofa, where he settles himself while I fetch a couple of glasses. He thinks the drink will loosen my tongue, but I’ve been locked down hard for weeks and have no intention of saying anything I shouldn’t. Not about the past or what’s happening now.
Because he’ll know. He’s too good not to be curious.
‘How’s the book going?’ I ask, pouring generous measures in the mismatched tumblers, handing him the one with the wider base and the larger capacity.
‘You’re my last interviewee.’ He raises his drink in a toast, winks. ‘Got you.’
I curl up on the opposite sofa, thinking he doesn’t look quite himself this evening. He’s always cultivated a dishevelled, down-to-earth vibe, but this is something else. There are bags under his eyes and his usual stubble is now a beard. When he finally shrugs out of his coat, passing his drink from one hand to the other rather than putting it down, I see that his jumper is crumpled and marked at the cuff with what appears to be coffee.
‘Have you spoken to Ella recently?’ he asks.
‘I went to see her earlier,’ I say carefully. ‘She wasn’t home.’
‘She’s been arrested.’ He drains his glass in one mouthful. ‘Dawn raid, they pulled her in, stripped her flat. The works.’
I try to look like it’s a surprise but realise he’s not interested in my reaction. He reaches for the bottle and pours himself another drink, leaves the cap off.
‘Did she do it?’ he asks. ‘You were here that night, you must know.’
‘You seriously think Ella’s capable of something like that?’
‘She’s your protégé.’
I glare at him but he’s impervious. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘PC Gareth Kelman,’ he says. ‘Or Chief Constable Kelman now.’
A name I never want to hear again as long as I live and I thought Sinclair was better than this. Throwing it in my face, knowing what memories it would dredge up; the freezing holding cell in the dank basement of that Victorian cop shop. Shit smeared up the walls from the previous occupant, left because they thought it would get to me. My food overturned on the floor when it was delivered. Spittle flying in my face during questioning; threats and slaps and fat fingers tangled in my hair as my head was shoved down hard at the tabletop but stopped just before striking it. And all the while, the bloodstained hammer right there in front of me.
‘I spoke to Joy Prior,’ Sinclair says. ‘She gave me the whole story.’
‘Joy’s got Alzheimer’s,’ I tell him, even though he knows that. ‘You must have noticed when you were at her nursing home.’
‘Yeah, she does. She can’t remember her kids’ names or whether she’s had breakfast, but she’s got a perfect recollection of that night. You coming back to the peace camp with blood on your face. Boiling up water on a Primus stove to wash it off before you burned your clothes.’
‘That wasn’t me,’ I say slowly. ‘I don’t know why, in her sadly muddled brain, she’s made it into me, but it wasn’t.’
Sinclair snorts. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Molly. The bastard had it coming.’
‘Too fucking right, he did. And if I’d have done it he wouldn’t have got off with a concussion. I’d have smashed his skull flat.’ The remembered rage, so long burned away, shocks me with its sudden reignition. ‘Is this what you wanted to know about, Martin? Not all the good we did. Not all the shit we suffered and what we managed to grow out of that protest. You want to know about some piece of filth, rapist copper, who got smacked in the head coming out of a fucking bookies?’ I slam my glass down on the table. ‘Whose side are you on, mate? Because it doesn’t feel like you’re on ours right now.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He puts his hands up in surrender, his glass almost empty again. ‘This isn’t for publication. I’m not recording any of this. I just wanted to know for myself.’
For a few minutes we sit in an uncomfortable silence, not looking at one another, while the building creaks and heaves around us, the sound of a blind fluttering and clattering against a freshly broken window in the neighbouring flat as the wind sucks at its aluminium slats.
Part of me is still there, smelling the metal and the blood, seeing every hair stuck to the hammer head. Part of me stayed there, I think. Something soft and vital. Was it the piece of me that would have called the police rather than colluding with Ella in covering up her crime? Because until then I’d still had a modicum of respect for the law.
When I look at Sinclair again he’s staring into his glass and I realise he’s scared. Maybe he’s concerned about what the police will find when they crack Ella’s phone and laptop. Maybe there’s incriminating stuff about him on there, friends he’s put her in touch with, other groups still operating under the radar who are now in danger of exposure. I know they were close, that he’s made as many introductions for her as I have and his contacts would be far more interesting to the police and the services above them.
Perhaps I’m being unfair to him and it’s a personal concern that’s twisting him up and sending his hand back to the bottle once again. The way he tossed the accusation out there . . . was that professional curiosity or hurt speaking?
I think Ella actually liked him; then again, I thought she and I were close too.
‘She didn’t manage to throw him down that lift shaft on her own,’ Sinclair says, shaking the bottle at me.
I hold out my glass and notice how unsteadily he splashes in a double measure.
‘How do you know he didn’t fall in there?’
‘I’ve got my sources.’ He stays hunched forward on the edge of the sofa. ‘But I think you know what went on better than any of them.’
‘Looking for a scoop, are you?’
‘I just want to know what happened.’
‘Why?’
