‘How did you find me?’
I tell him the truth or close enough: that I was scared of Henderson, that I wanted a friend of mine to know who he was, that I asked Gary to spy on him that day at Quintrell’s house.
Henderson searches back to the day in question. ‘A homeless guy? Beard, shopping trolley, cider bottle?’
‘That’s him. Gary. He’s not always on the booze.’
‘Go on.’
‘He sells the
Big Issue
.’ I gesture out onto the Hayes, where Gary is probably busy flogging his wares right now. ‘He said he’d look out for you.’
‘How long have you been here?’
He indicates the doorway with distaste.
‘Three days so far.’
Three days: the truth. Three days, twenty-two ciggies, four joints. Five attempts to move me on. Eleven inappropriate sexual advances.
‘Did you tell any of this to the police?’ He means my knowledge of Gary’s researches, not my life on the street.
‘What do
you
think, Vic? Have you had the cops up your ass?’
Henderson – lightweight summer jacket, chinos, pale blue shirt – stares at me grimly. He’s calculating the security risk of all this. Trying to work out what my reappearance means, whether it holds a threat for him.
I don’t know the outcome of those calculations, but his face clears and he says, ‘OK. Fiona, have you had lunch? Do you know the Old Radnor Castle?’
He names a gastro-pub a few hundred yards away. I nod. I know it. Never been inside.
‘Right. We’ll meet there, but let’s just make sure it’s only the two of us, OK?’
He gives me a complicated route to follow. Tells me to have my phone with me, as he may ask me to change course. I do as he instructs. At one point he does phone, tells me to double back on myself. I do, then after thirty seconds, he repeats the instruction and I double back on my doubling back.
There are people on the street – shoppers, tradesmen, delivery guys, business types – but I avoid their eyes. A big screen under plane trees on the Hayes is showing highlights of what is meant to have been a successful Olympics. Women in lycra doing remarkable things. Men in Union Jacks and tears.
I’m on my hands-free and follow Henderson’s instructions. His obedient servant, as ever.
When I get to the pub, a waiter wants to take my coat. He also looks at my bit of sleeping bag and thinks about offering to put that somewhere, but decides against. I fold the material up so it’s as small as possible. Try to keep the least dirty bit facing out.
I walk over to where Henderson is waiting for me. I’m about to speak, but he raises a finger to his lips, and starts scanning me with his RF scanner.
‘Anyone ever tell you you’re paranoid?’
He finishes his sweep, then answers. ‘I’m not in jail. You’re not in jail. Anna
is
in jail. She wasn’t paranoid enough.’
I sit down.
I gesture at the sleeping bag. ‘I lost my room.’
‘You’re sleeping rough?’
‘No. I’m back at the hostel. One of the guys lent me this.’
It’s true. When my room was searched, my cannabis plants were found and confiscated, and the landlord terminated my let. I miss my studio flat, but I think I prefer the hostel. It’s been my favorite thing about this year.
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘I don’t mind.’
A waiter brings us fishcakes and salsa verde and a beet and pea-shoot salad and chips. The whole thing is served on a piece of blue slate.
‘I ordered for you,’ says Vic.
I start eating chips with my fingers, then think I should probably wash my hands first, so go to the bathroom and clean up a bit.
Vic is on the phone when I return. I stand a few yards back, waiting for him to finish. When Fiona Grey waits, she usually looks at the floor and doesn’t fidget much. She seems more peaceful than me. I think she’s happier.
When Vic is done, he signals it’s OK for me to come over. We resume our meal.
I thank him for the lawyer. He thanks me for keeping my mouth shut while in detention. Thanks me too for wiping my hard drive before leaving Western Vale. ‘That was smart thinking.’
I shrug, in a
de-nada
-ish sort of way.
We eat a bit.
We’re both, I think, trying to figure out where we stand on the lust front at the moment. After almost four weeks in Manchester, and seeing Buzz almost every day, my body isn’t as screamingly hungry for touch as it was. All the same, I think there was more to those dust devils than just missing Buzz. I have the thought,
Fiona Grey wants Vic Henderson. It’s Fiona Griffiths who wants Buzz
. There’s a neat logic to that thought which appeals. And it has some truth, I can feel it. If I go into my Fiona Griffiths part, I can feel Henderson recede, until he’s little more than a pale blue shirt, a summer jacket, thinning hair and intelligent eyes. If I move into my Fiona Grey place, he strengthens again. I become aware of the dark hairs peeping from his open neck, the pattern of blue in his eyes, the quick movement of his fingers. I don’t have to be in that place for long, before I feel the tug of something stronger than myself.
