Alias

by Cari Hunter

  Mindful of the time lost to my nap, I brew another mug of coffee and start the second file. An identifying stamp in the top corner marks it as a static camera situated just beyond the junction of the A5 and the A4244. A quick check on Google Maps tells me Jolanta and I must have driven past it, unless we took a ridiculously roundabout route that night. Rush hour has been and gone, thinning the flow of traffic and making it easier for me to track through the tape. Pryce provided a helpful recap of the rental car’s specifics in her email—Ford Focus, navy blue, registration KW15 OXP—alongside similar details for the Audi SUV described by the caravanning witnesses. The footage is black and white, but I squint at each of the vehicles, dismissing anything in shades of pale grey and concentrating on the darker ones. My coffee goes cold and something in my lower back starts to twinge, and an hour into the tape, at twelve minutes past seven, our car passes the camera.

  “Oh!”

  I reel back as I jab the mouse, hitting the wrong bit of it and swapping the video for the desktop. I try again, placing my fingers with precision as if one false move might cause the footage to self-destruct. It doesn’t, of course. It’s still there when I recover it, paused with a Ford Focus, registration KW-something or other, frozen front and centre. I can see the outline of two people in the front seat: me and Jolanta, minutes away from the crash that will kill her. It’s like looking at a ghost, and I can’t do a thing to change what’s about to happen to her.

  Sick with dread, I set the tape going again. Two small cars go past, driven slowly in deference to the storm. The third, less than ninety seconds behind ours, is a large Audi SUV, black as midnight. Somehow I feel calmer for seeing it in the flesh. Up until this moment, I still had doubts about this whole unlikely scenario. With my chair pulled right up to the table, I inch the frames forward to the best possible angle. As with our own car, the registration is unclear. The first letter isn’t a J, it’s a D, but the rest is lost to the weather. I try every trick in the book to sharpen the image, and when I fail, I swallow past the hatred boiling in my throat and whisper a heartfelt vow to find the two fuckers who murdered my friend.

  Full of hyped-up energy, I spend a while grabbing screenshots, intending to email them to Pryce on the off-chance she has a trustworthy tech on her team. I’m creaking my stiff legs toward the kitchen for some form of sustenance and possibly alcohol when Priti lets herself in the front door. I freeze, caught red-handed, and then bolt back to the table, stubbing my toe on a chair in my haste to close the images and hide the file from the desktop.

  “Hey!” I call, tapping my foot as the Manchester Evening News website loads. I hit a random story and meet her in the hallway, where she sags into my arms like a sack of spuds. “Hey,” I say again, more quietly this time, a murmur of comfort into her hair. The tangled strands smell of hospital potpourri: a blend of disinfectant, canteen, and stale cigarettes. I guide her into the living room and sit beside her on the sofa.

  “She died,” she says, as if we’re midway through a conversation. “Late last night. I’ve just come from the PM.”

  “Husband or partner?”

  “Partner, and he’s done a runner with her three-year-old daughter.”

  “Christ.”

  “Yeah. He has family in Salford, so we don’t think he’s gone far.” She pushes back a little and fusses with my hair. “Sorry to desert you. Have you been all right?”

  “I’ve been fine,” I say, mentally editing the events of the past few days. “I have a new car. Well, new to me, at any rate. Martin phoned on Saturday, and I went to Colwyn Bay this morning for my interview.”

  “Bloody hell. Was Pryce there?”

  “Yep. Read me my caution and everything.” I hesitate as Priti pulls her face. I’ve not told her much about Pryce, but I haven’t painted too flattering a portrait either. “She was okay, actually. Fair in her questioning, and she arranged transport for me.”

  Priti huffs. “Least she could do, when she’s dragging you all the way to Wales.”

  Aware that overt dissent on my part will seem weird, I steer the conversation into less turbulent waters. “Did you have any tea?”

  “I don’t think I had any lunch.” She slumps forward, her head in her hands.

  I lean her against the sofa cushions and drag the ottoman toward her, sticking her feet on it. “Stay put and I’ll rustle something up.”

