Other people – Terry, Wyatt, Geoff, Henderson, and not Ram, but each of his colleagues – end up joining us as guests from time to time. I’m the boot. Quintrell is the racing car. Quintrell is moderately competitive. The Indians are all keen to amass huge fortunes, Terry too. Wyatt is too snobby to play for long. Geoff is too busy nursing his Glock to pay much attention and ends up giving money away and playing badly. Allan takes the game seriously. He’s sporting one of those close-trimmed beards that circles his mouth only, and he rubs his chin as he worries whether it would be prudent to invest in a third house on Regent Street.
I try quite hard, I really do, but somehow always mismanage things and am always teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Terry, who does well, gives me those orange and pink £100 and £500 notes to tide me over. He enjoys the munificence.
When I get bored, I pace around, up and down, side to side.
My arms get better, but my neck still aches.
And when I’m not being a beautiful lady expert, or playing Monopoly, or pacing around, or eating sandwiches or soup with the others in the main room upstairs, I lie on the bed in my room, reading my speech therapy books. When Henderson asks me how I’m getting on, I make him put his fingers on his larynx and tell him about phonation. I say ‘bilabial plosive’, and it almost sounds as if I know what I’m talking about.
After lunch on day five, a Sunday, Ram calls our group together and goes through a one hundred and twenty point checklist of items. I realize, to my surprise, that we’ve covered them all. There are still further matters – issues of technical design, nothing to do with Quintrell or myself – to be covered, but they don’t need an accountant or a payroll clerk. Terry, discussing the matter with Ram, says to Henderson, ‘No, Vic, we don’t need them any more. I think we’re done.’
Henderson looks at us, smiles, says, ‘Time to go home.’
I put my stuff in a plastic bin liner that Geoff finds for me. Quintrell emerges from her room, neat as ever, towing her small suitcase, airport-style, behind her.
We go upstairs. Say goodbye to people. To Ram and his cohorts, to Terry and Wyatt. To Allan and Geoff. To those people from the ‘distribution team’ that we’ve got to know a bit in the course of our stay.
Henderson says, ‘OK, Fiona, please.’ A sentence which doesn’t mean anything at all, except that he holds out eye-mask and hood, and in the moment when I see them in his hands, I experience a terror as clean and pure as any feeling I’ve ever known. I don’t know if I say anything. I know I reach out my hand: this lady expert is going to cooperate with her gaoler and her seducer until her final breath. But my body has a reaction that simply bypasses my mind. Bypasses any sense of control, or will, or any number of secret identities.
I take the eye-mask, but I am trembling too much to pull it over my eyes.
We don’t need them any more. I think we’re done.
That could mean, ‘Thank you for a fine job of work, now enjoy a well-earned rest.’ Or it could mean, ‘Kill the bitches.’ Terry’s eyes didn’t flicker as he said what he said, but Henderson’s eyes probably didn’t flicker as he hacked Kureishi’s hands off.
I tremble so much that it takes Henderson’s fierce grip to keep me from falling.
He says, with that terrifying, controlled patience of his, ‘We’re taking you home. Nothing is going to happen to you. It’s a routine security precaution.’
He puts the eye-mask on. His hands are gentle, but the compulsion is total.
‘Head forward, please.’
I lean forward. I can feel my hair sliding either side of my neck. Baring it.
Will it be bullet or billhook? The strangler’s rope or the hangman’s noose?
I am still trembling.
The hood slides over my head. I keep my head bent as the cord is tied. Henderson keeps the cord fairly loose, but I can still feel its pressure on my throat as he pulls it tight.
The eye-mask alone is enough to block all light, but it’s not secure. The hood is doesn’t block as much light, but prevents me from tampering with the eye-mask.
‘There. You can put your head up.’
I straighten.
I am a beautiful lady expert in a black executioner’s hood. My breaths are billows that completely fill this little space. Each time I inhale, folds of black cotton press like moth wings on my mouth.
I hear Henderson pick up my bin liner of stuff. He takes me and it to the car. My legs feel so weak, I feel at risk of falling and Henderson’s hand is a crutch as much as a guide.
As he slots me into my seat, I murmur, ‘Sorry, Vic.’
