Alias

by Cari Hunter

  “This shouldn’t take long,” the orthopaedic surgeon tells me. Brandishing my X-ray, he points out the pins I’ve knocked loose. “Tighten this, realign that, and you get a new cast for six weeks.” He lowers the film and peers over his glasses at me. “And you won’t be clobbering anyone with it, yes?”

  I flash him a Scout’s honour salute once the anaesthetist has stopped sticking needles in my other hand. “Absolutely, Doc.”

  “Excellent. I’ll see you in there.”

  He’s as good as his word, and I shake off the anaesthetic with coffee and buttered toast in a side ward guarded by a uniformed officer. MMP might have encouraged Jo’s death to slip beneath the media radar, but the taking hostage and subsequent shooting of a detective sergeant is too big a story to put a lid on, and the North Wales police are keen to keep the press or other potentially malevolent parties away from me.

  I lick the butter from my fingers, contemplating the door whilst concocting a number of progressively outlandish schemes whereby I distract my guard and the medical staff and totter over to the HDU. I’m about to put Plan Three into action when Ceinwen opens the door and crashes a wheelchair into the jamb.

  “So much for a stealth mission,” she mutters, striding over to smooch me on the cheek. “How’s my favourite Mancunian?”

  “All the better for seeing you.”

  “Likewise. You’ve got mad bed-head, kid.”

  I pat my hair. It’s sticking out at wild angles and pancake-flat at the back. “Is it salvageable?”

  She whips out a comb and dips it in my jug of water. “Hold still a sec.”

  Once I’m coiffured to her satisfaction, she drags the wheelchair across. “Dr. Lewis has gone home, so she asked me to do the honours.” She holds out a zippered hoodie with “Ysbyty Gwynedd” embroidered on its top pocket. “Stick this on. It’s chilly in the corridors.”

  I take the sweater gratefully. My clothes are stashed away in evidence bags, and I’m only wearing an arseless gown. Goose pimples cover my arms as I’m hit by a sudden flash of Pryce staggering through the snow barefoot, and Ceinwen steps in to zip my hoodie right to the top.

  “She was hypothermic when she came to us,” she says, perceptive as ever. “But she’s snug under a warming blanket now, and she’s got some colour back in her cheeks.”

  “Has she?” I ask quietly. I’m nervous about seeing her, for reasons too many to count.

  “Yes. Just a dash, mind. She’s mostly been asleep, but she smiled when I told her I was coming to fetch you.”

  “All right, then.” I settle into the chair, and Ceinwen fusses like a mother hen, arranging a blanket over my legs.

  “Thank you.” I tilt my head so I can see her. She’s all blurry, and she dabs my cheeks with a tissue.

  “None of that, now,” she tells me. “You’re both going to be fine.”

  The HDU is pretty much the same as when I left it, with the exception of the police officer outside the fourth room and a frisson of excitement at the nurses’ station. The officer stands as we approach, holding the door while Ceinwen manoeuvres the chair through. She parks me at the bedside.

  “I’ll check on you both in a bit.” She drapes the call button across the pillow. “Press this if you need me any sooner.”

  As the door closes behind her, I chance my first look at Pryce. I don’t expect her to be awake and looking at me, though it really shouldn’t come as a surprise.

  “Hiya,” I say. I’m close enough to reach her hand, and I take it without thinking, threading my fingers through hers. “You should be asleep.”

  Her smile is drug-soaked and lazy and lovely. “So should you.”

  “Well, I was all ready for some shut-eye when Ceinwen came to cart me down here.” I shrug, feigning nonchalance, but I can’t keep my face straight, and she laughs. “How are you feeling?” I ask.

  There’s an IV dripping blood and fluid into the hand I’m holding, and a thin oxygen tube beneath her nose. I learned how to read the monitors during my previous stay here, so I know her heart rate is too fast and her blood pressure is too low.

  “Lucky,” she says. “They fixed almost everything. Might be left with a numb little finger, but I can live with that.” She coughs, hoarse from the anaesthetic, and her pulse shoots up as the pain bites.

  “Breathe,” I tell her, feeling the pinch of a phantom chest tube. “It’ll pass in a few seconds.”

