by Chris Ewan
‘When this is over, I’m going to find Richard. You can help me to do that, can’t you?’
‘Kate,’ Miller told her gently, a look of regret on his face, ‘this will never be over. Not for you. Not like that.’
‘But I still testify. Right? I’m going to give my evidence against Russell Lane. You agreed to it.’
‘Whoa.’ Becca stepped back. ‘You did not tell her that.’
Kate looked between them, bewildered.
‘You promised me I’d testify. I told you that was non-negotiable.’
‘It’s complicated, Kate.’ Miller was looking down now; at his coffee, at his hands, anywhere but at her.
‘Then forget it. Forget all of it.’ She jumped off her stool. ‘Richard is my brother. Understand? And Helen was my friend. She was a good person. She didn’t need to volunteer at that shelter but she did it because she wanted to help people. And now I’m going to help her. I’ll walk out of here into the nearest police station in order to testify if I have to.’
‘Er, Kate.’ Hanson had gathered up his laptop in a hurry and was hustling over to the kitchen counter, angling the screen for them all to see. ‘You might want to reconsider.’
Despite herself, Kate looked, then immediately wished she hadn’t.
Hanson had called up a news article from the BBC website. The report concerned the discovery of a man’s body among the foundations of a building site in Greater Manchester. Early indications were that he’d been killed in unexplained circumstances, possibly involving a fall. The dead man had been identified as a Patrick Martin Leigh.
‘This can’t be real. Tell me this isn’t real.’
‘Oh, it’s real,’ Miller said. ‘It’s like I told you at the beginning – there’s no going back.’
Chapter Sixteen
Kate was still staring at Miller, speechless, when Becca grabbed the laptop and took her by the hand to the apartment across the hall. She guided her on to the sofa and sat beside her with the laptop on her knees.
Kate looked blindly about the room. This situation wasn’t just bigger than her, it was swallowing her.
A man had plummeted to his death. He’d been murdered, Kate was sure. And all because, like her, he’d been willing to testify in the trial of Russell Lane.
‘Listen to me,’ Becca was saying. ‘You’re hurting. You’re scared. And I’m sorry for you, I am, but I think maybe you needed this. Your situation is real, Kate. It’s terrible but it’s happening. Now is the time to commit to it.’
But Kate didn’t feel capable of committing to anything. She felt powerless and disconnected, as if all of this was happening to someone else. Even the room around her had an unreal quality to it – the decor so dated it might have been a museum exhibit.
‘I have something to show you. Look.’
Becca circled her fingers over the laptop’s trackpad and clicked several times until a video began to play.
Kate took a moment before gazing down, then did a double-take. The video featured colour footage of the apartment next door, shot from an angle that suggested a camera had been fitted to the corner of the ceiling. It showed Kate sitting down to eat breakfast, talking with Hanson and Becca.
‘You’ve been filming me? You didn’t ask.’
‘Honey, until we know that you’re safe, you have absolutely no privacy. You’d better get used to it.’ She tapped a nail against the screen. ‘See what you’re doing here? The way you tilt your head? How you bite your lip? You do it all the time when you’re listening. Especially when you’re about to disagree with something.’
The Kate in the footage seemed oddly fake, as if she was watching an impostor. Her movements had an abrupt, doll-like quality.
‘When you argue, you lead with your chin. You scratch your temple when you’re flustered. And you constantly tuck your hair behind your ear. It’s a habit from when your hair was longer. If you can’t break the cycle, we’ll use clips or a hairband.’
Kate drew a fast breath and looked away but Becca cupped her chin and turned her face back to the screen. Another thirty seconds of footage elapsed and Kate saw herself push her hair back twice.
‘It’s the small tics that define you. You have to find new habits. And we really have to work on your walk. You spring forwards from your toes. It’s an athlete thing, but it’s distinctive. I have insoles for you to try.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘You’re kidding.’ Becca frowned, mimicking her. ‘We’ll soften your accent. Shift the emphasis you place on certain words. We’ll change all your markers.’ She tapped the screen with her nail again. ‘Some juicy stuff coming up.’
Kate studied her onscreen responses as Miller appeared and stepped around behind the breakfast counter, his hair tousled, the top two buttons of his shirt undone.
‘Girl, you have it all going on. There’s the hair-touching, the raised eyebrows, the fidgety lips. And the way you lean in. Do you even know how many times you almost touched him?’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Oh, relax, honey. Most of this stuff is instinctive. There’s not a lot we can change or really need to. Mostly we’re watching this for my own titillation. Besides, so much of what we’re seeing depends on the other person’s responses.’
Kate hated herself for it, but she couldn’t help glancing at Becca for more.
‘Mirroring.’ She nudged her. ‘He likes you, too. I haven’t seen him look at anyone that way in a very long time.’
*
Lloyd and Foster rode the elevator down to the NCA basement in an awkward silence. Lloyd was embarrassed and frustrated. She’d still been working on Foster up on the roof when Young had telephoned her mobile to say that a street kid called Patrick Leigh had decided to go high diving without a swimming pool in Manchester on the same night Kate Sutherland had been targeted. In itself, it might have meant nothing, except that Patrick had also been due to give evidence in the trial of Russell Lane. Aside from Kate, he was the last person to have seen Helen Knight alive – he’d been due to testify that he’d watched her climb into Russell’s BMW on the day she disappeared in the alley behind the Fresh Start Shelter. Coincidence was one thing, but this had to be something more.
