Alias

by Cari Hunter

  “Seat belt!” I yell, and Pryce grapples for it with her right hand, managing to secure it as we career down the lane. He’s not following us yet, but he won’t be long, and I still need to get the gate open.

  I brake for it in good time and open it without looking behind me. I think I can hear another engine, one that’s deeper and more powerful than mine. Taking a chance, I get out again to slam the gate shut behind us.

  “Here.” I throw my mobile onto her lap. “Keep an eye on its signal.”

  “’Kay,” she says, her eyes closed.

  “Pryce?”

  “Mmhm?”

  “Pryce!”

  “What?” She looks at me, bleary-eyed and moderately offended.

  “Watch the fucking phone.”

  She studies it as if it’s the first time she’s seen one, and from the corner of my eye, I see the colossal effort she makes to shake off the lethargy and take an interest.

  “No signal,” she says, her voice stronger and more coherent. She glances in her wing mirror. “He’s coming.”

  With the unlit lane demanding all of my attention, I hadn’t noticed his headlights. They disappear as the road dips, but he’s gaining on us.

  “Left at the end,” she says. “Head for Bangor.”

  I barely pause at the junction, and she smothers a groan with a cough as she’s jolted into the window.

  “Sorry,” I mutter. I’m finding it harder to grip the wheel as sweat slicks the plastic and the fingers on my left hand swell and stiffen. I snatch a breath and then another, staring out into a maelstrom of flickering white flakes. We’re going to crash. I can’t drive this fast in these conditions. I can’t see properly, and we’re going to crash, and she’ll die.

  “Alis.” She doesn’t raise her voice, she’s calm and fearless, and she instantly gets my attention. “You’re doing fine.”

  “I’m not. He’ll catch us.”

  She checks his position. “Not yet. Keep going.”

  The road is deserted, so I utilise both lanes, turning into the skids and neutralising corners like they showed us in blue light training. He’s closer than he was, only two hundred yards or so behind us, and he’s got his high beams on, the lights dazzling me. I can’t tell where we are. All the landmarks have disappeared beneath a thick layer of white, and we haven’t passed a road sign since leaving the lane.

  “Slow down a bit,” Pryce says, holding up the mobile. “There’s one bar on it.”

  Going against every instinct, I do as she asks, fixing my eyes on the road rather than the SUV looming in the rear view.

  “I need urgent police assistance,” she says, after identifying herself to the operator. “Suspect is armed and in pursuit of our vehicle.” She gives our approximate location and another that I don’t recognise, and switches to Welsh for the rest of the call. The signal cuts her off mid-sentence, but she seems satisfied she got her message across.

  “Change of plan,” she tells me.

  “There was a plan?” The words squeak out of me, because he’s within a hundred yards now, and we’re not going to make it to Bangor.

  “We’ve got backup en route,” she says softly, as if she’s talking me down from a ledge. “On my count, I want you to turn off your lights and take a hard left.”

  “What?” The road is zipping past too quickly for me to see any junctions, let alone one I’ll have to find in the dark. “No! Don’t be fucking stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid. Hey? Alis?” She waits until I look at her. “Trust me?”

  I nod, my eyes back on the road. I do trust her. I always have.

  “Good. We’ve got about thirty seconds.”

  It’s more like twenty when she shouts, “Now!” I kill the lights and yank the wheel to the left. The back end flies out, kicking up ice and stones, and I wrestle with the steering wheel until she grabs it with me and helps me control it. I accelerate cautiously, expecting to send us flying into oblivion, but the tyres grind into level snow, allowing us to make slow but steady progress as I use what little moonlight there is to keep us on the straight and, at times, very narrow track.

  “Perfect.” She leans back, exhausted. “Keep going as far as you can. The police know we’re down here.”

  There’s nothing behind us. He’s missed the turn in the darkness, but he’ll double back, and he’ll spot it before long. The suspension clatters in the ruts beneath the snow, and Pryce clutches her seat, digging her fingers into the fabric. I need to stop, to get her wrapped up in whatever I have in my rucksack, and find somewhere for us to hide.

