Alias

by Cari Hunter

“No refunds on deposits,” she warns me.

  I couldn’t care less. It’s the best seventy-five quid I’ve ever spent.

  * * *

  I take my time driving back to my flat, neither harrying the car dawdling in front of me nor trying one of the numerous shortcuts. I’m careful on the speed bumps, giving way to people waiting to pull out, and concentrating on the traffic rather than on the tiny pink flash drive that’s burning a metaphorical hole in my pocket. Now that I’ve found the damn thing, I’m scared shitless of what might be on it, and it’s hard not to park on an anonymous side street so I can lie foetal on the back seat for a while.

  I kick my boots off on the doormat and go to the loo before I start my laptop. Compared to the state I got in during the journey, I’m quite calm now, even managing a smile as I go through the usual “try the USB one way, fail, flip it, fail, try it the other way again and succeed” rigmarole. Nothing I can do will change what’s on the device, so I immediately double-click the first of two files that appear on the desktop.

  It’s a Word file, its text broken down into a series of short, date- and time-stamped paragraphs in typical police notebook format, only without the signatures or coffee stains. A précis identifies me as the author, and I’ve provided my full name, rank, and collar number, as if I somehow knew I might not be around to retrieve it. The earliest entry is headed 9 February, 1:35 a.m., which is about fifteen hours before I signed the car rental agreement in Ardwick. In terse sentences I’ve described Jo banging on the door of my alias’s flat at ten p.m., and her half-incoherent account of Krzys’s murder. She told me that Krzys had become suspicious about her new shifts and the amount of nights she was working, and that he’d tailed her to Copthorne and figured out exactly what her new job involved. And then she had to explain to me what she’d been doing at Copthorne and how Krzys had begged her to stop, even though he couldn’t give her the money she needed. He hadn’t known about the drugs after all, but he’d gone over her head and spoken to one of the managers at Hamer’s, threatening to tell the police about the prostitution and the sexual exploitation. The potential for an investigation snowballing into other areas had apparently been enough to get him killed. Jo and I went to find his body in the warehouse that night. “See photos,” I’ve written in red and underlined.

  I follow the instructions now, opening a gallery of clinical, crime scene type images that show Krzys within hours of his death. The flash on my phone has left nothing to the imagination, and I recoil from a close-up of the bullet wound that’s collapsed the back of his head like an egg dropped from height, and the halo of clotted blood and bone fragments surrounding it. As horrific as the decomposing version was, at least it hid everything that made him recognisable as my friend.

  I close the gallery and return to the Word file. With Jo dosed up on Night Nurse and sleeping in my bedroom, I’ve continued to detail the events of that night, documenting the exact location of the body—“trace evidence is likely to be present even if the victim is moved”—and transcribing the conversation that took place in the car on the way home.

  “My name isn’t Rebecca Elliot,” I’d told her. “It’s Alis Clarke, and I’m a detective with the Manchester Metropolitan Police.” My lips move as I read it now, the exchange so close to how I’ve imagined it that I probably retained the specifics on some level. “I can help you. We can keep you safe. Please don’t cry. It’ll be okay.”

  And then her response, in broken English that in no way diminished its impact: “There is police. They come to the house. With Hamer’s. Working with them. All together. How can you keep me safe, Alis Clarke?”

  I’d challenged her, of course, my outrage unmistakeable in my rapid-fire interrogation: How could she know that? What proof did she have? Names? Descriptions? How could she be so sure?

  “They talk after,” she’d said. “Big men like to show off.”

  Post-coital hubris, that’s all it had come down to. Careless pillow talk that wasn’t careless enough for the men to have entrusted her with their names. Even when I’d pushed her, the only descriptions she could provide were of two white men, one younger—between twenty and thirty years old—and the other perhaps in his mid-forties.

  “The light is dull. I don’t like to see them,” she’d told me. “They talk like you. Your voice.”

  “My accent?” I’d asked, unwittingly pre-empting what I would later write on my cast. “Local?”