‘She’s my fucking friend, Molly.’ He almost shouts it and there’s a hint of confession in his tone that makes me suspect they were more than friends. He presses his balled fist over his mouth, taps it a couple of times, working up to something, and I wish I’d never let him in here because I can see my own doubts and fears playing across his face and I don’t want to shepherd him through a process I’m still struggling with. The realisation he’s been duped by her.
‘Okay, let me tell you something I know that I think you probably won’t.’
The multiple head wounds, I’m thinking. The impossibility of it being an accident.
‘They’ve identified him,’ Sinclair says and I fight the urge to prompt him as he pauses. ‘It was a couple of days ago I got this and I don’t know why they’ve not released his name to the press, but I have one theory and it isn’t good.’
‘Who is it?’ I ask, out of patience.
‘A guy called Adam Pearce.’
I know the name but I don’t know why.
‘Ella was at Garton with him,’ Sinclair says. ‘She must have told you about this – the bloke who attacked her. He got thrown out of training, she left in a blaze of whistle-blowing glory. It’s what changed her entire world-view, how the hierarchy there tried to cover up the culture of bullying and the—’
‘Yes, I was here when you interviewed her after the demo.’
And I’ve heard the fuller version from her since and I know that bastard had it coming just as surely as PC Gareth Kelman did.
Why didn’t she tell me it was Pearce right from the off? I can already see how it would have played out: he wants revenge because she ruined his career; he tracks her down and attacks her. I understand. I’m not judging her.
That fierce protective drive returns in an unbearable rush and I throw down my drink, thinking of how hard I’ve been on her, the growing hate I’ve been nurturing in my breast, and I’m so ashamed of myself for doubting her I could weep.
No wonder she reacted with such violence. She must have been terrified. Alone with him, isolated from the party upstairs, already knowing exactly what he was capable of when others were watching
.
My poor Ella.
I snap back to Sinclair.
‘Hold on, why do you think the police have delayed identifying him?’ I ask. ‘Maybe they’re just trying to track down his family.’
‘His family know already. His mum ID’d his body.’
‘Maybe they don’t want the bad press,’ I suggest. ‘Naming him dredges everything up again.’
‘He’s the victim,’ Sinclair says. ‘No bad PR in that.’
‘So?’
Sinclair knits his fingers together, twists them painfully. ‘I think Pearce was an undercover cop. And I think Ella was one of his informants. Unwittingly, maybe. But—’
‘No.’ I stand up sharply. ‘Don’t be stupid. Ella might be a lot of things, but she’s no fucking grass.’
But even as the words are leaving my mouth I’m thinking of Quinn and Lewis, going down for the Brighams firebombing while she miraculously walked away.
Quinn saying she was there should have been enough to damn her. Even though Lewis denied she was involved. Wasn’t it strange that the police took his word as gospel? That she alone out of the three of them didn’t leave any forensic evidence at the scene. That I was considered a sound alibi.
It’s just how grasses are protected. The focus is shifted away from them. They aren’t considered innocent, but there’s no appetite to prove their guilt. People around them get caught. They get lucky.
I swear into my hands.
‘The alibi you gave her for the estate agent’s,’ Sinclair says, as if he can read my thoughts. ‘That was fake, right?’
I stay silent and he nods.
‘You still don’t trust me. Okay. But the ringleader – Ryan Quinn – he called me from prison a few months back wanting to sell a story about Ella. He said she was a police informant. He gave me a whole list of people who she’d been sniffing around who found themselves suddenly under surveillance. These were people totally unknown to the police beforehand.’
‘How did they know they were under surveillance?’
He rolls his eyes at me. ‘Come on, Molly. You know.’
He was right.
‘When I raised the subject with Ella she fobbed me off with some rubbish about Quinn resenting her success and wanting to cut her down to size because he thought she was just in it for the attention.’ A queasy look crosses Sinclair’s face and he pinches his ear. ‘Four hours after that conversation she suddenly decided I was somebody she found completely irresistible and dragged me into a toilet for a quickie.’
The confession makes him sag where he sits and he looks an older man, his usual boyish confidence cut out from under him. She’s toyed with both of us, played on our weaknesses; Sinclair’s to be needed physically, mine to be needed emotionally. And we’re not people easily fooled, I think. This isn’t about our gullibility, is it? It’s the scale of Ella’s guile.
Sinclair is pouring another drink and I resist the urge to stay his hand over the glass.
‘Ella did fancy you,’ I tell him. ‘I could see it the second she met you. Whatever reason she might have had . . . professionally.’ That word sticks in my throat, bloated with connotations. ‘She wasn’t faking the attraction.’
‘That’s good to know,’ he says bitterly. ‘But it doesn’t change anything. Think about it, Molly: what’s she been doing? She makes all these contacts, but she’s never really been active. She’s not done anything. Ella has positioned herself to gather information and feed it out to someone without ever compromising herself or acting illegally.’
‘Breaking in to Brighams was highly illegal.’
I’m still defending her. I can’t seem to stop myself.
‘Quinn said he forced her hand. He told her she was acting like a copper and that was what finally made her get on board. If she didn’t do the Brighams attack, it would be an admission of guilt.’
I shake my head. ‘That’s a huge leap, Martin. You can’t lay an accusation like that on her with no evidence.’
