Alias Read online

  I nod. It makes perfect sense when she explains it. “I made a list of places to try,” I say. “PO boxes, safety deposit centres, gyms with combination lockers, although we can possibly scratch that one now.”

  “You didn’t have a car as Rebecca, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Think local, then. Somewhere easily accessible via public transport, or taxi at a push. How close were you living to Manchester?”

  “Quarter of an hour on the bus.” I pick up her thread. “Big, anonymous city, less chance of being remembered if anyone from MMP started flashing my photo around.”

  “Precisely. Get as far as you can with those. If you hit a brick wall, I’ll drive up and see what my ID shakes loose.”

  “Thank you,” I say, throwing caution to the wind as I sense the end of our brainstorming session. “For all of this. For everything.”

  “You’re welcome.” She collects our empty mugs, her movements stiff and uneasy as she stands. “Do you want—”

  “I should get going,” I say, cutting into whatever her offer might have been. She’s done enough today; I can’t force her to play the affable hostess as well.

  She nods, her expression schooled and unreadable. “I’ll give you a lift. You may as well walk as wait for a taxi.”

  “What happens tomorrow?” I ask. “With the interview?”

  “Nine thirty at our HQ in Colwyn Bay. Give my name at the desk.” She sighs, acknowledging the inadequacy of her answer. “I’ve put it off for as long as I can, but my DI isn’t renowned for his patience. Do you have a lawyer?”

  “No, not yet.”

  She drops the mugs into the sink, scribbles a name and phone number on her pad, and tears the sheet out for me. “I’ve spoken to her already and pencilled her in, pending your agreement. If I were in your shoes, I’d want her in my corner.”

  I slip the paper into my pocket. “Will you be charging me?” I ask quietly.

  This time her face is an open book, her forehead furrowed by worry lines. “I don’t know, but you need to be prepared for that if we’re suppressing evidence that might exonerate you.”

  “Or dig me into an even deeper hole,” I say, ever the optimist.

  “There are other options, Alis. Despite what I said earlier, we could pass all of this to my DI and leave it in his hands. It’d be safer. You’d be safer.”

  I’m fastening my coat, but the urgency in her voice makes me stop and give her suggestion proper consideration. I don’t deliberate for long.

  “I appreciate the offer, but I’d rather take my chances.”

  “Yeah.” She smiles sadly. “Yeah, I thought you might say that.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  In keeping with police headquarters nationwide, the Colwyn Bay HQ is not a thing of beauty, resembling a multi-storey car park from the seventies in all its grey, breeze-block glory. I’m in no rush to enter, and I stand at the base of its steps as people in civvies come and go. The detectives are easy to spot, especially those who’ve perfected their game face, a look of humourless intensity that always made me nervous and deferential when I was a beat bobby.

  “Alis?”

  I turn at the unfamiliar voice, and a woman strides toward me, hand outstretched in greeting.

  “Odelia Madaki.” She squints at me in the weak sunlight. “It is Alis, isn’t it? Detective Pryce was quite exact in her description.”

  “I’ll bet she was.” I shake her hand. “Let me guess. ‘Nose ring, plaster cast, chunk missing from her head’?”

  “I couldn’t possibly divulge,” she says, and I warm to her at once when she lets out a lusty laugh and winks at me.

  “I appreciate you finding time for this at such short notice,” I say as we walk up the steps. I’d phoned her from the B&B, but Pryce had taken it upon herself to email the pertinent sections of my case file, so there wasn’t much for me to add.

  “Not a problem.” She holds the door for me. “I must admit, I’m quite intrigued. Your case certainly makes a change from the parade of drunken halfwits and recidivist miscreants I usually deal with.”

  “I can imagine,” I say, relieved that she’s chatting to me as a colleague rather than a perp. We get the lift to ourselves, and she hits the button for the fourth floor. “I’m not going to no-comment this,” I tell her, as the metal box judders and starts its crawl upward. “It’ll only piss them off.”

