Dirty Little Lies

by John Macken

  Dave spent a long time examining two photographs. They depicted different women, one on her back, one on all fours. They weren’t particularly attractive, and there was an almost deliberate artlessness to the shots. But he began to become aroused again. Dave moved the fingers of his right hand inside his trouser pocket. He knew these women might not be pretty, or airbrushed, or flattered by camera angles, but they were out there. Dave scanned the monitors momentarily, allowing his eyes to follow a shapely female form as it hopped from one monitor to another. Maybe one of these women would walk across his screens today. Maybe hundreds of the females who paraded in front of the CCTV cameras had also paraded in front of bedroom cameras. This was the thought that kept him going through the sterile night shifts, and the cacophonous day shifts. That the women who walked through the televisual windows of his life were naked, were needy, were secretly exhibitionist.

  A noise arrested him mid-stroke. Dave noted that it was nearly six o’clock. The next shift was about to begin. As slowly and naturally as he could, the guard moved his right hand on to the desk, and ran his fingers over the tracker ball. Dave gripped the small metallic joystick with his left, zooming and scanning, swooping into people’s lives, banking around office blocks, following fast-moving cars. Another day of uninterrupted surveillance was about to resume. The door opened and his replacement entered.

  Dave nodded. ‘Jim.’

  ‘Dave,’ his replacement replied.

  Dave was reluctant to hand over control. Particularly, he was disinclined to stand up until he knew he was safe. He pulled his jumper down slightly.

  ‘Anything good been going on?’

  ‘Fight outside a chip shop about three. Attempted mugging, some whoring – you know. Nothing unusual.’

  ‘Cops get the mugger?’

  ‘Nah. Way too slow. I called it in as soon as it happened, but they said they would be ten minutes. So I follows him across but lost him on eighteen, which has stopped panning.’

  ‘Stopped panning? Here, give us a go.’

  Dave stood up, happy now that his erection had subsided. The new guard sat down and stared intently at Monitor 18, attacking the joystick and rollerball with thick stubby fingers. ‘The fucker’s broken. What you been doing to it? You see some skirt?’

  Dave chuckled. ‘Cheeky cunt,’ he said. ‘Here, you want me to leave the mag?’

  Jim examined the cover and frowned. ‘Razzle? You sick fuck. Your missus in again?’

  ‘Chance’d be a fine thing,’ Dave answered, a genuine look of regret seeping into his features. ‘Anyway, you want a brew before I go?’

  Jim nodded. ‘But make it—’ He was interrupted by an insistent buzzing from one of the screens. ‘Fuck’s that?’ he asked.

  Dave stopped. ‘Pattern recognition. Euston branch installed some experimental system, spots people out of a crowd. We used it about four months ago to pick some bloke up.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘There was a bit of flack about whether we should have used it. Shit hit the proverbial.’

  ‘How come no fucker told me?’

  ‘It was a one-off. And then last week, out of the blue, some weedy fuck with a double-barrelled name came over from Euston CID and gave it a new face to search for.’ Dave took the joystick from the tattooed hand of his colleague. ‘Here, budge over,’ he said. The guard frowned, zooming the camera, his tongue moving in unison with his fingers, as if it was working their strings. ‘And that’ – he scrutinized the close-up of a face bobbing slightly as it walked along a pavement – ‘is the one they’re after.’ Dave picked up a phone, watching his captive as if he could escape the square screen at any moment. ‘Druids Lane CCTV. We’ve got a target walking east along Junction Road, just passing a zebra crossing, approaching Somerset Ave. Wanted by the Euston branch. Special request.’ The face disappeared, and Dave followed new buzzing on an adjacent screen. ‘Yep. Heading left on to Somerset. They called it in as a Priority One. I dunno. It’s here, hang on.’ Dave indicated for Jim to pass him a log book from the far side of the semicircular desk. He tapped his fingers rapidly, and then flicked quickly through the book as he received it. ‘We’ve got a Reuben Mait . . . Reuben Mait-land. Dr Maitland, it says here.’ Dave scanned the bank of monitors. ‘I’d guess towards the Mayfield Centre. But he’s still on Somerset.’

