The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths

by Harry Bingham

  Quintrell and I get into one of our fights. This doesn’t end with my kicking her kitchen in – more’s the pity – but it does end with Henderson breaking us up.

  ‘Look, Fiona, this is really helpful. There are things in what you’ve said, which … we’re going to have to think about.’

  He drums his fingers briefly, plays with his phone. ‘Look, would you mind stepping outside a moment? Maybe have a cigarette?’

  Quintrell escorts me to the garden door. I roll a cigarette, topped up with weed, and smoke it under the magnolia. Put ash anywhere I want. Ditto the match. Ditto, when I’m finished, the butt.

  And fuck you too.

  When I left the kitchen, Quintrell and Henderson had an intense exchange for a few minutes, then Henderson called a halt and made a call. I hoped that he’d stay in the kitchen, for the sake of Brattenbury’s audio recording, but he soon moves out onto the street. We haven’t been able to intercept his mobile calls because he protects his line well, encrypting his calls and replacing his handset at regular intervals.

  Quintrell moves around in the kitchen. When she darts a look out at me, it’s full of malice.

  I wonder how she’ll enjoy prison. I hope she goes to one of those dark Victorian places. Long corridors, overhead lights, and brick cells higher than they are wide. The sort of prison that looks like a workhouse and sounds like a sermon.

  When Henderson comes back, his face is carefully upbeat.

  ‘OK, fantastic. I think we had a really good session there. Really useful.’

  He sounds like an organized crime version of Melinda. I imagine him wearing bangles and an African scarf knotted in his hair.

  Because of the weed I’ve just smoked, I giggle a bit and ask for biscuits.

  As Quintrell fetches them, Henderson says he wants me to ‘meet the team. We really want to bring you into the center of this project, so to speak.’ He makes it sound like I’ve won some Employee of the Month contest. I think I’m meant to coo with happiness.

  I don’t coo.

  ‘We’ve got to find dates that work. There are a lot of people to coordinate.’

  I say, ‘You keep telling me what you want. You haven’t asked me what I want.’

  Henderson – no bangles, no headscarf – swallows down his impatience.

  ‘OK. What you do you want?’

  I get out my list of lawyers: a shortlist of six.

  ‘I want to choose a lawyer. I want you to pay his fees. I want a date for my visa.’

  ‘OK, Fiona, I know. And I’ve already said—’

  ‘You’ve said all sorts of things. But you haven’t done anything.’

  Sit there. Eating biscuits. Feeling giggly.

  Henderson has one hand in a fist. Is using the other to knead it. It’s an odd gesture. Like the fist wants to hit me and the other hand is trying to calm it.

  ‘All right,’ he says. ‘That’s fair. I’ll make calls and get something in place.’

  ‘I’ll make the calls,’ I say. ‘You pay the bills. When I’ve chosen my lawyer, I’ll ask him to bill me in advance. When you’ve paid, I don’t mind helping.’

  Henderson’s face is fire and smoke. There’s a blackness in his face which wasn’t there even when he was showing me his Kureishi video.

  But I win.

  ‘OK,’ he says. ‘OK. But let’s get a move on.’

  I finish my biscuit, and agree.

  30.

  I see my four of my list of six lawyers. Henderson is my chauffeur for the day. Driving me from fancy London office to fancy London office. He waits downstairs, tightly angry in his BMW. Illegally parked, on the lookout for wardens.

  I’m upstairs, getting the nicey-nicey treatment from men who bill their time at £350 an hour. The first guy seems genuinely warm, but not in a hurry. I rule him out immediately. The second guy treats me like the most unimportant part of his day. Number three: I don’t know, because he doesn’t turn up and leaves me in the hands of a junior associate, who is male but probably shaves about as often as I do.

  Number four – George Noble – seems vaguely lecherous. Fat lips, fat cheeks, fleshy hands. A gold signet ring. One of those colorful ties which deeply conventional people wear if they’re eager to seem rebellious. But his acquisitive, desirous nature appeals to me.

  I say, ‘How soon can I get out of here?’

  ‘Which country?’

  ‘Whichever’s fastest. It needs to be English-speaking, that’s all.’

