Alias

by Tracy Alexander

  The sun was starting to go down. I walked back with him towards Delph Lane. There were two police cars parked on Woodhouse Moor, the cops leaning on the bonnets, chatting.

  ‘Get yourself fish ’n’ chips,’ I said, putting a tenner in Mack’s sweaty little hand. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Thanks, Saff. I love you.’

  He ran off. But his words stayed with me as I headed back to Brudenell Road. He wasn’t part of the plan, but what harm could it do? After all, he was nine.

  30

  As I handed my completed forms over to the office manager on my first day at SendEx I had a second of doubt. What if I’d been duped? I’d paid a fortune to steal Saffron Anderson’s identity with no guarantees. Cyber criminals don’t give receipts. My pulse quickened, but I kept my gaze steady.

  ‘Lovely name,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  I wondered what had happened to the original Saffron. Dead, according to my supplier, but how? Car accident, cancer, stabbed by some mad man who’d escaped from an institution …?

  As she ran through the basics like holiday entitlement and sickies, I studied her. She was tidy in the way that she spoke, dressed, wrote and filed her nails. Definitely not a risk-taker – her taste was too boring. She wasn’t important, but it was good practice to notice things.

  ‘I’ll take you along to see Liam now.’

  ‘Hello again, Saffron,’ he said, from behind a seriously messy desk. It was a good sign. The less attention to detail he had, the better.

  He took me on a tour, covering everything from the handheld PDAs the delivery drivers used to the pricing structures. I got it all first time, but let him drone on – he was clearly proud of their ‘slick operation’.

  Best not to appear too smart anyway.

  In my hour’s lunch break I went to a café and ordered a tandoori chicken flatbread. The telly was on in the corner – some news programme or other. I was watching the waitress, thinking about how most people did dull jobs, when a name caught my attention.

  ‘… Dan Langley. Extradition laws were meant for terrorists, not kids exploring the internet from their bedrooms.’

  The speaker – a scruffy bloke with a big, round face – was clearly Dan’s lawyer.

  ‘… The burden of proof, which underpins British law, barely exists in the powers our government has handed to the Americans, in what was a poorly-thought-through knee-jerk reaction to increasing threats of terror.’

  It took more time than it should have for me to catch up with what was happening. Being back in the headlines was terrifying. I expected a photo of me to replace the lawyer any second. But didn’t move …

  ‘… I would ask the Home Secretary to quickly and decisively reject the extradition request and leave Dan Langley to continue with his GCSE exams.’

  The presenter switched to the weather forecast.

  The busybody on the next table switched to me.

  ‘Chop his bloody head off, I would,’ she said, looking at me. ‘Little brat, helping that Dronejacker.’

  I didn’t respond. Just stood up and went to the ladies, cross that I’d drawn attention to myself by being so engrossed in the story. In the cubicle I let the breaking news sink in.

  The Americans wanted Dan shipped over the Atlantic to be tried in their courts. What did that mean for me? It felt dangerous, but, thinking it through, I concluded that they were giving him flak because they couldn’t find me. It wasn’t ideal – what I needed was for the world to forget all about Dronejacker and move on – but it wasn’t a disaster either. I wasn’t an expert on extradition but I was pretty sure that Dan would be prohibited from talking about the case for the foreseeable, which would give the story time to fade.

  As the shock receded, a grin found its way onto my face. Served him right. Without Dan Langley meddling, my plan would have succeeded. Without Dan Langley, I could have moved on. Instead, I had unfinished business.

  I checked myself in the mirror. The light streaks and the heavy fringe made me a different person, helped by the ridiculous lashes. I reapplied my lip colour and left the café.

  Relax, Saff.

  The afternoon flew. I shadowed Elisa, who was one of the senior customer services agents. She processed parcels going everywhere from Wigan Pier to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Seeing how simple it was to route stuff around the world, whether it was the size of a pin or an elephant, was reassuring. But there was more to it than putting an address on a stick of dynamite. I had to make sure my parcel arrived – which meant getting round the Dangerous Goods transport regulations. And exploded – which meant finding a way to get hold of some controlled substances. Not the sort that blew your mind, the sort that blew you up.