  Checking her reflection in the mirrored walls, she tucks a plait of hair into a clip and adjusts her skirt. “That shouldn’t be a problem. The difficulties you’re having with your memory will actually work to your advantage. Keep your responses short and succinct, don’t speculate or offer information they haven’t asked for, and heed any advice I give you.”

  I nod, her commonsense composure lessening the antsiness that saw me skip breakfast. “I can’t tell them what I don’t know,” I say with all the sincerity I can muster, omitting to disclose that this is actually all a fucking farce and that Pryce is sitting on a whole load of additional information she won’t be bringing to the table. I feel terrible for stringing Odelia along, but not terrible enough to jeopardise the fragile accord that Pryce and I established yesterday.

  The officer at the front desk must have given the MCT a heads-up, because Pryce meets us as we exit the lift. She shakes Odelia’s hand and sends a perfunctory nod in my direction before ushering us into a typically austere interview room, where a young detective with florid red hair is perched on the table, playing with his phone. He stands, pocketing the phone in a smooth motion, and waits for Pryce to introduce him.

  “This is Detective Constable Hughes,” she says. “He’ll be assisting in the interview today. Can I get either of you a drink? Tea? Coffee?”

  “Coffee, if you don’t mind,” I say, hoping she’ll notice the shadows beneath my eyes and make it strong enough to stand the spoon up in. I slept well, perhaps too well, locked in my room and cocooned in an eiderdown quilt, and I woke feeling sluggish, with a thick head.

  “Sugar?” she asks, giving me a pointed reminder of how the next few hours need to go.

  “Two, please.”

  “I’ll sort it,” Hughes says, throwing me a dirty look as if it’s my fault he’s had to assume the role of Brew Bitch.

  We take our seats as he leaves, Pryce and Odelia arranging their paperwork while I wait like a spare part. The room smells of sweat and that indescribable fustiness that comes from a general disregard for personal hygiene. Harsh strip lights bleed the colour from everything, with the exception of Odelia’s complexion, which has taken on a healthy glow.

  “We’ll be recording audio only,” Pryce says, ticking a box on a pre-interview pro forma. “If you nod or shake your head, I will state that you have done so. DC Hughes and I will take notes throughout the course of the interview. We won’t interrupt you as you answer a question, and I would advise that you fully consider any question to which you respond.”

  I nod at intervals as she proceeds through the customary rigmarole, allowing the familiar instructions to wash over me while I focus my attention on the eventual goal. I take a sip of the manky coffee that Hughes dumps in front of me and manage to keep my hand steady as Pryce recites the caution:

  “You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court…”

  How many times have I uttered the same words? Yelled them above the racket while I’m brawling in the street with a raucous scrote? Stated them clearly for the tearful middle-aged family man with a computer full of child pornography? I never imagined I’d be on the receiving end, and the recitation still packs a punch despite the less than legitimate circumstances.

  Using the techniques of all good interviewers—encouraging conversation, establishing a rapport, communicating interest—Pryce eases me into the proceedings with a few general, open-ended questions about my role at MMP, my assignment at Hamer’s, and the last solid memories I have “prior to
the events of February the ninth.”

  I do my best to paint a picture of working side by side with Jolanta and of a close friendship that developed into a full-blown relationship. I leave gaps in the narrative, and I’m careful not to pin myself down to specific dates, but the overall story is sufficiently convincing that neither detective challenges its veracity.

  “I want to concentrate on February the ninth now,” Pryce says. “Could you tell us what you remember from that day?”

  I shake my head, looking beyond her to the blank wall and doing my damnedest not to remember anything at all. A brutal barrage of images assails me regardless, flashing across the grey paint like a sadistic slideshow.

  “Jo’s arm,” I say too quietly for the tape. I clear my throat and try again. “I remember coming to in the car after the crash and seeing Jo’s arm. Her fingers were right here. Close enough to touch.”

  “Was she alive?”

  “No.” When I close my eyes, the gore-streaked horror show follows me into the dark. Snapping them open again, I focus on Pryce, who gives me a subtle nod, encouraging me to continue. “No. She was at first. I could hear her breathing. But then she stopped.” I can’t seem to construct anything beyond the simplest of sentences, the interview equivalent of an infant’s first reading book. I don’t want to describe the associated terror or the pain or the confusion.