He says, ‘That’s OK. You’re doing fine.’
I nod.
I don’t disbelieve him, but my body has its own logic. I am still trembling.
Henderson puts my seat belt on. Reaching across me to clip me in. I can feel the weight of his body as he leans across me. I lean my hood forward until I can feel the fabric crumple against the crook of his neck. The hump of his shoulder under my lips.
‘You’re not making this easier,’ he says mildly, as he tries to buckle me in.
I lean in to him fully. Rest against him. Somewhere beside us in the car, there is a swirl of dust and an eddy of oven-hot air.
He allows this to continue a moment or two, then pushes me back against my seat. Buckles me in.
‘What music do you want?’
‘Please, Vic, no headphones. Please.’
After a moment, ‘OK.’
He goes to get Quintrell. She stumbles as she gets in beside me. Henderson talks her through it.
I hadn’t realized it on the way here, but she’s blindfolded too. Not hooded necessarily – she might be trusted enough by now not to remove an eye-mask – but she has no more idea of where we are than I have. I’m guessing Ram and the others are in the same position. Perhaps it’s only the members of the elite ‘security strand’ who are privileged with this knowledge.
Henderson closes the door on Quintrell. My door is still open. He comes round to close it, but as he does so, I slip the catch on my seat belt. ‘Whoops.’
Henderson reaches in to do me up again, then changes his mind. Takes my head in his hands and kisses me hard, through the cotton, on my lips. I kiss back. Hard. Pull his head against mine, my nails against his scalp. He has one hand on my left breast, the other on my neck.
The cotton round my mouth is soaking wet. My kisses from the inside meeting his from the outside.
Quintrell says, ‘We’re OK, are we?’
Henderson, pulling away, says, ‘Yes.’ He’s panting slightly. I’m panting hard.
He strokes my breast, leans down to kiss it, bites gently, then buckles me in again.
I’m ridiculously aroused. Still frightened too. But it’s hard to tell. I think there’s a point at which the two feelings merge. It’s the sort of thing I’d normally ask someone, but I can tell that wouldn’t be clever. Instead, I touch the wet cloth against my upper lip and let my breathing slowly calm.
We drive off.
Henderson puts the radio on fairly loud for the first twenty minutes. Listening hard in the gaps and silences, I can’t hear anything unusual. I guess the music and headphones on the way here were simply a tool to disorient me even further. Perhaps also guard against any conversational indiscretions between Quintrell and Henderson. After twenty minutes, Henderson asks if we want more music or silence. Quintrell and I both opt for silence.
I’m constantly impressed by the depth of security precautions these guys take. Nothing is too much trouble. No risk too small to eliminate.
I wonder at my behaviour with Henderson.
I am attracted to him. Violently so. I wasn’t the first time I met him, but these things can creep up on you. They do on me, anyway.
Sexual attraction isn’t love, of course. Henderson is a murderer and a thief, who belongs in jail. But it’s disconcerting to find myself almost uncontrollably in lust with this man, when I find it hard even to imagine my feelings for Buzz.
My darling Buzz seems of a different world. In this one, he’s as real as a painted soldier. A toy.
And even as I press the cloth of my hood against my lip, breathe this cottony air still humid with those kisses, I realize that I have to see Buzz soon. Spend a weekend with him. Find those feelings I used to have. Not just those sweet high notes of love and respect, but the deep slow bass of the bedroom.
Brattenbury will worry about the operational implications, but I don’t want to be like the DCI who oversaw my undercover training course. Fifty-four and trying to rebuild the ruins of a family. If Brattenbury wants his raggedy wondergirl to go on working for him, he’ll have to compromise.
Meantime, as the car rolls on towards wherever Henderson is taking us, I try to think of myself in a wedding dress. Imagine the different bits of the ceremony. Myself, at the back of the church. Head in a cloud of white veil, a frill of bridesmaids behind. Stone columns and an altar window. The organ. Buzz willing me towards him. A press of gazes.
I try to imagine this. Try to make it real.
I pick threads from the car seat with my fingernail. Slip my shoe off and rub my stockinged foot into the tiny nylon curls of the floor carpet.
