45.

I don’t like Jessica, but she’s good at her job. It takes her three weeks to compromise every major computer system in Cardiff.

Henderson helps, of course. He, or one of his colleagues. At any rate, Jessica gets moved around from job to job, office to office, in a way that little Fiona Grey never did. Jessica is a bird of brighter and more glamorous plumage than her discarded predecessor, and she flits through the high-life of commercial office cleaning with the assurance of an A-lister on Oscar night.

In three weeks, Jessica has stolen passwords and planted software on the systems of six nationally important companies plus two major government agencies. It’s not even hard. Stealing the passwords is a piece of cake. Planting the software takes a little more time, requires me to dodge around the whereabouts of my cleaning partner, but it’s still not hard. Most cleaners dislike doing the bathrooms and I just offer to take over a few of their bathroom chores in exchange for ten minutes alone in whichever corporate systems suite we happen to be in. My colleagues know that I’m up to something – they assume I’m looking for cash to steal – but they don’t really care. So Jessica steals passwords, plants software and cleans an almost endless array of corporate bathrooms.

I even, strangely, start to make my peace with this strange blonde girl who cleans with me. For all her loudness and her trashiness, she is more popular than I am, than Fiona Grey was. I don’t like her friends much, their sunbed skin and their Marlboro Lights. Don’t like the gold jewelry, the high-volume mascara, the rapid conversation and too-loud laughter. But I know my limits. I’m not good at making friends. Jessica somehow does it for me. I stand in her shadow, a gawky sister at the dance, feeling better for the company that I wouldn’t otherwise have.

Brattenbury doesn’t forget me. Six days after I left my note for Jackson, new neighbors move into the flat two doors down the corridor from me. I don’t recognize the young couple, though they seem nice enough, but I do recognize the woman’s ‘father’. Fifty-four. Divorced. Two kids. The DCI from my training program.

I help them carry some boxes in. Tell them about how parking works. The woman – ‘Karen’ – makes tea. The guy – ‘Aaron’ – shows me his automatic pistol. Shows me that Karen has one too. Shows me a box of electronics and points at my ankle. I slip my boot off, while continuing to chat brightly with Karen about the local shopping.

Aaron does something with his box of tricks. The DCI shows me a piece of paper, on which is written:

Hello Fiona,

Like the new look! To confirm: we will not speak to you unless there is an emergency. We have your flat wired for sound, but we won’t insert video. We did not enter the flat and will not do so. Aaron will use your ankle bracelet to monitor your movements. You will be tracked 24/7. The audio recorder in your bracelet does not transmit signal, however, so we cannot listen in – we can only follow your movements.

We have armed police officers on standby at all times. Use the same emergency codes and procedures as before. No word on Roy Williams. No breakthroughs on the farmhouse. Just get yourself there safely. We’ll watch you all the way. Then keep your head down. Those SCO19 boys are pissed off at missing the show last time. They won’t miss it this time.

One assignment for you, if you can manage it. We need to know when they plan to launch. If you can find out, please do. But your safety comes first. Roy’s safety second. Launch timing comes third. Don’t place yourself at risk.

Also – I know you’ll want to know this – we’ve got something of interest. Last time Henderson visited the osteopath, he exited via the building neighboring the health center. We spoke to the osteopath who confirms Henderson did not receive a treatment, just stepped through the connecting door into the building next door. Osteopath confirms this was not the first time this has happened. We’re applying for surveillance warrants for that other building now. Fingers crossed on that. We have looked at visitor sign-in books, etc. Nothing obvious so far, but we’ve only just started.

Susan sends love. So does Dave Braydon. Jackson wants to know if you’re taking care of yourself. I hope you are! Take care, stay safe.

Adrian.

I read the letter twice, then hand it back to the DCI. Aaron raises his thumb and points at my ankle bracelet. Shows me a monitor that indicates he has indeed picked up my signal. Karen shows me some red-spotted tableware that she picked up cheap in Cardiff Market. Asks me what I think.

She’s talking a lot to make it easier for me to keep my cover up, but I’m OK anyway.

I take the paper from the DCI and write, Get me lock picks. Disguised, obviously. Hair grips? Make-up stuff? I know how to use them.

The DCI stares at me. It’s a ‘you know how to use lock picks?’ sort of stare.

I nod, in a ‘doesn’t everyone?’ sort of way.

He spreads his hands in a ‘have it your way’ way.