  “Yes, local. And the older man, he has a pipe.”

  “He smokes a pipe? A proper pipe, like this?” I’d sketched one to clarify the word.

  “No, no. The new pipes. For when you stop the cigarettes.”

  “E-cigs? Vaping?” I’d suggested.

  “Yes,” she’d said, and I’ve described her reaction in the file: a lack of eye contact and an ashamed shake of her head. “Tutti-frutti, he liked the best. He tasted sweet.”

  She had no proof, no names, and descriptions that would match approximately seventy percent of MMP’s male officers. I could hardly have gone through them to check their preferred vaping flavour.

  I’d believed her, though, and spent the rest of the night bullet-pointing everything I deemed pertinent to the case. I added an explanation of the method behind my colour-coded notes, for fear the files might be destroyed or tampered with, and further backed that up by copying across the names of the businesses and individuals supplied via my production line at Hamer’s. The simple act of combining those disparate elements made the flash drive an incendiary piece of evidence. Where before I had the names, some coloured patterns, and unsubstantiated suspicion, I now have a confirmed web of distribution which includes specific shipping dates, a complex and largely concealed pricing structure, and details of the receiving parties.

  The notebook entries become more personal and diary-like the further I read. I’ve described the almost paralysing doubts that set in and the extent to which I was second-guessing my actions. I hadn’t slept, instead spending a couple of hours searching for a refuge, somewhere I could take Jo while I returned to Manchester and my assignment. I hadn’t had a long-term vision. I’d wanted to find the officers Jo had described, and then I’d wanted out.

  There’s no attempt to sign off or draw conclusions. The file ends abruptly without mentioning the Snowdonia cottage, the app I’d set for Wallace, or my plan to rent a safety deposit box. The paranoia I was obviously experiencing that night bleeds into me now, and I check over my shoulder, listening out for untoward noises, while I add the video and screen grabs from the traffic camera and the more recent photos of Krzys’s body to the flash drive and then make copies of everything on a spare in case something happens to the original.

  As I close down the laptop, the fact that I’ve taken a few steps forward and then been booted back again starts to sink in. I stupidly assumed that finding the flash drive would be the end of it, that I’d be able to pass on the evidence and the names of my corrupt colleagues to Ansari, or to the SMIU, or to anyone—quite frankly—who wasn’t me. I knuckle my tired eyes as I debate whether or not the file even puts me in the clear. My reaction to Jo’s revelation—shock, dismay, disbelief—seems authentic, but someone accustomed to duplicity, to playing a role, would know to react and record it like that, to give a convincing performance and then manufacture a report I could later use to corroborate my innocence. I certainly wasn’t one of the officers using Jo at the house, but there’s still nothing to prove I wasn’t in league with them.

  I shut the laptop and rest my head on it. I consider calling Pryce to ask her if she’ll take one of the drives for safekeeping, but I’m so tired that the phone in my pocket might as well be a million miles away. For want of a better idea, I push the pink drive into my cast and close my fist around the other. I’ll decide what to do with it later, when the room isn’t twirling around so badly and I can think straight. Cushioning my head on my arms, I let my eyes close.

  * * *

  A twenty-minute catnap fails to fill me wit
h inspiration, and I wake with a crick in my neck and my cheek stuck to the laptop. My grip on the flash drive has slackened, but I haven’t let go, and I can feel where its sharp metal edge has dug into my fingers. Jo died for this. Those men hunted us down and left us for dead, and even now, when my brain’s in bits and I’m on the verge of losing everything, the fuckers won’t leave me alone.

  Getting pissed off works wonders for my motivation, and without thinking, I’m up and pacing, my eyes roving around the room as I consider and discount various hiding places for the second flash drive. Unable to settle on a secure spot, I shove it alongside the first one, nudging it with a pen until it’s snugly embedded toward the base of my wrist.

  “Right. Now what?” I ask the empty room, because I’ve become accustomed to discussing these things, and the habit is apparently going to die hard.

