The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths

by Harry Bingham

  I start to eat the sausages.

  At the library, I have to check in my bag and coat. Brattenbury has installed one of his guys as a cloakroom attendant and, by the time I’m in line to collect my stuff at closing time, the audio data has been collected and the memory cleared. If I want to leave a message, I simply speak into one of my devices before checking it in.

  I receive instructions at the same time. Brattenbury has his messages printed on the inside of food wrappers, Twix and KitKat mostly, then rewraps them around the original chocolate. A cute touch that. I can’t let Vic and his buddies find me in possession of any messages, but nor do I want to have to burn, shred, eat or otherwise destroy ordinary slips of paper. If I was seen doing that it would be almost as dangerous as being found with the original. So I just open up my chocolate, read the message while I’m eating, then chuck the waste into any street bin. Occasionally I get messages via Western Vale’s internal mail, but not mostly.

  ‘Well, if you’re not going to …’

  Brattenbury helps himself to champagne, which seems to restore his mood. He’s in his Saturday attire. Dark jeans, suede shoes, suede jacket, pale blue shirt. It’s a look which vaguely suggests the casual without, I think, actually being anything of the sort. But that’s OK. I prefer my spymasters to be sticklers for detail. He has the pinkish, self-righteous glow of a man who has already visited the gym.

  I finish my first sausage. I want Brattenbury to tell me what they’ve found out about Vic, but I don’t ask. Start on some egg.

  ‘Vic Henderson. Not his real name, of course. Apartment down on the Bay. We’ve installed surveillance. Non-intrusive. Got permission to listen in to his landline. We weren’t able to do that before because we didn’t have sufficient grounds for a warrant. Thanks to you, we do now.’

  I wait for him to tell me more. He waits for me to ask him a question.

  I help myself to mushrooms.

  I’m a slow eater.

  He says, ‘We don’t yet have useful data, but it’s only been two days. He’s careful.’

  I put my fork down. ‘Vic must have reported back on me. Must have done.’

  ‘He uses a disposable mobile phone. We’re trying to intercept it, but he’s been careful so far.’

  There are lots of ways to be careful. You can take the battery out of the phone, rendering it invisible except when you make or receive a call. You can change phones frequently. You can make sure your calls are encrypted. Or you can use your phone only in places, like the center of Cardiff, where no interesting location data is imparted. It’s pretty much impossible to intercept a call on a phone whose number and location you don’t know.

  ‘His movements?’

  ‘He’s careful. Full of tricks.’ Brattenbury doesn’t elaborate, but it’s not that hard to shake off a tail. Hopping on and off public transport, reversing course, entering public buildings. The tricks used in any spy movie are still reliable ways to evade pursuit. And, of course, Brattenbury’s surveillance guys have to be acutely careful not to be identified, or ‘burned’, because any slip on their part could easily compromise me. ‘But we’re patient,’ he says. ‘These guys always lose patience before we do. The key thing is getting access and you’ve given us that. We think Henderson is probably a handler, nothing more. We suspect that the gang probably has a finance expert. Probably also a computer guy, unless that’s the same person. Maybe also an overall boss, if that’s how they organize themselves. So perhaps three to four people in total, and you’ve given us one of them.’

  I go on doing damage to the meal in front of me. But slowly. I’ve eaten one and a half small sausages, a spoonful of egg, some mushrooms.

  I don’t know about Henderson losing patience. This scam has been running for eighteen months, has already netted millions and caused at least two deaths. Henderson, it seems to me, is not a slapdash type.

  ‘When Henderson checked out your room, he did a basic search for surveillance equipment. He’d have found anything with a transmitter, but we didn’t give him that pleasure. He didn’t find the devices we have in place. He did install a basic audio and video device here.’ He shows me stills taken from his own video feed. The photos show Henderson unscrewing the face plate from a power socket and replacing it with one taken from his pocket. ‘It takes a power feed from your own mains electrical supply so it’ll be on 24/7. It does transmit data, so they can pick it up remotely. You need to assume you’re always on show.’

