The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths (DC Fiona Griffiths)

by Harry Bingham

  Social services has managed to find the letter sent by ‘Hayley Morgan’ cancelling her care visits. The paper is typed and printed on an ordinary household printer. The signature is not Hayley Morgan’s, but the forgery was close enough that social services were hardly to blame for not noticing. Morgan did not, however, possess a computer or a printer or, we think, computer skills and that was something that her care worker should have noticed. Then again, her regular care worker was going off on maternity leave and her replacement was just learning the ropes. Yes, things should have been done better but, no, nothing happened that amounted to outright negligence.

  And yet: a woman died because someone snipped her lifeline. Plaster dust under her gums, rat poison in her veins.

  That’s not quite how it’s seen in the office, however. The manpower shortage in the Fraud Squad has been somewhat remedied by a couple of people returning from sickness and the secondment of an inspector from Swansea. We in Major Crime still aren’t busy, except that an ugly motor accident – kids dropping stones off a motorway bridge, hitting a windscreen and triggering an eight-vehicle pile-up which killed two outright – has to be treated as a case of involuntary manslaughter, the culprits not yet identified with certainty.

  And in the meantime, my little fraud inquiry, such as it was, has dwindled, the same way as Hayley Morgan’s body seemed to shrink from the first moment I found her. Investigation hasn’t ended, but it’s being pursued in a way that means it won’t ever be brought to a satisfactory close. The crime is being badged as a corporate fraud, now terminated, the culprit assumed to be living abroad.

  After a tedious Monday briefing – the road accident, some boring burglaries, a dull stabbing, progress reports on some prosecution cases at least two of which I’m meant to be helping with – I pursue DCI Dennis Jackson to his office.

  Jackson likes me but he doesn’t allow that to get in the way of some good old-fashioned bollockings, which he delivers with panache and conviction when the occasion warrants.

  ‘Good morning, Fiona. You’ve got that look.’

  ‘A passion for Keeping South Wales Safe,’ I say. ‘That look?’

  ‘You can get me a coffee, black, no sugar. I’ll give you about five minutes before I have to do some actual work.’

  I go to the kitchenette and get him his coffee. Make myself peppermint tea at the same time. Return to his office. A black leatherette sofa and a sideways view out towards Bute Park.

  ‘Did the five minutes include making coffee? I don’t think—’

  ‘Fiona, let’s just see how fast we can do this, shall we? You’re going to tell me that the whoever-she-is Morgan death needs further investigation.’

  ‘Hayley and yes.’

  ‘You’re going to call my attention to the fact that a crucial letter was forged and that the forgery contributed to Morgan’s death.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You’re going to add that the financial transactions we’ve been able to trace so far don’t look like routine payroll fraud.’

  ‘No, they don’t.’

  ‘And you’ll use those things to talk up a case of constructive manslaughter.’

  ‘It is manslaughter. An unlawful act leading to unintended death. That’s manslaughter.’

  ‘OK, then I’ll look down at my list of current tasks and assignments and I’ll find myself agreeing with DI Dunwoody’s assessment that our limited resources could be better deployed elsewhere, particularly as our friends and colleagues in Fraud now have the manpower to take this on. If a manslaughter charge arises from their investigation, we’ll do what’s necessary to assist any prosecution.’

  ‘Except that, as you keep telling me, I’m a cheap resource of doubtful reliability. If I spent more time on the Morgan case, I probably wouldn’t even be missed.’

  Cheap resource: the last time I had a proper telling-off from Jackson was when he discovered that I hadn’t filled out any overtime sheets for five months. These things matter, apparently.

  ‘Very doubtful,’ mutters Jackson, his attention on his computer. He flicks through what’s been done so far.

  When you get to Jackson’s level of seniority, you’re not a field officer any more. You seldom get to visit crime scenes, interview suspects, force entry. The stink of these things reaches you only at second-hand, from the officers who were there and the reports they compile. But every senior copper was once a plod. They don’t lose their sense of smell, they just get the scent from different sources.

  Jackson reviews the case notes with swift precision. His fingers are heavy on the computer, but also rapid. Deft.

