by Chris Ewan
Connor had a creeping fear about where this was heading. It got worse when Renner glanced behind him, towards the teams of people buzzing about the marquee, before pulling a smartphone from the inside pocket of his jacket.
‘Wade recovered some surveillance equipment during his sweep. Our guy had a long-lens camera adapted for night-vision photography. Wade checked the camera and he found a bunch of surveillance shots of the house where Kate Sutherland was staying. The photograph I’m about to show you is date-stamped three days ago. The man we hired never sent it to me. If he had . . . Well, things would have been different.’
The image was dark and grainy, rendered in shades of green, but it was distinct enough for Connor to identify the man who’d been captured in a pale mint glow, stepping out through a sliding glass door.
His heart clenched and a deep chill spread through his chest.
‘You believe he has Kate Sutherland?’
‘I think that’s what we have to assume.’
‘I won’t allow this to happen again, Mike. I can’t. Find them. Do whatever it takes.’
‘And when I find them?’
‘You know the answer to that. But handle things yourself this time. No go-betweens.’
Perhaps it was Connor’s imagination, but Renner seemed to sag just a touch.
‘I’ll need Wade on it too,’ he said quietly.
‘As you wish. But nobody else. And Mike?’
‘Yes.’
‘No more mistakes.’
Chapter Seven
Kate stared hard at her reflection in the rust-pitted mirror in her bedroom. Clumps of her hair littered the towel draped over her shoulders and the plastic sheet spread on the floor beneath her chair. Becca was standing behind her with a pair of scissors in one hand and a comb in the other. Not ten minutes ago, she’d dumped the remains of Kate’s ponytail into a black bin liner, along with the clothes she’d been wearing since she’d left the Isle of Man and the towel she’d used to dry herself with after her shower.
Kate felt picked apart. Unravelled. Her defences stripped away.
‘How many people have you done this for?’ she asked. ‘Before me, I mean.’
‘You know I can’t tell you that.’
‘But I’m not the first?’
‘No, honey, you’re not the first. You’re not an experiment. We’re good at this. Nick’s the absolute best at what he does.’
‘He hasn’t told me how any of this is going to work.’
‘He will. But it’s a lot to take in. He’s just looking out for you.’
Becca brushed Kate’s new fringe to the left, tipping her head to one side, frowning at the result.
‘Why are you involved in this?’
‘Why does anyone do anything any more?’
‘Money, usually.’
‘Well, I’ve got me enough of that.’
‘So then you’re a volunteer. I’m sorry, but that doesn’t seem very likely. You’re famous.’
‘Honey, that’s sweet, but that show was a long time ago.’
‘You have everything to lose.’
‘No, not everything. Not any more. And besides, maybe some things are just worth doing.’
‘Seriously? That’s the best you’ve got?’
‘A cynic, huh? How about if I told you Nick helped me out once.’
‘Must have been a serious favour.’
‘Oh, it was.’ Becca nodded, and for the briefest moment her eyes took on a faraway look. ‘But Nick also convinced me that I’d be doing something important here. He knows I have a serious talent for blending in. When you have this face and these babies,’ she clutched her breasts, winking, ‘you need plenty of tricks to get by unnoticed.’
Kate gave Becca a dubious look. Back in the day, she’d seen her on the television, in tabloid newspapers and on the covers of glossy magazines, and the truth was that she didn’t appear very different today. She was always glamorous, always bold; an unmistakable combination of big hair, big make-up and a big body.
‘I know what you’re thinking. And I get it. I do. But what you’re seeing today is just a costume. I can change it any time I want. Just like I can change you. And if you’re clever, you’ll pay attention to me, because it might just save your life.’
‘Did Miller tell you that I killed a man?’
Becca pushed her mouth to one side and snipped at Kate’s hair. ‘Way he tells it, you had no choice.’
Kate thought about that. She wasn’t sure it was true. And even supposing it was, nothing could rid her of the skin-crawl sensation she couldn’t quite shake, or help in any way to make her forget that awful moment of silence, of stasis, after the gun jumped in her hand, before the man in the balaclava toppled back.
A killer on the run. That was who she was now, what she’d become.
‘Would you put your life in Miller’s hands if you were me?’
‘Honey, I put my life in his hands every day. If the people who wanted to get at you knew I was involved in any of this . . .’ Becca shuddered, leaving the rest unspoken.
‘How do you even find the time for this?’
‘Worried I won’t be there for you?’
‘The thought had crossed my mind.’
‘Well, Miller’s your main guy. Remember that. But also, it just so happens I have plenty of time on my hands right now.’
‘How so?’
Becca met her eyes in the mirror. ‘I’m in the middle of what my agent calls a “period of career transition”.’
‘And what do you call it?’
‘A screw-up. And I mean that literally, or figuratively, or whatever. That show you liked so much? I didn’t leave it to move on to bigger things. I was written out of it because I spent the night with the head of the network. Huge mistake. His wife was not a fan. And he was seriously pissed off when she found out. He’s an influential guy. More influential than me or my agent, anyway.’ She fluffed Kate’s hair. ‘You like?’
