The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths (DC Fiona Griffiths)

by Harry Bingham

  A defence lawyer might even be right.

  But those aren’t my problems, or not really. I do, however, have to maintain the existence of Fiona Grey. I spend some time in custody, making myself just visible enough that other prisoners will be able to attest to my presence. I quite like it in detention. Small rooms, easy meals, time to think.

  Interestingly, a lawyer asks to see me. Not a legal aid type. A real solicitor belonging to some fancy Manchester firm. I agree to see him, and am led from my cell to an interview room. He’s got that glossy look which money brings. He calls me ‘Miss Grey’ and shakes my hand with a soft palm. His business card names him Christopher Winterton.

  I say, ‘Did Vic send you?’

  ‘Does it matter? I’m instructed to take care of you.’

  ‘Well, say thanks to Vic, won’t you?’

  ‘I’ll pass your regards on to my client.’

  ‘Is it OK to talk in here?’

  ‘Yes.’ He talks about client–lawyer confidentiality. His words come out in a smooth, comforting stream. The café latte of verbiage, billed at £250 an hour.

  ‘Anna will tell them everything. She probably already has.’

  ‘We’re aware that Ms Quintrell has not protected her interests, or the interests of others, as well as she could have done.’

  ‘She’s an idiot.’

  Winterton gives me a thin smile and waves a hand, as though to deflect something unappealing. ‘Perhaps if we start with your own position. What they’ve asked, what you’ve answered.’

  ‘They’ve asked me lots of stuff. I’ve mostly told them to fuck off.’

  ‘And what about the part that wasn’t mere imprecation?’

  I stare at him. Imprecation? Who uses words like that these days? It’s as though lawyers think they’re a nature reserve for endangered words.

  ‘Imprecation,’ he says. ‘It means swearing.’

  ‘I know what it means. I’m not stupid.’

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  ‘I told them the truth.’ Winterton doesn’t like that much and his face twitches. But then I continue, ‘A man called Vic broke into my room. He asked me to do stuff in my job at Western Vale. I said no. He threatened me. Showed me a video of some guy being chopped to pieces. So I did as he asked. At one point I ran away to London, but he came to find me. I had to do what he said.’

  ‘That’s your defence?’

  ‘That’s the truth.’

  ‘Did he offer you money?’

  ‘I didn’t want the money.’

  ‘Did you give any name other than Vic?’

  ‘I don’t have any name other than Vic.’

  ‘Would you be able to identify this person Vic?’ Winterton’s voice goes funny as he says that.

  I don’t react to the change in tone. Just say, ‘No.’

  ‘But you saw him. You said he threatened you.’

  ‘That’s why I couldn’t identify him. Because he threatened me. I’d be too scared.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a police line-up, say?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And what did you tell the police about Ms Quintrell’s involvement?’

  ‘I told them to fuck off.’

  ‘What did you say about your trip to your conference venue?’

  ‘What conference venue? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Winterton asks what happened to my face.

  I say, ‘What do you think happened?’

  ‘I think you might be the victim of police violence.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s what I thought while he was hitting me.’

  Winterton wants to know more, so I improvise. ‘I told the cop who was interviewing me that I’d give him a blow-job if they dropped charges.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He didn’t keep his end of the bargain.’

  ‘He hit you?’

  ‘Not immediately.’

  ‘So what did happen?’

  ‘I didn’t react particularly well. Then he hit me.’

  ‘The name of the policeman?’

  ‘Mervyn Rogers.’

  I grin internally at that. Rogers won’t be charged with anything, of course. Jackson and Brattenbury will sort something out. But Rogers will have to appear in court, for the sake of appearances. He’ll also get plenty of stick from colleagues. So will I, but what the hell. It’s been a while since I’ve been the principal butt of office banter, and it’s time to restore my natural place at the head of the hierarchy of ridicule.

  Our interview goes on a while. Mostly Winterton wants to be sure I haven’t done a Quintrell and he becomes progressively reassured that I haven’t.

