Falling for Her

by Margaux Fox

  I headed into work the next morning to the welcome news that there had been a breakthrough and the overnight surveillance officers had identified a new contact of Lorenzo. Someone they were convinced was transporting the drugs and storing them. DCI Travis pointed at the incident board which had been updated with a photo of the suspect. She was unmistakable, her blue eyes blazing from the board. It was Lyra. I felt sick in the very pit of my stomach. I felt dizzy. I staggered to the toilets and vomited bile. Retching and tasting blood in the back of my throat. I rinsed my mouth out, my face as pale as a ghost.

  Lyra.

  Liar.

  8

  I wandered, dazed and confused back into the incident room, Lyra’s face haunting me from the incident board.

  “Jen, you look like you have seen a ghost. Are you ok? You should go home?” DC Alice Jackson’s voice.

  “I’m OK, sorry. Carry on. Who is this new female contact?” I managed to choke out some words.

  DCI Phil Travis looked at me quizzically from the front of the room. That look of bewilderment a man often has when a woman does something they just don’t understand. “DS Towers. Nice of you to rejoin us. Shall I continue my briefing?”

  I nodded and he continued.

  He held in his left hand a drum stick of unknown origin. He thrust it towards Lyra’s photo and tapped squarely on her face.

  “This is Sarah Jones. 27 years old. She is a girlfriend of Daniel Lorenzo. I’m not sure where he picked her up or how long she has been sleeping with him and working for him but his company owns her penthouse apartment in the Loxley building. She is travelling extensively, potentially on different passports and we believe she is bringing huge quantities of Class A substances into the country with her on every trip and storing them for him. Jackson, Reid, I want you two investigating her trips abroad and what she does while she is there. Denman, see what you can dig up on her past. Scott, look into her life now, online presence, friends, family, what she does with her days.”

  “Towers,” he focussed on me. “Go home, you look like shit. Get some sleep and come in fresh tomorrow.”

  I fell out of the police station into the grey wintery daylight feeling sicker than I ever had. I drove straight to the Loxley building. Elevator to the top floor. Turned left. Walked to the end of the corridor. Flat 44. Knocked on the door.

  She opened the door in a turquoise silk kimono. Her eyes the colour of the silk. Her beautiful face surprised at the unscheduled visit.

  “Sarah Jones?” I spat the name out. “You lied to me. About everything. Everything I thought was real.”

  She pulled me inside and pushed the door shut. I sat on her sofa and cried. I was hurt. I was angry. I didn’t really know where to start. So she did. She held my hand in hers as she talked honestly and openly for the first time.

  She grew up in foster homes from the age of 4. She was 13 years old when she first met Daniel Lorenzo and he was charming and kind to her and he offered her a way out. He offered her an escape. An escape from her life as it was. Little did she know she would still be kept in a cage by him. She would become his beautiful bird in a gilded cage. A gilded cage that still had bars.

  To start with, it was exciting. Thrust into a world of money and glamour, he had her privately educated in languages, accents and how to speak properly. She was taught everything there was to know about computers. She learnt combat (both armed and unarmed), acting and sex. He made her into the perfect spy. She could play any number of roles and gain anyone’s trust. She was given a target, she studied them and planned her best route in to their world. She became exactly what she thought they needed, then she took exactly what she wanted. What Lorenzo wanted.

  She imported huge quantities of drugs over many years for him, she was confident and dazzling through airport security and a master of different passports and identities. She did exactly as he asked of her and she was hugely successful. She was never suspected. She was his most valuable acquisition.

  “Do you fuck him?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she responded. “I always have. I do anything he asks. It is less so now. I’m less of a novelty fourteen years later, he has other girlfriends. But he isn’t the kind of man you mess with. I’ve never said no to anything he has requested of me. I’ve been on your police laptop Jen, I know how much you know about Daniel. Trust me, you don’t know the half of it. Daniel is a hugely dangerous man. I’ve seen him kill in cold blood. He made me watch him shoot two guys in the head and clean up afterwards. I’ll never forget the shards of skull and pieces of brain and how they felt in my hands. And the blood. There was so much blood. I was fourteen years old. He has never let me forget the power that he has over me. Over everyone.”

  “You tipped him off about the raid the first time we had sex? You read my text?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Your trips abroad for IT work? That was all just for the drugs?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Amsterdam?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.” She looked down at the pattern on her kimono and picked at the frayed edges of the waist tie. She looked like a broken little girl, every inch the vulnerable 13 year old foster home kid. But how did I know what she was telling me was the truth? She’s a gifted actress. She made herself into exactly what she thought I would like. And I did. I fell for it. Fell for her. Hook, line and sinker. But I fell for a mirage. There was nothing real there.

  “I can’t call you Sarah,” I said. “It doesn’t suit you. You know I can’t see you anymore. That this is the last time we will see one another. I can’t protect you either you know? I won’t tell what I know but I will not lie or cover things up. You are a serious criminal Lyra. The drugs you bring in fund organised crime, not just in this city but throughout the midlands. I’m a police officer. Jesus. What a fucking mess. What have you done to me?”

