by Adam Croft
And that means it’s working.
I told you I could see glimpses of her in you. I knew they were there somewhere. That inner strength, that conviction. It’s not something you can create. It’s something that’s either inside or nowhere. Most people are weak. Most people will roll over at some point and give up, particularly when things get tough. But the tougher things get for you, the harder you seem to fight.
You’ve never really been tested, have you? Not properly, I mean.
Until now.
And that means you’ve never had to find that inner strength, never had to prove to yourself that you’re a warrior for justice. Oh, we all think we are. But very few of us are. We all plod on, happy for an easy life. As long as it’s not happening to me, it doesn’t bother me. It’s someone else’s injustice.
Until it does happen to you. As you’re now finding out.
She never drew that distinction. She never cared whose injustice it was. Every injustice was her injustice. It was the world’s injustice. I think you could make that leap. I can see you’re starting to feel that way.
You remind me more and more of her all the time. I knew it was inside you, Alice. That Woodstock spirit.
And it’s made me so happy. It’s like having her back here with me again. Not holding me, not telling me she’d always be there for me. Not yet. But you’re there. And that’s all that matters. We can work on the rest later. It’ll come. These things take time. But we’re getting so close, Alice. So close. Can’t you feel it? You must feel the change. We can change the world together, you and I. Because you’re growing with every day. Growing stronger. Watching that happen in front of my eyes is truly illuminating. You have no idea what that means to me. Even at this distance, it doesn’t matter. It’s the comfort in knowing.
The comfort in realising you’re never far away.
The comfort in her.
38
True to her word, McKenna turned up before lunch. Not long before, but still before. She’s accompanied by a man who introduces himself as DC Brennan.
True to form, McKenna’s keen to get to the point. ‘So, this new information,’ she says, having rejected the offer of a cup of tea or coffee on behalf of both of them. ‘You think you know Gavin Armitage’s identity.’
‘Yes,’ I say, pre-empting her asking me who I think it is, and instead feeling the need to explain myself first. ‘And I know that as soon as I tell you your reaction is going to be that I’m crazy. But I need you to listen to me. I know I’m right. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. And I really, really need your help because if you can’t help me then I don’t know what’ll happen. I haven’t got anyone else.’
‘I understand,’ she says. I’m not sure she does. ‘But we can’t do anything unless you tell us who you suspect.’
‘Know. Not suspect. I know it’s him.’
McKenna bears with me. ‘Alright. What’s his name?’
I glance down at the floor. ‘I don’t know.’
As I look up, I see McKenna and Brennan shooting a look at each other.
McKenna closes her notebook. ‘What do you mean you don’t know?’
‘I don’t know his name, I mean. But I know who he is. I saw him. I saw where he works. I know who he is. I saw him.’
She looks at me, and just for a moment I think I see the glint of realisation in her eyes. I’m not certain. Maybe it’s just hope. But I see something.
‘Where did you see him?’ she asks in a low voice.
I pause for a moment.
‘At the police station.’
The detectives don’t look at each other, but Brennan lifts his chin.
‘He works at the police station?’ McKenna asks.
I nod.
‘Is that why you had that reaction? When you passed out? Because you thought you saw Gavin Armitage?’
‘I did see him,’ I insist. ‘I didn’t think I did. I did.’
‘But we were standing in the corridor at the time. There was only me and you there.’
‘Through the windows,’ I say.
‘That’s the first response unit, Alice. They’re all uniformed police officers.’
I swallow. ‘I know. He was one of them.’
McKenna shuffles in her seat. Brennan makes eye contact with her and I detect some unspoken words. After a few moments, she speaks.
‘Alice, you know this is an extremely serious allegation you’re making, don’t you?’
I nod. ‘I know. But if you look into it, you’ll see I’m right. You need to find out where he was the Saturday before last. Or look at CCTV from outside the patisserie. You’ll see him talking to me on the Friday morning.’
‘There isn’t any CCTV outside the patisserie,’ she says. ‘We already checked.’
I don’t know whether to feel reassured or not. Does this means they’ve actually been investigating and trying to identify Gavin Armitage themselves, or was it police-speak for There isn’t any evidence?
‘Well, look at the photos. The ones he took of me leaving work and in the bar. You can see when and where they were taken, I presume. Then you can find out where he was at that time.’
‘We would, but the photos weren’t timestamped. They’d had their meta data scrubbed.’
I can feel myself getting more and more agitated. ‘This is my point. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He knows all the ways he could be caught, and he’s avoiding them. That’s because he knows exactly what he’d do. Because he’s a police officer!’
‘With all due respect, Alice, I’m a bit stunned. Where am I meant to go from here? I can’t line up an identity parade of the male officers who work on the first response team.’
‘I could have a look at pictures,’ I say. ‘There must be photos of them all on file somewhere. I could pick him out straight away.’
McKenna tries to sound reassuring, but she fails. ‘Alice, I can completely see where you’re coming from. And I understand your frustration. Believe me, I do. But my job is to assess information that comes in and decide whether there’s a credible threat to someone’s safety. At the moment, we’re stumbling at that first bit. At the moment, all I’ve got is stories. Now, I’m not saying they aren’t true. But what I am saying is that I need to assess whether we can allocate resources to investigate something based on the information we receive.’