  “Mmm.” She’s quiet until it eases, and her grip on my hand slowly relaxes. She licks her lips. “You break your arm again?”

  “No, just buggered up a couple of the screws. Here, try this.” I perch on the edge of the bed and offer her a spoonful of ice chips. She sucks them greedily, her tongue chasing the meltwater. I’m about to return to my chair when she catches my wrist and raises my hand, kissing the palm gently and then placing it against her bruised cheek.

  “Stay,” she whispers, as I’m busy relearning how to inhale. “Please?”

  I can’t remember her asking me for anything, certainly not like this, but someone could come in and see us, and they wouldn’t even need to read between the lines, because it’s all there in her eyes. Then I think, fuck it and fuck them, so I kiss her, and her lips are cold until they part and I feel the heat of her mouth. Neither of us is capable of finesse, and our teeth clack together as an alarm pings to warn us something’s gone awry. No one outside seems to notice, though, and we pull away in our own sweet time, rumpled and flushed and still upsetting the monitors.

  “Bloody hell,” I say. I rub my sweaty cheek. “Bloody hellfire.” With no sign of eloquence returning, I resite a little pad that’s supposed to be on her chest and has ended up stuck to the bed rail, and the alarm stops wailing.

  “Is that a good ‘bloody hellfire’ or a bad one?” she asks.

  “It’s a good one.” I kiss her again, gentle and quick. A promise, nothing more.

  “We’ll have to be careful,” she says, fighting to stay awake and sound sensible. “Till it’s all finished.”

  “I know. We’ll be careful. Don’t worry.”

  She cracks an eye open. “Are you going to start calling me ‘Bron’?”

  I laugh. “Probably not.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t mind ‘Pryce’ when you say it.” She winces as something pulls, but then her breathing steadies and slows.

  I wait another minute, reluctant to move despite the ever-increasing risk. I’ve got one foot on the floor when she stirs and tugs urgently on my sleeve.

  “The bullet’s in my coat pocket,” she says. “From the warehouse. They never found it. Didn’t even look.”

  “Pryce,” I lay her hand across her lap, “go to sleep.”

  “Might match mine,” she murmurs.

  “It might. I’ll tell your boss to check. Now go to sleep.”

  She nods, satisfied that she’s covered everything, and this time she settles properly. I resume my vigil from the wheelchair. If the medics want me back in my room, they’ll have to drag me there.

  * * *

  Deemed fit for discharge at morning rounds, I treat myself to a long, one-armed shower and then sit on my bed, swinging my bare legs and hoping some kind soul has retrieved the spare clothes from my car. Half of what I packed must have been cut off Pryce in A&E, but at least I’ll have clean knickers and a pair of jeans. I’m aware of feeling weird: too cheerful, and bordering on flippant. I know the events of last night will hit me like a sledgehammer at some point, but for now I’m happy to be alive and in the clear, and even happier to have this as yet indefinable thing with Pryce.

  One of the night shift nurses, her mind clearly warped by sleep deprivation, tells me someone will be here to pick me up in a couple of hours, though she can’t remember who. She took the name down and promptly lost the piece of paper in a pile of notes.

  “It was a man,” she says. “Definitely a man…I think.”

  Whoever the “man” is, he’d better have ID and written authorisation to play my taxi driv
er, or I won’t be going anywhere. I kick my heels against the bedrail, dreading the prospect of being stuck with Wallace or Ansari as a chauffeur. I’m too strung out for polite conversation, my thoughts still centred on HDU bed 4, where Pryce was cogent enough at dawn to send me back to my own room. I’m not sure when I’ll next be able to visit her. If I’m whisked off to Manchester for an SMIU debrief, she’ll be fully recovered and back at her desk before I see daylight again.

  Bearing that in mind, I cadge a pair of slipper socks from an obliging auxiliary, tell my guard to turn a blind eye for twenty minutes, and follow the breakfast trolley out of the ward. After a brief detour to the cafe, I head for the HDU, where I find Pryce attempting to adjust the head of her bed with a recalcitrant remote. Something of an expert in these matters, I take it from her and keep the correct two buttons pressed in unison until she sighs with relief. She’s been hooked up to her own morphine pump during the morning, but the beads of sweat on her forehead suggest she’s gone cold turkey.