  31

  All too aware that I was in the top ten most wanted, I was reluctant to go online – but needs must. At lunchtime on Friday, I went to an internet café down by the station, opened a Hotmail account in Saffron’s name and booked a place on Leeds University’s open day at the end of June.

  I hovered my fingers over the keys – so very tempted to Google Dan Langley and see how much trouble he was in. But I resisted. Browsing was safe enough, but I’d made the rule for my own protection. I needed to stay away from the forever footprints left tangled in the web. I logged out and bought a Guardian newspaper instead (and two more cold packs). There was an article arguing against Dan’s extradition. It was very persuasive.

  The afternoon dragged. Another weekend of deception lay ahead. I felt tired. Thought about going away somewhere – holing up in a hotel with a huge bed and a deep bath and being me.

  Me. Interesting concept …

  The first two weeks working at SendEx had been surprisingly nice. I could almost have forgotten why I was there, apart from the odd trip to buy a soldering iron from Maplins, and more than a few cold packs from Boots and Superdrug – all of which I’d deposited in my rented storage unit. The routine was oddly reassuring, comforting even. I chatted with Elisa and the others, went to Subway with them and swapped funny stories about the customers. Almost all the agents were young – although not as young as eighteen. The work was simple – just a question of being organised. Evidently the big boss had already congratulated Liam on recruiting me. Tempting though it was to start working out what obstacles I was going to have to negotiate to send a bomb, I’d resisted. Fitting in was the first step, and that had gone swimmingly. In fact, I was in danger of becoming Saffron Anderson inside as well as out …

  Involuntarily, I shook my head, as though flinging that thought away.

  ‘Got a flea in your ear?’ said Elisa.

  ‘Crick in my neck,’ I said, ticking myself off for being weird.

  Bang on five-thirty, I left work, catching the bus to Hyde Park because I couldn’t be bothered to walk. I turned into my road, praying the house would be empty, to find Freddie standing by a white BMW X5. Parents. Alarm bells sounded in each compartment of my head. I was losing my touch. I’d forgotten his invitation to ‘pig out’, and had therefore also forgotten that there’d be visitors arriving. I didn’t forget things. As I strolled towards the happy family I wondered whether the strain of being someone else 24/7 was too much. Undercover cops tended to crack up, didn’t they? And they had training. I’d trained myself.

  Doubt crept in. It was an alien feeling.

  ‘Mum, Dad, this is Saff. My new lodger.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said, holding out my hand.

  The mum ignored it and gave me a half-hug – hands on my shoulders but body well away, cheeks almost touching, but not.

  ‘What a beauty you are,’ she said.

  I felt my cheeks get hot. Not so much from the compliment as from the memory of my own mum. The sense that my hold on things was slipping grew stronger.

  The dad was more reserved.

  ‘Hello … Saff.’

  ‘Short for Saffron,’ I said. Before the conversation could continue I took control.

  ‘I’m sorry but I’ve got a mi
graine.’ I touched my forehead, made my eyes pained.

  ‘Poor girl,’ said Freddie’s mum to my back.

  Safe inside, I grabbed a glass of water and took it up to my room. I lay down on my bed, door locked, and played the movie of my life, starting with the summer in Yemen and ending with the train drawing into Leeds railway station two months ago. It calmed me. Focused me. Keeping up the pretence was going to be harder than I thought. I’d concentrated on the practicalities, ignoring the mental side of things. That was a bad call. On the internet it had been simple – face to face took the subterfuge to a different level. I needed to look after myself. Find time to relax.

  There was a tap on the door.

  ‘Are you all right?’ It was Freddie, whispering – which was sensitive, for him. ‘I’m off now.’

  I didn’t answer. He waited, then went back downstairs. The door slammed. The car started up outside my window.

  All clear.