  “Something quick,” she mumbles, her eyes closing. “I have to get back to the office.”

  “It’s gone seven. Where the hell did you sleep the last couple of nights?”

  “I didn’t sleep Saturday. Sunday night one of the docs took pity on me and let me kip in their staffroom.” She tugs at the neck of her shirt and sniffs. “Shitting Nora, I need a shower.”

  “Go and have one,” I say. “I’ll be a while. Being cack-handed puts a real dent in my culinary prowess.”

  She heaves herself upright and pats my chest as she passes. “Try not to lop off a finger.”

  “I will do my very best.”

  We eat at the table, soup and more corned beef sandwiches, with a side of oven curly fries to make it seem like an actual meal. Priti tucks in with gusto, as if she’s been starved as well as sleep-deprived, finishing her bowl and then waving her spoon at my laptop, now closed on the placemat.

  “Catching up online?”

  “Not really. I was reading the news. It’s cheaper than buying a paper.”

  She gesticulates with a chip, dripping ketchup onto her wrist. “You never were one for social media. You stayed off Facebook and the like. Said they caused more trouble than they were worth.”

  “Pet pictures, babies, and bitching are all I remember.”

  “That pretty much sums it up.” She smiles, but she’s fiddling with her sandwich now, picking off the crust in strips. “Al, have you really been okay on your own?”

  I nod, knowing instinctively what she’s tiptoeing around and wanting to make it easy for her. “You can go home, love. Work your case without fretting over me.”

  Her sigh combines her relief and frustration. “It’s just, with all the coming and going at stupid hours, and my place being closer to the office, and—”

  “And it makes sense,” I say, careful not to appear too enthusiastic. While I’m not going to shove her out the door, her absence will keep her out of harm’s way and make any further collaborations with Pryce a lot more straightforward. “I love having you here, and my God, I appreciate your cooking, but fending for myself will do me the world of good.”

  “I don’t want you to fend!” she says. “You should be convalescing, not fending. Shit, you’re going to sit around in your underwear and eat crap out of tins, aren’t you?”

  I take a moment to wistfully consider that notion. “Not a chance,” I say. “I’ll get dressed in real clothes and eat real food and go out and do stuff.”

  “Sensible stuff,” she counters. “Because I know you, Alis Clarke, better than you know yourself, and I know there must be questions you’re asking about what happened to you.”

  “Yes, there are,” I admit, because she’ll catch a lie. “But I’m not going to do anything daft.”

  She looks right at me, her brown eyes alert and canny. “Promise me.”

  I raise my right hand. “I promise,” I say. Out of sight, I cross the fingers on my left.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Having rescued my prepared list of secure storage companies from the underside of a sofa cushion, I set an early alarm, full of good intentions to trek into Manchester and visit them all in person. The requirements stipulated on the companies’ websites suggest I used my own ID instead of Rebecca’s bus pass, so I arrange my passport and driving licence atop a change of clothes and take the rolling pin to bed again.

  Still feeling industrious after a reasonable night’s sleep, I’m eating breakfast in front of the laptop, sending Audi screen grabs to Pryce, when an email from DS Granger arrives to ruin my can-do mood. Her terse missive informs me I’ve b
een scheduled to appear before a disciplinary panel a fortnight from today at nine a.m. sharp, and she would like the name of my Federation rep ASAP. I stick two fingers up at her demand and then scurry for my mobile like a well-behaved, penitent junior detective. Pryce can’t help me with this one, being out of area, and Wallace would throw in any old name for the sake of a quiet life. Priti, the obvious choice, is up to her eyes in a murder and misper, so I find Jez’s card and text the mobile listed on it. I only ask him to recommend a rep, but he replies with an invitation for coffee and gossip, which seems too attractive a proposition to pass up.

  A bright, frosty morning tempts us along the road to Debdale Park, where our window seat in the lakeside cafe provides an excellent view of a man sprawled on the grass in a sea of super-strength lager cans. Every so often he fishes in his pocket for a slice of Warburton’s and the Canada geese flock around him in adoration.