I try to damp it down. To stay away from those thoughts.
He eats his fishcake with a fork only. ‘I haven’t forgotten that I owe you a weekend away.’
I don’t respond, so he tries another tack. ‘You lost your room. What about your cleaning job …?’
‘They’ve given me seventeen and a half hours a week. I’m hoping to go full time again soon.’
‘That’s city center stuff, is it? The way it was before?’
‘Yes. I’m on early mornings again.’
He wants to know more. Which offices I clean. What access I get. What my shift pattern is.
I answer him, or start to, but then break off. ‘Look, Vic, it doesn’t matter. I’m OK, all right? I just wanted to …’
‘Yes?’ I think he wants to hear me say something about him. How I can’t contain my passion any longer. That sort of thing.
I say, ‘My emigration. It’s still on. My immigration lawyer, Noble, says that criminal charges aren’t necessarily a no-no, just so long as they don’t lead to anything.’
‘That sounds fair.’
‘But he says it’s more work. It’s a more difficult case.’
‘He wants more money?’
I nod. ‘And I need to show I can be self-supporting. Money in my bank account.’
‘How much?’
‘Twelve grand. I’ve already got some money of my own and it’s cheaper in the hostel.’ Because he doesn’t instantly respond, I add, ‘Our original contract said you were going to pay me twenty-two, plus the lawyer. I haven’t had nearly that much. Then you said you’d double it.’
Vic’s gaze closes on mine. His mouth is slightly parted. Behind his eyes, there is the rapid movement of calculation.
He says – whispers, rather – ‘Fiona, can you give me ten minutes?’
I nod.
He tells me to step outside. Onto the street. Indicates the spot where I’m to stand, so he can keep me in view as he talks.
I go and stand there. Smoke.
I can see him, through the window, talking. To whom, to whom? That’s the whole riddle right there. Tinker’s dirty little secret. But we can’t decrypt the phone. Can’t always say for certain which handset he’s using. Didn’t have enough notice to get the pub wired for sound. If we knew who he was speaking to, we could probably close the case in twenty-four hours. But we don’t. And we can’t.
Henderson stares out at me through the window. There’s a window box just outside, planted up with lobelia, I think, and something pink. He knows I’ve seen him, but holds his gaze. I have the strong sense that the person on the other end of the line is asking about me. Whether I’m to be trusted.
Trusted or killed: that’s the choice.
Kureishi: killed.
Tania Lewis: killed.
Anna Quintrell: trusted when she shouldn’t have been. I bet her arrest sent memos flying around the Tinker network. Next time, kill the bitch.
I smoke my cigarette and let Henderson appraise me through the lobelia.
Eventually, he beckons me inside. I go back to his table. Wait till he invites me to sit. Then sit.
‘Fiona, you want to work for us, right?’
‘I want you to pay me what you said.’
‘Payment in exchange for work, correct?’
I shrug.
‘I’ve checked with my colleagues and we want to honor our agreement. Honor it, that is, if you agree to honor yours.’
I shrug again. I’ve done everything they’ve asked.
‘And if we are to go on working with you, we’ll need you to be more reliable. No more running off to London. No more tracking down colleagues and sitting on their doorsteps. No attacking me in the middle of a drinks reception. We’ll need you to do nothing that you haven’t cleared with me first. Do you understand?’
That’s his don’t-make-me-cross-or-I-might-have-to-murder-you voice.
I say, ‘Yes.’
Again that appraising look. Trust her or kill her? The only choices on this particular menu. I don’t usually hold his gaze, but this time I do. Sit there and let him scrutinize me. He has two colors of blue in his eye. Something somber, the color of deep sea or rain clouds. And flecks of something much brighter. Lobelia. Cobalt blue. Something tropical.
A waiter comes to clear the table and I look away.
Henderson has finished his meal. I’ve eaten half a fishcake and all of my chips. I don’t want to see the colors he has in his eyes. Don’t want to imagine the taste of his lips on mine.
When the waiter goes, Henderson says softly, ‘OK. Good. You need to mean that “Yes”. Now, we
will
pay you what we said. We’ll even speed up the payment schedule. Help you get to New Zealand. But the work we’ll need from you will be a little different.’