  His hand makes notes on a yellow legal pad. He writes with an amber fountain pen, trimmed with gold.

  At one point, he wants me to give him my details: phone, address, previous address, dates of employment, that sort of thing. I start to write them out, but manage to press too hard and I splay the gold nib out, so it’s unusable.

  ‘Oh, I think I just broke your pen.’

  He tries to fix it. Can’t. Glares at me. Gives me a cheap plastic biro and I use that instead.

  After about an hour and a half, he thinks he’s done and gets up to go.

  I say, ‘That stuff with Vic, I’m not really worried about that.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He threatened me. I protected myself. I’m allowed to do that.’

  ‘We can certainly develop that defence.’

  ‘The Manchester fuzz think I stabbed someone.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last year.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you mean to?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll have to consult my client. I don’t have instructions that currently—’

  ‘It was self-defence, OK?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Tell Vic that if he wants to help, he can help with the stabbing. I’m not worried about the fraud. And you can tell him that Quintrell is a fuckwit.’

  Winterton’s face moves at that. He murmurs, ‘I think my client is well aware that Ms Quintrell has not been entirely helpful.’

  Not long after that, I appear in court for a second time. Winterton applies for me to be released from pre-trial detention. He argues that my history of physical abuse means that custody is an excessively punitive sanction.

  There is also the matter of my injuries. A police report from Cardiff spoke about my ‘resisting arrest violently and continuously’. On Winterton’s advice, I wear flat shoes and speak quietly. A court official has to tell me to speak closer to the microphone. The magistrate asks the Crown Prosecution guy if it’s correct that I was arrested by four male officers. He looks embarrassed and says yes. The magistrate asks if some of my injuries were received while I was in custody. The CPS admits the possibility. Snappishly, the magistrate demands a further report from the custody sergeant in Cardiff and adjourns the case for another day.

  Manchester Police haven’t brought charges against me for the stabbing, but they want me to remain in the city to continue assisting with inquiries. Overall, in fact, Fiona Grey’s legal affairs are going rather well, and she’s pleased about it. During her sessions in the cells, she reads more of her speech therapy books.

  And for Fiona Griffiths too, things are flourishing. I spend time with Buzz.

  Increasingly, this feels a little like the life I left. One evening, I tell Buzz that I’ll cook for him. He says, ‘Oh no,’ but smiles when he says it. We shop for food together and he remembers the bits I forget. I drop a James Bond DVD into our shopping basket, so he has something to keep him entertained while I’m getting lost in the kitchen. When we go home, I set him up with the movie, some beer and some crisps, then cook a boeuf en daube. I thought it would be a good recipe to choose because I’m quite good at things that can be cooked in one pot and because the Waitrose recipe I’m following tells me that total preparation time is f
ifteen minutes. Now admittedly, fifteen Waitrose minutes equate to about forty or fifty of my kitchen-minutes, but where I really come a cropper is that the recipe calls for an overnight marinade, then three and a half hours in the oven. I ignore the marinade and get the thing in the damn oven at seven, which is good going for me, but then we have to wait till after nine before the stew is even vaguely cooked enough. By that time, Buzz has finished his beer and his movie, and we’ve eaten all the crisps, have raided the cupboards for some pistachios, have had a bath together, and have sat on the bed trying neither to look at our watches nor get more nibbles, but, as I say brightly, ‘That means we enjoy it all the more.’

  And we do. We eat by candlelight, and Buzz teases me, and the life which was once ours starts to flow again.

  I wear my engagement ring and watch it flash in the yellow light.

  Buzz asks about wedding dates and I say, ‘Not yet, Buzzling. Not yet, but soon.’

  I’m good, too. Well behaved, by my standards. My discovery about Gareth Glyn goes on nagging at me. I can’t help feeling he’ll lead me to some altogether deeper knowledge of my father and, with luck, of me too. Ordinarily, I’d just give way to obsession. Work all the time. Withdraw a bit. Sleep too little. But I realise Buzz needs me to be more normal than that. To be a better girlfriend. A better fiancée. So I oblige. I work as hard on those Tinker debriefings as Brattenbury desires, but apart from that, Buzz and I just spend time together. Eating, sleeping, watching TV, talking, going for walks. I like it. I think: This is what Roy and Katie Williams do too. This is what married couples do. It feels terribly strange but nice-strange, definitely nice.