  “Is that proper coffee?” she asks, her gaze fixed on my cup.

  “It is, but aren’t you nil by caffeine or something?”

  “Not to my knowledge. They’re quite keen to give me all sorts of drugs.”

  I smile and hold the cup for her, letting her take a sip.

  “God, that’s good,” she whispers. She licks froth from her upper lip as I swallow a mouthful from the opposite side of the rim. The coffee is sweet and rich, and there’s real comfort in the relative normality of this morning routine after the grim horror of the last two days.

  “I’ve been discharged,” I tell her. “I’m getting a lift home at ten-ish.”

  “Hopefully, I won’t be too far behind you.”

  We both know that’s very optimistic, and we finish the coffee without speaking. She’s still subdued afterward, the healthy glow she acquired from the steam vanishing almost at once.

  “Y’know, those drugs they’re giving you don’t work if you’re not actually taking them,” I say.

  She makes no attempt to deny it. “They make me feel stupid and woozy.”

  “That’s the point. You got shot, Pryce. You don’t have to tough it out.”

  She shakes her head. “I’d rather be awake,” she whispers, and she sounds so lost that I have to swallow past the grief that suddenly closes my throat.

  “Are you having nightmares?” I manage to ask.

  “No. Not that I can remember. It’s just…they don’t really tell me what they’re doing, and I can’t”—she lifts her hand, trailing wires and tubing—“I can’t stop them.”

  She doesn’t say anything else. She doesn’t need to. I can see the abrasions from the duct tape and the trail of blistered burns on her arm.

  “I’ll have a word with Lewis,” I say, which is about the best I can offer. We got away with it last night when the ordeal was fresh and raw, but I can’t sit here indefinitely, as a bona fide girlfriend would. I can’t bring her personal items from home or help her to shower or brush her teeth.

  I bow my head, pissed off at being so utterly useless, and when I raise it again she’s curled on her side, crying silently. The door is still shut, the blinds drawn at its small window, but I couldn’t care less if someone does see us. I can’t bear to leave her like this. I kiss her forehead and her cheek and use the sleeve of my hoodie to dry her tears. Her face is creased with pain, her hand tangled in the sheets and nowhere near the morphine pump. I know how the pump works and how long the dose will last. I can stay with her for that long.

  “We’ve got till ten,” I say. “Do you want me to press this for you?”

  She nods slowly and lets me push the button, and I spend our last two hours together watching over her as she sleeps.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I return to my room a quarter of an hour early, intent on denying everything when my escort arrives, but the sight of DI Keelan standing by my window immediately puts paid to that notion. I keep my distance, letting him speak first.

  “How is she?” he asks. There’s no accusation or insinuation behind his question; he sounds exhausted and genuinely concerned. I sit on the corner of the bed closest to him. I’d rather he be here than anyone from MMP.

  “She’s in pain, and she’s going to need a lot of support, even though she’ll hate it,” I tell him, because he’s the one who’ll need to provide this support now that I can’t.

  He nods, taking everything on board. “I’m going to see her this evening, and I’ve already spoken to a counsellor.”

  “You know what happened to her, then?”

  “More or less. I read through your files, and Stephens volunteered for interview at the crack of dawn. He seems eager to avoid a lengthy sentence, particularly one with the Hamers as cellmates. He filled in a lot of the blanks.” Keelan hands me a plastic bag full of neatly folded clothes. “I thought you’d appreciate these. Your DI is on his way to our HQ. We agreed it would be a sensible precaution for your debrief to take place at Colwyn Bay. If you’re feeling up to it, that is.”

  “I am, and that’s a very good idea,” I say, delighted to have an independent observer accompanying me.

  “Your DI was most amenable,” he adds.

  I don’t laugh until I’m in the bathroom. I like Keelan a lot. He’s got a fucking brilliant poker face.

  We keep conversation to a minimum in the car. I have a ton of questions, but I want the full story, not snippets thrown out at red lights and stop signs. When we reach the HQ, he opens my door and lets me hang on to him as we negotiate several inches of slushy snow. Curious looks and whispers follow us up to the fourth floor, where he leads me to a pleasantly furnished interview room with its own brewing facilities and a window for natural light. He shows me where everything is and heads off to wait for Ansari.