  The socket faces my velour armchair.

  ‘Do you know how much of the room it captures? Do I have any privacy?’

  ‘That’s a fair question. I don’t know the answer. I’ll find out and let you know.’

  I don’t much like the idea of getting dressed and undressed in front of Henderson’s watchful eye. He doesn’t seem pervy, but you don’t need to be a perv to get kicks from such things. And who knows who is actually watching this feed? Who, and how many?

  ‘Thank you.’

  I’m done on the hot food and push the plate back. Peer into the hamper.

  ‘Listen, Fiona, we’ve had a big review meeting. Dennis Jackson was there and … some senior people from the agency.’

  I reach for the bagel and cream cheese.

  It’s strange, in a way, the amount of one-size-only food that exists. I’m a bit under fifty kilos and just a couple of inches over five feet. I buy my clothes in petite ranges, and choose a size to fit my not-very-bulky frame. My dear Buzz, who is not that far off being twice my weight, buys his clothes from places that suit his much larger figure. In the field of clothing, the logic of size compels universal obedience, as it ought to. But when it comes to food, people give me the same size bagel that they’d give to Buzz. They don’t figure out that my bagel-needs aren’t going to be equivalent to his.

  I start saying this to Brattenbury. I say, ‘They don’t do bagels in small, do they? They ought to.’

  ‘I think we need to start talking about exfiltration. We need to take it slow.’

  I stop chewing. Stop talking.

  ‘I’m talking months, not weeks.’

  I swallow.

  ‘I know it’s hard. I know the pressures, believe me. But we’ve got our breakthrough and we need to protect it.’

  I say, ‘Exfiltration?’

  ‘It’s a stupid word, I know that.’

  I clear my mouth, push my food away. Say, ‘You must be fucking joking.’ Then, remembering etiquette, correct myself. ‘I mean, you must be fucking joking, sir.’

  ‘You’re questioning my decision?’

  ‘No. I mean, it’s not a question.’

  Brattenbury flushes like a girl when he’s angry. He has lovely rosy cheeks that bring the best out of his dark curls and blue eyes. It’s his best look, I think.

  ‘Do I understand you to be disagreeing with the need to get you out? Or the pace with which I’m intending to do it?’

  ‘I’m not quitting. I’ve only just started.’

  ‘You’ve given us Henderson. He’ll give us everyone else. Fiona, this isn’t the first time we’ve done this kind of thing.’

  ‘Oh, really? Let me see what exactly we have so far. We have one man with a false name. We don’t have any of his contacts or connections. We have confirmation that these people are exceptionally cautious in their communications and movements. We have one person, one, where we can plausibly secure a conviction, and even then only for fraud. We have nothing else. Fuck all. And you want me to quit?’

  We glare at each other.

  Glare until the moment passes. Morphs into something that’s the same, but a bit different.

  Brattenbury says, ‘I’m guessing this is a Fiona Griffiths thing, is it? More you, less Fiona Grey?’

  ‘Don’t tell me that Jackson didn’t warn you. He warns everyone else.’

  ‘He might have communicated something along those lines.’

  ‘I haven’t started investigating anything yet. I haven’t had the chance till now.’


  ‘You don’t have a chance now. You won’t get it. If you start to poke around, ask questions, whatever, you’re going to find yourself in the same place as Saj Kureishi. We’re not prepared to take that risk.’

  ‘It’s not your risk. It’s mine.’

  ‘Constable, you report to me. To me and to DCI Jackson. And we’re not asking about your preferences. We’re giving orders. You are still a police officer.’

  We do the glaring thing again for a bit, then one of us, maybe him, starts smiling and we can’t quite remember what we’re arguing about..

  ‘We’ll talk about this next week, shall we?’ he says. ‘For now, steady as she goes.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘These are dangerous men. Competent and ruthless.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Do you need …? On the social side of things. Are you getting enough support? Is there more we could be doing for you?’

