Deep Cover

by Leigh Russell

  ‘Look at this,’ she said to one of the VIIDO officers.

  He looked at where she was pointing, and nodded silently. A similar dent was visible in the same position on the back bumper in both pictures. The damage was possibly identical if viewed from the same angle. It appeared that a van with that particular dent had arrived at the woods, been driven through the trees, and left there until the police towed it out onto the road again. Geraldine stared at the two images for a long time. The van was scarcely recognisable as the same vehicle, with so many scratches and bumps on the one that had been pulled out of the wood. But the dent in the bumper looked the same.

  Images of the two bumpers were rotated and superimposed, and it didn’t take an IT expert long to confirm that the two dents were in fact identical. They had found an image of the van on its way to Hagg Wood. What was more they had a shot of the back number plate that appeared on the van as it had driven past the sports club. It wasn’t the same as the registration number of the van found among the trees. Geraldine’s theory was right. The number plates on the van had been switched for its journey on the road, and then changed back again once it reached its hiding place among the trees. She took her discovery to Eileen and together they stared at the two images and the registration number on the van while it was out on the road.

  ‘So he covered up the real number plate when he was driving the van on the road, because he knew we were looking for him,’ Eileen said.

  ‘But once he’d dumped the van, he didn’t care if we recognised it as the one seen on the night Pansy was moved,’ Geraldine added. ‘He left it in the woods with its original number plate and he didn’t make much of an effort to hide it in the trees.’

  Eileen nodded. ‘He knew we’d find the van and then we were bound to discover evidence that Pansy had been transported in it. I wonder why he changed the number plates back again before he abandoned it.’

  ‘He didn’t think we’d be able to trace the van back to him because he never registered it in his own name after he bought it, but we may be able to identify him from the false number plates, if they come from a vehicle registered in his name. He has no idea we’ve identified the same van on the road, with false plates. He thought he could stay one step ahead of us. He was certainly clever,’ Geraldine said.

  Eileen smiled. ‘Not clever enough. You have the registration number he used while he was moving the van. Go and see if you can find him, Geraldine, and let’s put this killer behind bars, where he belongs.’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ Geraldine replied.

  And this time, she was confident the lead they had found would take them to the killer.

  ‘Well done,’ Eileen called out as Geraldine left her office, and Geraldine smiled.

  54

  Emily smiled anxiously at Thomas across the breakfast table. Her fair hair was brushed back off her face and she wasn’t wearing any make-up, but she was still beautiful. She was nibbling at a slice of toast, while he was toying with a bowl of cereal. He stared morosely back at her over the top of his mug of tea. Emily worked part-time and this wasn’t one of her days to go into her office, but he had to leave for work soon.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ she enquired for the second time that morning. She put down her toast and stared at him, her pale eyes seeming to glow with curiosity.

  ‘Of course everything’s all right,’ he replied tersely, replacing his mug on the table. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

  He paused to chew a mouthful of cereal, and decided to throw the question back at her. The best form of defence was attack, and in any case he needed to be sure she didn’t know more than she was letting on. He wondered fleetingly if she had discovered what he had done, but he couldn’t think of any way he might have betrayed his secret. Emily had been away visiting her mother in Manchester when the crazy prostitute had attacked him in his own home. All his wife had seen was one glimpse of a grey van in the garage. There was no way she could have the faintest clue about what had gone on in the house in her absence.

  ‘Is everything all right with you?’ he asked.

  She nodded uneasily, and he leaned forward across his bowl of cereal.

  ‘Tell me what’s wrong,’ he said, gazing solicitously into her eyes.

  ‘What do you mean? Why would anything be wrong with me?’

  ‘It’s just that you seem to be on edge, and you keep asking me what’s wrong for no reason that I can make out.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s not me that’s been acting strangely lately.’

  A sliver of fear seemed to crawl down the back of his neck like a touch of icy fingers, and he shivered. He had been trying so hard to behave as though nothing untoward had happened and now, just when he thought his troubles were over, his own wife was starting to ask awkward questions.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he countered, struggling to maintain his outward composure. ‘How have I been acting strangely?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. You’ve been different lately. Ever since I came back from visiting my mother, you’ve not been yourself. I’m worried about you. Something’s wrong, I can tell.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but ever since you had that van hidden away in the garage, you’ve been jumpy. I just wonder if it has anything to do with all the talk in the news about the police looking for a van just like that one.’ She gave a helpless shrug. ‘I can’t help wondering if your friend knows more than he’s letting on. Are you sure he wasn’t up to no good with that van? Who is he, anyway?’

  Thomas hesitated. Emily was asking all sorts of questions, and it was a lot to take in. Clearly she had been thinking and was attempting to join the dots. It was important to stop her speculation before it came dangerously close to the truth. He had to remain calm and answer her questions in a way that both reassured her and put an end to her prying.

  ‘For a start,’ he replied, ‘I wasn’t hiding the van. Where else do you suppose I could have parked it, if not in the garage?’

  ‘You could have left it on the street. You never put the car in the garage. Never.’