Worse, there’d been a breakdown in communication with Greater Manchester Police and the news had hit local media before it reached the NCA. So far, the national press hadn’t made the link to the Lane family, though Lloyd guessed it was only a matter of time.
The elevator pinged, the doors parted, and Lloyd followed Foster along the basement corridor, already dreading the smug look on Young’s face when they entered the incident room. But they were intercepted before they got there by a uniformed officer.
‘DS Lloyd?’ The officer was flushed and out of breath. ‘This came in for you upstairs.’
He handed Lloyd a padded brown envelope. The words URGENT: FAO DS JENNIFER LLOYD ONLY were printed in marker pen across the front. There was no postage stamp and no delivery details.
‘Who gave this to you?’
The officer winced. ‘He had a bike helmet on. I’m sorry. There was a queue at the front desk and he just sort of walked up and dumped it. I didn’t see what it said until he was gone.’
Lloyd shot a look at Foster, then tore open the envelope. There was only one item inside. It was a glossy photographic print that looked as if it had been taken with some kind of night-vision equipment. There was a blurred, blackish corona around the edges while the details in the middle were picked out in varying shades of green.
Lloyd recognised the glass-fronted exterior of the clifftop house where Kate Sutherland had been living. The image showed a man stepping out through a sliding door.
‘Tell me I’m not going nuts,’ Foster said, ‘but isn’t that Nick Adams?’
‘You’re not going nuts. And be honest now – do you really still believe he has no questions to answer?’
Chapter Seventeen
Kate walked with Miller along the seafront prome
nade, keeping her head down against the driving wind. It was raining steadily, the tide a long way out beyond the sodden beach and slickened mud flats.
They trudged by a derelict outdoor swimming pool, the word TROPICANA picked out in bas-relief on stonework that was discoloured and crumbling. The lights of the Grand Pier shone gaudily through the drizzle; forlorn streaks of neon in search of absent tourists.
‘Hungry?’ Miller asked, pointing ahead through the rain in the direction of the Winter Gardens, where a grinning cartoon whale was suspended above a fish-and-chip cafe.
‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’
The cafe was close to empty, the windows all steamed up. Stepping inside and standing in front of the heated counter, smelling the hot frying oil, water dripping from her hair and clothes, Kate had a sudden sensation of the world around her being too vibrant – overloaded with colour and sounds and smells.
Miller, sensing her unease, stepped up and ordered cod, chips and mushy peas twice, then asked for two mugs of hot tea that he carried over to a window booth with leatherette seats.
Kate drifted after him, sliding in opposite. She dabbed at her face with paper towels plucked from the metal dispenser at the end of the Formica table. There was a boxy television high in the corner of the room, above the service counter. It was screening Sky News, the volume on low.
‘Hey, you’re smiling.’ Miller shed his jacket and began rolling his shirtsleeves up his forearms.
‘I used to beg my parents to bring me to places like this. They thought they were slumming it but I loved the smell, the atmosphere. There’s a romance to a place like this, don’t you think?’
She curled her hands around her mug, looking down into her tea. Romance. What had she said that for?
‘How’s it going with Becca?’
‘You tell me.’
She was using the new voice Becca had been working on with her. It wasn’t dramatically different. Just a slight change in tone and pronunciation and emphasis. It was going to be difficult to maintain and already she was wondering if she’d stick with it.
‘It’s a good start. How about being in here? You feel OK?’
Kate did a one-shoulder shrug, reaching for the sugar dispenser, pouring a stream of granules into her tea. She didn’t take sugar normally, but maybe it was something the new Kate should try.
‘Because a lot of our clients feel threatened once they’re in the real world again. That’s why I thought it would be good to get out of the apartment. See how you cope.’
‘I’m OK.’
Miller leaned back, stretching his arms along the top of the bench, water leaking from his hair. He looked tired and dishevelled, his fingers tapping restlessly on the faux-leather upholstery.
‘Thank you,’ Kate told him.
‘Hey, it’s only a chip dinner.’
‘No. For saving my life. I should have said something before.’
He smiled, a real slow-burn number, and Kate had to will herself not to look down, touch her hair, do any of the hundred and one other things Becca had mentioned.
‘Sure you’re all right? You look like you’ve just had a stroke.’
‘It’s Becca.’ Kate shook her head. ‘She’s got me questioning everything I do.’
‘You’ll get used to it eventually. I did.’
She tipped her head on an angle and stared at him, only now aware that she had no idea how much of what she was seeing was genuine. Were any of his reactions really his, or where they all part of an act? Was everything he said and did filtered and distorted?
‘Messes with your head, doesn’t it? But if you want to see something authentic, watch me eat this.’
He pointed towards the heaped plate of food that was being slid in front of him by a pretty waitress, no more than sixteen years old. The girl passed Kate her own meal, then smiled shyly, almost bowing, before backing away.
