The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths (DC Fiona Griffiths)

by Harry Bingham

  Then the waitress comes with cigarettes and matches. I say thanks, smile at Ramesh and leave. The waitress points out the smoking room for me, but then enters a code on the keypad next to the main door, releases the lock and leaves. I slip out after her, in the wake of the closing door. I don’t want to sit indoors in some shuttered room and Fiona Grey doesn’t either. It’s been a rough day for us both.

  So we just sit outside on the steps to the barn. The sun has set, but a summer twilight still hovers in the trees. There’s a big farmhouse to the right, with some windows lit up, but the view from the barn is mostly of a cobbled courtyard, some old agricultural buildings, and trees. Oak. Ash. A punky fringe of hawthorn. Over in the distance somewhere, I can just see the top lamp of a telecoms tower, a red beacon in the night.

  The steps to the barn are a reddish sandstone, flaking at the edges. I play with the stone and break off a flake. Pocket it. Get stone dust under my nails.

  I smoke.

  Fiona Griffiths never used to smoke much. Weed often, tobacco almost never. Fiona Grey is a bit different. Less weed, more tobacco. I wonder vaguely if I’ll ever kick her habit.

  The party behind me begins to break up. People start exiting the barn.

  I guess the barn itself only accommodates lower-level staff. The more important, or more trusted, members of the team are in the farmhouse itself. Quintrell, for all her airs, is strictly servant class, like me.

  I also wonder about the party I just witnessed.

  When I entered the room, I didn’t look around much. Just sought out Henderson and attacked him. But I had an impression of numbers. Numbers, and the mix between white faces and brown. At a rough guess, and excluding the waitresses, I reckon there were about twenty people, with around two white faces for every brown one. By the time the Fiona-’n’-Vic show was over, however, I’d say the room was significantly emptier, with about equal numbers of British and Indian faces. I’ve also something of a suspicion that Henderson’s attention was only partly on me, through all that fight scene. I think he was also looking elsewhere, checking that the people who had to vacate the room because of my intrusive presence were indeed vacating.

  I’ve got a feeling that Allan, the Astra-man, was present in the room. It would make sense.

  I smoke another cigarette.

  I can hear the churring of a nightjar. The distant movement of farm machinery.

  Henderson materialises behind me. I’m disobeying his instructions and I think he’s hesitating about how to react.

  Gently, is the answer.

  He sits beside me and I offer him a cigarette. He lights it from the glowing tip of mine.

  ‘Bit of a show back there,’ he comments.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry too. Sorry for hitting you. I didn’t need to do that.’

  I shrug. ‘I hit you.’

  ‘Well, sorry anyway.’

  ‘I’ve had worse,’ I say, and Fiona Grey has. Much worse.

  We smoke a while, without conversation.

  Beyond the telecoms tower, and to the right, a low moon appears between loose cloud.

  ‘What’s the time?’ I ask.

  ‘Quarter to eleven. Bedtime, almost. We start early.’

  ‘Vic?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I want to go home. Sorry. I don’t think I fit here. I can’t do what you want me to do.’

  Vic looks at me in the moonlight.

  Reaches out and draws me to him. An arm round my shoulder, pressing me against his warmth. He kisses me softly on the top of my head.

  ‘You’re fine, Fiona. What you did in there—’

  ‘It’s not just that. It’s everything. I should have said when you first came. When I left Manchester, I wanted to change my life. I wanted to be different.’

  He kisses me again. A kiss that could easily be paternal. Or ex-boyfriendy. A kiss which is intimate but also respectful of boundaries. Yet I think he’s angling for more. I think if I turned my face up to his, turned my lips up to his, I could drink from that well as deep as I liked.

  I’m tempted. Not just Fiona Grey, but me too. I feel a good old-fashioned desire tugging at me in this soft summer night. My once-a-month conjugal visits with Buzz feel as distant as fairy tales. I lean into Henderson, my head against his shoulder. Enjoying his presence, but keeping the barriers up.

  No well-drinking for me tonight.