  ‘And secondly,’ he went on, ignoring her interruption, ‘the van that was in our garage has absolutely nothing to do with the van they’re banging on about on the news. Listen, you silly thing, the police are always trying to trace some missing vehicle or other. There’s nothing for you to worry about. In any case, I returned the van to its owner, and there’s an end to it.’

  ‘But did you report it to the police?’ she asked.

  Thomas scowled. Clearly she wasn’t going to let this drop, and he wasn’t sure of the best way to fend off her questions.

  ‘Report what to the police?’

  It was her turn to frown. ‘You said you would tell them about the van in the garage. You told me you’d call the police and tell them about it. You don’t know what your friend is up to, do you? How well do you even know him? This could be vital information you’re withholding from the police.’

  ‘Don’t be so dramatic,’ he replied impatiently. ‘Now you’re just being silly. Anyway, you know I phoned the police and told them I’d had a grey van stored in my garage. They asked for the registration number and then they said they’d be in touch if they had any further questions, and that was that. They never called back. They weren’t interested in the van we had in our garage.’

  ‘And you think that’s good enough?’ Emily asked.

  ‘What do you mean? Don’t you believe me?’

  She frowned and shook her head. ‘Why wouldn’t I believe you? No, the point is I’m not convinced the police are being thorough enough. The van they’re looking for has something to do with the woman who was murdered, and you can’t be sure your friend wasn’t involved in that in some way. Think about it, Thomas. He could have changed the number plates on the van. Who is this friend of yours, anyway? Y
ou haven’t told me anything about him. Where do you know him from?’

  Thomas forced a laugh. ‘What is this?’ he asked. ‘The Spanish Inquisition?’ He stood up. ‘I’m late for work.’

  ‘Well, if you’re not going to follow it up, I’ll drop into the police station myself and make sure they take this seriously. Just think about it, Thomas. Your friend wanted his van stored out of sight for a few days, and right after that the police are looking for a van just like his. How can you be so sure your friend wasn’t using you? All right, I may be jumping to conclusions and barking up the wrong tree, but what if the van you put in our garage is the same one the police are looking for? You don’t want to get yourself in trouble. What if I’m right and someone saw you driving the van back to its owner? You have to go to the police, and tell them exactly what happened before they find you. If you come clean, and tell them everything, there’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about anyway, because nothing happened,’ he replied firmly. ‘Now drop it, Emily. There’s nothing to “come clean” about. I don’t want you to go bothering the police with this. As if they haven’t got enough to do.’

  ‘It’ll only take a minute. You can’t protect your friend over something so serious.’

  ‘No. You are not going to the police about this.’

  He sounded angrier than he had intended, and Emily paused in the act of standing up. She sat down and they stared at one another in silence.

  ‘Isn’t it time you left?’ she asked at last. Her voice sounded shaky. ‘It’s really late.’

  ‘I’m not going to work today.’ He broke off, not knowing what to say to her. ‘Emily, you have to promise me you won’t say anything to anyone about the van. Not yet. I have to clear something up first. Trust me, and everything will be all right, I promise you.’

  ‘Thomas,’ she whispered, her eyes wide in sudden alarm. ‘What have you done?’

  In that instant he understood that he couldn’t trust her to keep her mouth shut.

  55

  Jenny stepped into the hall and halted abruptly on seeing Ian’s cases leaning against the wall. Her expression didn’t alter, but he sensed her astonishment in the sudden tension in her stance and the rigidity of her features. She was dressed as Tallulah in a very short, sleek black skirt and black leather jacket, her hair scraped up in a high ponytail that fanned out in a blaze of colourful plumes. Her make-up was brazen as ever, with bold black lines around her eyes and equally striking red lipstick.

  ‘So it’s true,’ she blurted out. She gazed up at him, her eyes looking enormous in their black circles. ‘There’s a rumour going around that you’re leaving London, and now I see you’ve been packing. So it’s true, then? I can’t believe you would make an important decision like this without so much as mentioning it to me.’

  Ian hesitated over his reply. He owed her no explanation. As far as he had been aware, their liaison had never been anything other than casual. Neither of them had made any kind of commitment to the other. He had told her outright that their relationship wasn’t going to last. When she hadn’t remonstrated at the time, he had thought she understood what he was saying, and she had given him the impression that she felt the same. Admittedly she had said they didn’t know how their relationship was going to turn out, but he was satisfied he had made his own feelings clear.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t realise you’d be disappointed, but I’m not very good at reading women’s minds.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘It’s one of my many failings.’

  ‘Oh poor you,’ she snapped. ‘So now I’m supposed to feel sorry for you because you’re so crap at relationships?’ She shook her head and her hair flapped around crazily, like a surreal halo. ‘How could you even think of leaving London without telling me? Without saying goodbye? How could you do that, after everything we meant to each other?’

  Once again, Ian hesitated. By ‘everything’ she could only be referring to the few nights they had spent together. He wracked his brains, but he couldn’t recall either of them ever hinting their affair was anything other than a casual fling. He should have been flattered that he meant so much to her, but he was appalled.

