The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths Read online

  In any case, I’m making money and I start looking for properties to rent. Find a place on the A470 North Road, just by the intersection with Western Avenue. It’s a studio flat. All-in-one bedroom, living room, kitchenette. Shared bathroom down the hall. The bed is a single with a lumpy mattress. The living room part of the set-up consists of a giant brown velour armchair, a Formica table and two folding metal chairs. The kitchenette comprises a tiny sink, a two-ring hob and a microwave. There’s a big brown wardrobe of the sort that grandmothers used to keep in order to give small children nightmares. It smells of mothballs and something else, I’m not sure what. I’m on the second floor and my window looks out onto no fewer than nine lanes of traffic. The A470 itself, plus slip roads leading on and off the main ramp. There are always lights, always noise, always traffic.

  I like almost everything about it. I like the roads outside, their neon brightness. I like the way there isn’t too much of anything: one room, one bed, one armchair, one table, one sink. I like the smallness, especially. If I sit in my giant velour armchair, I can touch the bed with my right arm and, almost, the little kitchen range with my left. It’s harder for me to get lost, physically or metaphorically.

  Because the only address I can give is a homeless shelter, my potential landlord wants two and a half months’ deposit from me upfront. That’s a lot more than I can afford, but Abs helps me take out a loan from a social housing fund. The loan doesn’t just cover the deposit, but also things like bedding. When I get the money and sign my rental agreement, she’s genuinely thrilled for me. I’m thrilled for myself, actually. Proud. She tells me about a Freecycle place which helps people starting out or, like me, restarting. I get as much as I can for free. A nice man drives the stuff over to my place in his lunch break. I try to give him two pounds, but he tells me not to worry. He calls me ‘love’.

  Abs makes me promise to come in for weekly counselling and ‘life planning sessions’. She wants to get me out of the minimum wage cleaning racket and into the sunny uplands of payroll clerking. She’s checked with the Institute of Payroll Professionals and found that they have a log of my payroll certificates: a log which shows the extent of SOCA’s always confident reach. Abs gives me reprints of my past glories.

  ‘We run a mentoring service as part of our reintegration work,’ she says. ‘We’ve got a mentor who’s heard about your case and who’s really keen to work with you, Adrian Boothby.’

  Boothby: what Adrian Brattenbury has chosen to call himself for these purposes.

  I promise to come in for mentoring. Say I’m keen to get back into payroll.

  When I meet Brattenbury for the first time since before Florida, it’s the end of January and a grey rain beats against the window of the little room that the hostel sets aside for these things.

  Brattenbury is tanned and fit-looking. Skiing, at a guess. He’s wearing a dark blue shirt, open-necked. By police standards, Adrian Brattenbury is a very dapper chap.

  He says, ‘How was your Christmas?’

  ‘Good actually. I’ve been enjoying myself.’

  He assumes I’m being ironic and makes the necessary ironic smile in return, but I’m being sincere.

  ‘Time to get you in play,’ he says. He outlines his plans. I’m happy with his suggestions. He seems both intelligent and trustworthy, and he’ll need to be both. He doesn’t give me much detail on the workplace I’m going to. ‘Fiona Grey wouldn’t have any background, so you shouldn’t either.’ Logic I agree with.

  On Tinker, he tells me what they have: not much. ‘We haven’t been able to track the money. All those Panama foundations and BVI shell companies – they’re totally opaque. As far as the individual frauds are concerned, we know the local moles. We think we’ve identified their handler.’ He flips a photo at me. A thirty-something man. Short dark hair, starting to thin. The photo was taken on a street somewhere and shows him in a grey wool coat and navy scarf. The photo tells me nothing. The man could be an accountant or a murderer. Or both. ‘We think this is the guy, but until we get up close and personal, we won’t know.’

  I look at the photo. If I’m the tethered goat, is this to be my lion?

  Brattenbury wants the keys to my room. I’ve only got one set, but I give them to him. He says he’ll leave them back here at the hostel later.