  He’s been holding his cigarette away from me during this, now takes one last drag and stubs it out. He’s not really a smoker, I don’t think. He’s smoked barely half the cigarette and when he stubs it, he has an odd action, one which breaks the cigarette where the tobacco meets the filter. In the hostel, someone would pick up the unsmoked tobacco for a roll-up. I can feel myself wanting to do the same.

  ‘Fiona, I don’t think you realise how much we depend on you. We’ve had other people doing what you do, but you’re the only one who really gets it. The other day with Anna, when you had those disagreements with her, you were always right. We need that woman. We need you.’

  ‘Sorry, Vic. But I’ve made up my mind. I do want to go home. I won’t tell anyone about anything. I don’t want to cause trouble.’

  We argue a bit. He says he can’t let me go home. That there’s no one to take me. I say I can’t face meeting all the people who were laughing at me this evening. Say I hate my clothes. That they make me feel like riff-raff amongst all those suits. The laughing stock.

  ‘They weren’t laughing at you . . .’ he starts.

  ‘They were. You know they were.’

  ‘Look, they haven’t met you yet. They don’t know how good you are.’

  ‘They’ll still laugh. Look at me.’

  ‘We can get you clothes.’

  ‘You already did. You got me horrible polycotton tracksuit trousers that don’t fit.’

  Vic sighs. ‘Look, give me a list of stuff you want. I’ll get one of the girls to get it for you.’

  He means one of the waitresses.

  I don’t give way too soon, and it takes another cigarette and another kiss on the dome of my head before he shifts from the step. When he does, he crosses the moonlit yard to the farmhouse. Comes back five minutes later with the waitress. Pen and paper.

  I shoo Henderson away and go through stuff I want with the waitress. I know I’m not allowed to ask her what town we’re near, and know Henderson will check, so I just say, ‘There’s a Gap in town is there?’ and the girl, Nia, hesitates a moment, then says, Yes, she should think so.

  We make a list. I want a dress, some tights, some smart shoes. Trousers. Skirt. Two or three different tops. I give my sizes. The dress, I say, has to be in petite. That the full size ones never fit me. I say I need something for smart, something for more relaxed.

  Nia is helpful actually. Sounds like she used to work as a shop assistant. When we have a list, we OK it with Henderson. It’ll be three or four hundred quid, I would guess, but separate a girl from her wardrobe and you pay the price. He accepts my request with one of those patient male sighs.

  Nia goes.

  Henderson says, ‘Feel ready for tomorrow?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. You’ll be great, actually.’

  ‘If anyone is horrible to me while I’m here, I’ll walk out.’

  Henderson gives me a look which I decode as meaning, ‘If you walk out of here, I will kill you.’ Perhaps there’s also a whiff of, ‘And I’d regret that, because I enjoyed our moment on the step.’

  I say, ‘Where are we anyway?’

  He waves his hand at the night. ‘Somewhere in the universe. Does it matter?’

  ‘Not really.’ I put my hands on his shoulder, in that intimate/not-intimate ex-girlfriend way, and give him a light kiss on his cheek. There’s a long rip on his left hand cheek, ending with a flap of skin and some thickly clotted tissue, dark as ox-blood. My handiwork. ‘Thank you for being nice to me.’

  He rubs my arm and says goodnight.
r />   I turn to go in. Henderson isn’t about to follow. He’s with the big boys in the farmhouse.

  ‘Don’t come out here again, please. We need you to stay in the barn. This evening was a one-off.’

  I nod.

  My submissive nod. My obedient one.

  That’s the thing about we battered women. Our ‘stop’ never really means ‘stop’. The average victim of domestic violence suffers thirty assaults before she reports anything and that number is only a guess. It could easily be much more. Henderson’s technique – hit then kiss – is the abuser’s way to maintain control. And Fiona Grey is under control again. She’s going to see out her time here, good as gold.

  33

  I sleep for ever, or it seems that way. Kureishi comes to me in my dreams, his darkened screaming, but there’s something muffled about his presence this time. As though he’s been muted. As though there’s glass between him and me. That doesn’t feel like a comfortable fact, though. It feels sinister, like when music plays softly in a horror film and the pretty teenager decides to explore the empty house. I can’t find Hayley, though I do try.