  I’m halfway through my first mug of coffee by the time he returns, showing Ansari into the room and then standing aside to admit my surprise guest, DS Granger. I attempt to stand on legs that feel like cotton wool, but Ansari waves me back into my seat. He helps himself to a brew, offering one to Granger as an afterthought. Keelan gets his own, topping up mine before he sits down.

  “Detective Constable Clarke. You’ve certainly been busy, haven’t you?” Ansari says. In deference to Keelan, he keeps his tone convivial, but he looks livid. I can’t blame him for being angry. He’s my immediate superior, but I went behind his back instead of trusting him to help me. It’s a slight he’s obviously not going to forgive in a hurry.

  I say nothing. It’s a tactic that proved effective the last time we met for drinks and conversation, and it does the trick on this occasion as well.

  “Yes, right, then,” he says as the seconds tick by on the clock behind his head. “Shall we get started?”

  Granger places a handheld recorder onto the table and hits the red button.

  “Two hours,” Keelan states. He’s watching the device, making sure he’s on the record. “This interview will terminate no later than twelve fifty-three, for reasons pertaining to DC Clarke’s recent surgery and her physical condition.”

  “Noted,” Ansari says. He clears his throat, runs through the formalities—during which I decline the presence of a Fed rep—and consults the file on his lap.

  “What’s happened since you found us?” I ask, before he can begin. I’m not going to submit to an interrogation. They undoubtedly know more than I do at this point, and a trap would be easy to wander into.

  He scowls, losing his focus, and it’s Granger who steps uninvited into the breach. “DI Keelan uploaded your files to us while DS Pryce was in surgery. We knew we’d have to act fast before word got back to the Hamers, so we called in most of the MCT and worked through the night, analysing the information you’d collated. At approximately six thirty yesterday morning, we carried out a series of raids, making eighteen arrests across the Hamer family and business, including a number of their ancillary suppliers, purchasers, and distributors. The Ardwick factory has been sealed off,
and drugs with a seven-figure street value were seized, along with half a dozen firearms.” She nods her appreciation at me. “It was quite the haul.”

  “What about the Copthorne warehouse?” I ask. “Did you find Krzys’s body?”

  “No, we didn’t,” she says, and there’s a hint of compassion in her voice, belying her stony demeanour. “It must have been moved prior to us searching the premises.” She looks at Ansari. “Shall I start from the beginning, sir?”

  He exchanges his notes for his coffee and settles back in his chair. “Go ahead,” he tells her, and she turns to me, none too subtly dismissing him from the proceedings.

  “I interviewed DC Stephens with DI Keelan this morning,” she says. “He’s angling for a deal, so he’s been quite cooperative. Two years ago, as part of a wider investigation into forced prostitution, he received a tip relating to a business on Copthorne Road, but Donald Hamer Jnr.—the man you know as ‘Dee’—paid him to bury the information and take no further action.”

  “Why would he agree to that?” I ask. I can’t hide my dismay. Jez Stephens was a good bloke, one of my best friends on the force. It’s hard to believe how close he came to murdering a fellow officer.

  “He needed the money,” she says bluntly, and then seems to recognise that won’t suffice as an explanation. “He told a lengthy sob story about committing to a mortgage he couldn’t afford and wanting to send his children to a public school, but it boiled down to him living beyond his means and getting into debt as a result. His marriage was in trouble, and he saw Dee’s offer as a way to save it.”

  “He couldn’t have asked a friend for help?” I say. I’d have helped him. I bet most of his immediate colleagues would have tried to do something if they’d known how desperate he was.

  “Evidently not. Once his money worries eased, though, he started looking for an out, and he knew the Hamers were getting nervous about him. Dee asked him to go to Copthorne one night, where they forced Ms. Starek out at gunpoint and took her to the warehouse. Unbeknownst to Stephens, Mr. Janicki was already in the boot of the car. By implicating Stephens in Janicki’s murder, the Hamers guaranteed his loyalty and dragged him even deeper into the business.”