‘But you’ve already allocated resources,’ I say. ‘You looked for the CCTV footage from outside the patisserie. You got the computer people to look at the images. So you must at least believe some of what I’m saying.’
‘Investigations are fluid,’ McKenna replies. ‘Just because we’ve started investigating something doesn’t mean that information won’t come to light that means we need to scale things down.’
‘You mean like discovering the suspect is one of your own,’ I say, more as a statement than a question.
‘No,’ she replies quickly. ‘Not at all. Allegations against serving police officers are an extremely serious matter. If anything, we take them more seriously than most other allegations. But it does mean they need to stand up to extra scrutiny.’
I look at her for a moment. ‘This is because of the medication, isn’t it? My medical history. You think I’m making this up. You think it’s some sort of play for attention or something.’
‘Not at all. We just need to make sure we prioritise our investigations so that—’
‘No!’ I yell. ‘You don’t get it, do you? How difficult is it? He’s been in here. In my house. He’s stood in this room, right here,’ I say, jumping up and walking to the mantelpiece. ‘He put a fucking photo in this frame! Did you send anyone round to take fingerprints? No. You didn’t. Even after you promised me you would. You did fuck all!’
My rage quickly dissipates as the sound of the photo frame smashing against the wall makes me realise what I’ve done. I’m shaking. If they didn’t think I was nuts before, they will now. Is there a law against throwing your own photo frame against
your own living room wall? They didn’t even flinch.
‘Please,’ I say. ‘Please. I’m at my wits’ end. I promise you, every word I’m telling you is the truth. Please. Just let me see those photos and I’ll be able to identify him straight away. Then you just need to investigate him and this will all be over. If I’m wrong, lock me up. Whatever. But I’m not wrong. I’ve never been so certain of anything in my life.’
I look at McKenna, knowing she’s the only one of the two that’ll be making this decision. I hope I can prey on her womanly instincts. If she has any. She looks over at Brennan. He looks back at her. Neither of them say anything for a second.
‘You realise it’s an offence to waste police time, don’t you?’ she asks me.
‘Yes. I know. And I promise you I’m not wasting a single second. Just let me identify him. I promise you it’s him.’
She takes a deep breath — one that seems to go on forever as she takes in every molecule of air her lungs will allow.
She holds it for a second or two.
‘Alright,’ she says, finally exhaling. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ She turns to Brennan. ‘We’ll need to get IT to run us off the staff photos of shift officers matching Armitage’s description. Anonymised.’ She turns back to me. ‘I’ll give you a call later, alright? In the meantime, I’d fetch a dustpan and brush.’
39
I had a call from McKenna a couple of hours later, asking me to come into the police station to look at the staff photos. I didn’t imagine it’d move this quickly. In my mind, there are two explanations for that: she’s either coming round to the fact that this guy is dangerous, or she wants to get the whole thing over with as swiftly as possible.
I get a strange feeling of déjà-vu as I sit in the waiting room at the police station, watching the officer behind the counter and the glass screen tap away at an ancient computer. At least I presume he’s an officer. He’s wearing a black shirt with epaulettes. Do civilian staff wear those too? I don’t know.
After about ten minutes, McKenna arrives with a manila folder under her arm and takes me through to a side room. It’s on the opposite side of the waiting room from the corridor we went through last time, thankfully. I don’t think I could cope with walking past those windows again, and I think she realises that.
The room is dark and oppressive, but it’s still infinitely preferable to having to see that man’s face again. I think anything would be. The walls are bare breeze block, whitewashed with paint that’s started to turn a creamy yellow colour. There’s a suspended ceiling lined with cheap polystyrene ceiling tiles. The floor is covered with even cheaper carpet tiles of an indistinct colour somewhere between mauve and brown.
I sit down on the hard plastic chair and lean forward on the hard plastic table. I can feel my heart hammering in my chest. Am I about to identify the man who’s been masquerading under the name Gavin Armitage, the man who’s been stalking me and making my life hell? I hope so. I hope beyond any hopes I’ve ever had before in my life.
‘Are you alright?’ McKenna asks, pausing with her hand inside the manila folder, as if teasing me.
I nod. I fear that if I open my mouth to talk I’ll vomit.
She sits down as she removes the photographs from the folder. I can see already that the top photo isn’t him. This relaxes me a little, although I know his picture must be in this pile somewhere.
‘These are the staff photos of each of the shift officers working on the first response unit. They’re the officers you saw inside the office. I want you to look at each of the photos carefully and to let me know if any of these men is who you recognise as Gavin Armitage. Alright?’
I nod again. She holds eye contact as she shoves the pile of photographs over to me.
I stare at it for a moment. I reckon there must be ten or fifteen in total. Part of me doesn’t want to look through, but I do. I take the first photo off the top, discarding it, and move onto the second. I have a good look at the photo, even though I know damn well it isn’t him.