  ‘Is budget an issue?’

  ‘No.’

  He likes that response. He smiles and a thread of saliva hangs from the inside of his upper lip. My résumé – fake as it is – hardly suggests I’m in a position to be reckless about budget, but Henderson has clearly promised enough that Noble isn’t worried about payment. I don’t know what Noble believes about me, but I doubt if he’s too finicky about his ethics.

  ‘New Zealand is fastest.’

  ‘Then New Zealand it is.’

  ‘Your sponsor, Mr. Henderson, tells me you have quite a varied skillset.’

  ‘It’s a question of what we emphasize. I don’t want them to think I’m a flake.’

  ‘You’re a qualified speech therapist?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And have worked in a registered practice for three years or more? They will check.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then we’ll go with that. Do you have any New Zealand connections?’

  I shrug. ‘I’m Welsh. I like sheep.’

  That smile again. Then, ‘Your English is obviously fluent. Any other languages?’

  ‘Welsh.’

  Noble raises his eyebrows, as though no reasonable government department would count that as a language.

  I say, ‘The impudence of the government is appalling. Mae haerllygrwydd y llywodraeth yn ddychrynllyd. It’s proof of linguistic competence. Important in my line of work.’

  ‘OK, fair enough. Any criminal convictions?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They will check.’

  ‘They can check all they want.’ And they can: a ‘person wanted in connection with …’ won’t show on any search that Immigration New Zealand has access to.

  Noble asks a few other questions, but I should be an easy case. I’ll be a skilled migrant, the sort that New Zealand wants to encourage. He says, ‘Most delays are caused by poorly completed application forms. After that, it’s down to how quickly the authorities are able to confirm employment details and the like. Our form will have no errors in it. The rest …’ He shrugs. ‘A matter of weeks.’

  When I get downstairs, Henderson is still at the wheel. A takeaway coffee in one hand. Phone pressed to his ear with the other.

  Gary did get a good view of Henderson the other day in Pontcanna. He hasn’t seen Henderson around town, but says he’s on the case. He enjoys the challenge, I think. I’ve told him to patrol the town center. I’ve asked Gary to start with that little side street off the Hayes where we lost track of him once, then work outwards from there. A long job, infinitely tedious, but selling the Big Issue is the best cover you can get. And it’s not like Gary has anything more pressing to do.

  Meantime, I wait by the passenger door until Henderson completes his call and allows me back.

  ‘Next one,’ he says grimly, putting the car into gear.

  ‘We can go home. I’m going to work with Mr. Noble.’

  We encounter congestion and delays as far as Heathrow, then the motorway opens up. When we pass Slough and Windsor, we are travelling at eighty-seven miles per hour. When we pass Maidenhead, the needle touches a hundred and the BMW is as quiet as a church in winter.

  As we cross into Wales, Henderson clears his throat and says, ‘We’re going to need you for a few days. At the end of next week. We’ll have a team of people together and I’ll need you to work with us the way you’ve been working with myself and Anna. You’ve been very helpful so far.’

  I shrug. Low cloud rolls over the hills ahead of
us. A grey Atlantic fretting at a stony coast. This is Wales as the Saxons first saw it. The Romans before them, the Celts before them. Low cloud and somber hills.

  ‘That video. I’m sorry you saw it.’

  ‘It’s not about seeing it. It’s that you did it.’

  ‘It wasn’t necessarily me.’ Henderson glances over, changing the subject. ‘I’ve got a present for you. On the back seat.’

  I look behind me. Retrieve an Amazon box. It’s full of books. A Career in Speech and Language Therapy. Basic Medical Science for Speech and Language Therapy Students. Children’s Speech Disorders. A few others too.

  ‘In case you did actually want to work as a speech therapist. I don’t know. But in case you did.’

  Henderson is less articulate than usual. A faint embarrassment sketches his cheekbones.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’

  31.

  It’s a week after the lawyer trip. Two weeks since that Sunday in Quintrell’s kitchen. I’m in Quintrell’s house again, but upstairs. Her bedroom.

  There’s a black bin liner on the bed. Some casual sports clothes. Tracksuit bottoms. Training shoes. Socks. T-shirt. A fleece. Underwear. An eye-mask and something in black cotton.