The whole thing with the letter and the guns and the box of electronics and the conversation-by-gesture takes only three or four minutes. I don’t stay long. Not long enough for the tea they offer even.

I’d almost have preferred flying completely solo. This silent watching isn’t much comfort to me. And no one says it, but if Henderson wants to shoot me, then he will. By the time an armed response unit is on the scene, I’ll be as dead as I’m ever going to be.

But still. It’s good to know Brattenbury is on the case. And I welcome those snippets of news. No word on Roy. Nothing on the farmhouse. In a strange way, I’d be disappointed now if this case was broken without me. It’s my case and I’ve earned the right to be there at the close.

I don’t see Henderson much. He comes by every two or three days to download the audio and replace the batteries on my ankle bracelet. Sometimes he’s in a rush. Just does his stuff and goes. Other times, he lingers. Takes me out for a meal or makes tea and paces around my tiny flat, staring out at the street, trying to spot any surveillance vehicles. He brings me that prescription too. An NHS thing. Looking totally kosher. When I take it to the chemist, they give me the drug with little more than a whiff of ‘ooh, look at the nutcase’.

A few times I go to the library to check the internet. As always, I have to check my bag at the entrance and, a week or so after meeting Aaron and Karen, I find that the make-up in my bag has changed a little. Experimenting later, in a coffee shop toilet, I discover that I have acquired a couple of raking-tools-cum-hairgrips. Also a tube of mascara: something called Glam’Eyes Lash Flirt, a product which would attract me more had it been less reckless with its apostrophe. I fiddle for a while, then manage to detach two slender lock picks from the shaft of the tube. An eyebrow pencil gives me one more pick. An eyeliner gives me two more, plus a rather weedy-looking torsion wrench.

Five picks, a couple of raking tools and a wrench. It’s a pretty feeble set, to be honest – the one I use normally has more than thirty picks – but most locks give way to even quite basic technology. And Brattenbury’s buddies have done a superb job of concealing the objects. The mascara looks just like mascara, the eyeliner like eyeliner. They’re not fake either: the make-up itself is real enough, as Jessica is quick to prove to herself. And I’m pleased to have the equipment. It’s a slim advantage. An edge that Henderson doesn’t know I have.

And, though my investigative freedom is acutely limited at the moment, I make use of what little I have.

At work one day, just after I’ve corrupted another computer and just before I turn my hand to all the bathrooms that Stella has left for my attention, I call up – via a proxy server – all the data that Brattenbury’s team have accumulated on the building next door to Henderson’s health center.

Names of staff and visitors. Dates and times. Building ownership. Tenancy agreements. Insurance details. Council tax filings. Planning permission applications. Fire safety records.

I review it all briefly – very briefly, I don’t have long – then whack out an email from my fake Hotmail account. An email to my father. I write:

Dad,

At Christmas, you said you might be able to help my investigation. I’m hoping so! I’ve attached a whole lot of info, which doesn’t mean much to us – but somewhere here there is (I think!) a lead to a man who is responsible for three deaths already. I’m guessing that man is wealthy, capable and has some legitimate money as well as some extensive criminal interests. We’ve got nowhere with this and I’d love any help you can offer.

Could we meet up? That’s totally not allowed under police procedure, but I’m missing you all so much and I’d love to see you. Friday evening, maybe? At your cocktail bar? One little wrinkle though. I’m wearing an ankle bracelet that contains a very sensitive audio recorder, so we can meet, write but not talk. Oh, and I’m blonde at the moment and called Jessica. I’ll tell you more when all this is over. A few more weeks then we’re done.

It will be amazing to see you. I’m absolutely fine but really missing you all.

Lots and lots and lots of love.

F.

I attach a set of the most interesting documents to the email and send it. The whole thing took me twelve minutes, which is pushing the limits of what I can get away with safely. Then close up the computer, run to the bathrooms and start to clean and wipe like crazy. Jessica, in the mirror, cleans and wipes like crazy too and, for the first time almost, she looks like she means it.

Later that morning, Henderson drops by my flat. Says, ‘We’re almost done in Cardiff, but I’ve got you a placement in Birmingham. Birmingham, then London.’

Jessica is painting her toenails when he says this. The color on the bottle says Urban Coral, but that makes me think the makers can’t know much about coral.

‘I’ll get caught,’ I say. ‘I’ve done what you asked.’

‘There’s more money. Don’t worry about that.’

‘I wasn’t worried about the money. I was worried about going to jail for seventeen years.’

