35.

Cardiff, not death.

We switch cars in the car park as before. Henderson drives a little further, then releases me from my hood and mask. He drives Quintrell home, collects my bag of clothes. I stare out at the passing streets, almost overwhelmed by their ordinary beauty. Tidy gardens and Sunday strollers. A man repainting his window frames. The fluttering shade of plane trees.

I love all of it. The city boozers. The dead hotels. The shops selling cheap holidays or sugary doughnuts. I love it all.

When Henderson stops outside my building, he says, ‘I could come up.’ His voice is rough.

‘You’ve got to get back, haven’t you?’

‘Yes.’

I’m torn between a stupid lust and a model of how I ought to behave. A model whose origin and purpose I cannot for the moment remember.

For a moment, we stand on the street. Facing each other, wanting each other, but frozen with indecision.

I realize that, for Henderson, this is partly a security issue. He isn’t meant to take any action which might jeopardize his judgment. Sex with me would be an unnecessary risk.

I say, ‘Before I go to New Zealand, will you take me away somewhere? Just you and me.’

‘Yes.’

‘No threats. No masks. No guns. No bollocks.’

‘Yes.’

I pick up my two bin liners of clothes: the one from the barn and the one from Quintrell’s house. Those and my fancy new attaché case. ‘Have a good trip back.’

He kisses his fore- and index fingers. Touches them against my mouth. ‘See you soon, Fi.’

He gets into his BMW and glides off. It’s five o’clock on Wednesday afternoon. I’ve got a full day of work tomorrow.

First though, I go into town. To the hostel. They’ve got laundry rooms in the basement, and I prefer using them to the launderette.

I clean the stuff that needs cleaning, but make a package of the stuff I want forensically examined. Write a note for ‘Adrian Boothby’. Leave the package and the note with Abs. Call Brattenbury on his mobile, but I go through to voicemail and leave a message. Get some food.

Gary is around. We go outside for a ciggy, and he says, ‘I found your psycho guy,’ meaning Henderson. He tells me that the guy uses an alternative health center in the city center, not far from where the CCTV lost him off the Hayes.

‘It was definitely him,’ says Gary. ‘Do you want me to hurt him? I can if you want.’

‘No, thanks. I just wanted to know how to find him.’

We smoke two ciggies, talk rubbish, share a joint.

Home.

In these city streets, Buzz is already starting to seem more real. Henderson is not unreal exactly, but more distant. There’s a bridal shop near my room, a place of ivory silk and slim mannequins. Beaded bodices and white hands clasped over artificial flowers. I stare in through the windows, a fish seeking entry to the aquarium.

Before going to bed, I retrieve my iPad, log in to Tinker.

There’s only one bit of news really, but it’s a biggie.

Roy Williams, the undercover officer whose role was only ever to act as a red herring, whose role was only ever to improve my cover and protection, has been abducted.

Had his briefing with Brattenbury as normal on Saturday. Raised nothing unusual. Used none of his emergency codes. Went home, cooked something and ate, then left the flat again, probably for the pub. He never turned up. Responds to none of his numbers. His car is parked in its normal place. No body has been found. A typed note, posted to his flat, read simply, PLEASE SUSPEND ANY CURRENT INVESTIGATIONS. IF YOU DO SO, MR. ‘PRYCE’ WILL BE RETURNED UNHARMED BY CHRISTMAS.

Pryce: the name Roy used for his legend.

We have no clue as to what exact action provoked the abduction. The gradual closing down of Kureishi’s frauds? Some bit of operational inattention by Roy himself? A crude piece of surveillance by Brattenbury’s men which revealed too much of SOCA’s interest in all this? Or Tinker’s relentless concern for security taking one more logical step?

We don’t know and won’t know, but it puts us in a vastly difficult situation. Up till now, if we’d wanted to close down Tinker, we could simply have done so. Arrested all known participants. Alerted the company behind the real TPS software. Alerted every major payroll department in the land. We might not have secured all the arrests we wanted – nor all the intelligence, in SOCA’s inevitable phrase – but by God we could smash the ring.

We can’t do that now. Not in the same way. Any move we make now will be made with the acute awareness that Roy’s life hangs in the balance.

Roy’s life, and maybe mine – but it’s Roy that I think about. He’s thirty-seven years old and, like me, never wanted a long-duration undercover role. I can’t imagine what Katie must be feeling. That’s a literal truth in my case – I’m not good at those most ordinary human feelings – but I know it won’t be good. Her distress must be beyond measure. And their daughter too. What do you say to a two-year-old? When is Daddy coming home?

Please don’t be concerned.

These thoughts don’t help, so I turn to something that might: Gary’s news about Henderson. The alternative health place offers acupuncture, osteopathy, homeopathy, reiki, psychotherapy, and a variety of beauty treatments. Does Henderson have a joint problem? Maybe. Do men with a deep involvement in organized crime go in for acupuncture or reiki or psychotherapy? I doubt it, but what do I know? Was Henderson evading surveillance that day in order to protect his visit to that health center? Or was it just one of those things? A cancelled meeting, and a massage and a meal out instead?

I send an email to Brattenbury, who’ll want to get the place under surveillance. I’d like to do more, but time is short and other things come first.

Stop work at midnight, hoping for sleep, but nothing much comes to me except Kureishi’s violent haunting. That, and Hayley Morgan’s frail sadness.