  He lifts his eyes to me again. Dark eyes, shaggily browed.

  ‘Look, you lot have covered most of the basics already. And for all we know there’s a guy called T.M. Baron living on the Costa del Crime, in which case the Fraud boys will just get an EAW and have him picked up.’

  EAW: a European Arrest Warrant. A delightfully simple procedure.

  ‘The money won’t stop in Spain and our perpetrator isn’t called T.M. Baron.’

  I can’t prove that, of course, but most payroll fraud is visibly stupid. Inflated salaries, implausible bonuses, zero deductions, addresses and bank details that track straight through to someone with access to the corporate payroll system. This fraud was clean enough that, for sixteen months, it went untraced. Anyone with the sophistication and patience to set it up wouldn’t be stupid enough to sit in a villa near Torremolinos, waiting to be arrested.

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘And remember, we don’t know how large this fraud really is.’

  Jackson works his eyebrows at me, so I add, ‘It was a very clean fraud, which implies some professionalism and organisation. But organised crime isn’t interested in a couple of thousand pounds a month. They’d need far more than that to make it worth their while. My guess: if we really take a look at this, we’ll find numerous other small frauds built on the same basic model and tracing through to the same ultimate destination.’

  I don’t say, because Jackson is smart enough to see it for himself, that the Morgan–Gibson fraud almost certainly involved a minimum of two people. There’s the T.M. Baron character: whoever it was that collected the first sixteen months’ worth of payments. Then there’s the lower-level idiot who started emptying the Morgan–Gibson accounts. Who blew the whole racket up for a gain of just £5,600.

  An end of summer wasp crawls against Jackson’s office window, butting its head against an obstacle it doesn’t understand and can’t overcome. Jackson stares at the wasp with a face that has the emptiness of sculpture.

  He looks back at his computer, hits some buttons.

  ‘Your course starts soon, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Next week.’

  Jackson ponders a little further. His version of pondering involves hitting the flat of his hand softly against the top of his desk and staring into the middle distance.

  ‘Look, I take your point, but I think we need to leave this with Fraud for now. I’ll talk to – who’s that new guy over from Swansea?’

  ‘Rhodri Stephens.’

  ‘I’ll talk to him. Tell him we take this seriously, that we think there’s a manslaughter prosecution floating around here. We’ll give them time to make a case of it, see where they get to.’

  Because my face doesn’t instantly assume the ‘yes, O Mighty One’ reverence that all senior officers think is their due, Jackson adds, ‘Fiona, fraud is a job for the Fraud Squad.

  It is not a job for Major Crime and it is not your job to tell me mine.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I think that’s our five minutes. Thank you for the coffee.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘Good luck with the course.’

  I nod and leave the room.

  6

  It’s three weeks later, but feels more. I’m in a shit flat close to where the M1 disgorges into London, a long stone’s throw from Brent Cross. I’m on the eighth floor of an eleven
-storey building. One of the lifts is out of order and the curtains on my windows are made of unlined orange cotton. My kitchen contains a packet of sliced bread, some margarine, some peppermint tea bags and a tin of beans. I don’t have a can opener.

  It is midnight, and I have to be at work in Wembley by four. I’m not allowed my car here, and the journey time by public transport is an hour.

  So far this week, I have averaged less than four hours sleep a night.

  I put some margarine on a slice of bread and eat it, standing up, looking out of the window. There’s music coming from the flat above me. Music and an argument.

  I’d like to call Buzz. Not about anything, just to chat. Hear his voice, learn what’s been going on at the office. Laugh a bit too much at one of his jokes, just for the pleasure of feeling his pleasure at my appreciation.

