Alias

by Cari Hunter

  I push my coffee away. It’s making me feel sick. “Did they wear masks or something that night?” I ask, and gulp the water Keelan puts in front of me. “Jo told me she’d never seen the faces of anyone from MMP.”

  “Balaclavas,” Granger says. “We found a couple when we searched Dee’s house. They’re in the labs, along with a white transit van that the decomp dog showed a particular interest in. We suspect it was used to move Krzys’s body after you and DS Pryce were seen at the warehouse.”

  I hold my glass to my forehead. The room is too hot, too crowded. “Can we open a window?”

  Keelan shoves the pane up as far as it’ll go, letting a frigid draught circulate. I’m tempted to stick my head out like a dog in a car—anything to help me think straight. I can’t work the chronology out, and my questions are as slippery as eels, escaping within seconds of them occurring to me.

  “Do you want to stop?” he asks.

  I shake my head and then answer “no” for the tape. I go back to the beginning, walking through the case step by step. “Did Jez know I was UC at Hamer’s?”

  “Not until you took Ms. Starek to Wales,” Granger says, “and by then he was up to his neck in it.”

  “He was in our car after we crashed. Did he tell you that? He and Dee ran us off the road, and they came down to us, and they left us for fucking dead. Did he tell you that when he gave you his life story?” I’m almost shouting, tears and snot flying everywhere, and Keelan pauses the tape and gives me a tissue. I blow my nose and then cover my face, humiliated by my outburst.

  Unwilling to waste any more of his dwindling time, Ansari restarts the recorder with a stab of his finger. The sharp click of the button is like a slap to the face, and I turn back to Granger, crumpling the tissue and shoving it into my sleeve.

  “You said Pryce and I were spotted at the warehouse. Were they already following us, or did they get lucky?”

  “They’d been following you for days,” she says. “Ever since you went to Ms. Starek’s house.”

  “Jesus,” I whisper. “How did they know?”

  “The landlord contacted Donald Hamer Snr., as per a previous arrangement. Don Snr. tasked Dee to surveil the address, and that surveillance was heightened when you were identified at the house with DS Pryce. Shannon Millward added fuel to the fire by reporting her interview, but it was your search of the Copthorne warehouse that brought everything to a head. As soon as you found the body, they knew they had to act.” Granger pauses to consult her notes, giving me time to digest what she’s just told me.

  “They meant to snatch us both, didn’t they?” I say, thinking back to where I went and what I did after leaving Pryce’s hotel room. “But they couldn’t get me on my own, so they made do with Pryce at first.”

  “That about covers it. And then you found the flash drive, which provoked them into upping the ante.”

  “Don’t remind me,” I say, still riddled with guilt. “That’s when they threatened her sister and her nieces.”

  “They’re okay, by the way,” Keelan interjects before I can ask. “DC Hughes checked on them, and they were unaware anything untoward had happened. Her sister is visiting her this afternoon.”

  I nod, thankful that Pryce will have someone other than her colleagues looking out for her. I rub the back of my neck. My arm’s aching and making it difficult for me to concentrate as I grapple at yet another loose end. “Who was hacking my emails? Jo said there were two MMP officers on the books at Hamer’s. Who was the second?”

  There’s an unspoken exchange between Granger and Ansari as they decide between themselves how much I’m allowed to know. They needn’t be so cloak-and-dagger. I’m not interested in the culprit’s name. I’m not about to mete out some kind of cack-handed vengeance on his arse. I just want confirmation that he’s been arrested and that he’ll pay for what he’s done.

  “He was a dispatcher in Comms,” Ansari says, emphasising the past tense. “Once we knew he’d accessed your inbox, we were able to trace him through the server. He’d been in league with Hamer’s for longer than Stephens, keeping his ear to the ground and passing on pertinent information. He was wasted in Comms; he could’ve found honest employment as a specialist tech, but the wage Hamer’s offered was far more lucrative.”