  “What was all that Welsh?” I ask, prodding her leg as her eyes slide shut. “You order us a Happy Meal or something?”

  “Fish and chips,” she murmurs. “I got you gravy with yours.”

  “Spot on. How did you know?”

  “I had a hunch.” She smiles and adjusts her position, alleviating the pressure on her shoulder. “Told them to keep comms in Welsh. Jez had a police radio with him.”

  “Right,” I say. “Nicely done. Are we where I think we are?”

  Despite the snow, Tryfan’s shape has become more distinct, and I answer my own query when I stop the car by the two boulders marking the end of the track.

  “Things were much simpler then, weren’t they?” she says, and I realise that the morning we came here was the start of everything. It was the day she agreed to work with me, to help me on a case that’s led to two men invading her home and torturing her.

  “Yes, they were.” I kick my door open. “Stay put.”

  I grab my rucksack from the boot and shake it out on the back seat. I’ve packed for the weather, and I tug woolly socks onto her frozen feet, then a pair of trainers I’d stashed in the footwell. They’re too small for her, but they’re better than nothing.

  “Lean forward and put your good arm in. Come on, come on, that’s it.” She’s limp and far too compliant as I work a sweater over her head. I can see fresh blood glistening on her seat, and I wrap a spare shirt on top of the sodden towels bound to her shoulder, yanking it as tightly as I dare, before I tuck her into my thick coat.

  “Can’t walk far,” she says.

  I scan the area for suitable cover. “Can you make it to those trees?”

  “Maybe. I’ll try.”

  I chuck the gun and a bottle of water into the rucksack and collect the torch from my glove box, rechecking the lane as I stand. Still nothing. We’ll only have five minutes once he finds the turning, and the trees are bucking and bending in the wind two hundred yards away through foot-deep snow. She leans heavily on me as I help her from the car.

  “Should we stay here and try to shoot him?” I ask.

  She inclines her head. “Think you’d hit him?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Trees, then,” she says, and we take our first step.

  We don’t do badly, considering. Pryce manages to keep pace with me, and fresh snow instantly obliterates our footprints. The track behind us remains deserted. It’s pitch-black beneath the trees, so I risk switching on the torch, training it on the ground as I search for a place to hide.

  “Okay, okay, this’ll do,” I say, stopping at a boulder that’s big enough to conceal us both and offers some shelter from the elements. I brush the snow from its base and then empty the rucksack and sit her on it, placing the gun within easy reach. The trek has left us both winded, and she huddles into my chest when I put my arm around her. She’s shivering, and the rasp of her breath against my neck is the only noise I can hear, apart from the rattle of branches high above us. Minutes tick by as we crouch in the darkness, too scared to speak, until I feel her gentle tug on my arm.

  “They followed me home on Friday,” she whispers, answering a question I’ve dreaded asking. “I was careless. Opened the door to them. I think…I was hoping it was you.”

  I tighten my hold on her, waiting for her to continue.

  “They wanted…wanted me to phone you. They didn’t even know about the flash
drive at first, just that we’d found Krzys and interviewed Shannon.” She speaks quickly, as if confessing to an impatient priest. “But someone caught your email, told Jez, and he—they…they’d been to my sister’s; they showed me photos of her house, of her taking the girls out.” She starts to cry. “And that’s when I called you.”

  I can’t bear to see her so distressed, and I can’t do a thing to fix it. I want to go back to the cottage and kick the living shit out of Jez, or find Dee and shoot out his kneecaps. I’d undoubtedly miss, but I’d make a mess of him while I tried.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmurs. She’s less agitated now, but her tears are still trickling onto my sweater. “For all of it.”

  I brush my thumb across her damp cheek. “It doesn’t matter. None of this matters.”

  She shakes her head, determined to finish. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Alis. During your assignment. I know you didn’t. When I asked Jez about it, he laughed at me. Said you were one of the best on the force.”

