The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths

by Harry Bingham

  Today, unusually, I have free time between nine and five. Normally we have to meet for coursework. Lessons on surveillance methods. Case studies. Lots of legal stuff. We have to know the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act pretty much backwards, but there’s a lot of other law too. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act, of course. The Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act. European law and court rulings.

  This is the National Undercover Training and Assessment course and it’s the toughest course offered by the police service. Most people who apply are rejected. Even when you’re accepted onto the course, 85 per cent of students fail.

  I’m not even sure why I applied. A memo came round last year asking if anyone was interested and I said yes. No real reason. Curiosity, I suppose.

  Buzz hates the idea of me working undercover. He doesn’t like the danger. He doesn’t like the loss of contact. It took me time to realize it, but he’s hurt that I even applied for the course. As though it was some kind of snub to him.

  I’ve mended things since then, I think. Told him that I have no intention of doing one of those marathon infiltrations. The things that last years and mess with your brain. I told him what might even be the truth: that I hate being told I can’t do something, so I want to make sure that I’ve got the ability to do it if I want to. Which I won’t.

  As far as I’m concerned, that’s logical. As far as Buzz goes – well, I don’t know, but it’ll be better once the course is over.

  The course isn’t mostly about law. We learn about managing a second identity, or ‘legend’ as it’s called by the undercover specialists who teach us. I’m Fiona Grey now. Fiona isn’t pretending to be a cleaner, she is a cleaner. We learn how to construct our pasts. Invent them. Get paperwork in the new names, get a history. Learn that history so it starts to become ours.

  And we learn about danger. Infiltration is a tactic we only ever use against organized crime, or groups thought to be planning acts of violence or terror. Make a mistake on an infiltration and it’s not going to be a ‘Whoops, sorry, Sarge’ moment. It’s going to be a shot to the back of the head, bag in the river type moment.

  We hear stories of undercover officers who have simply disappeared. Missing, presumed dead. Hear what happens when things go wrong.

  The best sessions are briefings given by actual practitioners. Accounts of what it’s actually like. The dangers, the situations you get into. When we started, most of the questions had to do with the drama of the chase. Making contact with the bad guys. Gaining their trust. Executing the bust. The armed raids and the car chases. By now, though, our interest has shifted. My fellow students ask about what it’s like to be cut off from family. How you get through Christmas. What it’s like to live in fear.

  The answers get more truthful too. One guy – Steve, a London Detective Sergeant – said he was on a job that lasted twenty-two months. Unfortunately his marriage only lasted eighteen of them. One of my fellow students asked him whether he regretted his decision to take the assignment. He said, ‘Every day, mate. Literally every day.’

  Today, though, we have a break, our first on the course. My cleaning money has been very late in coming through to my bank account – my Fiona Grey account, that is – hence my rather basic eating and hygiene arrangements. I assume the money was held up by the course authorities. They can’t replicate the fear of a real infiltration, but they can reproduce some of the stresses. Hence the isolation, the long hours, the lack of sleep, the constant little indignities.

  They have all of us on two jobs, antisocial hours. I clean in the morning, waitress in the evening. The waitressing runs from six to eleven, or more like midnight on busy nights. It’s not every night of the week, because our training often runs into the evenings, but it mops up what little free time I might have.

  I sleep in between the waitressing and the cleaning. Make use of any spare half hours that come my way. Doze on trains.

  When I try the bank again today, my money has come through and I withdraw fifty pounds. Spend most of it on a cheap hairdryer, a can opener and some ready-meals. Sit in a café and do my law revision.

  It feels like luxury this: to have time and money. Those things and clean hair.

  I take my time.

  When I’m done, I go back to the flat. Collect dirty clothes to take to the launderette. I should take one of my law books, but I don’t.

  When I’m sitting, snoozing, waiting for the spin cycle to end, a guy parks himself next to me on the slatted wooden bench. I wake up, shift away. The guy is middle-aged, heavy, close-cropped hair. A Londoner.

  ‘What’s your name, love?’

  ‘Fiona.’