  I cried, my head in my hands, I knew I had to walk away from her. She had betrayed me beyond any other kind of betrayal.

  Then her hand sat lightly on my left thigh and my body leapt with anticipation. She got on her knees on the floor in front of me and used her hand to raise my chin. I looked into her pained eyes, her tears a reflection of my own as she looked up at me. She raised her face to mine and she kissed me with the heat of the sun itself tearing through my lips, through every fibre of my body. And suddenly we were kissing, her kimono open, her naked breasts full and enticing underneath. My clothes being pulled from me, my body speaking what my mind could not. She was on top of me, her scent overpowering, my defences weak. I was still crying as I orgasmed and she kissed me more and lay on top of me. And she cried too.

  “It’s ok. I’ve got you,” she whispered into my ear.

  But it wasn’t ok. It wasn’t ok at all. It was so all so far from OK and I wasn’t sure anything would be ok again.

  9

  I went home and cried more. I felt devastated and utterly betrayed. Everything I thought was real was just a lie. Luckily Simon was at work so I spent the day wallowing in despair. I thought about the time I had spent with her. Lyra. Sarah. I couldn’t call her Sarah. It didn’t suit her. Someone like her wasn’t called Sarah. I thought about Amsterdam and how perfect it was. Hand in hand with her by the canal. Hip to hip with her in the hotel bed. Then I thought about the repercussions if anyone found out about us. There was a police investigation into her. Surely it would only be a matter of time. I remembered our Amsterdam flights. She insisted I fly out the day after her and I flew home on a separate flight. I ran a search on the phone number I knew as hers and it came back to an unregistered pay as you go. Maybe on some level she had tried to protect me throughout. I wanted to believe that was true. I wanted to believe the best of her.

  I checked the progress of the investigation into her on my police laptop. The CCTV from her apartment block had been damaged so we were unable get any history on visitors to her apartment. Lyra was 4 steps ahead of the police investigation.
I thought about all the times I had left my police laptop in my bag in her apartment unattended while I slept deeply post orgasm or while I was in the shower. My work phone too. Easily hacked by someone of her intellect and training. It is no wonder Operation Phoenix was so far behind on Lorenzo. I’d spent time searching for a mole within our team and it was me all along.

  Sleeping with the enemy.

  Sheer stupidity and lust had made me careless with vital police information on a live operation. If anyone found out I would lose my job immediately and possibly get a prison sentence too. Everything about the life I knew and the job that was so important to me, to my identity, was in jeopardy.

  I picked up my phone to a lengthy text from Lyra. Apologies, endless apologies. Assuring me it was different with me. That she wasn’t acting. That I wasn’t just a target for her to seduce and destroy. Assuring me she would always protect me.

  I didn’t reply.

  I couldn’t. I couldn’t reopen Pandora’s box. I tried to stuff everything back in and close the lid but it was too late. Far too late. That’s the thing about Pandora’s box, once you open it, there is no going back.

  I went into work the following day, desperate to see for myself what was going on in the investigation. I felt like a criminal myself. In so many ways I was one. But again, my years of exemplary service protected me. Nobody would ever suspect me.

  People were pleased to see me back and I grabbed a strong coffee and made my way into the morning briefing. Amongst other things it was announced that a surveillance team was to be put on Sarah Jones in order to find where she was storing the drugs and hopefully witness transfer to Lorenzo or his crew.

  I knew it was madness but I sat at my desk and composed a text.

  Text to Lyra: “Surveillance team being put on you. They will start tomorrow morning at 8am.”

  Send.

  I had sent it. I had become complicit. Trying to protect the scared little girl I saw inside her. The little girl who had been raped and controlled by a much older man. The troubled teenager who had to clean blood and brains from the floor. Lyra hadn’t chosen her path in life. He had chosen for her. He had created the monster she had become.

  I text her again: “Please leave me alone. I can’t see you or speak to you ever again.”

  I requested to get on surveillance on Daniel Lorenzo. I wanted nothing to do with investigating Lyra. So there I was. Following Lorenzo. Sitting in a car waiting for him to do something or nothing. Knowing he knew exactly how our Operation was working so there was no chance that he would do anything crucial with us following him. The most dull job in the world. Mind numbing. Trying to shut off my mind from Lyra.

  That evening with Simon. Trying to act normal. As if everything wasn’t falling apart. He seemed normal. He knew I had a sometimes difficult job that I couldn’t always talk about so often he just didn’t ask questions. I almost wished he would. Just confront me about everything. Make me tell him what was going on. Tell me how stupid I had been and tell me what to do now. Help me. But it wasn’t his place to help. It wasn’t anyone’s place. There was nobody I could confide in and I had never felt more alone.

  My phone rang from an unknown number.

  I picked it up.