  ‘We’ll wire up your room. Audio and video. You won’t find anything even if you search for it. We’ll do the same for your workplace when we get you in there. We’re also going to embed devices in your personal items. Bag, coats, buttons, that sort of thing. The devices themselves are tiny, it’s battery power that limits us, so please choose chunky over sleek. These things will be found if searched for by an expert, but they’ll elude any ordinary search. We get our kit from the same outfit that handles the intelligence services, so it’s as good as it gets.’

  He slides a phone over to me. Cheap, non-contract. With receipt showing a cash payment. ‘Phone. They would need an electronics lab to detect the alterations we’ve made to this. Keep it with you whenever you can, so we can track your physical presence at all times. And keep it charged. The phone will pull down more battery power than you might expect.’

  He gives me data too. Code words for use in emergency. Words that will get an armed response unit to me as fast as possible. But we both know that I may or may not be able to deploy those words. If my phone has been removed, and if I’m not at home or at work, I’ll be out of contact. I doubt if Saj Kureishi had code words or an armed response team at his disposal, but if he did, they wouldn’t have been of much use to him, strapped to a chair in an empty house in the empty country just south of Barnstaple.

  I think of Kureishi’s face. The expression that looks astonished from one point of view, anguished from another. Wonder if these things ever mean anything.

  ‘You OK?’ says Brattenbury, winding up.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  A smile twitches at his mouth. ‘You don’t really need to “sir” me, not here.’

  ‘No.’ I’m not exactly known as a maximum deference type, so I’m not sure why I’ve started sirring now. ‘I think it’s Fiona Grey. I think she says “sir”.’

  Brattenbury looks quizzically amused. ‘Well, whatever you want.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  And I sit there noticing dust marks while Brattenbury talks at me and a grey rain washes the window outside.

  17.

  Payroll. As Brattenbury promised, there’s a job up for grabs with Western Vale, an insurance company. The Cardiff office manages back-office functions for the entire national network, which is one of the six biggest domestic insurers in the UK, so it’s a big department. The job is an entry-level thing, paying twelve thousand pounds per annum for a probationary six months. Fourteen grand thereafter. By Fiona Grey standards, it’s definitely a step up in the world.

  I have to interview for the post. Win it fair and square. There are written tests and an interview. I don’t have anything officey in my wardrobe, so go to Matalan the day before and buy a new grey skirt, shoes and jacket. I’m about to add a blouse, when a woman says to me, ‘You’re small, dear. Have you tried the children’s section? There’s no VAT.’ So I do, and discover that I can get a two-pack of polycotton blouses for £7, which strikes me as exceptionally good value. I think of getting three packs, except that it would seem presumptuous, so I don’t.

  The written tests go fine. I have a double first from Cambridge in philosophy – the Fiona Griffiths me does, anyway – and I breeze through tests on Filing, Writing a Business Letter, and Numeracy.

  The interview goes fine too, I think. The charity which runs the hostel has a business outreach program – that’s how they secured Brattenbury/Boothby as my mentor, or how they think they did – and the human resources person interviewing me treats me delicately, as though I’m half fragile ornament, half unexploded bomb. I try to act like neither. I worry that my jacket looks too cheap.

  When she asks for references, I give Mr. C
onway’s name at YCS and the name of my boss, Euan Tanner, at my current cleaning job. ‘I haven’t said anything to them yet,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t worry. We’ll only ask if we’re offering you the job.’ The human resources person – blond bob, professionally friendly eyes – squeezes out a smile at me, all lipsticked up and minty-fresh. I do my best to reciprocate, but suspect I fall short on professionalism, lipstick and all-round mintiness.

  When she asks me if I have any questions, I say, ‘No, I don’t. I really want to do this. I’m a very hard worker.’

  I get the job.

  Start on 20 February. I’m sorry to give up my cleaning work – indeed, I try to find out whether it will be possible to do a five to eight-thirty shift, prior to the start of my working day in payroll. It’s possible in principle, but the transport links don’t work out, so reluctantly I give the position up completely. Ask to be considered for the early shift, if they get work in my area.