  ‘Looks a right shifty mother.’ The man on the screen glanced warily about him, as if aware that his progress was suddenly being scrutinized.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve just got contact.’ A squad car made feline progress, pouncing from screen to screen, honing in. It took corners wide, overtook on the wrong side, tearing towards the man. ‘Looks like blue jeans, light tracksuit top, trainers. Can’t miss him – he’s the only fucker on the pavement.’ A second car appeared from the other direction, its blue lights flashing, silently screeching around roundabouts. ‘I’ll stay with it,’ Dave spoke into the receiver. ‘Looks like about thirty or forty seconds.’ The man was walking hurriedly, leaning forwards, making progress. The two vehicles dashed along straight roads, hurtling towards each other like speeding trains. Between them, the man continued to examine the road as he marched on.

  ‘Shit.’ Jim was the first to spot the problem.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a fucking underground,’ he said. ‘Fifty yards.’

  ‘We’ve seen an underground,’ Dave repeated into the phone. ‘Charing Cross. Tell your boys to step on it.’

  The guards watched the man pat his pockets. They saw him pull a ticket out. They scanned the screens, willing the cars closer. They were seconds away. A police motorcycle had also joined in, but it was too remote. The man reached the station. They saw him register the flashing lights heading towards him. He stepped smartly inside. ‘He’s gone in, he’s gone in,’ Dave shouted. The car slowed, hesitated and then stopped. There was a short pause. They could see the coppers talking into their radios. The message was gradual. Dave felt his words crawling through the wires, fighting through switchboards, crackling into radiowaves, spitting out of speakers.

  ‘Come on!’ Jim shouted, forming tattooed fists and slamming the desk with them.

  ‘He’s gone in the fucking station!’ Dave screamed.

  The policemen opened their doors and ran inside. Dave and Jim exchanged glances, and Dave replaced the receiver. ‘What do you think?’ he said.

  ‘He’s got a ticket, he’ll be long gone.’ They monitored the screen forlornly. A couple of early-morning tourists asked for directions, their rucksacks almost pulling them over. A newspaper seller shouted inaudibly. A businesswoman scanned a piece of paper as she entered the tube station. The two coppers reappeared from the same exit, returning to their car, speaking into their radios. The motorcycle pulled up, joined by the second car.

  ‘Right, about that cuppa,’ Dave muttered, checking his watch and noticing, now the excitement was over, that he wasn’t currently being paid. ‘Then I’m off.’

  Jim nodded. ‘Milk and two,’ he said. ‘And if they ask me about this . . .’

  ‘They might. Just tell them exactly what happened.’

  ‘But you said last time—’

  ‘Hang on,’ Dave interrupted. ‘Hang the fuck on.’

  Screen 42 showed a grainy image of washed-out colour, as lifeless as the side street it monitored. A helmeted constable was emerging from a different underground exit. His head was cocked to one side, and he appeared to be talking into a shoulder radio. He was holding the captive firm by the elbow. Jim and Dave whooped, watching as the other officers ran around the corner. The man didn’t struggle. He walked with sad acceptance. Within seconds he was besieged. He was pushed to the floor, his arms bent behind his back. One copper whispered in his ear. Another pressed firmly between the man’s shoulder blades with his knee, cuffing his hands. A WPC searched him, patting up his legs, around his torso and along his manacled arms. They lifted him up and bundled him towards a car. His head banged as they forced him, battering-ram style, into
the rear seats.

  ‘Gotcha, Dr Maitland,’ Dave said triumphantly. ‘Whoever you are.’

  1

  Davie Hethrington-Andrews wound his index finger around the helical phone flex, coiling and uncoiling it, watching his fingertip turn white as the lead tightened, and redden again in between. He pictured the blood being alternately trapped and then released. He was hunched forwards. The corridor was quiet. Aside from the large man standing over him, he was alone.

  Davie knew what he could and couldn’t say. He had been told the rules. They had especially warned him away from hints and insinuations. This was to be just one more weekly call, a son enquiring about the health and well-being of his mother. The large man leant against a straight arm, palm pushing into the wall, slightly too close. Davie could smell the sourness of his armpit, and see the conviction of his tattoos. He cleared his throat as the call was answered.

