Alias

by Cari Hunter

  “Hey, Al? Al!”

  I turn at the rapid pound of footsteps, and I’m immediately gathered into a boisterous hug. Unprepared for the contact, I stiffen, and the man releases me, babbling apologies. Wallace steps in to introduce us, but I decide it’s okay for me to recognise my ex-response partner, and I smile at him as he grins and punches me on the shoulder.

  “Still a knob, eh, Jez?” I say and hug him properly this time, happy to find someone I can still consider a friend.

  “Aye, so my missus tells me.”

  “Sweet Jesus.” I grab his shirtsleeve and examine his wedding band. “Congratulations.”

  He extricates his fingers from mine. “It’s been six years, Al.”

  “Oh. Shit.” I’m not sure what else to say. I’ve grown so accustomed to exaggerating the amnesia that it’s galling to find myself genuinely caught out.

  “She’s called Paula,” he says. “Two kids, one dog, and a rabbit that hates me.”

  I nod, remembering the rabbit, if nothing else. “Are you on the MCT?”

  “No, TPU. Trafficking and Prostitution Unit,” he says, expanding for my benefit. “Busiest team in the Met. Speaking of which, I’d best get on. I’m late for a briefing. Here”—he presses his card into my hand—“meet me for a brew? For old time’s sake?”

  “Yeah, I’d love to.”

  I worked with Jez Stephens for four years. My big brother in blue, who would supply all the sweets for our night shifts and laugh at his own farts. We’ve saved each other’s arses more times than I can count. He’s older and greyer than my last fuzzy impression of him, but I suppose shift work and a psychotic rabbit will do that to a person.

  Wallace clears his throat, uncomfortable at being cast as a third wheel. “We should make a move as well,” he says, and breaks up the impromptu reunion by heading off in the opposite direction to Jez.

  I trot behind, catching him up as he enters the MCT office. The open-plan room is quiet, with most of the desks deserted and the computers on standby.

  “Gang-related shooting in Levenshulme last night,” Wallace tells me. “One critical, and one young kid caught in the crossfire. He died early this morning.”

  “Arseholes,” I mutter.

  “Jersey and O’Shea copped for it, but the boss wanted everyone on the door-to-door.”

  I make an affirmative-type noise, feeling like a spare part. My desk has been allocated to someone else—we were always fighting for space—and I only recognise one of the team members still in the office: Phil Trent, who doesn’t look up from whatever he’s typing, his stubby fingers battering the keys into submission. He and I used to restock the team’s biccie cache, collecting a couple of quid from petty cash and nipping out to the corner shop in our lunch break. We’d argue over which sort to buy, debating the advantages a Garibaldi might have over a ginger nut, but he’d always defer to my final selection. I don’t attempt to greet him as I follow Wallace past his desk. It’s easier to pretend he’s a stranger than admit how much his contempt hurts me, and Wallace makes no attempt to play intermediary. Instead he leads me to an interview room at the rear of the office. I should probably be grateful it’s not the one used to interview suspects, but it’s not the softly furnished one designed to comfort victims, either.

  A woman’s voice answers his knock, and he ushers me inside, careful to remain well back from the threshold, and then closes the door on me with an ominous clink. Ansari and another detective are seated in a neat arc behind the room’s central table, their chairs positioned with such precision that I’m tempted to check the floor for guide markers. They’ve helped themselves to coffee from a cafetière, the clunky institutional cups and saucers set out like a tea party they’ve been obliged to bring in under budget. I stand there like the proverbial deer in headlights, one that was lured into the middle of the road by its mate and then abandoned in front of a speeding truck. I’m not in any way prepared for an official meeting. I haven’t even taken my fucking nose ring out.

  The woman to Ansari’s left—early forties, blond bob, tasteful pearl earrings—is the first to acknowledge me.

  “DC Clarke?” She rises and offers her hand. “I’m Detective Sergeant Granger, SMIU.”

  I nod in response, biting my tongue and refusing to break the awkward silence. They must have homes to go to, so sooner or later one of them will relent and tell me why we’re here. I suspect it’s not simply to exchange files for a mobile phone.