‘But you agree it’s possible?’
‘Anything’s possible,’ I say, throwing my hands up. ‘I know people who think you’re managed opposition run by MI5.’
His phone rings – a distinctive and discordant tone – and I expect him to ignore it, but he says, ‘My guy at the station,’ before he’s even got his mobile out of his pocket.
The conversation is short, barely twenty seconds, and Sinclair rings off with a promise of ‘the same as usual’. Meaning some kind of bribe, I guess.
He places his phone on the table, a pained look creasing his brows.
‘They’ve released her without charge,’ he says and I feel a moment of elation, my shoulders rising, the tension leaving my muscles. ‘Some DCI came and took her away. They were told to give him a copy of the case file. Everything they’ve got on her.’
I sit before I fall.
Sinclair’s face is ashen. ‘She’s not the informant.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘She’s the fucking undercover.’
Ella
Now – 31st March
Dylan hustles her out of the police station the back way. He says nothing as he unlocks a black Range Rover with tinted windows and gets behind the wheel, expecting her to follow without question. Ella climbs in next to him, snaps on her seatbelt and asks where they’re going, but gets no reply beyond a shake of the head. He digs a pair of sunglasses out of the door pocket and slips them on before he pulls on to the road.
The vehicle seems wrong for him, she thinks – too brash and muscular – but then, what does she know about him really? Beyond their occasional meetings, she doesn’t know what he does with the rest of his time, where he lives, even. If there’s a girlfriend somewhere, kids. The thought of him having a family makes her feel sick with guilt.
As they cross the bridge into Westminster, she realises she’s been treating this like a game. Savouring the bubble of unreality the pair of them exist in, playing at being the Ella he needs her to be, testing his rules and boundaries and delivering her smartest moves for his approval.
But she doesn’t know him and maybe she shouldn’t trust him.
Not now she’s failed so catastrophically.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I thought I—’
‘We’re way past the point where your apologies count for anything.’
They drive through the centre of the city, the traffic slowing them down and making the painful silence even more acute. Ella keeps glancing at him, hoping he’ll feel her eyes on him and turn, give her something, a small sign of forgiveness or support, but he keeps his head straight, hands rigid on the wheel, as if gripping it is the only thing stopping him from throttling her.
Around them the Saturday-afternoon shoppers are mingling with the Saturday-night revellers, the early starters heading for pre-theatre meals and drinks, late kick-offs and cinema showings to act as a primer for whatever entertainment comes next.
Her night is a terrifying void.
Dylan’s got her out of Kennington station but she’s still in police custody and this is a far more unpredictable kind. Off-grid, no protection, no cameras and solicitors, nothing on record.
She curls her hand around the armrest, noticing that the doors are unlocked. Nothing to stop her jumping out and bolting.
Except that Dylan has sprung her, which means he owns her now. Running will mean the withdrawal of his support, the reinstatement of her guilt and inevitable imprisonment. Stay, and she might just be able to find her way through this.
Once he’s calmed down enough to stand the sight of her and the sound of her voice. Ella hopes being back at the safe house on Murray Street might help. That the memory of all the hours they’ve spent there together might draw some softer feelings out of him.
But they’re not going to Camden, she realises. He heads into Islington and quickly they are on a tree-lined residential street of Victorian houses that have long since passed the seven-figure mark. Lit windows where the inevitable wooden blinds haven’t yet
been closed, showing well-proportioned and impeccably decorated drawing rooms, happy-looking families inside.
Dylan pulls into a space at the end of the road, tells her to get out of the car.
They walk to a house in the centre of the row and he shoves her up the steps ahead of him, grips her arm as he speaks to the camera on the intercom.
‘It’s us.’
A few seconds later the front door opens and Peggy Armstrong lets them into her home.
Ella hasn’t seen Armstrong since she was been deployed into the field almost two years ago, but her boss looks no different. There are a few more very fine lines around her eyes perhaps, a bit more white in her grey bob. But she’s as formidable as ever, even standing barefoot on the wide wooden floorboards, dressed in black yoga pants and a cashmere hoodie, like they’ve pulled her away from an afternoon ashtanga class. She has a tattoo on the side of her left foot, Ella notices, Sailor Jerry style. A souvenir from her own time undercover, maybe.
‘What are we going to do with you, pet?’ she says, giving Ella a look of such crushing disappointment that she feels like she might cry.
‘It was self-defence.’
Behind her Dylan snorts, mutters something under his breath.
Armstrong’s face softens slightly and she squeezes Ella’s arm. ‘I wouldn’t have expected it to be anything else. But it’s all the same now, isn’t it? A mess is a mess and how it got there doesn’t change that it wants cleaning up.’
‘I tried—’
‘You covered it up,’ Dylan snaps. ‘Badly. Using an unreliable accomplice.’
‘Molly isn’t unreliable, she’s covered for me this long.’
‘Ella’s right.’ Armstrong turns to Dylan, who’s standing near the front door still, like he’s working up to walking away from all this. ‘If there’s one thing we know for sure about Molly Fader, it’s that she’ll not grass Ella up.’