  ‘Of course I was going to say goodbye to you,’ he replied. ‘I never had any intention of leaving London without seeing you again. You mean too much to me for me to just disappear, without a word. I’m not that kind of man, Jenny. You know that.’

  He paused. She only really knew him as Archie, his undercover alter ego. She didn’t know him as Ian at all.

  ‘It seems I don’t know the first thing about you,’ she replied sullenly, confirming his own thoughts.

  ‘Listen, I never meant to hurt you. I care about you, about your feelings,’ he corrected himself quickly. ‘But it’s time for me to leave London. We both knew it had to happen sooner or later. London isn’t my home. I don’t live here. I was here on a job, that’s all, and now it’s time for me to move on. My going away has nothing to do with you. I mean, I’m not going because of you. I’m not saying you’re an important part of my life, or that you’re not, it’s just that my time here is over and I’m going home. I came here to do a particular job and now that’s done, I can’t stay.’ He broke off, aware that he was repeating himself because he could think of nothing else to say. ‘I’m sorry, Jenny. I’m really sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. What we had together was very special. I don’t sleep with many women – there have only been two others. My wife and I met when we were still at school and I was faithful to her right up until we divorced quite recently. And since then there’s been one other woman, apart from you. So you see, I don’t sleep with many women, and it means something to me when I do.’

  She sniffed and he suspected she didn’t believe him, but that was too bad. What she had said was true – they knew nothing about each other. He knew her better as Tallulah than as Jenny, and she had spent more time with Archie than Ian. He was fairly sure she had only slept with him at all because that was what Tallulah and Archie would have been doing. Their whole relationship was based on a fiction. Jenny and Ian had never spent the night in bed together. It had only ever been Tallulah and Archie.

  ‘I’m not Archie,’ he said.

  ‘I know that. I’m not an idiot,’ she replied crossly. ‘So where does this leave us?’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Yes, us. You and me. I’ll be here in London and I don’t even know where you’re going.’

  He sighed. This was becoming complicated, and he wasn’t sure how to extricate himself from the situation without upsetting her even more. Yet he was reluctant to reveal that he was going back to York. He had an uneasy feeling she might want to follow him there.

  ‘It’s over, Jenny,’ he said gently. ‘Whatever there was between us, it’s over.’

  To his surprise, she burst out laughing. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Ian, can’t you tell when someone’s pulling your leg? Of course we never had a serious relationship. Tallulah and Archie’s one thing, but Jenny and Ian? Not in a million years. Christ, I don’t even know how old you are, but I can tell you’re too old for me. Still, it was fun for a while, wasn’t it?’ she added, with a slightly wistful smile. ‘You have to admit Tallulah and Archie were good together.’

  She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips before turning on her heel and strutting out of his flat and out of his life. Ian sighed as he watched her go. With a pang, he wondered what the future held for her, and how long she would survive working at Tod’s club. Like Jack had said, Jenny was caught up in a dirty business. Role playing had appealed to him at first and he had welcomed the opportunity to leave his own miserable life behind. But he was glad to quit the pretence and return to his normal life and his own identity. Archie’s tempestuous brief existence was over and Ian wasn’t sorry.

  ‘Goodbye, Tallulah,’ he murmured to the door that had already closed behind h
is make-believe girlfriend.

  He would never know whether her dismay at his departure had been completely fake, but it was gratifying to think she might actually have been a little disappointed that he was leaving. He wondered how Geraldine was going to feel when he returned to York. His absence had given her time to reconsider her own feelings towards him, and he hoped she had forgiven him for what he had done. And now that he had dealt with Jammie, there was nothing to prevent her from seeing her twin sister again. His trepidation tinged with optimism, he set off on his journey back to York.

  An irrepressible excitement coursed through him as he rang Geraldine’s bell. There was no answer. He tried her phone but she didn’t pick up.

  ‘Hello,’ he called out cautiously, when her phone went to voicemail. ‘It’s me, Ian. Can you pick up the phone? I’m at your flat. Hello? Geraldine? Are you in?’

  He didn’t know where she was and had no idea what to do. Expecting to find her at home, he had spent the journey back to York rehearsing what he was going to say to her when they saw each other. He had imagined her joy on hearing that she would be able to see Helena again. He was so impatient to see her and tell her the news it hadn’t occurred to him that she might not be at home. He tried her mobile but she didn’t answer.

  ‘Geraldine,’ he said to the messaging service, ‘I’m going to let myself in the flat and wait on the sofa. I hope that’s all right. I just want to see you and speak to you in person as soon as we can. I have something to tell you and it can’t wait.’

  Hoping she would not be furious that he had not waited for her outside, he let himself in. He walked through every room. Every inch of the place was filled with memories. In the bedroom he caught a whiff of her perfume and closed his eyes to savour the scent, familiar and haunting. It felt unreal being back in the home where he had been so happy, as though he was dreaming about a distant childhood memory. Yet at the same time he felt as though he had never been away. In some ways he was relieved to be alone in the flat where everything reminded him of Geraldine; her fingers had touched everything he could see.