  We’ve been going out for slightly more than a year. I would say it’s been my longest ever relationship but in truth it’s been my first ever relationship. First proper one. I remember when we first started dating I thought, I realise I would like to be Dave Brydon’s girlfriend. The sort who would remember his birthday, act appropriately in front of his parents and think to wear their most expensive knickers on St Valentine’s Day. And I’ve ticked those boxes, all of them. I haven’t just remembered his birthday, but I got everything right at Christmas and have, mostly, remembered our important anniversaries. I don’t get waves of love from his parents – him a manager at a national building products company, her the deputy head of a village school in the Forest of Dean – but my mishaps and misdemeanours have all been fairly minor, all explainable as That’s just Fi for you, I’m afraid. I even got Valentine’s Day right too. I couldn’t quite believe that fully grown adults took all that commercial red-heart pap seriously, but I checked with my sister beforehand who told me yes, they really did. So I did it. Played the part. Wore a nice black dress with expensive undies, red and slutty, underneath. Let Buzz take me to dinner. Expressed surprise and delight when, inevitably, a dozen red roses were produced. Let myself be coaxed into drinking a whole glass and a half of champagne – a lot for me – and happily shared a chocolate pudding glazed with raspberry coulis in the shape of a heart. Then we went back to Buzz’s place where we made red and slutty love, saying that we loved each other and meaning it.

  I look at my phone. It’s mine, not something issued by the training course. All my numbers pre-programmed. A couple of taps and I’m talking to a yawning Buzzman.

  But I’m not allowed to phone him. Not him, not Mam or Dad, not Ant or Kay. No one at work. No one.

  So I don’t.

  Just stand at the window, eat bread and margarine, listen to the argument above me. Traffic curls down the A406. I can’t see the mouth of the M1, but somehow you feel its presence. Exhaust-fumed, grimy and congested. An ill-tempered beast, belching lorries. My hair feels greasy but I don’t have a hairdryer here and I don’t want to go to bed with wet hair.

  I’m out of clean underwear, so I wash three pairs of knickers in the bathroom sink and hang them out on a radiator. They won’t be dry in the morning.

  I do my teeth, but without fervour. Look at my hair, which is greasy. Still don’t wash it.

  Bed.

  My bed is made up of a second-hand mattress lying directly on the floor. Sheets clean enough and the duvet warm. I think if my eyes were like other people’s, they’d be aching to close. I’d be half asleep already. But it doesn’t work like that for me. I am tired, but that doesn’t always mean I find it easy to sleep. So I just lie down and look at the light on the ceiling until sleep overtakes me. When it does, it’s dreamless and dark.

  The alarm clock rings at two forty. It’s dark outside and the flat is cold.

  Still wrapped in my duvet, I walk to the shower, get it hot, then step into it. Wash my hair. Wash everything else. Do you have to brush your teeth if you last brushed them less than three hours ago? Don’t know, but I do anyway.

  My knickers are still roughly as damp as they were when I hung them out last night. I choose the least wet.

  Get dressed. My uniform consists of a pale grey polo shirt, a pale grey fleece top, black trousers, which I had to supply myself, and a mid-blue tabard which is in a unisex style and fit and consequently too big for me. I put it all on. The shirt, fleece and tabard all have the same corporate logo: YCS Cleaning and a meaningless geometrical logo in orange and blue.

  Into the kitchen. Ponder the breakfast menu briefly. Opt for bread and margarine, but don’t manage to eat much.

  Then off to work. There’s a direct bus which is theoretically faster, but it’s unreliable and I’ve already had a warning for being late. So I walk to Cricklewood station, take a night bus in to Baker Street, take a second bus out to the Harrow Road and walk from there. It’s a ridiculous way to make the journey – an hour to travel about five miles – but it gets me there on time.

  We gather in the dark, my colleagues and I. Six of us. Me, Amina, Ruqia, Diwata, Maria and someone whose name I’m not quite sure of. I think Milenka. Amina’s huge smile cleaves the darkness. I smile back, though I doubt if my version cleaves quite the same.

  Maria has cigarettes. I want one badly but I bummed a cigarette off her yesterday and in this world you need to give back. It’s cold out and though I’m wrapped up, I still feel it.

  At five to four, a black Honda Accord pulls up. Marcus Conway, our boss. He greets us, ticks our names off his list, then unlocks the main office door and leads us down to the service basement where the cleaning stuff is kept. A trolley each. Cleaning stuff. Large transparent waste sack. Spare liners for the office bins.

