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. Conway’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.’