  “Do you want to take a break?”

  I use one sleeve to wipe at the tiny puddle that’s gathered on the desk and then dry my face with the other. “I’m okay, thanks. I’d prefer to get this over with.”

  “May I just clarify something?” Hughes asks, shuffling through his notes. He has an unprepossessing demeanour, but I’ve always been wary of the quiet ones. “Would you have us believe that the remainder of that day—hiring the car, arranging to rent the cottage, your reasons for doing both, the reason Ms. Starek packed a bag and you didn’t, the brand new mobile phone, the text app set to deceive your MMP handler—that all of those things have been lost to your head injury?”

  His petulance splatters crimson blotches across his throat. When he glances at Pryce as if seeking retrospective sanction for his outburst, she pins him with a look that says “nice timing, you dick.”

  “I’m being as cooperative as I can, DC Hughes,” I say. “I’ve admitted to an illicit affair with Jolanta Starek, and a desire to conceal our relationship would explain the factors you seem to consider loose ends. However, I can’t and won’t admit to something I have no recollection of, which means I can’t tell you how or why the car crashed, or why Jo’s was the only bag recovered from the scene. As for my mobile, I’d left it at my flat, set to contact my handler, so I would obviously have needed to buy a new one.”

  I’ve kept my tone polite but cool throughout, and he seems to realise I’m no rank amateur likely to crumble beneath the first bit of pressure he applies. He drinks half a glass of water, figuratively waving a white flag and allowing Pryce to reassume the lead.

  “Would you describe yourself as an advanced driver?” she asks.

  “I drove response as a uniformed officer,” I say. “I wasn’t trained to pursuit standard, but my training would have been more advanced than that of the average road user.”

  “Did Ms. Starek drive?”

  “No. I don’t think she had a licence, and she couldn’t afford to run a car.”

  “Can you recall the weather conditions on the night of February the ninth?”

  “It was raining, cold. I think…I think it sleeted at one point.”

  “There were patches of fog as well,” she says. “Had you ever driven that route before?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  I sense Odelia stiffen as she sees the trap open, but I don’t react. I want Pryce to plant this seed for Hughes. She removes a pair of photographs from her folder and sets them on the table. They’re standard post-collision shots: the four-wheel skid mark dotted with numbered forensic plates.

  “Can you explain why, given the conditions as described, you might have chosen to drive at speeds between fifty and sixty miles per hour on an unlit mountain road?”

  “No.” I hang my head. “Unless…”

  “Unless what?” Hughes prompts me when I fail to complete the thought. Odelia wraps a peremptory hand around my biceps, but I give him the resolution he’s desperate for.

  “Unless I was showing off,” I whisper. “I might’ve been trying to impress her.”

  He can’t resist an opening like that. Bristling with outrage, he leans forward and prods the photos like they do on the telly. “Instead you got her killed.”

  “I know,” I say, my grief and my guilt in no way feigned. “I know I did.”

  Odelia loosens her grip, resting her hand on my cast instead. “I would like to emphasise that this is supposition on the part of my client,” she says, “and that, in the absence of witnesses or wholly reliable testimony, supposition is all it will ever be.”

  “Noted,” Pryce says. She retrieves the photographs and closes the file. “I think that about covers everything for the moment. I’m terminating the interview at eleven thirty-eight.”

  It seems redundant to ask what happens next. Due to the complexity of the case, the evidence will be forwarded to the Crown Prosecution Service. If there are grounds for prosecution, they’ll give the go-ahead and determine the appropriate charges. They’re busy people, often battling a significant backlog, so I’m going to be in limbo for a while yet.

  “Thank you for your time,” Pryce says, once we’ve shuffled into the corridor and we’re standing around like the first guests to arrive at an office party. “I’ll be in touch.” This she directs at me. I nod, and that’s that: Odelia and I walk in one direction, and she heads off in the other.

  “Are you going straight back to Manchester now?” Odelia asks as we enter the lift.