  No one replies, of course, and the buzz of an incoming text sounds too much like laughter for my liking. It’s Rob Reid, chasing an answer to his earlier message. Lying through my teeth, I concoct an elaborate tale about a gallivanting neurologist, his reticent medical secretary, and an appointment that hasn’t yet been brought forward. Reid could easily trap me by making his own enquiries at Manchester Royal, but that’s not what makes me carefully place the phone down and delete every word of my unsent message: it’s the notion of setting a trap of my own instead. The empty text box is filling the screen, its cursor blinking in readiness. I lock the screen and find a pen and a scrap of paper.

  “Rob Reid,” I write at the top. I chew the pen and then put “Wallace?” on the line below, adding the question mark to make me feel less of an arsehole. I have no qualms about using Reid to test a theory, but Wallace is too perfectly placed within MMP not to include him as a backup.

  In the three minutes it takes for my laptop to restart, I talk myself out of the plan and recommit to it several times over. It’s reckless and dangerous, and Pryce would definitely not approve, and I’m tempted to give her a call just so she can confirm that.

  I log on to my MMP email account and open two new messages, one of which I address to Reid and the other to Wallace. I use the same header for both: “New information—Urgent,” and flag them as high priority to ensure they pique the interest of anyone illicitly monitoring my account. I personalise each message slightly, giving Reid’s a more panicked, damsel-in-distress tone, and trying to appeal to the reluctant father figure in Wallace. The content is essentially identical, though: I tell them I’ve found a flash drive pertaining to the Hamer investigation and it has serious implications for a number of MMP personnel. I don’t know what to do with it, and I’m scared.

  Mindful that email isn’t my usual method of contacting them, I text the same information seconds before I hit “send.” I tag on an apology for disturbing their Saturday, hoping that will explain why I haven’t tried to speak to them in person. With a bit of luck, they’ll catch the texts but not the emails. The longer those sit on the MMP server, the likelier my target is to see them.

  I haven’t even logged out of my account when Reid calls my mobile. I answer at once, as if I’ve been waiting on tenterhooks for him to respond.

  “Hey,” I say, letting my voice catch. “Sorry to disturb you. I didn’t know who else to contact.”

  “It’s all right, it’s not a problem,” he says, but there’s no warmth there, just a desire to get down to business. “Where did you find this flash drive?”

  “In a safety deposit box at a local jeweller’s. I’d put it there before the crash. I think”—I take a breath: all or nothing—“I think I was in danger. I think that’s why I went to Wales.” I don’t mention Jo or Krzys. I want to leave as much to his imagination as possible.

  He clears his throat, and I hear him swallow liquid and put a glass down. “You said MMP personnel are involved. That’s a hell of an accusation, Alis. Do you have names or any proof to substantiate it?”

  “I can’t talk about it now,” I whisper. “What if they’re listening?”

  “It’s not—What? You think your phone’s bugged? Alis, come on!” To his credit, his scepticism sounds genuine. “Okay, all right. I need to meet you, then, and get this sorted out. Are you free this evening?”

  “No, my friend’s coming for supper. She’s a DC. She’ll know something’s wrong if I cancel at the last minute.” Christ, the last thing I want is him turning up on my doorstep.

  “Tomorrow, then. Name a time and place.”

  “Midday,” I say, aiming for a time when plenty of people will be around. “Same cafe as before. They open later on a Sunday.”

  “That’s fine.” His tone tells me it’s anything but, though, so I try to appease him.

  “I really appreciate this, Rob,” I say, laying it on thick. “I mean it. Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I end the call and check my messages. Wallace hasn’t replied, but his Saturdays are taken up by football and a curry in Wetherspoons, and his Sundays by hair of the dog and a roast dinner. It’s a routine that suits my purposes down to the ground. I have one fish on the hook already. All I need to do is wait and see who else takes the bait.

  * * *

  The setting sun drags all my bluff and bluster down with it. It’s one thing to lure criminals out into the open in broad daylight, but quite another to sit alone in my darkening flat and wonder whether they’ll break in during the night. If Reid is one of the men Jo described, he’s unlikely to wait until tomorrow to make his move, and he already knows where I live.