  ‘No, sir.’ I want to tell Brattenbury about all the good things the hostel has to offer, but feel he might be alarmed by my enthusiasm.

  He stares at me.

  I sit there, hands in my lap, wondering what he sees. I wonder what I would see, if I were him. I don’t have those questions when I’m with Abs, or Gary, or Clementina. I was going to add, ‘or Buzz’, but realize that I have those questions with him most of all.

  As if reading my thoughts, Brattenbury says, ‘You’re engaged now, I understand.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Take care with that. Those things are precious.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK. Good. And I’ll talk to Dennis Jackson about your desire to … to deepen the infiltration. It’ll be his call as much as mine.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No, sir, except …’

  He raises his eyebrows, inviting more.

  I hesitate. Am I really going to say this?

  I find that I am.

  ‘There’s a private investigation of my own, which I’m interested in pursuing. It won’t conflict with Tinker. I just wondered whether SOCA might have any data that goes beyond what I can find from regular police sources.’

  Brattenbury’s face is illuminated with surprise. A fairground, garlanded with colored lights.

  ‘And the object of this inquiry …?’

  ‘Thomas Griffiths. My father.’

  ‘There are police files on your father?’

  I shrug. Invite Brattenbury to look at his laptop.

  He does so. I can’t see the screen, so don’t know if he’s looking at SOCA material or our own files, but our own files are extensive enough.

  Brattenbury’s surprise grows visibly as he investigates. ‘Three prosecutions? Four?’

  ‘Five, actually. There’s one in nineteen eighty-two you might have missed. The full package is two armed robberies, then one each of possession of a firearm, kidnap and arson. He was never really an arsonist though. Not his métier.’

  Brattenbury continues to study the screen in front of him, but I already know the story. My dad was Cardiff’s crime boss for a decade or so in the eighties and early nineties. Before that, he was working his way up. After that, he started to move sideways into more legitimate lines of work. He was suspected of countless crimes. Prosecuted for five. Convicted of none. Cardiff’s most innocent man: at one time his favorite joke.

  ‘You want to nail your father?’

  ‘No. I would never do that. It’s just there are certain questions I have about my own past. Questions that are, I’m sure, tied up with my father’s career. My investigation is about that. About the past, not the present. It’s about me really, not him.’

  Brattenbury, I bet, would love the full story, but I’m not about to share it. The bare facts, however, are these. One sunny day in June 1986, my mother and father found me in the back of Dad’s open-top Jag as they came out of chapel. I was aged about two. I had a camera round my neck, with just one photo on the film: a photo of me, in the back of the car. I was clean and tidy. No signs of abuse. But I didn’t speak. No one came to claim me. My parents, who had been trying for children, adopted me as soon as they could. Looked after me, cared for me, loved me. Loved me as fully and as well as, I hope, I love them now.

  But those missing two years of life: I know nothing of them. Wouldn’t care particularly, except that when I was a teenager, apparently out of nowhere, I became mentally ill. As ill as it is possible to be. Depressed. Dissociated. Depersonalized. It got so that I couldn’t feel anything. No emotion. No physical sensation. For two years, or thereabouts, I went around convinced I was dead.

  Cotard’s Syndrome: mine, an unfortunately classic manifestation.

  For various reasons, I’ve become sure that my Cotard’s Syndrome in my teenage years traces back, somehow, to those missing two years of life. The missing me, the dead me: one and the same. Yet to focus back on the past is to be not quite precise. I’m still not normal. Still struggle to achieve those things that other people find straightforward. The ghost of my Cotard’s still haunts my ordinary life.

  These days, I’m largely OK with my own craziness. I accept it, the way the lame accept their limp, the deaf their world of silence. But my version of normal never feels very stable. It always feels as though it could tip back into that place of deathliness and I’ve never thought I could survive another sojourn in that place. My long-term survival requires me to find a reliable balance. A resting point.

  And I think the truth would help me. The truth about my puzzling origin. It’s for that reason that I care.

  ‘Does Dennis know about this?’