  Ansari cracks within the minute. “Take a seat,” he says.

  The lone available chair is on the opposite side of the table. I pull it farther back, propping my bag against its leg as Pryce would have done. Unlike her, I opt for a non-confrontational pose, my hand in my lap and my legs crossed at the ankles. I still don’t volunteer to speak, though. My brain might be temperamental at the moment, but I’m not stupid.

  “Thank you for coming in, Alis. Are you feeling any better?” Granger asks. Her accent, all proper vowels and devoid of glottal stops, screams “privately educated in Cheshire.”

  I stare at her, convinced she’s taking the piss, until she raises an eyebrow in expectation.

  “Just terrific,” I say before I can help myself. “This is very therapeutic.”

  Her chair creaks as she leans forward, and the draught she creates tells me she’s a smoker who overcompensates with perfume.

  “Did you bring the files?” she asks.

  “Yes, I did.” I turn to Ansari. Since the organ grinder is present, it seems redundant to deal with the monkey. “Do you have my mobile phone?”

  Anger pinkens Ansari’s cheeks, but he’s the one who blinks first, removing a clear evidence bag from his briefcase and sliding it across to me. Almost disappointed by his capitulation, I pocket the phone and heft the files onto the table. It wasn’t as if I could have left the room without relinquishing them.

  “We’ll need time to review those,” Granger says. “Am I to understand that there are considerable gaps in your memory with regard to your assignment?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I push the files closer to her. “I could hazard a few guesses based on the content of these, but I would prefer to be as well-informed as possible. For obvious reasons.”

  “Of course. I’ll ask DC Wallace to liaise with you. I would ask that you refrain from discussing this matter with anyone. Our intention is to keep the details out of the media for as long as practicable, in an effort to salvage whatever we can of the case against Hamer’s. As far as they are concerned, two of their employees were involved in a car accident, and the severity of Rebecca Elliott’s injuries mean she will be unable to return to work. There will be no mention made of any sexual relationship.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I repeat, because that’s a safe, standard response that doesn’t reveal the major flaw in her plan: that Hamer’s already know about me, and we’re caught in a game of bluff and double bluff that’s so convoluted it’s making my head spin.

  She clicks her pen and sets it at an angle across the pristine page of her notepad. There’s something unsettling about the gesture, as if she’s signalling an end to the preliminary niceties. She takes a sip of her coffee and then recites a speech she’s clearly made before. “Given the serious nature of this investigation and the weight of the potential charges that could be brought against you, it is our intention to suspend you with pay, effective immediately.”

  I slide my hand out of view and clutch the chair. Everything goes grey for a few seconds, Granger’s figure turning monochromatic and indistinct around the edges. Her earrings flash too bright against the shadows, and I squint until I’m sure I won’t topple sideward. She’s still talking, telling me what to do with my warrant card and who to contact at HR and when my next meeting is likely to be scheduled for, but most of the details are swallowed by a cresting wave of tinnitus, and none of them sink in. I sit motionless, wretched and humiliated, watching her lips move as she politely confirms that they’re throwing me to the wolves.

 
* * *

  Wallace is waiting outside the interview room. One look at my face and he backs against the wall, his hands raised in supplication.

  “Don’t shoot the messenger, Al,” he says, as Ansari and Granger stride out of earshot. “Ansari told me to phone you.”

  “Yeah? Was he listening in on the fucking call? Is that why you didn’t warn me, you fucking arsehole?”

  “I didn’t know anyone from SMIU was going to be there, I swear.”

  I don’t believe him. He probably saw it as payback for the automated text trick. I can’t blame him, really, and acknowledging that is enough to sap all the fight from me.

  “I’ve been suspended,” I tell him. “I think you’re my escort off the premises.”

  He nods, confirming he’d been forewarned of that as well, and gives me an A4 envelope.

  “Your assignment briefing, all of my notes, and a few forms from HR,” he says. “I didn’t think you’d want to be dealing with them today.”

  “No, I don’t. Thank you.” I pull out my ID and warrant. “Are you to take these?”

  He studies the floor like a kid being put on detention. “Aye. Sorry, Al.”