  Armed with the rolling pin I’ve been nursing on my lap, I check the locks on the front door for the nth time, rattling the security chain and peeking through the peephole. The corridor is empty and dark, the lights set to come on when they sense motion, and I avert my eyes almost at once, as if I’m tempting fate by looking.

  Back in the living room, I heave my sofa against the door and barricade myself in, until I need a wee and have to venture out into the hallway again. I collect a knife on my return trip, plus a can of deodorant that I set next to a lighter. I’m not averse to fighting dirty if push comes to shove, though my lack of dexterity may well scupper my chances.

  With the muted television providing a semblance of companionship, I toy with my mobile phone, flicking between Priti and Pryce on its contacts list. I wanted to handle this on my own, but if the worst does happen tonight and the flash drives are taken, it seems remiss not to have warned someone that I’ve painted a big bullseye on my forehead. And, much as I love Priti, the obvious person to tell is Pryce.

  I call her number, leaving a brief “please ring me back, it’s important” message on her voice mail. I send her a text as well, and then collect my duvet and pillow and drag them onto the sofa. Having blocked the door again, I surround myself with weapons. It’s going to be a very long night.

  * * *

  It snows during the night. I notice the first flakes falling when I check the street at eleven p.m., and I nestle on the windowsill to watch the gardens, the cars, and finally the roads turn white. It won’t last—it rarely does, this close to the city—but it takes my mind off my current predicament and makes me think of Saddleworth and sledging on the moors with Martin. We’d stay out until we were so tired we couldn’t even stagger to the top of the run, and Mum would have drop scones and hot chocolate ready for us when we got home, frozen and wet through because the drifts had been up to our waists. Proper seasons were one of the few things I missed on moving to Manchester, with its mild, soggy climate, and the snow now gathering outside lulls me into a doze that somehow sees me through to dawn.

  I dismantle my fortress and take a shower before checking my phone for messages. I needn’t have worried; there’s nothing from Pryce or Wallace. Perhaps Pryce is snowed in, her mobile out of range and her landline severed by the storm. It’s easier to make excuses for her than accept she’s cut me loose.

  Allowing plenty of time to get to Belle Vue, I take a new, circuitous route,
passing playing fields crammed with kids racing down slopes that are more mud than snow, and managing not to lose my patience with churchgoers obliged to brave the conditions. I arrive early and park where I can observe the customers coming and going. They look like normal folk, wrapped up against the weather and eager to increase their cholesterol levels. Any of them could be employees of Hamer’s, or, given the cafe’s proximity to the station and the average copper’s affinity for bacon butties, they could all work for MMP.

  I go inside at ten to, taking my coffee to the table nearest the door and picking the seat with the best view of the room. No one seems unduly interested in me. I get a couple of “good mornings” and someone borrows the ketchup from my table, but that’s it until Reid sits down with a plate of crumpets and what passes for an espresso in these parts.

  “Morning,” he says, holding out the plate and a napkin. “Here. You look like crap.”

  I wasn’t hungry, but there’s real butter on the crumpets, and they smell divine. “Thanks.”

  He takes the other and lets me eat, grimacing as he chases his last bite with his shot of rocket fuel.

  “Jesus wept.” He opens the file he’s keeping on my case. “And on that note, exactly what the fuck is going on, Alis? What have you found?”

  This isn’t the “softly softly, earn my confidence” approach I’d expected, and I chew my crumpet for longer than necessary as I dissect his body language and expression. He’s maintaining eye contact and, far from looking like someone who’s plotting to kidnap me at gunpoint and torture me into revealing all, he looks intrigued, possibly even excited, which means he’s not the only one wondering what the fuck is going on.

  “I found a USB stick, a drive that I’d hidden,” I say.

  He nods, his pen still poised. “You told me that much last night. What was on it? Do you have it with you?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I couldn’t risk bringing it. I think people are watching me, watching my flat.”