  And one afternoon, at the tail end of July, I go shopping for a wedding dress. To my surprise, however, I realise that it is important Buzz isn’t with me. This has to be a private, girl-only thing. I normally rely on my sister for that kind of help, but since she’s not available I ask Susan Knowles, shyly, if she’d mind coming with me.

  She’s surprised to be asked, but is very sweet about it. Says yes. Says she’d be thrilled and might not even be lying.

  So we go out together. One Wednesday afternoon. A cold day and windy, but no actual rain. Having lunch before we start, Susan says brightly, ‘So. What kind of thing are you after?’

  I have to tell her the truth. That I’m completely useless at these things. That I rely almost totally on others. ‘I was a bit funny as a teenager,’ I say. ‘Most bits have come back OK, but I’m still a bit screwy about some things. I find buying clothes difficult.’

  When I say that sort of thing to people – and mostly I avoid saying anything remotely like it – I normally get a look which, though often kind, signifies some kind of discomfort. Susan’s not like that. She’s nice. ‘You do OK,’ she says. ‘You look good.’

  ‘My sister gets stuff for me. I’m lucky.’

  The truth is, I found life easier as Fiona Grey. I found most things easier. Sleeping. Shopping. Choosing what to eat and wear. I probably fit in better at the hostel than I ever will at police headquarters. I’ve got my friends in CID, but plenty of my fellow officers either dislike me or find me weird.

  ‘You could try pushing yourself less hard,’ says Susan gently.

  ‘Yes, but police work is the one thing I’m good at. Life: that’s the part I find hard.’

  So Susan guides me through the dresses the way my sister would. Makes me try on different things. Tells me off when I stand frozen and awkward. Cajoles me into expressing an opinion.

  I try. I honestly do. But I can’t make sense of the person I see in the mirror. This improbable white princess, bathed in a halogen glow. Shop assistants ask me questions about necklines and organza, beading and bodices, trains and lace and underskirts.

  I have no opinions at all.

  I start to feel very spacey, dangerously so. I sit on a white pouffe holding a long satin glove and I don’t know where I am. Where or who. I have that upwardly drifting headiness that so often spells disaster.

  I anchor myself by counting breaths and looking mostly at my, now mostly faded, facial injuries, a calming palette of yellow, grey and purple. I press the bruises till I feel their ache. I think of Hayley Morgan’s little corpse, the bitemarks in the plaster.

  The sweet, ammoniac smell of death.

  Susan, I think, sees that I’m not coping and is about to coax me away. In my muddled state, I half imagine that this will be another SOCA-style extraction: all flashing police cars and armed officers. I’m quite close to asking her to see that no one hits me.

  Then, by some fluke, a shop girl arrives with a dress that doesn’t quite freak me. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s off-white with some glossy stripe effect. It has a big skirt, a nipped-in waist, and a belt and clutch bag in matching fabric.

  I stand under the glare of the lamps, their forensic scrutiny, and study Wedding Girl in the mirror.

  And, though I don’t see myself exactly, I don’t see some impostor either. I can just about see my reflection without diving into the map of my bruises.

  I say, ‘Susan?’, meaning, Is this OK?

  Meaning, Help me.

  Susan knows by now not to ask me if I like it. She tells me what she thinks. The view from Planet Normal. She says, ‘That’s really good. It’s not too fussy. It’s very weddingy. Very fifties. It fits you well and it goes with your look.’

  I don’t know that I have a look, or ever have had. But I don’t feel too weird. That upward draining starts to settle a little. I can’t feel my legs at all, but I can feel my arms. Can feel my waist and chest. When Wedding Girl moves, I’m aware that her movements and mine are somehow synchronised. That knowledge doesn’t feel ordinary, but it doesn’t feel so strange either.