  “Not your fault, mate. Like you said, you’re only the messenger.”

  When we set off down the corridor, he adjusts his pace to mine as if afraid I might bolt and wreak havoc just to spite him. I pause at the entrance to the ladies’ loo.

  “Am I okay to nip in? I’m busting.”

  “Sure, no probs.”

  The only woman in there leaves as I enter. I bypass the toilets and head for the bank of lockers that divides the changing area, the key to mine already in my hand. According to the files, I’ve been back to the station three times during the UC work, for a high-level debrief and two six-monthly welfare reviews, so it’s not inconceivable I may have stashed something here.

  Like many of my colleagues, I never got around to putting my name on my locker, which might explain why it hasn’t been jemmied open. A pattern of rainbow stickers in the top right corner marks mine out from a crowd of similarly anonymous façades, and inside it’s full of the crap you’d expect to see in any shift worker’s emergency supplies: tins of soup and beans, toothbrush and toothpaste, tampons, spare uniform, Biros, and a pile of pigeonhole memoranda. The top shelf yields nothing but dust and an out-of-date Kit Kat. Mindful of Wallace watching the clock, I tug shirts and a high-vis jacket from their hangers, kneeling to fumble in their pockets as I rummage through the bottom shelf with my recalcitrant left hand. I’m cramming everything back inside when a grey scribble catches my eye: “2311,” shining in pencil on the inner wall. It reads like a date, November 23rd, the most obvious way to remember a pin number or perhaps an MMP system logon. The numbers don’t ring a bell and neither does the date, but I transfer the four digits to my cast for posterity. If nothing else, I’ll need to withdraw cash at some point.

  “Sorry, mate,” I say to Wallace, shoving down a tampon I’ve left sticking out of my bag, as if I’m mortified by the whole business of menstruation.

  He scratches the back of his neck, his embarrassment far more authentic than mine. “I called a taxi for you,” he says. “It should be here about now.”

  “Thanks.”

  I’d rush ahead of him if I could remember the way out. Less than twenty minutes have elapsed since I surrendered my warrant card, but the corridors are full of murmuring colleagues, and I no longer feel I belong here.

  Chapter Ten

  The taxi driver is happy to make a detour to Asda. When I reappear with a full trolley, he helps me unload and turns a blind eye to the bag that clinks and is far heavier than the rest. Back home and beset by good intentions, I pile an assortment of toppings onto a cheese and tomato pizza, the laborious one-handed slicing made bearable by a bottle of fruity cider that tastes like pop. I prop a second bottle on the side of the bath, slurping it through a straw as I wash off the afternoon’s fear-sweat. The alcohol takes care of the rest, dulling the shame and the stress to a tolerable level, and I’m drowsing on the sofa by the time Priti comes home.

  “Hey.” She moves an empty bottle—my fourth—and sits on the edge of the coffee table. “I heard.”

  “Grapevine or Wallace?” I say, past caring either way.

  “Bit of both. I’m not going to ask whether you’re okay.”

  “I’m drunk,” I tell her, somewhat unnecessarily. “And I made pizza.”

  Scepticism crinkles her nose. “You made it?”

  “Well, I added extra stuff to it. Does that count?”

  “Absolutely.” She takes my hand and splays it against hers.

  “What you doin’?” I ask.

  “Checking you’ve still got all your fingers, if you’ve been drunk-dicing.”

  “Oh. I was sober back then.” I wiggle each one for her in turn. “See?”

  Midway through the pizza, I start to cry. Priti passes me a piece of kitchen roll and waits out my subdued burst of misery.

  “I love being a police officer,” I whisper. I fold in on myself, the pizza forgotten. “Even the shitty parts, the parts we all moan about. I love it, and I don’t want to do anything else.”

  “It might not come to that,” she says, though there’s little conviction in her tone. She must know that everything will be different even if the SMIU exonerate me; that people will have formed their own opinions, no matter the official verdict. The worst part, the part she can’t know, is that I’ll only be able to clear my name by pointing the finger at another officer, and I don’t think there’ll be a way back from that. Whatever the outcome, my career with MMP probably ended late this afternoon.