  He thumps his chest and says, ‘Dez.’

  I shrug.

  ‘You’re with YCS, right?’

  I shrug again. I’m still wearing their damn fleece.

  ‘Listen, sweetheart, I’ve got a little job that needs doing, all right? Won’t get you into any trouble and it’s worth a hundred quid, cash.’

  The machine next to me stops spinning. I try the handle, but it’s got one of those stupid safety releases which make you wait a minute before anything happens.

  It’s hard not to smile.

  This course isn’t mostly theoretical. It’s not mostly about learning the law. Really, they shove you into a situation, deprive you of sleep, and see if you can cope. This man, ‘Dez’, is the next step. He’ll ask me to do something illegal – steal something, plant something, I don’t know what. I’ll demur the right length of time, then say yes. The pressure will ratchet up. Less sleep, more phony danger.

  And they’ll try to fool me. A police officer will ‘recognize’ me as a buddy of his from Hendon. Or someone will call me Griffiths, not Grey, my new name, and see how I respond.

  I’ll do just fine, I already know it. If I’d filled in my personality questionnaires honestly, they’d never have selected me for the course. Too vulnerable. History of mental disorder. Blah, blah.

  Truth is, though, I’m pretty much ideal for this kind of work. The hardest thing about going undercover is the stress. The isolation, the fear, the risk of discovery. But my world is mostly like that anyway. I have problems with sleep. I’m used to isolation. It’s my default state and I have to work hard to avoid it. As for the stuff that happens to people when they’re alone and under stress –dissociation, loss of normal feelings – well, I’ve already won the gold ticket in that particular lottery. A little menial work in north-west London hardly registers.

  When the safety thing clicks on the washing machine. I transfer my stuff into the dryer. Put in two quid. Set it going.

  Dez tries again. A hundred quid to take a black notebook from a locked drawer in the Wembley office.

  I say, ‘I’ll lose my job.’

  When he tries again, I pull my stuff, still wet, from the dryer and walk out of the launderette.

  7.

  The course ends. Twenty of us started. Twelve left before completion, in most cases, I think, because they went half nuts and called home, just to hear a friendly voice. That sort of thing is an instant fail.

  Of the eight who stuck it through to the end, just three pass. I’m one of them.

  I have a one-on-one session with the DCI overseeing the course on the final day. He riffles through feedback forms and test sheets. Weak sunlight comes in from the window behind him. I’m still in my Fiona Grey outfit, YCS fleece and all. I notice that the window needs cleaning. The ledge beneath it needs a good dust, and the keys on the computer keyboard are covered in little hillocks of finger oil and dirt. I could clean this room completely in eight minutes.

  ‘This is good,’ he says, waving at the paperwork. ‘You probably don’t need me to tell you that.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Did you enjoy it? Did you enjoy the experience?’

  A hard question for me at the best of times. Other people seem to have a ready understanding of what they like and what they don’t. I don’t have that easy access. I know
I like Buzz, the police service, the investigation of murder, and my family. I like hills and wild places and driving long distances when the sun is setting. Anything else – I don’t really know.

  I say, ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You know, most of the courses we run, that’s the answer we want. People learn better if they’re having a good time. With this one, that answer always slightly worries me. You should find this stuff difficult. It’s all very well working undercover, but you need to come back into regular service too. The police force will need you back. So will your family, your loved ones. Are you married?’

  ‘No.’ His face wants more of an answer than that, so I add, ‘I’m in a long-term relationship, though.’

  The DCI jabs his chest with his index finger. ‘Divorced. Two kids. They’re only just starting to talk to me again. I’m fifty-four.’

  I don’t know what to say to that. I’m either Fiona Griffiths, a police officer. Or Fiona Grey, a cleaner. Neither of me is a marriage counsellor.

  The wastebin needs emptying and the clear plastic rubbish sack hangs loose around the lip of the bin. We were taught to tie a knot in the plastic, so it sat tight.