  “You really asked him that?” I whisper. It seems like such a simple solution to something I’ve agonised over for weeks. Too simple, perhaps. I can’t bring myself to rely on his answer. “Did you believe him?”

  She shifts to look up at me. “Absolutely. He could’ve strung me along, but he didn’t.”

  I hug her to me and she wraps a hand in my sweater.

  “Thank you,” I say, still gobsmacked.

  “Seemed the least I could do.” She’s drowsy, her words slurring, and I suddenly understand why she’s insisted on telling me everything now.

  “Pryce?” I shake her gently, then with more force. “Pryce?”

  Her hand has dropped into her lap, and when I switch the torch on, her face is grey, her eyes half-lidded.

  “No, no, no!” I hold my palm in front of her mouth. She’s still breathing, but the puffs of air brushing my fingers are shallow and rapid. I take off my sweater and lower her onto it, and then prop her feet up on a fallen branch. I’m so preoccupied that I don’t even notice the light until a gleam of it catches her face, and for a second I think it’s my own torch.

  “Fuck!” I scramble in front of her, grapple for the gun, and aim for the light. It’s a headlight, and it snaps off almost at once, followed by the slam of a car door and footsteps crashing in our direction. I squint, losing my target, the din ebbing to nothing and then blaring as I swallow. Another light blinds me, and I shield my eyes, my finger twitching toward the trigger. Multiple lights, I realise. Three, four beams, cutting through the trees. I glance back toward the clearing. It’s suddenly ablaze with flashes of blue and red, and I hear the beat of an approaching helicopter. Someone is yelling at me, his Welsh accent more apparent as he gets closer. He calls me by name, and I throw the gun down, place my hands behind my head, and let him come to us.

  * * *

  “It might be fractured again.” The paramedic pushes more gauze into the remnants of my cast, attempting to cover the lacerations Jez inflicted. “How the hell did this happen?”

  “Bloke tried to cut it off, so I smacked him with it,” I say. I’m not paying much attention to him, because another team of paramedics is swarming all over Pryce, and I’m watching them like a hawk. “Will she be okay?”

  He pauses to study the numbers on the monitor they’ve attached to her. “I think so. You’d almost stopped the bleeding before we got here. There’s no way we can tell what the bullet’s hit—she’ll need surgery to sort that out—but she’s stable at the moment.” He tilts my chin. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I knackered my arm and got belted in the face.”

  “What a coincidence,” he says. “Do you want any painkillers?”

  I shake my head as another man approaches us. He’s dressed the same as everyone else here—thick coat, boots, beanie hat—but the officers practically stand to attention when he passes them. I get to my feet, determined to meet him on the level, and it mostly goes to plan, once I’ve propped my arse on the rock to steady myself.

  “DI Keelan. I work with DS Pryce.” He shakes my hand. “I’ve spoken to DI Ansari. He’s on his way, but the weather is a problem.”

  “Did you get him? The man chasing us, did you get him?” I ask. I don’t give a shit about Ansari. I want to know where Dee is.

  Keelan acknowledges his oversight with an apologetic nod. I can’t blame him for being distracted, given that his DS is lying unconscious on a stretcher at his feet. “We—sorry, yes, we got him. His tyre blew out half a mile up the road, and he hit a wall.”

  “Fancy that,” I say, thinking fondly of my scissors. “How hard did he hit it?”

  He chuckles, and I immediately warm to him. “Hard enough to break his pelvis. He was screaming like a banshee when we arrived on scene.”

  “And Je—DC Stephens?”

  “Critical but stable. Did you know he was diabetic?”

  I rub my bad arm. There’s blood covering the writing on the cast, but I can’t tell whose it is. “Yes, he told me.”

  “Well, his injuries were fairly minor, but his blood sugar was through the roof.”

  “That explains a lot. Speaking of which…” I dig one of the drives from the split in my cast and hold it out to him. I’d rather someone unconnected to MMP had first dibs on it. “Hopefully, this’ll explain the rest.”

  I glance at Pryce as Keelan tucks the drive into an inside pocket. Her face is mostly hidden by an oxygen mask, but I take heart from the sight of her breath misting the plastic.