  Susan takes a photo. ‘So you can remember,’ she says.

  The shop girl, who has been patient and kind, wants to get payback for her patience and kindness by blitzing me with veils and tiaras and gloves and shoes and stockings and basques and that whole infinite assemblage of things made of white lace and silk for your special day. I try to inspect her gifts, but quickly start to lose my bearings again and Susan has to step in to close things down.

  We go outside. I haven’t made a purchase, but I’ve got all the details I need.

  We sit in her car and she waits for me to tell me what I want to do next. I say, ‘Can we just drive somewhere?’

  She wants to ask where, but that’s a Planet Normal question and I’m not doing well with those at the moment. So, bless her, she just says, ‘OK,’ and we roll out of central Manchester, aiming for the loops of motorway and dual carriageway that spool round the city.

  After a bit, I say, ‘Can we go to Sheffield?’

  Susan glances sharply at me, but says, ‘OK,’ and heads for the A628, the Sheffield road.

  When we’ve picked up the route, she says, ‘What’s in Sheffield?’

  ‘Nothing. Sorry. I just like the mountains.’

  The road crosses the Pennines. High moorland and scudding clouds. Grass as tough as wire, hills as old as time.

  Susan smiles. ‘I like them too. I used to do a lot of fell running.’

  She drives.

  When we reach some high point, we stop. Walk out into the pale green-gold. Susan pulls on a thick coat from the back of her car. She offers me a blanket, but I say I prefer to get cold. We sit on a rock and look at the universe. Feel the wind penetrate our bones.

  She says, ‘It’s perfectly normal for people to have problems readjusting. There’s psychological support if you need it.’

  ‘You’re sweet, but these aren’t adjustment problems. They’re me-problems. I always have them.’

  She says, ‘You looked nice in that dress. The last one.’

  I realise I haven’t even asked her if she’s married, so I do and she is.

  ‘No kids yet, but we’ve only just started trying.’

  She shows me photos on her phone. Her with hubby. Her at her wedding. I say she looks lovely and she does. Like some Ce
ltic princess, all tumbling copper hair and skin the colour of buttermilk. It’s not her looks I most envy, though, it’s her comfort. Her easy ability at being human. Her uncomplicated citizenship of Planet Normal.

  As we drive back, towards Altrincham and a waiting Buzz, Susan says, ‘You know, it will go back to how it was. Once you start to realise that you’re not Fiona Grey any more.’

  ‘But I am.’

  ‘I know. The legend will always stay intact, but—’

  ‘That’s not what I mean. I mean that as far as Henderson is concerned I’m still Fiona Grey. I’m still potentially useful.’

  The road curves over the mountains and demands attention, but even so Susan slips me a look.

  ‘Fiona Grey the payroll clerk was useful. But I don’t think you’re going to get many offers of employment in payroll now.’

  I say, very quietly, ‘Yes, but they’ve got a distribution problem, haven’t they? Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about all week?’

  Susan falls silent a moment, then says, just as quietly, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m a cleaner. I was a cleaner before I had anything to do with payroll. My firm services most of the big offices in Cardiff. You keep talking as though gaining physical access to these places were difficult. I walk into corporate IT suites every day. Physical access? I’m changing their bins. I’m under the desks giving their computers a good dust.’

  There’s a lay-by up ahead of us. An unmetalled strip off the main road, with some wooden benches and green litter bins. Susan pulls over. Kills the engine.

  She says, ‘How long have you thought about this?’

  I shrug. I don’t really understand the question. When I first uncovered Kureishi’s role in that initial small fraud, it struck to me that the critical aspect of his work wasn’t that he was a computer expert: any fool can load a program onto a PC. What really mattered was his ability to enter corporate workplaces unchallenged, to sit at a computer without arousing suspicion. And a cleaner can go anywhere at all. That’s why I clung to that part of Fiona Grey’s legend. Did what I could to embrace and enlarge it.