  Say goodbye to Juvy. We hug.

  Use my life savings to buy more office wear from Matalan. The store offers exceptional value. I don’t know why I haven’t used it more in the past.

  And make a new life in payroll. In at nine, out at five. Eat lunch in the office canteen. Timidly get to know my colleagues, who have gleaned little glimpses of my dark history. Homelessness. Cleaning work. Rumors about a violent relationship somewhere up north. There are eight people in our little team. Six women, two men. Neither of the men look much like Roy Williams. Plenty of the women look like me. Or like smarter, more together versions of me, at any rate.

  I’d like to meet up with Roy, learn how he’s getting on, but my role prohibits any such thing. And his infiltration is running a few weeks behind mine. His payroll purgatory lies ahead.

  Meantime, I process pay. Deal with leavers and joiners. Overtime and bonuses. Issue forms, chase HMRC, respond to queries, tabulate numbers. I get to know the Total Payroll Solutions software in painfully intimate detail.

  I don’t enjoy this job, not really. Quite often it gets to five p.m., and I can’t think where the day’s gone. I have to keep checking the clock to have any sense of time. When we leave the building, it’s getting dark and always cold. If it’s not raining I walk home – it takes forty minutes – to save the bus fare. The walk takes me straight past the police headquarters, my beloved Cathays, but I stay on the wrong side of the North Road. Don’t let myself even peer in at the windows, even though there’s a tiny chance that I might glimpse a brief view of Buzz, framed against the light of some conference room window.

  I’ve seen him twice since Florida. I had one day with him in January, a day which we treated the way a long-term prisoner in a US state penitentiary might treat his once-annual conjugal visit. My February visit was slightly less fevered, but still steamy.

  Because I’m not yet ‘in play’ as Brattenbury puts it, I’m allowed to see Buzz in his own flat. From now on, though, it’ll all be off-site locations which SOCA will arrange. When I see Buzz, he gives me the engagement ring and I wear it with joy. Take it off, sadly, when I leave.

  We say lots of nice things to each other, of course. Keep those Floridian promises alive and warm in these Welsh winter damps. But I realize that I treasure that diamond glitter not least because it’s an emblem of all I thought I’d never have. To have recovered from my illness enough that a sane man could want to marry me. To have recovered enough that I could even think to marry. Mirabile dictu.

  I can’t stop looking at the ring when I’m wearing it. Buzz sees me looking and is fit to burst with pride and love.

  Fiona Grey, meanwhile, little by little improves her life. She puts money aside for her housing loan. Buys a plate, a bowl, a mug, a saucepan. She doesn’t buy cutlery, because she’s stolen plenty from the canteen at work. She buys a tiny second-hand TV, but no license.

  We also buy a second-hand laptop. We can’t access the internet at home – Fiona Grey fails every credit check, so no one will give her a contract – but we can sometimes get to the library before it closes. There we look at our emigration options. New Zealand and Australia look difficult. Canada looks hopeful. The United States looks possible, but expensive. We download some forms, make enquiries. Set up a Post Office savings account as Fiona Grey.

  But it’s not all personal improvement. There’s a seedy-looking café in the studenty bit of Cathays which does vegan and organic food. I buy two cannabis plants from the hippy who serves coffee there. We celebrate our deal by smoking a joint out by the dustbins at the back. It’s my first smoke since I arrived back in Cardiff.

  Brattenbury, I see weekly. He reviews everything I do in meticulous detail. When I tell him I put my name down for an early morning cleaning shift, he pounces on it. ‘Why? Why do that? Why add the pressure?’

  ‘Cover, sir. It’s what Fiona Grey would do.’

  ‘You can shape who she is. You don’t have to give yourself one and a half jobs, on top of the one you do for us.’

  I shrug. ‘That’s what any SIO would say to any undercover officer. So no undercover officer would take the cleaning job. So it’s a perfect job to take, if I get the chance.’

  Brattenbury disapproves, but since I don’t actually have an offer of cleaning work, he lets it go.