  I sank into a deep sleep. My defences were down – that was the only explanation. Because for the first time since the drone strike, I had a dream about my grandma and Lamyah that didn’t end up with them in a thousand pieces.

  32

  Freddie had left a note on the kitchen table that I didn’t read until morning.

  Hope head gets better.

  Freeloading at the hotel with Mum and Dad.

  See you Sunday.

  Freddie.

  I pressed my palms together and gave thanks to the God of People with Stolen Identities. Polly was away at her boyfriend’s as usual, which meant I had a weekend to myself, just when I needed it.

  I had a shower, pulled on leggings, flip-flops and a pink crop top and headed to the Spice Centre, opposite the mosque, to buy all the ingredients for my own ‘pig out’. My basket was so heavy the handle was slicing through my hand. They gave me a box at the checkout – much easier.

  Back home I made dough, just like my grandma had taught me. I put it in a hot pan and waited for the layers to separate. The mixture was ready – eggs, onions, coriander and chopped hot green chilli pepper. I spread it over the bottom, slapped the other layer on top and waited. The smell took me back. I let it. Not frightened any more of seeing the carnage. Sure I could conjure up happy times.

  I pierced the dough with a fork. No ooze. Good job.

  The kitchen was dark and depressing, so I took my breakfast outside and sat on the doorstep in the sunshine, with a mug of British tea.

  I left the washing up and headed to the park, planning to walk into town to buy more cold packs and some other items, like electrical tape …

  My storage unit on the Kirkstall Road already contained three pressure cookers of different sizes (one new, two from charity shops), a drill, a bucket, several brown cardboard boxes, a white lab coat and 118 cold packs – each of which contained liquid, which I didn’t need, and little beads of ammonium nitrate, which I did need. Three hundred cold packs was the goal. It was slow-going, but buying too much of anything from one place was a mistake I wasn’t about to make.

  ‘Saff!’ It was Mack, running across the park towards me.

  ‘Hello, trouble,’ I said. ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Can we go to the café?’ he asked.

  I was going to refuse, but he looked a bit needy. Understatement!

  He was starving. Said his mum hadn’t come home. I tried to work out since when, but Mack was hazy on the details.

  ‘She went to get chips,’ he said.

  I bought him a full English and a cup of coffee in Chichini’s, which the black-hair-with-a-white-stripe-down-the-middle waitress tried to give to me.

  ‘It’s for him,’ I said.

  She gave me a vile look.

  ‘Isn’t there anyone else?’ I asked Mack. Then wished I hadn’t.

  Mack didn’t seem to have any idea of family. Come to that, he only had a loose grip on time. And no sense of danger. After all, he’d made friends with me.

  Not for the first time I thought about making an anonymous call to social services – but who knew whether that was the right thing to do?

  ‘Saffron?’

  I looked up to see Liam, in bright-yellow running kit.

  ‘I thought that was you,’ he said, adding a ‘Hi’ in Mack’s direction.

  ‘’Ullo,’ said Mack, chewing a lump of bacon with his mouth open.

  ‘This is Liam,’ I said. ‘My boss.’

  There was that tricky silence where one person expects to be invited to sit down while the other person waits for them to move on. I wasn’t going to crack. But …

  ‘Get a chair,’ said Mack.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Liam.

  Great!

  ‘The usual?’ shouted the waitress.

  ‘Please,’ said Liam, sitting down opposite Mack.

  ‘Same every Saturday. Round the park, then fodder,’ he explained.

  I smiled.

  ‘How was your week?’

  ‘Good,’ I said.

  ‘She worked in the pub before,’ said Mack. Chew. Chew.

  I willed him to eat fast – which he always did anyway – so we could leave. Until then I needed to chat, to make sure Mack didn’t.

  ‘How long have you been at SendEx?’ I asked.

  ‘Four years,’ said Liam. ‘Started in your role, actually.’

  ‘Good for you,’ I said. Flattery always helps things along.

  ‘Right place, right time. Someone left and …’

  The small talk continued. Liam lived in a studio flat in Headingley. His parents lived on the other side of Leeds with his little brother. He didn’t question me – it was all on my application. Saffron Anderson was a Londoner. End of.