  When I wake up, I patter upstairs in my bathrobe. Geoff is around. A couple of Indians are watching a cricket match on TV.

  I ask Geoff to sort me out some breakfast – eggs, orange juice, herbal tea – and ask him what time it is. After nine is the answer, which means I’ve slept almost ten hours. Fiona Griffiths never sleeps that long. Fiona Grey seldom does either.

  Shower.

  Eat.

  Talk rubbish with Geoff, who seems nice, apart from the Glock, the handcuffs and the whole organised-crime thing.

  I put on underwear and a clean T-shirt, but apart from that I don’t get dressed, just stick to the bathrobe. My tracksuit trousers are horrible. Wrong size, torn, stained. And just horrible.

  My neck feels sore from the blows I took last night. Also my arms ache down their whole length. It’s not safe handcuffing people behind their backs. Certainly not if you’re hitting them at the same time and yanking at their wrists. I stretch a bit, but not much. I’m not convinced it really helps.

  Go back to my room and read speech therapy stuff.

  Phonation is the term given to the vibration of the vocal folds. Sounds that involve the vibration of the vocal folds are said to be voiced. If there is no vocal fold vibration, the sounds are said to be unvoiced, or voiceless.

  I sit there feeling my vocal cords vibrate when I say ga-ga-ga and da-da-da. Feel them not vibrate when I say ka-ka-ka and ta-ta-ta. The voiced and the voiceless.

  I sit there, doing the exercises, concentrating on my sound production, when the door opens.

  Henderson is there, holding two big bags from Gap.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asks, meaning the speech therapy.

  ‘I like it. It’ll suit me.’

  ‘Good.’

  I don’t really know how Henderson sees the endgame. Does he plan to kill me, drop me in a river somewhere, wipe away a possible loose end? Or is the visa thing for real? Will he let me go?

  Mostly, I think the latter. Murder sounds tidy, but it usually isn’t. The crime brings massively resourced police investigations like nothing else. I think I’ll get a lecture about the importance of keeping my mouth shut, but apart from that I’ll be allowed to go.

  Probably.

  Henderson puts the bags on the bed. ‘Clothes.’

  I take a look. There’s a grey dress, a nice tweed skirt, some jeans, a belt, a couple of smart shirts, two pairs of shoes, tights, some other bits. It’s good. Better than Fiona Grey’s own wardrobe. Probably better than mine, if I’m honest.

  The sizes look right, but I won’t know until I try stuff on.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And look. I got you a present. This is from me.’

  Henderson produces, with a flourish, a brown leather attaché case. There’s a yellow legal notepad inside, a couple of pens, and a sharp pencil.

  I’m speechless. It’s one of the nicest presents anyone’s ever given me.

  ‘Is it OK?’ he asks.

  I nod. ‘It’s really nice.’

  ‘Anna says you can use her make-up if you need any.’ Then quickly adds, ‘Not that you do. You look great.’

  There’s not a chance that Quintrell volunteered the use of her cosmetics, which means Henderson bullied her into it. Keeping me pliable is part of his job, certainly, but he’s not merely a thug. The best criminals never are. They always have a little something extra. A touch of class.

  ‘Thank you.’

  I look at him. His right hand has grazed knuckles and there’s a bruise over his right eye which I didn’t put there.

  ‘Your eye,’ I say. ‘That wasn’t me.’

  ‘No. It wasn’t. I’ve had a long night.’ His face twitches. ‘I’ve not gone to bed yet.’

  There’s something open-ended in the way he says that. A memory of yesterday evening. Those kisses in the twilight.

  I think that if I stood up now and approached, if I put my arms to him, touched his neck, we would be making love within the minute. I feel those tugs of lust eddying round the room, kicking up like dust devils.

  My lust as much as his.

  His mouth is slightly open.

  I say, ‘Vic, I don’t think we should.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’d like to.’

  ‘Same here.’

  ‘Thanks for all this. Especially this.’ I indicate the attaché case. ‘It’s really thoughtful.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  He come close, lifts me, and kisses me. Kisses hard. Without consent. One of those kisses that reaches down to my feet.