  Jackson, too, I see on and off. He has appointed himself my chief welfare officer. He’s like a possessive dad who can’t quite let his daughter live her own life at university. He asks me if I’m eating enough. If it’s OK with Buzz and with my family.

  I laugh at him and don’t call him sir.

  With Brattenbury, things are more practical. He tells me stuff, drills me in stuff. The use of recording devices. The way the plan is shaping up.

  ‘Audio and video surveillance are in place. Ditto network access. We don’t know if Tinker have installed recording equipment, but we have to assume they do. You should assume your PC is compromised as well.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And meantime, we’ve “infiltrated” Roy Williams into Fielding Insurance.’ Brattenbury’s fingers walk inverted commas through the empty air. ‘I think he’ll do perfectly.’

  ‘He’s a natural payroll type,’ I murmur. ‘Duck to water.’

  ‘Yes.’ Brattenbury laughs. ‘I’ve seldom seen an officer less happy in his role. But we’ve done a proper job with him, actually. Wired him up. Surveilled his flat and his workplace. The whole works. We want it to appear as though we’re taking the kind of countermeasures that the Tinker gang would expect us to take. We don’t want to look suspiciously sloppy.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  He scrutinizes me. ‘You’ve got your computer?’

  ‘Yes, sir. And I’ve been getting online when I can.’

  ‘Good. And your savings account?’

  ‘Done.’

  ‘Your horticultural projects?’

  ‘Thriving.’

  ‘Good.’ He explores my face with his eyes. I don’t know what he finds there. Fiona Grey tends to look away from authority, so my eyes stay close to the floor. My hands are in my lap. I don’t think that’s how I sit normally, but I can’t remember how I was before. This is me now.

  ‘We’ll make our move soon. Are you ready? Or ready enough?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘OK. Stay safe.’

  18.

  Stay safe. I’ve been in my post four weeks and two days, when uniformed officers enter our offices and arrest one of my co-workers, the department’s deputy manager, Ellen Keith.

  The charge is fraud. Keith has, apparently, been using her managerial privileges to falsify her own payroll. Excessive overtime. Unsubstantiated expense claims. Insufficient deductions for tax. A classic example of the successful crook getting too greedy and overreaching themselves.

  At my next meeting with Brattenbury, he tells me they were lucky. ‘She wasn’t just stealing on behalf of Tinker. She started stealing on behalf of herself. Doing it quite incompetently too. So it was a nice, easy arrest. We didn’t have to disturb
the Tinker operation. From the gang’s point of view, they’ve just watched us take down a rogue part of their operation. In some ways, they’ll be relieved to have lost her.’

  ‘Won’t Tinker be worried that she might spill the beans?’

  ‘Maybe, but I severely doubt she has any beans to spill. If you were Tinker, you’d tell her as little as possible and use false names and neutral meeting points.’

  He shrugs. Nothing is risk free. Not in his world, not in mine. Brattenbury has lost some of his tan, but that look of health continues to illuminate the office. I wonder how I come across. Not like that, I think.

  When he resumes he says, ‘From Western Vale alone, they are currently stealing £73,000 a month, via twenty-nine different fraudulent payroll accounts. They aren’t going to risk losing that.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘They’ll be looking to replace Keith. They’ll make their checks – we expect them to be thorough – then come after their chosen replacement.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Brattenbury, I think, is expecting me to a bit more gung-ho. A bit more let’s-get-these-bastards, guv, but that’s not quite my style, or not Fiona Grey’s anyway. He seems dissatisfied by my lack of response and keep prodding away at it restlessly. I say ‘yes, sir’ when I need to and otherwise don’t say much.

  After half an hour, I say, ‘Is that all you needed, sir?’ and he says, ‘Yes.’

  At work, meanwhile, we talk about Keith’s fall from grace in shocked whispers. She’d been a bright, vivacious, even raucous presence, with carmine nails and suits in orange, red and bottle green. Those things are now being reinterpreted as signs of peeping criminality. We get visits and lectures from compliance officers, from audit, from the executive suite.