Kate hated it. But she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t impressed by the outcome. She looked leaner, sharper, tougher. Although not all of that was down to her new hairstyle.
‘And we’re done.’ Becca lifted the towel from Kate’s shoulders and guided her to her feet. ‘Stay on the sheet. Take off your robe.’
Kate untied the gown and let it fall from her shoulders. She’d shed a lot of weight recently. The stress had killed her appetite. Her whole life, she’d always been fit and healthy, but now she could glimpse the outline of her ribs through her skin, the jut of her clavicle.
The underwear she had on wasn’t anything like she would have chosen for herself. It was peach and silky, covered in frills. Becca had run out for it while Kate was in the shower. She felt like a stranger wearing it, which she guessed was the point.
‘Girl, you are beautiful,’
But Kate didn’t feel beautiful. She felt depleted and vulnerable. Especially under Becca’s gaze.
Becca was wide-hipped and voluptuous. She oozed sex appeal. Kate had already caught herself wondering if Miller had slept with her. If maybe he still did.
She crossed her hands in front of her abdomen, the plastic crinkling under her feet as Becca backed off towards a portable clothes rack in the corner of the room. The rail was jammed with garments suspended from plastic hangers. A set of colour photographs had been tacked up on the wall nearby and Kate could see that they were flash shots of the interior of her wardrobe on the Isle of Man.
‘You’ve spent your whole life with people taking notice of how good you look. Now that’s something we have to change.’
Chapter Eight
Detective Sergeant Jennifer Lloyd leaned against a wall on the far side of the incident room, squeezing a squash ball in her palm. The blue rubber was dulled and cracked from months of handling. Lloyd gripped it beneath her fourth and fifth fingers, working through a series of rapid compressions. Her routine with the ball had started out as a strengthening exercise to speed her recovery from a broken wrist she’d
sustained while apprehending a suspect. But the exercise had proved habit-forming, and now she found that it was a useful way of relieving stress.
Not that it was working so well tonight.
Lloyd looked around the room and saw at least three colleagues she would happily throw the ball at. Hard.
The headquarters of the UK Protected Persons Service was located in the Central Bureau of the National Crime Agency near St James’s Park, London. Lloyd had been seconded to the unit four months ago. This was her third time inside the Major Incident Room in the basement of the building. Already, it was by far the most frustrating experience she’d faced.
There were twelve of them in the room. Lloyd’s eleven colleagues had significant experience of working with protected persons. They believed in the principles of the service and were committed to shielding the individuals placed under their care.
Lloyd was different. She had no problem with a programme that offered sanctuary to innocent people at extreme risk. But she’d been parachuted in by a senior officer who shared her concerns about how the scheme was being used to provide known offenders with amnesty in return for their testimony at important trials.
Officially, Lloyd had a watching brief. Unofficially, she was a mole. Everyone on the team understood her function. Everyone distrusted and disliked her. Which was generally fine by Lloyd, because at least they were open about it.
Across from her, beyond the central table and the computer terminals where her colleagues were gathered, three whiteboards were fitted to the wall. The board on the far right was empty. The board in the middle contained a handwritten timeline of known events on the Isle of Man. The board on the left was crammed with key data about Kate Sutherland.
A headshot of Sutherland was tacked up on the board. She had dark red hair, lightly freckled skin and striking green eyes. Several of Lloyd’s male colleagues had lingered in front of the image. One of them, DS Quinn, had made a crack about volunteering to ‘debrief’ her once she was she found.
Lloyd had never had that kind of effect on men. She knew she never would. It wasn’t that she was ugly exactly. It was simply that she was plain. She was average height, average weight, an average dresser – average in every physical attribute.
All of which made her an excellent observer because people tended to forget about her. Which was a mistake, because while Lloyd appeared to be entirely average, in reality she was anything but. She was highly intelligent, extremely driven, and ruthless in her ambition to get ahead.
Above the trio of whiteboards a flatscreen television cycled through a sequence of images that had been emailed to the team by a crime-scene officer on the Isle of Man. The photographs showed different angles of the body of the dead intruder. The corpse had been discovered late that morning by a DI Shimmin, who’d responded when Kate had failed to check in with him by phone at the beginning of the day.
The dead man was currently unidentified but it was clear to everyone in the team that he’d accessed the property armed with a suppressed pistol with the objective of killing Kate Sutherland.
So far, Lloyd had remained silent as her colleagues had reacted to the situation and put the established protocols into action. She’d watched them work the phones and the computers as they liaised with the Isle of Man Constabulary and pulled together all the available information. That was part one of the investigation and it had been slick and impressive.
Then part two had begun and Lloyd had bit her tongue as the team analysed the data they’d amassed. They’d speculated about who the dead man might be and debated whether he was a random intruder or, as seemed more likely, a hired killer. They’d settled on Connor Lane as the most likely candidate to have hired him. They’d spoken in concerned tones about Kate Sutherland’s welfare, her possible whereabouts and her likely responses to being targeted. They’d talked about how they might contact her without blowing her cover, how best to reassure her and let her know that it was safe to come in.