  “To Duck-Bread Daryl,” Jez says, raising his coffee mug in salute to one of our favourite regulars. I’ve arrested Daryl more times than I care to count—drunk and disorderly, drunk and half-naked, drunk and apparently dead—but I frown as if I’m trying to place his face, and Jez smiles in sympathy.

  “He’s one you’re better off forgetting,” he says.

  I blow on my coffee, steaming the window as Daryl attempts to roll away from the goose pecking his arse. “I dunno, he looks like a pillar of society.”

  Jez chuckles and tears a chunk off his crumpet. “So how are you doing? In general and”—he taps the side of his head—“up here?”

  “Not too shabby. I seem to be getting the hang of living at home again, though the novelty’s going to wear off PDQ if I can’t get back to work.”

  He uses a napkin to wipe butter from his fingers. “And the rest?”

  “The rest feels like constantly having the rug pulled out from under me,” I say, which is as close to putting it into words as I can manage. “I see people and I don’t know whether I should greet them as friends or complete strangers. Even the simplest stuff—what I like to eat, how I take my coffee, what brand of bloody toothpaste I prefer—I’m having to relearn from scratch, and I’m probably getting most of it wrong.”

  “One sugar.” He knuckles my chin gently. “In your coffee. If that helps.”

  “Yeah?” I look at him in disbelief. “I take two now.”

  “Aw, bollocks.” He’s trying not to laugh. “You think that’s bad? I’m stuck with bloody sweeteners.”

  I uncrumple the tiny packet he’s discarded by his spoon. “Are you dieting?”

  “Nope, diabetic. I scored a hat-trick the last time I saw my doc: diabetes, high blood pressure, and cholesterol through the roof.”

  “Ouch.”

  He always did have a tendency to bin the sandwiches he’d packed for a night shift in favour of a kebab or pizza, and he drank like a fish and rolled his own fags, but I think he’s actually lost weight, and he no longer reeks of stale tobacco. A smattering of five o’clock shadow adds to his debonair new image.

  “You look fabulous,” I say and stick my tongue out when he lobs a packet of Canderel at my head.

  “Anyway,” he says, dragging the word out, flustered. “You wanted to talk Fed reps?”

  “Yes, please. Who would you choose if you were in my shoes?”

  “Rob Reid,” he says with certainty. “He’s a newish DC on the TPU, but he’s a shit-hot rep, and he loves a good scrap with the brass.”

  “Sounds perfect.” I scan the page Jez puts in front of me. It’s been torn from the back of the monthly Federation freebie, and Reid’s contact details are listed beneath a black-and-white picture of him in dress uniform. He looks about twelve.

  “He’s older than he seems,” Jez says, proving we’re still in synch despite my malfunctioning grey matter. “And he’s like a dog with a bone when he gets stuck into a case.”

  “I’ll give him a call.” I tuck the paper into my wallet. “Okay, then, what’s the gossip? Start with the most salacious bit and work your way down.”

  He folds his arms and puffs out his cheeks, making a show of sorting through a host of possible options. “I think my favourite is the big bag o’ cash conspiracy.”

  “Go on,” I say, regretting asking the question.

  “Rumour has it that you fled west with your girl and a case full of ill-gotten gains. That you intended to lie low for a while and then head off to sunnier climes.”

  “Wow.” I’m not really shocked. The Manchester Met grapevine is legendary, its capacity for invention boundless. “It’s not enough that I had an affair with a witness, I have to be on the take as well? If that’s true, where’s the money?”

  He waggles his eyebrows at me. “That’s the question, ain’t it?”

  “Welsh police nicked it?” I suggest. “Or maybe the paramedics? Because they were the only ones down that embankment with me.” The humour has vanished from my voice. I’m sure the single piece of luggage isn’t common knowledge, but the accusation has hit too close to home.

  “You know what people are like, Al,” he says. “Give them an inch and all of a sudden you’re Jesse James and Mata Hari rolled into one.”