The car travels on, either to Cardiff or to death.
35.
Cardiff, not death.
We switch cars in the car park as before. Henderson drives a little further, then releases me from my hood and mask. He drives Quintrell home, collects my bag of clothes. I stare out at the passing streets, almost overwhelmed by their ordinary beauty. Tidy gardens and Sunday strollers. A man repainting his window frames. The fluttering shade of plane trees.
I love all of it. The city boozers. The dead hotels. The shops selling cheap holidays or sugary doughnuts. I love it all.
When Henderson stops outside my building, he says, ‘I could come up.’ His voice is rough.
‘You’ve got to get back, haven’t you?’
‘Yes.’
I’m torn between a stupid lust and a model of how I ought to behave. A model whose origin and purpose I cannot for the moment remember.
For a moment, we stand on the street. Facing each other, wanting each other, but frozen with indecision.
I realize that, for Henderson, this is partly a security issue. He isn’t meant to take any action which might jeopardize his judgment. Sex with me would be an unnecessary risk.
I say, ‘Before I go to New Zealand, will you take me away somewhere? Just you and me.’
‘Yes.’
‘No threats. No masks. No guns. No bollocks.’
‘Yes.’
I pick up my two bin liners of clothes: the one from the barn and the one from Quintrell’s house. Those and my fancy new attaché case. ‘Have a good trip back.’
He kisses his fore- and index fingers. Touches them against my mouth. ‘See you soon, Fi.’
He gets into his BMW and glides off. It’s five o’clock on Wednesday afternoon. I’ve got a full day of work tomorrow.
First though, I go into town. To the hostel. They’ve got laundry rooms in the basement, and I prefer using them to the launderette.
I clean the stuff that needs cleaning, but make a package of the stuff I want forensically examined. Write a note for ‘Adrian Boothby’. Leave the package and the note with Abs. Call Brattenbury on his mobile, but I go through to voicemail and leave a message. Get some food.
Gary is around. We go outside for a ciggy, and he says, ‘I found your psycho guy,’ meaning Henderson. He tells me that the guy uses an alternative health center in the city center, not far from where the CCTV lost him off the Hayes.
‘It was definitely him,’ says Gary. ‘Do you want me to hurt him? I can if you want.’
‘No, thanks. I just wanted to know how to find him.’
We smoke two ciggies, talk rubbish, share a joint.
Home.
In these city streets, Buzz is already starting to seem more real. Henderson is not unreal exactly, but more distant. There’s a bridal shop near my room, a place of ivory silk and slim mannequins. Beaded bodices and white hands clasped over artificial flowers. I stare in through the windows, a fish seeking entry to the aquarium.
Before going to bed, I retrieve my iPad, log in to Tinker.
There’s only one bit of news really, but it’s a biggie.
Roy Williams, the undercover officer whose role was only ever to act as a red herring, whose role was only ever to improve my cover and protection, has been abducted.
Had his briefing with Brattenbury as normal on Saturday. Raised nothing unusual. Used none of his emergency codes. Went home, cooked something and ate, then left the flat again, probably for the pub. He never turned up. Responds to none of his numbers. His car is parked in its normal place. No body has been found. A typed note, posted to his flat, read simply, PLEASE SUSPEND ANY CURRENT INVESTIGATIONS. IF YOU DO SO, MR. ‘PRYCE’ WILL BE RETURNED UNHARMED BY CHRISTMAS.
Pryce: the name Roy used for his legend.
We have no clue as to what exact action provoked the abduction. The gradual closing down of Kureishi’s frauds? Some bit of operational inattention by Roy himself? A crude piece of surveillance by Brattenbury’s men which revealed too much of SOCA’s interest in all this? Or Tinker’s relentless concern for security taking one more logical step?
We don’t know and won’t know, but it puts us in a vastly difficult situation. Up till now, if we’d wanted to close down Tinker, we could simply have done so. Arrested all known participants. Alerted the company behind the real TPS software. Alerted every major payroll department in the land. We might not have secured all the arrests we wanted – nor all the intelligence, in SOCA’s inevitable phrase – but by God we could smash the ring.