  “Jen, it’s me,” Lyra’s voice was unmistakeable but I could hear the stress cracking it. “Something really bad has happened. Please,” she cried. “I need your help.”

  10

  I had a million questions but I kept the conversation brief and only asked for the vital information. She sounded distraught and not like Lyra at all. What had she done? There was a moment I thought about doing the right thing. About calling the police. Or being the police. I am the bloody police. But I didn’t. I wanted to help her and protect her. Foolish as it might seem.

  I told Simon I had to go in to work and he didn’t question it. I put on a tracksuit of Simon’s that was baggy on me and a baseball cap that I shoved my long hair up into and I drove to B and Q. I knew I could easily pass for a teenage boy at least on CCTV like this if not in person. I made it just before they closed at 8pm and I dashed to the gardening aisle picking up two spades. I grabbed 3 big bottles of bleach from the cleaning aisle which was all I could carry. The sharp bright metal of the spades glinted in the harsh shop lights.

  I pulled up to the pub car park as Lyra had described desperately on the phone. The same place we had had our first date. It seemed so long ago. Winter was drawing in and darkness covered everything. I headed to the top end of the car park near the trees. There she was sitting on a bench, looking desolate. Her surveillance team were still busy watching her apartment, they had no idea she had ducked out of a secret door in the basement of the building to go and meet him. The body of the man she had just killed at her feet pathetically hidden by her coat thrown over him. Blood pooled around his body. I pulled back the coat and his face was unmistakably Daniel Lorenzo. The strong jaw. The dark hair beginning to grey. The big boss of organised crime with what looked like a knife wound to the heart by a professional assasin. He had a thousand enemies but his eyes looked surprised to have eventually been taken out by the one he trusted the most. The one who had been so loyal to him had finally ended him. The scared little girl after years of being under his control had fought back. Swiftly and efficiently. Where Lorenzo’s surveillance team were I had no idea, but it was obvious they weren’t there.

  “What the fuck happened, Lyra?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t live like that any more. Being with you, I knew I wanted more than the life he allowed me. Daniel and I had a meeting organised anyway. We usually meet here. I just needed to end things this time, that’s all,” she said contemplatively.

  “You planned it?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  There seemed to be no real remorse, but there was a distance in her eyes. There was a moment where I looked into her eyes which for once were dully glazed and I had decisions to make that would affect my own life irreversibly.

  It was starting to rain and the blood began to dilute and wash away, the weather working to help us. I say us. I didn’t kill him, but I had made my choice. I was a partner in this crime now. Lyra needed my help. She needed someone to take control of the situation.

  “Come on, we need to drag him into the trees,” I said.

  With one of us under each of his arms and him in a sitting position, we dragged him backwards into the forest, following the route we had taken on our first date. The ground was wet leaves and mud underfoot; we had had a lot of rain. It helped his body skid along. We pulled him off track as far as we could. I wasn’t sure it was far enough so we went again. Exhausting work but we worked together. And there I was, DS Jen Towers, dragging a body through the woods with his murderess. I remembered every last thing I had learnt in the police and the one thing I knew damn well is that if there isn’t a body, there isn’t a crime. We needed to make sure that this body was never found. Lyra wanted to put him in the lake. But I’ve been to plenty of murders where bodies are found in lakes. I’ve also been to scenes where bodies in the woods aren’t buried deep enough. But the one thing I learnt from my father as a child when he buried our dog was that graves need to be six feet deep to be sure to avoid disturbance. I heard later that this wasn’t strictly true. That funeral homes and cemeteries buried people at a depth of between three and four feet. But they were in coffins and Daniel wasn’t. And now wasn’t the time to test out that theory. I decided on a five feet hole, to be safe.

  I returned to the burial site we had chosen with the shovels and bleach from the car. We started to dig. The ground was wet and earthy and we chose a clearing area away from tree roots, which made it slightly easier than it could have been, but it took forever. Hours later, we were still digging. Stripped to T shirts, sweat and rain soaking our faces and arms, we continued to dig when we thought it was impossible. We took little rests and I could see Lyra close to breaking. She didn’t want to dig anymore. She didn’t want to be here anymore. I could s
ee that she had decided that killing him was her only way out if she didn’t want to live that life any more. But he had been her main constant for so many years. Their relationship, although abusive and controlling had been all that she knew. I saw her glance across at his body every now and again. Just to check it was real, that it really happened, that he was really gone. And he was. What I assumed to be a deep knife wound easily visible in the left side of his chest. She had meant it. She had really meant it. She was exhausted with the whole thing mentally and physically. I could see that this was how murderers end up digging shallow graves and then get caught. I refused to let that happen to us. I encouraged her to dig with me, and we dug some more, our persistence gradually paying off with progress.

  It was 3am by the time I was finally happy with the hole we had dug. We were shattered but we couldn’t stop there. We stripped his body and poured bleach over all of him. I was no expert in forensics but I figured bleach would destroy everything it could. Then we rolled his body into the hole and it landed with a wet thud.