  “My fault for asking. I suppose I should be grateful that no one’s gone to the press with it yet.”

  “To small mercies.” He makes another toast and drains his mug. “Hell, I have to run. I’ve got an interview at ten.”

  I sip my coffee, considering ordering another, and reflect fondly on the days when I had a job to go to and a schedule to keep. He kisses the top of my head, and I smile up at him.

  “Hang in there, kid,” he says.

  “I will. Keep in touch.”

  The bell above the door jangles as he leaves. I wave to catch the attention of the waitress, and watch Daryl use a crust to wipe goose shit from his forehead. For a moment I almost envy him, drunk by breakfast time and cavorting about in the sunshine without a care in the world. Then he turns to one side and vomits down his coat, and I remember there’s a lot to be said for sobriety.

  * * *

  I arrive in Manchester later than I’d intended, but still within that mid-morning lull between rush hour and the offices emptying out for lunch. In the shade of the bus stop, I open an A-Z, the double-page city centre spread adorned with black crosses marking the places I need to visit. In recognition of my unreliable mental acuity, I’ve also plotted the most efficient route to hit them all. I look around before setting off, studying the faces of those people close by me—a black man in an ill-fitting jacket, an acne-riddled teen smoking a joint, a woman tugging an infant along by his arm. None of them are paying me the slightest bit of attention, but there’s no harm in being paranoid when people really are out to get you.

  I start on Piccadilly, slipping my woolly hat into my pocket to ensure the sutures criss-crossing my skull add veracity to the story I’ve concocted.

  “Hey,” I say to the girl behind the counter of Safe Mail 4 U. “This is going to sound a bit strange, but I’m pretty sure I rented a mailbox somewhere in Manchester, only I can’t remember where.” I make a vague, embarrassed gesture toward my head. “I wondered whether it might be possible to check using my ID?”

  Not adept at multitasking, the girl has slowed her gum chewing and is tilting her head to one side as she stares at the slash of black thread closing my wound. A miasma of dope surrounds her.

  “Does it hurt?” she asks.

  “Itches, mostly.”

  “Yikes.” She swivels my passport so it’s facing her on the counter and starts to type into the computer. “I like your nose ring. I might get my tongue done. Friend of mine did her own with an ice cube and a big sewing needle.”

  “Bloody hell, I don’t think I’d recommend that.”

  “Yeah, it all went black and she needed a shitload of antibiotics.” She stops clacking keys and shakes her head. “You’re not on here. Sorry.”

  “Damn,” I say with feeling. I suppose hitting the jackpot on the first attempt wa
s asking a bit much. “I appreciate you taking the time.”

  “Oh, no worries. Hey, you should shave your hair. It’d look bazzin’ with that scar.”

  I laugh; I fucking love Manchester. “I’ll think about it.”

  She pops a pink bubble over her nose. “Good luck finding yer box,” she says, scraping her chin clean.

  The encounter sets the tone for the day. No one quibbles about running my ID through their system, and the safety deposit centre on Shude Hill sticks my finger into their biometric scanner, where a red light indicates I’m not one of theirs, whatever my name.

  I eat a very late lunch on the hoof: a lukewarm Gregg’s sausage roll, the pastry flaking down my coat and the greasy taste of the cheap meat so steeped in nostalgia that it immediately makes me crave another. The sky dulls as I dust off my clothes, and I shiver, footsore and cranky, with two places left on my list. A sharp shower drenches the Northern Quarter, sending a gang of goths sprinting into Affleck’s Palace, their Doc Martens splashing through the flash-flooded gutters. Pulling up my hood, I skulk in a doorway until the worst is over and then dodge a bus on Oldham Street to get to my next address.

  The mailbox store is blink-and-you’ll-miss-it tiny, squashed between an Oxfam shop and a cafe heralding its all-day breakfasts in gaudy picture ads. I weave through the bus stop queue, earning glares and a few sniggers from the school kids amassed on the pavement. It’s warm inside the shop, and the row of the street is silenced by a heavy front door and a radio playing soft rock.