  “How did he miss the UC assignment?” I ask. He can’t have known about it, or I’d have been another body in the warehouse, rotting beside Krzys.

  “We use a separate server for all UC work.” Ansari states this as if it’s obvious, but those of us at the sticky end of things aren’t told much about the mechanisms keeping us safe. We’re prepped on a need-to-know basis and expected to trust the rest to those higher up the food chain.

  There’s a pause as Granger goes to fill the kettle. She stands by the counter to wait, her arms folded. She looks as disgusted as I feel. “We’ve cast a wide net to identify other members of MMP who might have been employed by Hamer’s,” she says. “But so far, so good.”

  I’m unconvinced by her optimism. “They’ll be lying low anyway.”

  “Quite possibly,” she concedes. She flicks the switch as the water begins to boil and waits for absolute silence before she continues. “We found nothing to suggest you were involved in any way.”

  “I know. Jez told Pryce that when she asked him.” I aim the comment at Ansari. This is the first matter he should have settled with me. He had no idea Pryce had already done his job for him. “Will you tell Jo’s family the truth now so they can take her home?”

  He squirms a little beneath the challenge. I doubt that’s even crossed his mind, with all the swaggering he’ll have been doing for the media since the raids.

  “I’m sure that can be arranged,” he says. “Now, in terms of your conduct—”

  I raise a hand. Fuck him, I haven’t finished. “There’s a bullet in DS Pryce’s coat pocket. She recovered it from the warehouse the night we found Krzys. It’ll probably match the gun used to shoot her, which should tie Dee to the murder. She submitted a blood sample to the North Wales labs as well, taken from my apartment after someone tried to break in. She estimated four to six weeks for the results, but you might want to put a rush on it.”

  Keelan smirks and jots a note. “I’ll speak to SOCO—they’re still at her cottage—and I’ll contact the lab.”

  “Cheers.” I lean back in my chair. Granger has poured me a fresh mug of coffee, and it smells good. The wall clock reads twelve thirty-four, leaving Ansari nineteen minutes to read me the riot act. Much as he’ll want to rant and rave, though, his hands are all but tied. MMP have scored a massive success with the infiltration and subsequent dismantling of a major drugs ring. They’ve solved two murders and apprehended two corrupt employees, and they can boast about all of it without needing to mention the lengths I went to to put a tick in their win column. Ansari might be an arsehole, but he’s not stupid, and he’ll be hard pushed to find real fault with what I did.

  Granger stirs a sweetener into her tea, her spoon tinkling against the mug. “The SMIU will shortly be signing off on your case, DC Clarke,” she says. I watch Ansari’s dark skin redden, but he doesn’t intervene. “We’d like to thank you for your patience and your assistance. You will of course be asked to testify when the prosecutions go to trial.”

  “Of course,” I say, matching the polite formality of her tone.

  She checks the clock: fifteen minutes. “Counselling is available, should you require it, and I’m sure DI Ansari will be in touch as soon as Occupational Health has approved you for active duty.”

  “Thank you,” I say. I truly am grateful to have her on my side, but I won’t be returning to MMP. It doesn’t matter what the outcome of the investigation proves; Jez was a popular officer, and some of my colleagues will always blame me for his downfall. I’ll be the unstable, brain-injured detective whom no one trusts or wants to work with, the one who fucked off to cosy up with the Welsh police rather than confide in them.

  I can’t tell what Keelan s
ees in my expression, but he holds up his pen to prevent anyone else speaking.

  “I think that’s enough for now,” he says, and turns off the tape.

  Epilogue

  Llanddwyn Island, 1-ish? the text reads. Up at the far end near the lighthouse. Make sure you time it right or you’ll get your feet wet.

  Following the directions tagged onto the message, I park at the nature reserve and walk barefoot along the beach toward the small tidal island. It’s a warm day for early June, the sun bright in cloud-free skies, with enough of a breeze to whitecap the waves. I tie my sweater around my waist and roll up my jeans, enjoying the sensation of damp sand between my toes. I haven’t been to the seaside in years, and my scant childhood memories mainly evoke grey, miserable weekends spent shivering behind windbreaks and dropping pennies into slot machines that never paid out.