  Mack ran his finger round his plate, demolishing all traces of egg, bacon fat and brown sauce, then burped.

  ‘’Ave you got a car?’ he said, his mouth at a loose end.

  ‘No,’ said Liam. Mack looked disappointed. Clearly a joyrider in the making.

  ‘You smell bad,’ said Mack, out of the blue.

  ‘You’re right, I do,’ said Liam, looking down at his sweaty running top and laughing.

  My traffic light flashed amber. I doubted whether Mack remembered saying exactly the same to me when I first met him at the train station – on the run from the police, MI5, Interpol and the FBI – but I didn’t want to risk a blow-by-blow of how he’d found the homeless me a place to live.

  ‘I don’t feel very good,’ said Mack.

  ‘We’d better get you home, then,’ I said, grabbing his skinny little arm and hoicking him up.

  ‘Bye, Liam. See you on Monday.’

  ‘Have a good weekend,’ Liam called after us.

  He probably thought it odd – the way we upped and left – but it was damage-limitation time.

  ‘You don’t like him,’ said Mack as we walked towards his flat.

  ‘Not much,’ I agreed, but, actually, Liam was all right. Nice to grubby kids. Fit … I stopped myself. Thinking about sex led me straight to the bloody awful thing with Hugo – two years and it still made me cringe. I was usually a good judge of character, but not that time.

  Halfway up Delph Lane, I said, ‘Go and see if your mum’s there.’

  ‘What if she’s not?’ he said, still holding my hand, eyes like a baby rabbit’s. His face was flushed – instinct made me reach out with my other hand. He was hot. The ill sort, not the weather sort.

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ I said, smiling. ‘Just in case.’

  And then what?

  Off he went, his slight body parcelled in once-orange shorts and an Arsenal shirt.

  Mack knew stuff about me – harmless on the face of it, but if you knew what you were looking for … not quite so harmless. I’d arrived in Leeds three days after the failed drone attack. I was an apparently homeless girl of the right age carrying a single rucksack. Mack was the only witness.

  I didn’t wait.

  33

  I watched a documentary on telly about the White Widow – allegedly
responsible for carnage in a Kenyan shopping centre and, like me, on the run. They interviewed her school friends and neighbours. It freaked me out. She came from Aylesbury – seventeen miles from Buckingham.

  The idea that an investigative journalist might already be researching Angel’s story whirred round in my head. Sleep took a while.

  The night was never-ending. I was too hot, too cold, unhinged, locked up, locked out, frozen and, finally, burning. I took two paracetamol at about six in the morning, and two ibuprofen about ten minutes later, desperate to get my temperature down. Mum used to tell funny stories about my ravings when I had a fever – pinned down by sheets as heavy as lead, fish by my feet, a disembodied hand that kept slapping me.

  I padded down to the kitchen in my pyjamas and, while the kettle boiled, took stock – sore throat, headache, achy everything else. So much for my weekend of peace.

  I thought a short walk might help, but my legs told me otherwise.

  Stress takes a toll on your body. Being constantly in fight-or-flight mode lowers your immune system, kills your heart and gives you diabetes.

  I lay on the bed, flat on my back, breathing way too fast – couldn’t get the memory of my frantic escape from Norfolk out of my head. That episode was over, but I still had to live every day in someone else’s shoes, which meant being constantly vigilant, never relaxing, never off guard.

  No wonder I’d succumbed so easily to what I was pretty sure was Mack’s virus. Sleep was the only answer.

  At some point I thought I heard Freddie. Or maybe Polly. My door opened and I thought about calling out, but when I looked again it was shut.

  It was dark when I sat up with a start. I was suffocating, totally unable to swallow. I reached for the water glass, took a glug, but it stayed where it was – a pool, hovering in the way of my trachea, keeping the air out like a cork in a bottle. Panic. I staggered to the bathroom, heaved, threw up a tiny bit of bile. It hurt like hell.