  ‘He knows about my father, of course. Every copper of that generation knew about my dad. About my desire to find out more – no. That’s not something I would share with my colleagues.’

  Brattenbury pushes back from his laptop.

  ‘SOCA wasn’t in existence, of course …’

  ‘I know.’

  SOCA is a relatively recent beast. It replaced the National Crime Squad, which in turn replaced the old regional Crime Squads. But the data of those old organizations lives on. And there’s always the question of whether my father is as clean as he now claims to be.

  ‘I’ll take a look.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I can’t promise that I’ll find anything or that I’ll be able to tell you if I do …’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Anything else, Constable?’ His tone is one of amusement.

  ‘Yes, actually. The one other name I’m interested in is that of Gareth Glyn. It’s probably nothing, but …’

  I give Brattenbury a quick outline of what I know. In nineteen ninety-two, a mid-ranking executive at a big construction firm came to the police alleging extensive corruption in the award of municipal contracts and in various city planning decisions. Though he never named my father, my father’s empire was, at that time, extensive enough that he’d have been the prime suspect for any such allegation. An investigation was made, but with no outcome. Glyn lost his job. Worked as a consultant for a while, then retired with ill health. In 2002, he walked out on his wife and was never heard of again.

  A plain enough story, except that when I tracked down Delia Glyn, the abandoned wife, she told me that Gareth Glyn had been killed as a way to silence him.

  Delia Glyn was on a number of psychiatric medications when she told me this. She was visibly somewhat crazed. And she was, in every way, very far from being a credible witness. But my inquiry won’t end up in court and some of the people she named – in her rambling, repetitive, obsessive way – as being involved in the theoretical murder are people whom I know Dad to have known or worked with.

  ‘That’s not much of a connection,’ comments Brattenbury, even as he notes down the major details.

  ‘No. But it’s like that with my dad. The people who know stuff won’t tell it. And if I start asking around too obviously, he’ll know that I’m looking and then the shutters really will
come down.’

  Brattenbury stares at his computer a little more. He is now, I’m pretty sure, looking at a SOCA profile, not a police one. ‘Impressive. An impressive career.’ He looks at me, with curiosity. ‘Like father, like daughter, eh?’

  I don’t know quite what to say to that. Dad isn’t my biological father. He was a criminal and I’m in law enforcement. Yet we are more similar than almost anyone else I know.

  Brattenbury sees I’m not going to answer him, so he tells me to take care and starts to pack up. I go down to the games room, find Gary, and we spend some time smoking outside and chatting. He was in some fierce firefights in Afghanistan, came home a different person. Bad dreams. Occasional heavy drinking. Anger. He lost his wife to another man. Has been homeless ever since.

  No lives are easy. I tell him that and he laughs till he coughs.

  At four in the afternoon, I leave. Buy some groceries, so I can practice my new-found cooking skills. But also go to a hardware store, where I buy a security chain for my door. It costs £9.99, which feels like a lot, but the screwdriver only costs 95p, which seems good value. I ask at the checkout if I need anything else to fix the chain to my door. The girl – my age, friendly – isn’t sure and directs me to someone called Ted, who asks if I have a drill. I say no. He says, do I have a bradawl. I say I don’t know what that is. He gets me one – basically, a sharp pointy thing – and charges an extra £1.99, which seems unfair if a screwdriver is only 95p.

  On my way home – walking, because I feel I spent too much in the hardware shop – I get a text from the cleaning company. Their central Cardiff unit needs a new cleaner to start on Monday. Am I interested? I text back saying, YES. Remind them I can only do the first shift, the pre-breakfast one.

  When I get home, tired, I try to fit the security chain. The bradawl doesn’t seem to work at all, or at least I’m not strong enough to make it do its thing. Upstairs from me, there’s a man called Jason, a bus driver, post-divorce. He’s got an actual flat. Bedroom, bathroom, living room/kitchen. An aristocrat of the low-rent world, but a nice guy for all that. I knock on his door and ask for help.