  ‘Hello,’ he said flatly. ‘Is my mother there?’

  A few seconds later, he said, ‘Mum? It’s Davie. Are you OK?’

  He wound the flex tighter, constricting the circulation of his finger and feeling the dull ache of oxygen starvation. ‘Yes, you know. The usual,’ he answered. And then, ‘Well what can you expect? It was never going to be a bed of roses.’

  While he listened patiently to the reply, his cellmate Griff walked by, studiously avoiding eye contact. Davie smiled, breathing in more of the acrid odour of recent exercise, a smell which conveyed protection. People were afraid of him now. Not directly, but because of the baggage he carried. It was an uneasy privilege, however. Often Davie feared the men protecting him more than anyone.

  ‘You know I can’t talk about that,’ he answered. Davie saw out of the corner of his eye that the man was glaring intently down at him.

  ‘Mum? Are you all right? I just worried that they were . . .’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No, don’t cry. Everything will be OK in the end. Seriously. He’s made guarantees. He needs us. Look, Mum, soon it will all be back to normal. I promise. And we’ll be able to forget . . . we’ll be a family again. All of us. And I’ll stay out of trouble.’

  His mother talked rapidly, almost hysterically, and Davie tried to calm her.

  ‘Trust me, Mum. Just hang in there. We’ll be all right. We’ll be all right.’

  ‘No, no. Really. I can see light.’

  The smell of the man assigned to babysit him grew less intense. Davie scratched a long fingernail into the faded green plaster.

  ‘You know I can’t talk about that.’

  Davie hesitated. His personal bodyguard appeared to be losing interest. He was edging away, lighting a cigarette, passing the time of day with another inmate. Davie decided this was his only chance.

  ‘I spoke to Jez,’ he said, urgently and quietly, cupping the end of the receiver with both hands, holding the mouthpiece like a flame about to go out, ‘and he seemed . . . I don’t know, I’m just worried about him. Have you been able to?’

  He monitored his babysitter warily, but found him still distracted.

  ‘Look, this may be the only chance I get to say this, Mum. Listen carefully. You know what this is all about? You know why they’re watching you? You know why they monitor what I say to you, and why you can’t come and visit? It’s all about Jez. He has the one thing that they—’

  Davie was falling forwards, the floor looming, his head hitting, teeth jarring together, his nose on fire. He scrambled up. The babysitter stood over him, cigarette in his mouth, muscles twitching, gripping the phone like a blunt instrument. He waved his index finger back and forth a couple of times, mouthing the word ‘No’. Davie felt his nose, which wasn’t bleeding. He spat out a small chip of tooth. The babysitter turned and walked back to the communal lounge. Davie ran his fingers over his face and blinked with watery shock. There was an unpleasant numbness in his top lip. He eyed the phone, swore to himself, and then followed.

  2

  ‘So, Dr Maitland. You understand that we’re not officially charging you yet, but we are going to hold you here while the charge sheets are drawn up? You are free to contact legal representation, and everything you say will be taken down . . . yadda yadda yadda. You know how it all works.’

  The prisoner said nothing. He searched their expressions, making up his mind, calculating the best options.

  ‘WPC Marsh and myself, Detective Gommershall, will question you first, before we hand you over to your old team at Euston CID. Is that clear?’

  He remained impassive. He had been here before, and knew that silence bought a lot of thinking time.

  ‘Right, Reuben. What say we get started? We just need the basics. So, how about your current address.’

  The detainee shuffled in his seat, feeling the cold complaint of future bruises. The arrest had been rough, and his torso was stiffening up. He examined the questioning officers and figured them for also-rans. He needed a reaction, had to know what they knew before he committed himself.

  ‘I’ll ask you again,’ Detective Gommershall said. ‘What is your current address?’

  ‘Look,’ the WPC soothed, ‘there’s nothing to gain now. We’re not taking a statement. We just want to confirm your details, seeing as you were apprehended on our patch. Where are you living, Reuben?’