  I say, ‘You’re serious?’

  Henderson says, ‘It’s a precaution. Your safety as much as ours.’

  I shrug, as though I don’t care. As though this sort of thing is completely routine. A monthly fire drill, a matter of corporate compliance. Truth is, though, Fiona Grey feels this moment. I do too, I think. The creep of fear. The realization that I am about to step out of my world and into another. A world where the rewards are measured in Amazon gifts, the punishments meted out with billhooks.

  Henderson gives a few brief instructions to Quintrell, then leaves the room. I can hear him pacing the corridor beyond. Thick cream carpet and Redouté rose prints in gold frames on the wall.

  I keep my clothes on, sit on the bed. I say to Quintrell, ‘This is a lovely house.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I see three versions of myself in her dressing table mirror. But all the versions look undersized and somehow monochrome. A payroll clerk in shabby clothes. Quintrell stands beside me, skinny jeans and a lambswool jumper in bottle green. Low-heeled brown boots. Gold earrings and bracelets. She has more clothes in a small travel suitcase at the foot of the bed. I’ve brought a couple of my speech therapy books, because Henderson told me I might have time on my hands. Nothing else. He didn’t even want me to bring a toothbrush.

  I pick up the things laid out for me and point at the en-suite bathroom. ‘Can I go in there? I’ll leave the door open.’

  ‘Sorry. I need to watch.’

  So I strip. Not just down to my underwear, but completely. Stand there under the light as Quintrell examines me. Nothing taped to my skin. No little bits of electronics, nothing.

  I have some scarring on my buttocks and left side, the result of a skin graft operation I had eighteen months back. Quintrell runs her hands down the white lines on the edge of my rib cage, as though testing the tissue. I think she’s curious how I got the scars, but she doesn’t ask.

  ‘OK,’ she says, pulling back. She doesn’t like this any more than I do. Doesn’t like it, isn’t good at it.

  She takes my clothes though. Extracts my phone from my jacket pocket. Leaves that out on the dressing table. Then, with a nod, signals that I can change into the other stuff. It doesn’t fit brilliantly – I have to tuck the waistband over on itself to stop the trouser bottoms slopping under my heels – but it’s OK. I put on the T-shirt and just hold the fleece. The shoes are a size too big, but still comfortable.

  Quintrell throws open the door and Henderson re-enters.

  He has an RF scanner on him and something else. A handheld metal detector, I think. He sweeps me all over. Asks me to sit on the bed and examines my scalp, like a mother checking for nits. Checks my mouth, ears, nostrils.

  ‘Good.’

  He takes the battery out of my phone, then sweeps carefully for any residual transmissions. Checks the books too, though he only gave those to me a few days back.

  Thank God, Brattenbury determined that it was unsafe for me to take any type of recording, transmitting or tracking device to this meeting, so I’m here completely clean. Brattenbury said, ‘Go to the meeting as Fiona Grey. Inhabit her as fully as you can. Be her. Don’t worry about collecting evidence, making recordings, identifying faces, nothing like that. Just play your part and when we make our move, get down on the fucking floor and don’t move a fucking inch.’

  It was the first time I’ve ever heard Brattenbury properly swear.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said and meant it. Not just the assent, but the obedience to command.

  Make our move: that’s Brattenbury-speak for a raid conducted by the SCO19 firearms command. Glass and bullets everywhere. Men in black, with Kevlar body armor and automatic weapons. Shattered wood and shouting.

  You bet I’ll be a good little detective constable. I’ll lie down on the fucking floor and not move a fucking inch. Me and Fiona Grey, the two of us together.

  Henderson puts my possessions, except for the books, in a bin liner, which he leaves in the corridor outside. Tells me I’ll probably want to put the fleece on. I do. He picks up the eye-mask and the black cotton thing, and we all go downstairs.

  To Henderson’s car. The rear windows are shaded by those perforated black sun screens people put up to reduce glare. They effectively hide anything in the back of the car.

  Quintrell and I sit in the rear seats, the invisible ones. Henderson fiddles around outside, checking for tracking devices. I say to Quintrell, ‘Did you have to do all this too? When you started?’