And then Lloyd had finally had her fill of it. Because there was something fundamental they were overlooking.
She pushed off from the wall and crossed the room, slipped the squash ball into her pocket and snatched up a marker pen. She scrawled eight words on the empty whiteboard, then thumped her fist so hard against it that everyone in the room turned to stare.
Issue an arrest warrant for Kate Sutherland NOW.
Chapter Nine
The camera flash was startlingly bright. Kate blinked but the flash fired again, and again, and instantly she was transported back to that darkened bedroom, the muzzle flare lighting up the terror-struck eyes of the masked man looming over her.
‘That’s perfect.’ Hanson checked the digital screen on the back of his camera. ‘You can relax now.’
Kate drifted away from the white photographic backdrop, a faint whistling in her ears and a taste like aniseed in her mouth. She steadied herself against Hanson’s chair as he downloaded the photographs to one of his laptops.
And then there she was. A collection of head-and-shoulder shots. Washed out. Stark. Somehow reduced. Her, but different. The cropped red hair styled into a no-nonsense bob. The peach lipstick, in the same pale tone as the underwear she had on. Like a stranger. Or maybe a long-lost twin sister, one who’d grown up in a completely different environment to Kate, with a look and a bearing all her own.
And a style that positively repelled men, judging by the way Hanson had grimaced, clutching his hands to his head, the first time she’d followed Becca out of the bedroom.
She had on dark blue jeans with a high waist, a baggy pale blue sweatshirt and white trainers over white sports socks.
Next to her, Becca looked glam and effortlessly fabulous, armed with the make-up brushes and foundation she’d used to tailor Kate’s appearance, and it occurred to Kate that this was the exact opposite of all the dumb rom-com movies she’d ever seen. This time, the cool girl had worked her magic only to transform Kate into the ultimate dork.
‘That works,’ was all Miller had to say, from where he was slouched on a high wooden stool over by the kitchen counter, surrounded by wonky cabinets, a stained fridge-freezer and a grotty, fat-smeared cooker.
He hadn’t moved or spoken since. He was monitoring events silently and Kate had to fight an urge to go over and shake him. Didn’t he get how freaked out she was? Didn’t he understand that this was more than just routine for her?
It was different from before, with the police. Back then, she’d been told that she’d come out of protection shortly after Russell’s trial. Everything had been officially sanctioned. Everything had been reversible.
Here, there was no safety net.
She wasn’t only afraid of what she was getting into. She was scared by everything she was giving up. Not just her life as she knew it, but also the life she’d hoped to have. She was smart enough to know she couldn’t walk away from this unscathed.
‘Gotcha.’
Hanson had selected the least flattering headshot, opened it in a new window and tweaked a series of parameters. Then he hit a key and a compact black machine started to whir and hum until it spat out a British passport, opened to the laminated page at the back. Hanson removed the document and wafted it in the air. He bent it and crushed it, then handed it to Kate.
‘Kate Elizabeth Ryan,’ she read.
‘It’s best you keep your first name,’ Miller explained. ‘Easier to remember in pressure situations.’
It was the opposite of the advice the police protection officers had given her.
‘Why Ryan? Why Elizabeth?’
‘Why not?’ Becca asked.
‘Kate Elizabeth Ryan,’ she said again. But the name meant nothing to her.
Hanson eyed her from over the tops of his spectacle frames. ‘In case you were wondering, you should be totally impressed by me right now.’
‘Will it work?’
‘I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t hurt.’ He took the passport back, wheeling his chair over to
another laptop where he tapped a key and typed a password into the dialogue box that appeared onscreen. He flattened the passport and slipped it beneath a scanner.
There was a brief pause before multiple lines of green text appeared over a black background.
‘What is this?’
‘The main database for the National Passport Office. If you pass through UK border control and an officer scans your passport, this is what they’ll see.’
‘You mean it’ll look like this?’
‘No, I mean it is this. I have a back door into their system. That’s how good I am.’
Kate felt a smile tug at her lips. A sudden flush of confidence.
‘Hanson, I am seriously impressed by you right now.’
‘More like it.’
‘But I have one question: what else can you do?’
*
Hanson could do plenty, as it turned out. First he produced a driving licence with Kate’s new headshot on it. Then he manufactured credit and debit cards. Everything was in the name Kate Elizabeth Ryan.
‘That’s the easy part. Now I have to start work on transferring your funds to your new accounts.’
‘How long will it take?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘Is it dangerous?’
‘Only if I get distracted and screw it up. And I probably will, if you keep standing here, watching over me.’
‘It’s late, honey.’ Becca was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, holding her heeled shoes by their ankle straps. ‘Why don’t you go across the hall and get some rest? Let the Boy Wonder do his thing.’
Kate peered at the time at the bottom of Hanson’s screen. It was nudging past midnight. She’d been awake for almost twenty-four hours. She was wiped, but she was afraid to be alone, and it was unnerving to think of her identity being stripped apart and remodelled while she slept.
Over at the kitchen counter, Miller was still slouched forwards on his crossed forearms, watching in silence. Was he pleased with how things were going? Was she passing his unspoken test?