  The edge of the desk was dappled with a wood-grain effect. Against the grain were the sawing scratches of a hundred pairs of bored handcuffs. ‘Dunno,’ he answered quietly.

  ‘Right. OK,’ the detective replied. ‘Fine.’ There was irritation in the brevity of his words. ‘How about your date of birth?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Your place of birth?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Occupation?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Do you know today’s date?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘We’re only trying to help you, Dr Maitland,’ the WPC said, leaning forwards. ‘As I say, all we need to do—’

  ‘Stop fucking us about,’ Detective Gommershall interrupted. He ran both sets of fingers up his brow and through his fine dark hair. It had been a long night shift. All they wanted were the detainee’s basics, and they could hand him over and escape to their beds. ‘You’re wasting my time, WPC Marsh’s time, and your time. We’ll charge you anyway. Now, for the last fucking time, give me your current address.’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘You don’t know very much, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know anything until I’ve spoken to a brief.’

  ‘We just need you to confirm your name and address, and then we’ll organize legal for you. Now, what’s your name?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  The automatic answer echoed in the small subterranean room, was sucked in by the tape recorder, magnetized on to its dual rotating reels, and rang in the detective’s ears. He jumped to his feet and shouted, ‘Look, you little prick, I don’t care who you are, or who you once were, fuck me about any more and I’ll turn that machine off and I’ll make you say anything I want you to say. This is a serious fucking charge, so stop fucking with us. Give me your address or you’re going to lose some fucking teeth.’ Detective Gommershall glanced sideways at his colleague, who avoided eye contact, and sat slowly back in his seat, battling his anger. He stared down at his knuckles, which were so white that the bones appeared to be breaking through the skin. When he looked back up, the prisoner’s expression had changed. He asked him, with noticeable control in his voice, ‘Where do you live?’

  The detainee coughed, a muffled clearing of his throat. He had elicited the reaction he’d been looking for. However, he appreciated that the situation was worse than he had imagined. He had to think quickly. ‘I’ll tell you where I live,’ he answered. ‘But first I have to tell you a few other things. And then I want to talk to a brief.’

  ‘Like what, Dr Maitland?’ the WPC asked.

  He hesitated. Ahead of him lay a series of unpleasant questions and situations. He had to be careful. He had seen enough to know that
there was no benefit or protection in subterfuge, and that the truth was just as dangerous. He was almost caught, but there might be a way out. ‘First, my name isn’t Maitland. It’s Mitland. Without the first A.’

  ‘Mit-land?’

  ‘Yep. And my Christian name is not Reuben.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s Aaron.’

  ‘Aaron Mitland. Mit- land?’ Detective Gommershall’s eyes bugged again. ‘I thought I told you—’

  There was a sharp rap on the door. WPC Marsh walked over and opened it. A short, terse exchange rattled the corridor outside. A female officer entered. She was pretty, in a fragile sort of way. The prisoner noted that her irises were dark-edged saucers of pearlescent blue, drawing light into her face, swallowing it up. He saw doubt in her brow, unease in her features, a hesitation he had watched a million times before. While he scrutinized her face she stared deeper into him. It was like the meeting of partial amnesiacs. A second officer entered the room. He was squat, broad and businesslike. He joined the female officer, running bloodshot whites over him. There was something disconcerting about the stare, like his eyes were exuding rather than extracting information.

  ‘What do you think, Sarah?’ the officer asked, maintaining his stare.

  ‘Bit of a poser, Phil.’

  ‘Come on, Reuben,’ Phil Kemp encouraged, ‘it’s over.’

  The prisoner smiled. ‘Like I told the other two officers, I’m not Reuben. I’m Aaron Mitland. Reuben’s brother. You did know he had a brother?’ He watched the nascent disappointment in the faces of the two new CID, and appreciated that they did indeed know this.

  ‘How can we check this out?’ DCI Sarah Hirst asked no one in particular.

  ‘No point DNA-testing him.’

  ‘Exactly. If they’re identical, they’re identical.’ Sarah turned to the detainee. ‘You are identical, are you not?’