‘We’ll put the money offshore. Bank account. Your name. You set the passwords and security info. The British police will never find it. You’ll have access to the money, wherever, whenever.’

‘Wherever? Literally wherever? Like there’s a cashpoint in Drake Hall?’

Drake Hall: the prison where Anna Quintrell is currently considering her future.

‘Twenty grand. For two weeks in Birmingham, three weeks in London.’

‘Get someone else, Vic.’

He stares at my toenails, as if disconcerted to find them changing color. I’m wearing Aztec print leggings and a tank top. Sitting on the floor with my feet on a towel. Brush in one hand, bottle in the other.

Poised.

‘We’ve tried.’ His voice is hoarse. ‘We’ve made fourteen approaches. Recruited eleven possible candidates. Eight of them were … they were just brainless. Terry did what he could, but they had no idea. They didn’t even complete the training day.’

‘So? Eleven minus eight equals three, Vic. I’m trained in payroll, I spot these things.’

‘One of them flaked. She was on drugs. We knew about that before we recruited her, but … it didn’t work out. The other two were both caught and fired. Instantly, pretty much. Within the first week.’

‘Oh well, that’s fine then. There’s obviously no risk. Silly me to have worried.’

‘They were fired. They weren’t arrested.’

‘Really? Perhaps they weren’t on police bail at the time.’

‘Nor are you. Not Jessica.’

‘That waitress. The one at the farmhouse.’

‘Yes?’

‘You killed her. She was the girl they found in that field.’

I’m not breaching secrets here, not Fiona Griffiths’s secrets anyway. The deaths were in the newspapers, photographs of Nia before she had her face smashed in.

‘Not necessarily me,’ Henderson says automatically.

‘You. Geoff. Allan. I don’t care which of you did it. And it was because of me. Because I caused a scene.’

‘Not really. It turned out she wasn’t as discreet as we thought.’

‘She was a fucking waitress, Vic. She probably didn’t know that having a laugh with a mate was going to get her head beaten to a pulp. I’m guessing you missed that bit off the job description.’

Vic’s face turns grim. Not at me, particularly, just that he came to do a job which he thought would be easy – offer me twenty K for five more weeks of computer fraud – and it’s turning out hard. He looks at his watch. A chrome and leather aviator thing.

‘Look, I’ve got to be somewhere. Why don’t I take you out? Tonight. Somewhere nice. We’ll talk about this stuff. If I can persuade you, great. If not, well, we’ll just have a nice evening.’

Jessica and I consider that.

Jessica wants to go, whatever. She’s already thinking about her dress, shoes, hair, and make-up. Fiona Grey isn’t sure. She still has flickers of lust for Henderson, but there’s something about his attitude to murder which she finds something of a passion-killer. She’s old-fashioned that way. So that leaves me, Fiona Griffiths, the capo di tutti capi of our little sisterhood, with the casting vote.

But it’s not a choice for me, or not really. Roy Williams is still in captivity. Katie Williams still hollow with shock. The ghosts of Hayley Morgan, Saj Kureishi, and now Nia Lewis still look to me for their rescue.

I shrug. Go back to my toenails. But the shrug was a yes, more than a no, and Henderson accepts it.

He moves to the door, but says, ‘Do you like spas? Massage, all that stuff?’

‘Yes, Vic. Us minimum wage cleaners, we can’t get enough of them.’

He ignores my sarcasm. Makes a call. A luxury hotel on the bay. Books Jessica in for the afternoon. Any treatments I like. Massage, hot stone, aromatherapy, seaweed. Whatever. Books us both in for dinner in the hotel restaurant later.

‘Have a nice time. I’ll see you there later.’

‘Do they have a Jacuzzi?’ I ask.

‘Of course. All these places do.’

‘I’ve never had one. I knew a fell-runner once who said they were amazing.’

‘Well, have fun.’

I shrug. Go back to my toes.

The pathologist’s report – and this is police information, not public – estimated that Nia Lewis received in excess of fifty blows to the face. She hadn’t been sexually assaulted, but her naked body was thrown into a tangle of nettles hard against a wire fence. One arm had been broken, probably prior to death. The gunshot wound was consistent with Geoff’s Glock, but I’ve no doubt Henderson has something similar available to him.

I finish painting my toenails, then stand at the window till I see Henderson exiting to the street. Stay watching till I see his BMW roll silently up the road into town.

I go through to the bedroom and make myself ready for an afternoon at the spa. An evening with a killer.