  ‘What I’m saying is, you need to prioritize your life. Your family life, your friends, your CID career. If an assignment comes up, and you want to do it, then do. But don’t be attracted by the glamour. This isn’t glamorous, it’s hard. And mostly not worth it.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  The officers who do those marathon infiltrations – two years, three years – draw only their regular salary. No overtime, modest bonus. If they have a wife and kids, they’re allowed to visit once a month, no more.

  ‘Well.’ He stands up. I’m not sure what the purpose of this interview was, or if the DCI thinks that purpose has been accomplished. I stand up too.

  ‘Congratulations again. We’ve been very impressed.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  I leave.

  I could go home straight away. I’ve been given my car keys back, my bank cards, all the stuff that was taken from me at the start.

  And I will go back, soon. Buzz is expecting me. But first things first. I drive into Ealing, an ugly estate near Drayton Green. Corrugated concrete walls and brown pebbledash. Rotary clothes dryers standing on balconies. A car without tires.

  I don’t park too close – my car is very Fiona Griffiths, not at all Fiona Grey – and walk into the estate, checking the flat number I need from a little handwritten slip of paper.

  Amina’s handwriting. Her flat.

  She was the one real friend I made at YCS. Neither her life nor mine allowed much leisure, but we liked each other. Hung out when we could.

  I ring the bell, but knock as well. Glass door, single glazed.

  Amina opens it. That huge smile when she sees me. Baby lying in a cot in the tiny hallway. A man in a purple shirt sits in the front room talking loudly on the phone. A language I don’t recognize, but Somali I assume.

  Amina brings me through to the kitchen. The man glances at me, but not for long. The kitchen is a mess. Amina has been barbecuing lamb kidneys using an oven rack laid directly over the gas hob. Everything is splattered with fat. A vegetable broth stands in a large saucepan to the side. Smells of cumin, cardamom, cloves. There is a motorbike standing where you’d expect there to be a table. Tools and rags, but not much sign of action.

  I tell Amina I’ve lost my flat. That I’m leaving London.

  She doesn’t understand right away – her English isn’t brilliant – but when she does, she looks upset.

  ‘You can’t go,’ she says, waving a long black finger at me, then hugging me. As she steps back again, she adjusts her headscarf.

  ‘I have to.’

  Amina looks sad. She keeps readjusting her face to hide her sadness, but it keeps coming back.

  ‘Can you give these back to Mr. Conway? I haven’t told him.’

  I give Amina my YCS stuff in a plastic bag. Conway won’t be surprised at my sudden disappearance. His workforce changes with every passing wind.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet. Maybe Manchester.’ I shrug.

  Manchester: my Fiona Grey legend involves a long-term, but abusive, relationship with a guy in Manchester. The abusive part is good because it means I don’t have to talk about it much. Also because it gives my legend a kind of messy unity. The kind of work I was doing in Wembley is essentially done only by immigrants. I was the only native Briton under Conway’s command, the only one to speak English as a first language. Aside from Milenka, I was the only one with white skin. People like me only turn out to clean toilets at four in the morning if their lives have gone badly astray somewhere. Abuse, in the case of Fiona Grey. God knows what in the case of Fiona Griffiths.

  The baby in the hall starts crying. The man in the purple shirt shouts through to us. Amina’s eyes change and I say, ‘I’ll go.’

  We hug again.

  Amina gets the baby. I open the front door. Amina says, ‘Wait,’ goes through to the kitchen, and comes back with some brown cake wrapped in a piece of kitchen towel. ‘Shushumow,’ she says.

  ‘Shushumow?’

  She repeats the word, gives me that smile again, and closes the door.

  Back at my car, I call Buzz.

  ‘Hey, stranger.’

  His voice is warm, full of love. I don’t quite feel as I ought to in return. I feel clumsy and cut off from the person I was.

  I act the part though. Act Fiona Griffiths, the one who’s in love with a handsome policeman, and as I get into role, my feelings start to come back a bit. I don’t quite feel like her exactly, but perhaps I might do with a little more practice.

  We chat for a while, then hang up.

  Plan for tonight is: drive home, get changed, fancy meal, lots of sex. The classic Buzz solution to any complex emotional situation, except that the first three parts of the formula are prone to change or cancellation without notice.