  I’m gasping when he pulls away, and not with outrage.

  He says, ‘Remember. You’re good the way you are. Just be yourself and love yourself.’

  The unexpectedness of the remark catches me off-guard momentarily. Then I realise what he’s talking about. It’s a slogan from the list I’d taped to my fridge door. Henderson must have remembered it from the last time he was in my room. The time he showed me the Kureishi murder video.

  I say, ‘They’re good classes those. If you want me to sign you up . . .’

  He grins.

  Reaches for the attaché case and pulls out a sheet of A4 from an inside compartment I hadn’t explored.

  ‘Your agenda for the weekend,’ he says.

  It’s a list of meetings, with times, attendees, draft topics. The heading on the list is strand two: product design. The attendees are marked by initials. I’m there as FG. Quintrell is there as AQ. There are other initials too, ones I don’t recognise. There is no attendee marked as VH.

  ‘Strand two? What are the other strands?’

  Henderson considers before answering. The man is a walking, talking security screen. It would be the same whether he was making love to me or chopping my hands off. A coolly considered appraisal of risks and rewards.

  The appraisal, in this case, comes up positive, and he says, ‘Strand one is security. That’s my specialist subject. Strand three is distribution. How we roll out the system when we have it. Strand four is finance. How the money moves around.’

  ‘I never knew organised crime was so well organised.’

  ‘It’s that or jail, and I’ve promised myself never to end up in jail.’ He checks his watch. ‘Your first meeting is at twelve. I won’t be there, but I’ll see you around.’

  ‘You took my watch. My only clock is Geoff and he’s a bit too highly armed for my taste.’

  Henderson shakes out the Gap bags over the bed. A watch falls out. Brown leather strap. Gold face. Not obviously tacky. He sets it to the correct time and tosses it to me.

  ‘Your watch, ma’am.’

  I put it on.

  It’s odd this. I’m still half naked. In T-shirt and bathrobe, yes, but that’s still more naked than most things. Those eddies of lust have abated but still swirl around the room, snatching at ankles, trembling on the back of the neck.
/>
  I say, ‘Vic?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sit down. You’re a mess.’

  He does.

  I run warm water in the sink, wet a corner of the towel, wipe the cut on his knuckles, dab at the bruise over his eye. He’s got a small mark on his jacket, blood from the look of it, and I kneel down, work at the mark until it’s mostly gone. He’s the sort of man who would have a monobrow if he didn’t work at it, and I pluck away a couple of stray hairs.

  ‘There,’ I tell him, as I resettle his jacket and stand back.

  ‘Thank you.’ The possibility of another kiss blooms in the air between us, then vanishes. He says, ‘Please follow the rules, by the way. Going outside yesterday, that needs to be an exception.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Then, standing back, by the daffodils, I murmur, ‘You’re a good kisser, Vic.’

  ‘You too, Fi.’ He uses the intimate version of my name instinctively. So naturally it takes me a moment to realise. ‘Maybe sometime before you head off to Kiwi-land, we could go away somewhere and forget about being sensible.’

  I nod. What I say is, ‘Maybe one day I’ll fall for a good guy. It would make life easier.’

  Henderson goes for the door, half opens it, says, ‘Nah. Good guys are boring.’ Leaves.

  I get dressed. Grey dress with black velvet at the neck and on the sleeves. Little brown belt. Dark tights and clicky heels. Attaché case.

  I do go next door to Quintrell’s room. She’s there, and lets me use her make-up without even being too grumpy about it. I’m not great with make-up, but there’s a cut over my lip which looks better for some concealer. Quintrell even helps me apply it.

  I say, ‘I don’t want to fight you, Anna.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Can we maybe start again? As if nothing had ever happened.’

  ‘OK. Yes. OK.’

  She’s not very communicative, but there’s a little rush of emotion in her face. I can’t read it. She probably finds all this difficult too. Henderson is core Tinker. Quintrell is no more than a hired hand. A temporary asset, like me.

  I think we ought to hug or something like that. Seal the deal. But Quintrell remains pulled back and withdrawn. So I just say, ‘Brilliant, thank you.’