  She says, ‘Everyone gets checked. It’s for all our security.’ That’s not quite an answer, but all I’m going to get. When Henderson is satisfied that his car is clean, he opens my door and passes me the eye-mask. I put it on and my world goes dark.

  ‘Head forward.’

  I lean forward and feel the black cotton hood come down over my head. It’s secured with a knot in the pullcord at the back. My breath feels suddenly hot and clammy. The walls of the world are close at hand.

  I hope to God Brattenbury knows what he’s doing.

  Get down on the fucking floor and don’t move a fucking inch.

  32.

  I don’t know how long I’m in that car. I can’t check my watch, because my head is hooded and because my watch is in a dustbin liner in Quintrell’s bedroom.

  But after perhaps fifteen minutes of city traffic, Henderson says, ‘We’re going to leave this car and enter a second vehicle. I’m going to open your door. I’m going to escort you to that other vehicle. You will get inside and wait until we move off again. Is that clear?’

  I say, ‘Yes.’

  My door opens and I get out, Henderson’s hand on my upper arm. There’s a brief rush of city air: sooty and warm. There’s a buzz of traffic noise, but the buzz has a hard quality to it, a compactness, which makes me think we’re in a narrow alley, or something like it. Something tucked away, out of sight. We walk a few paces and Henderson guides my hand to the roof of the car and an open door. I get inside. He says, ‘Please lie,’ and I do. I feel him on the rear seats beside me, also lying. The car moves off again. Quintrell, presumably, at the wheel.

  It’s a sweet move.

  A black BMW with a male driver enters a little side street. Some completely different vehicle exits with a woman at the wheel. No passengers visible. It’s not the kind of move which defeats all opposition, but you either need a stroke of luck – a fortuitous sightline, a tiny slip by those executing the maneuver – or highly intrusive surveillance. Brattenbury can’t risk the latter, and is unlikely to benefit from the former. As it happens, I know that Brattenbury won’t bother with more than cursory surveillance. Nothing out of the normal, that’s the watchword now.

  After a bit, I can feel Henderson raise his head. He’ll be checking for an
y tail. He gives Quintrell brief, clipped instructions – ‘Go left here. Stop. Move off. You see that side road coming up after the lights? Make a sudden turn into the road, and drive fast for a hundred yards.’ I feel the car swaying to his command.

  After a while, he’s satisfied. ‘We’re clear,’ he announces. ‘You can pull over.’

  The car stops. Quintrell gets out and sits next to me in the back. I hear her fixing screens to the windows. Don’t want the little hooded girl attracting the wrong kind of attention.

  Henderson is about to take the wheel, but first he tells me, ‘I’m going to give you something to listen to. What do you like listening to?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘OK. Stereophonics maybe? We’ll start with that. Lean forwards, please.’

  I lean forward. Quintrell arranges a headband on me that contains speakers over the ears. The music comes out way too loud at first. I complain and Quintrell adjusts the settings a bit, puts the thing on shuffle.

  It’s still loud, though. I can hear almost nothing else. I lose touch with the movement of the car too, whether it’s fast or slow, jerky or not. In my altered world, I can only feel my breath fingering the folds of black cotton, the pressure of the eye-mask, the clamor of some indie rockers from the Valleys.

  I think, For all I know, Henderson knows who I am.

  I think, For all I know, he is taking me away to kill me.

  I can’t connect with those thoughts, though. Not really. Can’t connect with anything much. Not Brattenbury. Not Buzz. Not my real mission here. So I let my thoughts go wherever they feel most comfortable and that turns out to be a Fiona Grey place, not a me place. I think of my time with Amina. Her saying, ‘We are sisters now,’ as she turned out the light. Think of my lecherous lawyer, George Noble, and the visa he will secure.

  Speech therapy? I’ve looked at those books which Henderson brought me and I like them. If I wanted, at the end of this, I could make a new life for myself in New Zealand, teaching disabled kids to practice saying la-la-la and ta-ta-ta. That idea doesn’t feel ridiculous. Part of me wants it. Part of me is already there. A small, clean office in a small, clean town. Green hills on the horizon and rugby burbling from the radio.