  We’re each allocated a different floor, because they don’t like us talking to each other when we’re working. When Conway gives us an instruction, we’ve been trained to answer, ‘Yes, Mr Conway.’ To start with, that all felt a little Victorian-mill-owner to me and I’ve never been the best little Victorian factory girl. But if it’s good enough for Amina, it’s good enough for me and when Conway tells me, ‘Fiona, you’ll take the fourth floor. All the computers need cleaning and the internal office windows. Have you got that?’, I just mutter, ‘Yes, Mr Conway.’ And when he asks me to check I have the right cleaning kit for the screens and keyboards, I do check, just as he asks, then say it again.

  And off I go, with my yellow trolley and a polyester tabard that reaches to my knees.

  Oddly, it’s the cleaning I find hardest about all this. Not that I have to work hard, I’m OK with that. But the actual process of cleaning itself. Wipe, dust, empty. Wipe, dust, empty. My brain can’t stick with the routine. It keeps firing off elsewhere. I honestly try my hardest, but my hardest is a bit ramshackle. Sometimes I do everything I’m meant to do. Other times, I realise I forgot to empty half the bins, or have left a waste bag in the middle of a corridor, or haven’t cleaned the toilets. But I do my best.

  We work at this office from four till just before six, then at another, larger, office from six to almost nine. In the City, I’ve heard that you can get as much as £7.20 per hour. Out here, though, we’re strictly minimum wage, no sick pay, no long-term contracts, no holiday pay, no nothing.

  At nine, we have to remove our tabards and empty out our pockets. That’s Conway’s way to show us that he’s alive to the risk of us stealing. But he knows and we know that if we nicked anything, it would be cash and we would hide it in our underwear, so all the pocket-emptying is really no more than panto.

  Today, unusually, I have free time between nine and five. Normally we have to meet for coursework. Lessons on surveillance methods. Case studies. Lots of legal stuff. We have to know the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act pretty much backwards, but there’s a lot of other law too. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act, of course. The Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act. European law and court rulings.

  This is the National Undercover Training and Assessment course and it’s the toughest course offered by the police service. Most people who apply are rejected.
Even when you’re accepted onto the course, 85 per cent of students fail.

  I’m not even sure why I applied. A memo came round last year asking if anyone was interested and I said yes. No real reason. Curiosity, I suppose.

  Buzz hates the idea of me working undercover. He doesn’t like the danger. He doesn’t like the loss of contact. It took me time to realise it, but he’s hurt that I even applied for the course. As though it was some kind of snub to him.

  I’ve mended things since then, I think. Told him that I have no intention of doing one of those marathon infiltrations. The things that last years and mess with your brain. I told him what might even be the truth: that I hate being told I can’t do something, so I want to make sure that I’ve got the ability to do it if I want to. Which I won’t.

  As far as I’m concerned, that’s logical. As far as Buzz goes – well, I don’t know, but it’ll be better once the course is over.

  The course isn’t mostly about law. We learn about managing a second identity, or ‘legend’ as it’s called by the undercover specialists who teach us. I’m Fiona Grey now. Fiona isn’t pretending to be a cleaner, she is a cleaner. We learn how to construct our pasts. Invent them. Get paperwork in the new names, get a history. Learn that history so it starts to become ours.

  And we learn about danger. Infiltration is a tactic we only ever use against organised crime, or groups thought to be planning acts of violence or terror. Make a mistake on an infiltration and it’s not going to be a ‘Whoops, sorry, Sarge’ moment. It’s going to be a shot to the back of the head, bag in the river type moment.

  We hear stories of undercover officers who have simply disappeared. Missing, presumed dead. Hear what happens when things go wrong.

  The best sessions are briefings given by actual practitioners. Accounts of what it’s actually like. The dangers, the situations you get into. When we started, most of the questions had to do with the drama of the chase. Making contact with the bad guys. Gaining their trust. Executing the bust. The armed raids and the car chases. By now, though, our interest has shifted. My fellow students ask about what it’s like to be cut off from family. How you get through Christmas. What it’s like to live in fear.