  When I’m on the M4, I try nibbling one of the shushumow cakes, but they’re way too sweet for me and I throw them out of the window when I’m crossing the Severn Bridge.

  Croeso i Gymru.

  Welcome to Wales.

  8.

  We do, as it happens, implement the formula, just as planned. I go to my house, wash and change. Buzz has booked us a table at the restaurant where we had our first date. I don’t know if there’s meant to be some kind of significance in that but, if there is, I cooperate by wearing the outfit I wore then. Dark blue dress, silver and jet bead necklace, nice shoes.

  I drive there. Make a hash of parking, which isn’t like me, and get a bit lost in Pontcanna before finding my way to the right side of Cathedral Road, where I’m meant to be.

  I realize I’m nervous. I don’t know why.

  I’m first to arrive. Sit all ladylike at the table, while a waiter brings me a menu, a glass tumbler holding breadsticks, and a glass of fizzy water. He lights a candle with a cigarette lighter.

  I watch with professional interest. I wasn’t a particularly good waitress, but I wasn’t working in the candle-’n’-breadstick sort of place. Mine was a Tex-Mex joint that sold beer by the pitcher and had a big Friday night trade in after-work parties. I took orders, carried plates, fetched drinks, didn’t mess anything up too much or too often, and occasionally remembered to smile. I did OK.

  I sit there, waiting for Buzz, counting my breaths and trying to feel my feet.

  A year and four months since I was last here.

  Then all of a sudden, Buzz is here, in front of me. Disconcertingly strange and overwhelmingly familiar at the same time. He crushes me into a hug and smells completely of him.

  ‘You look smashing, love,’ he says, and I feel giddy.

  We slowly settle, or I do. Buzz tells me about how he’s been. I say little bits about the course, though I’m not meant to say too much. Something happens with food. I think I’m probably a bit wooden to start with, but Buzz knows not to take too
much notice. I warm up.

  And by the time we’re eating our main course – steak for him, trout for me – Buzz says, ‘OK. Holiday.’

  He says it in a way that makes me realize this isn’t just a welcome-back-Fi evening, it’s something more than that, I’m not quite sure what.

  I give him a big smile and say, ‘Holiday! Tell me more.’

  ‘OK, we wanted sunny, we wanted beaches, we wanted hot.’

  I nod. ‘Yes.’ Another big smile, unloaded for free.

  ‘Turkey, Greece, Morocco. All lovely, but they’d probably have been better last month than next month, so’ – pause for dramatic effect – ‘I’m thinking the Caribbean. Either Florida, Mexico, or one of the islands.’

  I’m all ready and primed to give him the response he wants, but I’m not sure what that is. Delight, I assume, and I give out plenty of that, but I have a feeling I’m missing something. Buzz spreads brochures over the table. Colored pictures, blue seas, white sands. Men in red shorts chasing balls. Lots of women, with legs much longer than mine, wearing bikinis and smiling like Moonies.

  I say, ‘Oh Buzz, this looks amazing.’ Turn some pages, say it again, or some variant of the same thing.

  I still think I’m missing something, but I’m not sure what. Buzz doesn’t give any clues or, if he does, I can’t read them.

  ‘So,’ he says, once the plates have been cleared and someone has asked us about puddings, and we’ve said no, just coffee, except that I’ll have peppermint tea instead of coffee, and can we have the bill at the same time, please. ‘So?’

  ‘It looks amazing.’

  ‘But which one?’ He sorts out the brochures. Shows me the best Florida option, the best Yucatan one, the best island one, which is apparently a resort hotel in Saint Lucia.

  He wants me to choose.

  I interrogate his face, trying to figure out which one he likes. He sees me doing that and says, ‘No, Fi. I want you to choose. Whichever one you like. Let’s make it special.’

  That last phrase, I’ve learned, is code for doesn’t-matter-if-it’s-expensive, but that is itself, I think, code for doesn’t-matter-if-it’s-expensive-but-let’s-not-go-crazy-now.