  It’s beautiful here, though. The sand is clean and dotted with shells, and the water is sparkling in the sunshine. Low tide makes the crossing easy, and I get my feet wet only because I paddle in the shallows on the way over. Back on dry land, I kneel to put my trainers on for the rough path to the lighthouse. The snub white building stands out on the horizon, marking our rendezvous spot, and I fumble with my laces despite having two fully functioning hands. I didn’t expect to be so apprehensive. I’ve seen Pryce almost every week since her discharge from hospital, but snatched conversations outside a courtroom or sitting in the same briefing room don’t constitute a date, and that’s what today will be. Our first, honest to goodness, have a picnic and hold her hand if she’ll let me, date.

  The path gains height, passing the ruins of an ancient chapel, and I catch sight of her sitting on a tartan blanket. She’s found an ideal spot on the far side of the lighthouse, a patch of grass sheltered from the main tourist route, with a view across to Snowdonia. You get the best of all worlds in this part of North Wales—beaches, lakes, and mountains—and even though I’m still more of a city girl, I’m rapidly falling in love with the place.

  The wind catches her hair as I walk closer, and she rearranges it with her fingers. She tolerated a week of relying on other people to tie it back for her before she had it cut much shorter, and it suits her, no matter how self-conscious she is about the new style. She looks up as she hears my footsteps, raising her sunglasses and smiling at me.

  “Gorgeous, isn’t it?” she says. “I thought you might like to explore on your own for a while instead of meeting in the car park.”

  I sit beside her on the blanket and kick off my trainers again. “Were you giving me a fair chance to chicken out as well?”

  “Maybe.” She drops her glasses back down. “But I’m glad you didn’t.”

  She leans against a tufted mound of grass, tugging at my belt until I join her and then taking my hand. She still has no sensation in her little finger, but it curls around mine with her other four.

  “Have you unpacked anything yet?” she asks.

  “Half my clothes. All my underwear,” I say. Then, as an afterthought, “On Saturday.”

  I can’t see her eyes, but I suspect she’s rolling them. “Well, it’s a start at least.”

  I’ve been in my new flat in Bangor for five weeks, and most of my stuff is still in boxes. As the first case against the Hamers went to trial, Keelan got wind of my pending resignation from MMP and head-hunted me for a newly formed offshoot of his own Major Crimes Team. He didn’t need to ask me twice. The team deals exclusively with young offenders, and the workload has verged on overwhelming since the initiative launched. I’m enjoying the job, and I’ve been welcomed with open arms by my new colleagues, who credit me with saving the life of their DS. Everything seems a little too good to be true, and I don’t want to jinx it by assuming I can stay and making myself at home.

  I’ve obviously been quiet for a while, because she nudges her bare foot against mine. “How’s the Welsh coming along?”

  I groan. “It’s not. Pendry’s been teaching me the basics. Well, swearing mainly.” I reconsider. “Actually, just swearing, because I’m terrible at the rest of it. I’ve no idea how Keelan managed to wangle the rules on that one for me.”

  “He works in mysterious ways. If you learn how to bake a nice bara brith, he won’t give a damn what language you speak.”

  “Pencil that in for our second date,” I tell her. “Be warned, though, if you think my Welsh is crap, wait till you see me in the kitchen.”

  She takes off her glasses so she can stare at me properly. “What the hell am I signing up for here?”

  I shrug. “Anecdotal evidence suggests I’m good at football, and I may have other, as yet undiscovered talents.”

  “Now that does sound quite promising.” She strokes her thumb against the underside of my wrist, the contact feather-light but enough to make my breath hitch, and I kiss her long and slow, tasting the sea salt on her lips and earning a volley of wolf whistles from a group of passing schoolkids.

  “I brought lunch,” she murmurs as we part.