Kate popped a chip in her mouth and bit down. It was hot and soft, dowsed in vinegar. She prodded the battered cod with her fork and found it to be crisp on the outside, fleshy in the middle. The peas were, well . . . they were just like most other mushy peas, but they tasted wonderful.
‘Good?’ Miller dunked a chip in ketchup, folding it into his mouth.
‘The best.’
‘I only take my clients to the very finest restaurants.’
‘Do you meet all of your clients?’
‘That’s the way it works.’
‘Hanson and Becca, too?’
‘I couldn’t do any of this without them.’
‘What’s Becca’s story? She said you did some kind of favour for her. A big one.’
Miller chewed, watching her. He didn’t answer right away and she wasn’t sure he was going to. Then he reached for a napkin and dabbed at the corner of his mouth.
‘She didn’t tell you?’
‘I didn’t like to press her.’
‘But you’re willing to press me?’
‘I’m curious is all. You’re asking me to trust her. She’s kind of high-profile.’
‘And you’re worried she might be unreliable? Don’t be. She had an ardent fan who got much too ardent. I warned him off.’
‘How?’
‘That’s the part you probably don’t want to know and I’ll probably never tell you. The guy was scary, Kate. He had prior convictions.’
‘And you took justice into your own hands.’
‘I told you before – I’m good at providing protection. I protected Becca. Just like I’ll protect you.’
‘And Hanson? Shouldn’t he be in Silicon Valley making obscene amounts of money instead of breaking the law on your behalf?’
‘Probably. And one day I guess he will be. But for now, he works with me.’
‘So what did you do for him? More vigilante justice?’
‘Isn’t it possible he might just believe in helping save people like you?’
‘Oh, please. Becca tried that one on me already.’
Miller held her gaze, smiling tightly.
‘The truth? OK. Hanson works with me because of Sarah.’
‘Your wife Sarah?’
‘Yes. But if you want to know more about it, I suggest you ask him.’
‘Maybe I will.’ She speared a bite of fish with her fork and popped it into her mouth. ‘So what else do I need to know about how all this is going to work?’
‘Lots, probably. But the main thing we should talk about is the system you’ll use to check in.’
‘Here? Is that safe?’
Miller made a show of glancing around the cafe and Kate turned in her seat to track his gaze. The waitress was busy wiping down the counter with a dishcloth while an overweight guy in a white tunic and checked trousers poured a basket of uncooked chips into the deep fat fryer. An elderly couple were seated at a booth towards the back, chomping through pie and chips.
‘I think we can risk it. I gave you a phone to call me on before. Remember?’
‘I remember.’
‘Well, we can’t do that when you’re out in the field.’
The field. As if she was some kind of spy now.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s complicated. Hanson-level complicated. He changes my phone all the time for a bunch of reasons I don’t pretend to understand, but the bottom line is that a phone is out for you.’
‘So what do I use instead?’
‘Have you ever heard of Dungeon Creeper?’
‘I think I may have dated him once.’
Miller reached into his jacket and removed an iPad Mini from the inside pocket. He switched the tablet on and swiped a greased finger over the screen, tapping it multiple times before turning it for Kate to see.
‘Dungeon Creeper is an online role-playing game. It has a big following in Europe. Germany, mostly.’
Kate stared at the home page. There was a lot of flashing text, some spooky music, plenty of cartoon-style graphics. She could see dragons, dwarves and scantily clad damsels.
�
��And you can communicate via this?’
‘There’s a message board with thousands of members. People use it to pass on tips or to trade weapons and other stuff.’
‘Power-ups.’
‘No wonder Hanson likes you.’
Kate took hold of the iPad and muted the sound. She clicked on a button marked ENTER and a new screen opened up. She saw more dwarves, more dragons and more busty girls in fur bikinis.
‘So what do I do?’
‘Hanson will give you some login details. Every Tuesday, between seven and eight o’clock in the evening, GMT, you’ll send a private message to the username Hanson will provide you with.’
‘And what will I say?’
‘If everything is good, and you’re safe, you type “Green Flag”.’
‘Green Flag. That’s it?’
‘Assuming everything’s OK.’
‘And if it’s not?’
‘Then you type “Red Flag”.’
‘Wow, Miller, that’s a pretty complex code. I really hope I can remember it.’
‘None of our clients have ever had to send us a Red Flag. If you follow the rules, you won’t have to, either. I’ll be checking in with you in person every three weeks or so. You won’t know exactly when but I’m not trying to catch you out. It’s just that I never know when I’ll be with a particular client. Take what happened with you. I had to respond very fast once we knew you were under threat.’
‘What if I have a problem on a day other than a Tuesday?’
‘You can send a Red Flag at any time. Hanson has an automatic alert set up.’
Kate powered off the iPad and slid it back across the table.
‘What if I can’t get to a computer?’
‘You have to.’
‘And if I can’t check in on a Tuesday?’
‘You have to do that, too. It’s your first and only priority every week. If we don’t hear from you between 7 and 8 p.m., we come for you right away. We’ll be with you within twenty-four hours. Faster, if we can make it.’