  “I owe her everything,” I tell him. “Just—just read the file.”

  There’s not much else I can say, and this standing-up lark is starting to lose its appeal. We shuffle out of the way as the medics and a Mountain Rescue team carry Pryce carefully past us.

  “Are you able to walk out of here?” he asks.

  “Can I travel with her?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll ask the paramedics.”

  I take his arm. “Right, then. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Apparently, Pryce isn’t the only one who needs surgery, but I’m low on the Ysbyty Gwynedd priority list. I get X-rayed and CT scanned, but I’m still in A&E, gowned and tripping on morphine, when Dr. Lewis enters my cubicle.

  “Can’t stay away, can you?” she says.

  I sit up properly, thrilled to see a friendly face. “It’s not for want of trying. Any news?”

  She perches on the bed and puts a hand on my leg. She’s been crying; her eyes are red and puffy. “If I tell you, will you stop bugging the nurses for updates and behave yourself?”

  I cross my heart, and she shakes her head, not believing me for a second. “She’s just gone to theatre,” she says, relenting. “The bullet shattered her shoulder blade. Bone fragments nicked an artery and partially collapsed her lung. The brachial plexus—the group of nerves supplying the hand and arm—is probably damaged, but we won’t know how badly until Neuro have assessed her.”

  I gape at her. I’d realised it was serious, but not this kind of serious. On the telly, everyone gets shot in the shoulder, and all they get is a sling and some sympathy.

  “There’s a full team in there with her,” she says. “Try not to worry.”

  “Are you worried?” I ask quietly.

  She looks down at the sheets and nods. “Three days, Alis. Those men held her there for three days. She must have been petrified.”

  “I know.” I’ve been trying not to think about it, but whenever I’m alone I start with the “what-ifs?” What if things had gone differently that night in the hotel? What if I’d never sent the email? What if she’d never offered to help in the first place? What if I’d never accepted? I don’t want to get my life back, possibly even my career, only to see her lose hers.

  “She was asking for you,” Lewis says. “I told her you were here and doing fine.” She clears her throat as if she has something else to add, but she thinks better of it and gets to her feet instead. She finds my notes and leafs th
rough them. “Did you hit your head again?”

  “Yeah, but not hard enough to knock any sense in.”

  She smiles. “Oh, I don’t know. You’ve got good taste, at least.”

  “Fuck. Is it that obvious?” This thing, whatever this is with Pryce, it mustn’t be obvious. Our bosses, the SMIU, the CPS, they can’t know about it, or it’ll jeopardise every aspect of the case we have against the Hamers and Jez. We might get away with having worked the evidence together and run down leads together, and if we’re very lucky they’ll overlook the fact that we did all of it in secret, but any hint of a sexual relationship between us would be a gift to a defence lawyer, tainting everything we’ve managed to achieve.

  “No, it wasn’t obvious. I just know her very well,” Lewis says. She puts my notes down and folds her arms. “And it’ll remain confidential.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’d advise you to ease off on the nurses, though, because that’s a dead giveaway. I’ll tell you when she’s out of theatre, and if you’re in any fit state I’ll get you in for a visit.”

  I’d kiss her, had I not already exceeded my quotient for inappropriate behaviour. “I would really appreciate that,” I say.

  “Not a problem. Do you need anything?”

  “No, I’m okay.”

  “Hmm. You should get your head down for a bit. You look like crap, and it’ll be a while before they’re ready for you.” She adjusts my bed and dims the cubicle lights. “Better?”

  “Much.” I shuffle down, my eyelids drooping. “You’ll definitely come and get me?”

  “Definitely,” she says, and that’s the last thing I hear for a while.

  * * *

  I’m not sure whether it’s the snow or whether Ansari has found something better to do, but he never turns up in A&E. Lewis ducks her head in to tell me that Pryce is stable and comfortable in the HDU, and I go down to theatre mid-morning with a smile on my face and the second flash drive tucked into my paper knickers.