  I nod, evaluating our options. Some of the kids are less than ten feet away and still gawping. “I put my bed together last night,” I say. “And I have a balcony with a sea view.”

  She kisses me again, her lips still touching mine as she asks, “Are you trying to seduce me, Alis Clarke?”

  “Absolutely. Is it working?”

  “Yes, very much so.” She cups my cheek. “Okay, then. Picnic, bed, balcony, and undiscovered talents. Not necessarily in that order.”

  “Definitely not in that order,” I say and then hesitate. “Unless…crap. Hang on. What if one of my talents is basket weaving?” I pause for effect. “Train spotting? Stamp collecting? Jesus. I might be a tap dancer!”

  She mutters something very impolite in Welsh and starts to laugh. “Those aren’t the kind of talents I had in mind.”

  I shrug, all innocence. “I wouldn’t know what they are. They’re undiscovered.” I hold out my hand to her. “Shall we go and find out?”

  About the Author

  Cari Hunter lives in the northwest of England with her wife, their cat, and a field full of sheep. She works full-time as a paramedic and dreams up stories in her spare time.

  Cari enjoys long, windswept, muddy walks in her beloved Peak District. In the summer she can usually be found sitting in the garden with her feet up, scribbling in her writing pad. Although she doesn’t like to boast, she will admit that she makes a very fine Bakewell tart.

  Her first novel, Snowbound, received an Alice B. Lavender Certificate for outstanding debut. No Good Reason, the first in the Dark Peak series, won a 2015 Rainbow Award for Best Mystery and was a finalist in the 2016 Lambda Literary Awards. Its sequel, Cold to the Touch, won a Goldie and a Rainbow Award for Best Mystery. A Quiet Death, the final book in the series, won the 2017 Rainbow Award for Best Mystery.

  Cari can be contacted at carihunter@rocketmail.com.

  Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

  Alias by Cari Hunter. A car crash leaves a woman with no memory and no identity. Together with Detective Bronwen Pryce, she fights to uncover a truth that might just kill them both. (978-1-63555-221-8)

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  Room Service by Fiona Riley. Interior designer Olivia likes stability, but when work brings footloose Savannah into her world and into a new city every month, Olivia must decide if what makes her comfortable is what makes her happy. (978-1-63555-120-4)

  Sparks Like Ours by Melissa Brayden. Professional surfers Gia Malone and Elle Britton can’t deny their chemistry on and off the beach. But only one c
an win… (978-1-63555-016-0)

  Take My Hand by Missouri Vaun. River Hemsworth arrives in Georgia intent on escaping quickly, but when she crashes her Mercedes into the Clip ’n Curl, sexy Clay Cahill ends up rescuing more than her car. (978-1-63555-104-4)

  The Last Time I Saw Her by Kathleen Knowles. Lane Hudson only has twelve days to win back Alison’s heart. That is, if she can gather the courage to try. (978-1-63555-067-2)

  Wayworn Lovers by Gun Brooke. Will agoraphobic composer Giselle Bonnaire and Tierney Edwards, a wandering soul who can’t remain in one place for long, trust in the passionate love destiny hands them? (978-1-62639-995-2)

  Breakthrough by Kris Bryant. Falling for a sexy ranger is one thing, but is the possibility of love worth giving up the career Kennedy Wells has always dreamed of? (978-1-63555-179-2)

  Certain Requirements by Elinor Zimmerman. Phoenix has always kept her love of kinky submission strictly behind the bedroom door and inside the bounds of romantic relationships, until she meets Kris Andersen. (978-1-63555-195-2)

  Dark Euphoria by Ronica Black. When a high-profile case drops in Detective Maria Diaz’s lap, she forges ahead only to discover this case, and her main suspect, aren’t like any other. (978-1-63555-141-9)

  Fore Play by Julie Cannon. Executive Leigh Marshall falls hard for Peyton Broader, her golf pro…and an ex-con. Will she risk sabotaging her career for love? (978-1-63555-102-0)