  “That was the plan,” I say as if I actually have a plan rather than a set of vague objectives arranged around solving an impossible mystery and not dying.

  “Don’t expect to hear anything from the CPS for four to six weeks, and that’s an optimistic estimate,” she says. “In fact, at this stage I can see Pryce holding off on the submission, because they’re likely to knock it back.”

  That depends on how long Pryce can sit on the witness statement, but these things are easy to misplace in an overrun and underfunded department. She might mention it to her DI as he tries to eat his lunch with one hand and answer an email with the other, all the while ignoring the ringing phone on his desk. If our MCT ever needed overtime authorising, we’d watch for Ansari coming through the office with a carton from the canteen.

  “Would it be okay to call you when the CPS give their verdict?” I ask.

  “Of course.” She hands me her card. “And be sure to phone me if you have a light-bulb moment that fills in any of those blank bits.”

  “I will. Cheers, Odelia.”

  We part company in the foyer, where the officer on the desk tells me a taxi is already en route. I send up a silent thank-you to Pryce and settle by the window to wait.

  * * *

  The train is ambling away from Chester when a text buzzes my phone. The number shows up as anonymous, but it’s Pryce, apparently using her own mobile: I’ve emailed the CCTV in a zip file. Let me know if you have any problems opening it. I’m in the middle of typing a reply when she tags on an addendum: PS—you did fine today.

  I delete my original, standard acknowledgement and dither over the writing of a new message. Every jolt of the train reminds me I’m heading away from the relative sanctuary of the past thirty or so hours. Hashing things out with Pryce was like taking my first breath of fresh air after days of being smothered. Unable to put any of this into a text, I write an inadequate, Cheers, keep in touch, hoping that last part doesn’t sound as needy as it actually is, and then distract myself by phoning 101 to report break-in number two.

  By the time I get home, I’m lightheaded and tripping over my feet
. There’s no sign that Priti has been back, and the blood sample is undisturbed in the fridge. The courier arrives within the hour, accepting a sizable tip in exchange for his promise to deliver the package directly into Pryce’s hands. As his van pulls out of the driveway, I sink onto the sofa, fully intending to download the CCTV file the moment I can get my eyes to focus. Closing them proves to be a mistake, though. I wake choking on drool and achy from dozing off in an upright position.

  “Bloody hell.” I dry my chin, straining to see the clock. The room is dark, the slats of the window blinds limned with a faint orange glow from the streetlights. I switch on my laptop and nip to the loo while it loads, dreading coming back to find that Pryce has requested a read receipt. I don’t want her to think she’s partnered herself with a complete slacker.

  A splash of cold water on my face clears the lingering cobwebs, and I install myself at the kitchen table, fortified by strong coffee and a corned beef barm. The zip unspools eight hours of footage onto the desktop: two CCTV cameras, with a four-hour window for each. I settle in to watch the first file, a lamp-post-mounted, council-funded beady eye that focuses on the post office precinct in Bethesda and captures an oblique view of the A5. I experiment with different speeds, settling on one that allows me to eyeball passing cars and study the people who come and go, while skipping past the dead air.

  The post office is shut, but Friday night sees the chippy and the Co-Op shop attracting a steady stream of customers. Scrawny teens slouch along the low wall framing the car park, the boldest among them stepping forward every now and again to pester adults into buying booze and fags, any acquired booty shared down the line and back. Most of the people approach on foot, only a handful using the car park, and they depart with laden bags and the single-minded determination of folks intent on spending the night stuffing their faces in front of a gas fire. Some exchange greetings or chat beneath the precinct’s shelter, and no one looks out of place. The handful of cars that go by are hatchbacks, and although one of them is likely to be my rental car, it’s impossible to distinguish anything other than hazy shapes and sizes. Mist wipes out at least ten full minutes of footage. Three and a half hours in, the precinct is deserted, the wind lashing rain across the pavements and destroying the umbrellas of those foolhardy enough to venture out. Patchy fog doesn’t quite obscure the overweight man pissing in a doorway, and the tape stops abruptly with a distinct sense of anticlimax.