As I move on to the third photo and see that it isn’t him either, the door opens and a woman walks in. She’s not in police uniform, but she’s wearing a name badge. I can’t read it from where I’m sitting, but she seems to know McKenna.
She asks McKenna if she’s got a moment. She replies in the affirmative, stands and steps outside the room, closing the door behind her.
I move on to the fourth photograph, and immediately it feels as though someone’s stabbed me in the stomach with an ice dagger. I recognise him straight away. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind.
Before I realise what I’m doing, I pull my mobile phone out of my pocket and try to unlock it. My hands are sweaty and shaking and the fingerprint recognition isn’t working. I go to type in my PIN and get it wrong twice in a row. I force myself to calm down, then try again. This time, the phone unlocks. I jab the Camera icon and the screen turns black for a moment before it shows the desk in front of me. I lift the phone, wait a second for it to focus on Gavin Armitage’s face, then tap to take a photo. I tap it twice more for good measure, then lock the phone and put it back in my pocket. In that moment, I know exactly what I have to do. There’s only one way out of this.
Gavin’s eyes stare back at me from the photo, and it’s as if he’s watching me. As if he knows. His image is giving me the creeps, but I try to remain calm. I try to focus my breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
As my breathing starts to approach something resembling normal, there’s a loud noise as the door opens again and McKenna reenters the room.
‘Sorry about that,’ she says.
‘It’s alright,’ I reply, almost whispering.
‘Any luck?’
I shake my head and make a pretence of looking through the rest of the photos.
When I get to the end of the pile, I force my best dejected look and glance up at McKenna. Her jaw is clenched slightly. ‘Do you recognise any of them?’ she asks.
I shake my head again. ‘No.’
40
The truth is I need the police. But I can’t trust them. They’re two very different things.
The moment I saw Gavin Armitage’s photo, I knew what I had to do. I couldn’t risk McKenna speaking to him. There’s no way he’ll have left a single grain of evidence that they can use. He’s too smart for that. And when the police are investigating one of their own I’m sure you need one hell of a lot of grains.
If I’d told McKenna that the fourth photo was the man I knew as Gavin Armitage, she’d have to go and speak to him. Interview him, perhaps under caution. Then he’d know that I know. He’d know his identity had been compromised. And then what? There’s nothing that can convict him. Even if he didn’t have an alibi for the Friday morning or Saturday afternoon, so what? Neither do I. Our alibis are each other, and they’re going to trust his word far more than mine.
I know it was him, so any investigation into him and any rebuttal he gives is only going to work towards proving me wrong. If he can falsify an alibi or find a friend or colleague who says he was with them on those days, it’s all over. He’s innocent, I’m officially a nut job and he’s free to do whatever he pleases. Enact revenge, perhaps. I’m already in such a precarious situation, I can’t risk anything but finding complete and overwhelming evidence. Nothing I have right now is going to make McKenna believe my word over his, and he’s in a prime position to discredit everything I’ve said.
But now I have one huge advantage. I have his image. And I think I have an idea as to what I should do with it.
I fire off a quick text to Kieran.
Are you free tomorrow night?
My phone shows me barely five seconds later that he’s read the message, but I don’t get the three dancing dots that tell me he’s composing a reply. I visualise him sitting in his flat, looking at the text, trying to work out why the hell I’m asking him this the day after yelling at him over the phone and telling him to fuck off.
I st
are at my phone for what feels like an age, but eventually those dots appear. A few seconds later, his response pops up on the screen.
Yeah. What did you have in mind? X
A kiss. Good old dependable Kieran. No matter what I say to him, no matter what I do to him, he’s unchanged. He might have made weak boyfriend material, but as a friend he’s unbeatable. If he can handle just being my friend, that is.
I tap out a reply.
Bar Chico, 7?
I decide against adding a kiss of my own. I think it’s only fair that he doesn’t get the wrong idea. Not right now.
His response is almost instantaneous.
Sounds good. See you there x
Tonight, I’m meeting Simon in a pub on the other side of town. I’ve never been there before, but it’s near his place and he tells me it’s good.
It’s been my one ray of sunshine over the past day or so — the one thing to look forward to. I’ve already told myself I’m going to put the whole Gavin Armitage thing out of my mind — as much as I can, anyway — for the evening. I owe myself that much. Besides which, if there’s any possible chance of anything happening between me and Simon, I don’t want to go fucking it up at the first opportunity. Psychopathic-woman-who-thinks-she’s-being-stalked isn’t the most attractive personality trope for men, I’m told.
When I get to the pub, Simon’s already there. He’s talking to a middle-aged couple at the bar, and it seems he’s well-known in here. Maybe it’s just me being judgemental, but I wouldn’t have expected a martial arts instructor to spend much time in pubs. You live, you learn.
We get our drinks and sit at a table in the corner. There’s a roaring log fire going, and at first I wonder why no-one else has sat down near it. After a minute or so, I find out. The corner’s something of a heat-trap, and I quickly find myself jettisoning layers. Simon, though, doesn’t seem to mind, so I don’t feel I can suggest we move.