  “Come on,” she says, stretching out her hand.

  “Huh?” I blink at her. “Come on, what?”

  “You need a change of scenery. Sugar and Spice at Silk. My treat.”

  * * *

  Canal Street, the pedestrianised heart of Manchester’s Gay Village, is heaving. I cling to Priti’s arm, daunted by the sheer number of people tottering along the frosty cobbles, every member of the rainbow coalition present and correct, as well as the usual gaggle of tourists and hen parties. I watch a gang of raucous queers posing by one of the locks and taking Snapchat selfies. They’re all young, about the age I was when I first started coming here. I virtually lived in the Village when I moved to Manchester, volunteering on the crisis helpline, marching in Pride, and racking up one-night stands that seldom progressed beyond the closest toilet cubicle. Everything I needed to know about oral sex, I learned from a woman called Maya in the loo at Vanilla.

  There’s a popular local singer headlining at Silk, and the club is standing room only. Priti elbows her way to the bar, returning with something sweet and fizzy and definitely not alcoholic.

  “You’ll thank me for it in the morning,” she says when I pull my face.

  I kiss her cheek. “In case I forget in the morning,” I tell her.

  We listen to the set, swaying with the rest of the crowd and singing along to the songs we recognise. The lights are dim, the mood mellow and increasingly sultry, and before the encore rolls around, I’m being pressed into a dingy nook by a woman with long plaits and dimpled cheeks. She grazes a finger across the scar splitting my eyebrow and then touches her lips to it. I close my eyes, not resisting but not really in the mood either. Her tongue stud clacks against my teeth when she kisses me, the taste of second-hand beer and dope hot and stale in her mouth. I inch back, catching hold of fingers that have already unfastened my jeans.

  “Sorry, no,” I say. “I didn’t mean…I just don’t…”

  She flicks up her hands—no harm done—her expression bemused rather than offended. The crowd swallows her up as she walks away, and I struggle to button my trousers, still drunk enough for dexterity to be an issue.

  I find Priti by the bar, holding a shouted conversation with a ChapStick lesbian who’s far too young to be wearing a flat cap.

  “I’m going to go home,” I say. “You stay. I’ll
get a taxi.”

  The lass glowers at me for interrupting, but Priti ignores her. She downs her drink in one, takes my hand, and leads me out into the cold air.

  * * *

  My head hurts. Not the jackhammer pain of a clot pressing on my brain, but a common or garden hangover that comes with a foul, cottony mouth and an urge to throttle the chirpy chorus of birds trilling outside my window. Switching on a lamp sends needles through my eyeballs. I groan and cover my face with both hands, adding insult to injury by bashing myself with my cast.

  “Oww…”

  The sound squeaks out, prolonged and pitiful, and it’s about then that I decide to man the fuck up and open my eyes.

  A pint of water is sitting on my bedside table, propping up a box of aspirin and a note from Priti saying one of her cases has gone to shit, the vic is drain-circling in the ITU, and she has no idea when she’ll be home. I take two of the tablets, drink the whole glass of water, and stagger into the shower with an Aldi bag wrapped around my arm and my toothbrush sticking out of my mouth. Once clean and dressed, I almost feel human again, and a mountain of toast washed down by strong coffee kicks the last of my headache in the arse.

  I’m spreading out Wallace’s notes when the phone rings. Expecting telesales, I answer with half an eye still on the pages in front of me.

  “Hello? Alis?” A man’s voice, the rich tenor of his tone doing little to disguise the concern undercutting his greeting.

  “Martin?” I’m ninety percent certain it’s him. Even with the distortion of age and the phone line, he sounds like the lad who hurtled barefoot over the fields with me. I hear him close a door, muffling the babble of a child and a dog’s persistent bark.

  “Yes, it’s me,” he says. “I’ve kept meaning to call, but it’s been bedlam here. Did you get my message?”

  “I got it, don’t worry. How’s Karen?” (Karen fell off a horse and broke her leg hours after he’d arranged to visit me in the hospital. I think she’s his wife rather than one of his children, but I’m not confident enough to be more specific.)