‘OK.’
‘There’ll be some training involved, but nothing you can’t handle.’
‘OK.’
‘And a few other changes too.’
He starts to tell me what he means, but I’m pretty sure I know what he has in mind.
Was
pretty sure that I was ready for it.
Only self-knowledge is an unreliable thing. You expect one thing, then –
boom!
– your body delivers something quite else. As I listen to Henderson’s calmly decisive explanation of the next steps in Fiona Grey’s unfolding criminal career, I find that she – she and I, the two of us together – is as frightened now as we were that time he hooded us up for the journey back into Cardiff. This time, though, the journey is darker and will last for longer.
44.
Five in the morning. Fitzalan Place. Dawn proper doesn’t come for more than an hour, and my co-workers are once again dark shapes huddled by pale glass.
Fiona Grey isn’t here, however.
In her place: Jessica Taylor. I don’t know who she is, this Jessica, though I have her papers in my pocket, a bank account in her name. Jessica tells Euan Tanner, Fiona’s old boss, that Fiona had to leave town, that she mentioned that there might be a job available. I say – Jessica says – ‘I’ve cleaned before. Loads of times. We can make this a trial day if you want. I’m a grafter.’
Tanner, peering at me in the darkness, agrees to a one-week trial, ‘which we’ll have to put down as a work experience thing. Just the first week. Then take it from there.’ My old battle-buddy, Allergy Lowri, is present but, to my relief, Tanner partners me up with someone else. Stella. Lowri coughs and complains as we’re being issued with cleaning stuff, but she doesn’t take a second look at me.
To be fair, before finally agreeing to the swap, Tanner had the decency to try reaching Fiona, but without joy. It’s not surprising: Henderson took her phone. Pocketed the SIM card, ditched the rest.
Most of Fiona’s clothes have gone too. Ditto her friends: Abs, Gary and Clementina, Jason the nice bus driver.
Also gone: her room at the hostel, her Anger and Anxiety sessions with the much-bebangled Melinda, her visits to the library, her walks in the park.
That’s not all Fiona Grey has lost. She’s lost her looks, literally. When Fiona and I stare into a mirror now, we see somebody else altogether. Jessica is blonde. Short hair, pixie-cut, feathery and upbeat. Bright red lips. More eye make-up than I ever use. Jewelry.
Jessica has taken over my wardrobe too. Out go Fiona Grey’s cost-conscious purchases from eBay and Matalan. Out go her greys and her blacks and her unobtrusive neutrals. In comes – I don’t know. Jessica’s stuff. Skirts shorter than I’d wear. Leggings. Tops tighter and tartier than I’d ever choose. It’s not that Jessica doesn’t look perfectly OK in those outfits. Nor that women of her age don’t have every right to wear what they want. But still. When Fiona Grey and I look in a mirror, we see the glass occupied by some third party, whom neither of us know or would ever naturally be close too.
The three of us nevertheless brush our teeth in sync. Wash our faces together. When we clean corporate washrooms, Fiona and I scrub mirrors, wipe them clean, then move on to the soap dispensers, taps and sinks and countertops. In theory, Mirror Jessica does the same. The same action, even the same pace of movement. But Fiona and I find it hard to believe in her effort, that she really works to get things clean. There’s something smirking in the way she mimics us, a cool girl laughing at the dorky ones.
The simple fact is that we resent her presence, Fiona and I. Resent her blonde, extrovert brightness. The way she is always staring at us. The way she barges into our job, our washrooms, our lives.
But I shouldn’t grumble. There are gains too.
One such gain, small but significant, is an ankle bracelet. The sort they use to tag offenders. Jessica’s bracelet is fastened on the right leg. It’s immovable. I can’t get under it even to wash. Henderson, who put it there, told me, ‘It’s a precaution. The bracelet combines a very sensitive audio recorder with a basic tracking device. It means that we know where you are at all times. Also that we know who speaks to you and what they say.’
Jessica, I think, doesn’t mind the bracelet too much. There used to be something of a Cardiff ASBO culture in which such things were worn as a mark of pride. A badge of social distinction. While I dislike the thing intensely, Jessica is half keen to flaunt it. Wants to sit outside, at pavement cafés in the city center, wearing bare legs and heels, letting people see the thick-strapped bracelet, like a too-chunky watch without a face, watching their expressions as they slowly figure it out.