We can’t do that now. Not in the same way. Any move we make now will be made with the acute awareness that Roy’s life hangs in the balance.
Roy’s life, and maybe mine – but it’s Roy that I think about. He’s thirty-seven years old and, like me, never wanted a long-duration undercover role. I can’t imagine what Katie must be feeling. That’s a literal truth in my case – I’m not good at those most ordinary human feelings – but I know it won’t be good. Her distress must be beyond measure. And their daughter too. What do you say to a two-year-old? When is Daddy coming home?
Please don’t be concerned.
These thoughts don’t help, so I turn to something that might: Gary’s news about Henderson. The alternative health place offers acupuncture, osteopathy, homeopathy, reiki, psychotherapy, and a variety of beauty treatments. Does Henderson have a joint problem? Maybe. Do men with a deep involvement in organized crime go in for acupuncture or reiki or psychotherapy? I doubt it, but what do I know? Was Henderson evading surveillance that day in order to protect his visit to that health center? Or was it just one of those things? A cancelled meeting, and a massage and a meal out instead?
I send an email to Brattenbury, who’ll want to get the place under surveillance. I’d like to do more, but time is short and other things come first.
Stop work at midnight, hoping for sleep, but nothing much comes to me except Kureishi’s violent haunting. That, and Hayley Morgan’s frail sadness.
36.
The next steps follow rapidly. Follow as I assume they must.
My Thursday morning cleaning shift goes fine. Everything as normal. Lowri hoovers and complains about her allergies. I do the bins and the bathrooms, and every time I clean a mirror, I see Katie Williams. China-blue eyes and disbelief.
At eight thirty, I get changed. Croissant for breakfast. Get to Western Vale just after nine.
I’ve been away a bit recently – a two week ‘illness’ when I was in London with Amina and a few days ‘holiday’ just now – so I’ve a lot to catch up with. Emails and letters. Queries and forms.
I try to focus, but find it hard. I’m kissing Henderson through black cotton. Seeing Katie Williams in the mirror. Watching Kureishi’s anguished face as his hands tumble from his arms.
At nine thirty, I research ways to destroy a computer’s hard drive. There’s a free program, DBAN, which promises to wipe a hard drive beyond the possibility of recovery. I download the software. Resume work.
At eleven o’clock, I get a cup of peppermint tea. The kitchenette has a view out over the junction where Adam Street meets the A4234. There is a police car below. Parked. Lights lazily flashing. It’s joined by a second. Officers talking on the radio.
I go to my desk, change my black office shoes for the training shoes I wear when I’m cleaning. Go back to the window. The cars are still there. One officer leaning on his vehicle. No one else.
I get my coat from the rack. Take anything personal from my desk and put it in my bag. Start the DBAN disk. Get it so that I just have to hit enter to start wiping my hard drive. Go over to Zara Jones in accounts, who doesn’t particularly like me but whose desk has a good view of the lift lobby.
An elevator stops. Six uniformed police emerge. A crackle of radios, viewed through glass.
I say to Zara, ‘Someone’s got visitors.’ Leave her and go to my desk.
Take my coat and bag. Start the procedure that wipes the hard drive. Then take the back stairs that lead down to the ground floor.
As I go down, I can see the black and white of a police officer’s arm coming up. Radio noise.
I come off the stairs at the second floor. Claims Processing. Linger there until I can see officers ascend beyond me. Then back onto the stairs and quickly down. Into the lobby.
I fumble my security pass, then get it to work. The glass turnstile opens, and I make for the street. A security guard shouts ‘Hey.’
I run.
Burst through the doors. Onto Adam Street. Head for Bute Terrace. I think if I get to the pedestrianized Hayes, I stand a chance of evading pursuit.
Sirens yowl behind me. I turn up Mary Ann Street, but a car comes screaming into it from higher up. I bet the lads are loving it. City center chases are always the best.
I skip sideways into the Park Inn Hotel. A modern thing, like an ocean liner erupting from a tower block.
Inside, a huge white atrium. Modern bar. Mirrors. Red carpet on white tiles. A few people around: businessmen drinking coffee, reception staff. I try to look like them: a busy person, not a fugitive.
The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths Page 23