Lorna was still at her desk and Nasreen wasted no time approaching. She wanted her to run. Wanted to chase her. Wanted to slam her into the floor. PC Goldstein was by the door, under the pretence of keeping the journalists out. There was still a small knot huddled outside. Lorna had her coat over her shoulders, keeping off the cold. Nasreen was metres from her.
‘Gracie?’ she said.
The girl’s head snapped round and she looked up at her, her face pale, eyes wide. She made a slight nod of her head. She wasn’t even going to try and hide it.
‘We’d like a word.’ Nasreen’s voice was cold, and calmer than she felt. Gracie looked bewildered. She turned to look at PC Goldstein, who had his sights trained on her, and beyond that to the photographers outside. ‘Don’t make a scene.’ Nasreen stepped back and signalled with her arm that she should walk in front of her. The girl rolled off her chair like a stroppy teen. Nasreen put a hand on her lower back. She could feel her shaking. ‘Into the lift, please.’
They both got in and Nasreen pressed the button to go up. Gracie was staring at the floor. They were alone. She thought of Chips in the back of the van with Liam. She thought of the dead runner lying in Greenwich Park. She thought of Lottie’s pleading, desperate eyes. No one would blame her if she grabbed Gracie. If she made her talk. But she knew she could never do that. Never be that kind of person. No matter what Gracie had done, she wouldn’t hurt her. That would make her one of them. That would make her as bad as Alex Black. And no matter what he did, he could never have that.
The lift doors opened. ‘This way.’ She pushed Gracie towards the interview room. The girl stopped at the door, a small mew coming from her lips. ‘Drop the act,’ Nasreen said, irritated. ‘We’ve seen your videos – we know you’re no wallflower.’ She opened the door. Saunders was inside already, leaning back in his chair in a deliberately relaxed posture, designed to imply he couldn’t care less what about what they were about to discuss. Gracie faltered and turned her face up at Nasreen, her eyes still pitifully wide. She looked scared.
‘It’s okay. Have a seat.’ Nasreen shut the door behind them and took the chair next to Saunders.
Gracie sat opposite, her jumper sleeves pulled down over her little hands, staring into her lap.
‘Do you know why we’ve asked to talk to you?’ Saunders said.
Gracie looked up, her eyes were wider again. She looked panicked. Different. All traces of timid Lorna were gone. This wasn’t social ineptitude; this was fear. ‘I didn’t know he was going to do this!’ Her voice was loud, frantic. ‘I didn’t know he was going to take that girl. The DCI’s sister.’
Nasreen thought of the way Gracie had been staring at the news. ‘She’s called Lottie.’
Tears fell from her eyes. ‘I didn’t know until I heard this morning. I never thought he would do anything to hurt anyone. He told me he was just using the email addresses to expose malpractice.’ She was gripping the table now. ‘I only got the job – I only got the telephone numbers and stuff because he said I’d be helping. I thought I was doing the right thing. You have to believe me! I never would have helped him if I’d known.’ She’d broken so fast, it must have been pressing against her to get out.
Saunders exhaled. ‘Do you want a lawyer, Gracie?’ She’d admitted she’d deliberately got the job to source personal information and contact details of those in the force.
‘He gave me a name – a lawyer I should call if I got into trouble: Webb and Cooper.’ The same lawyer Liam gave. ‘But I don’t want him. I need to answer for this. Oh god.’ She was babbling, tears falling down her face, cutting streams through her foundation. She let out a big sob. ‘I thought I’d be a whistle-blower.’
Nasreen looked at Saunders. He raised his eyebrows: get back in there. She passed Gracie a tissue.
‘Thanks,’ she said, blowing her nose.
‘Gracie …’ Nasreen kept her voice light. They didn’t need her to clam up now. ‘Who told you to get a job here?’
Gracie looked up from her tissue. ‘Alex Black.’
‘You know him?’ Saunders said.
‘We met online. He contacted me about a sting: said I was the perfect person to do it. He’d seen some of my vlogs where I play two parts – it’s like a conversation between me and my psyche. He said he admired my acting.’
Jesus. Nasreen thought of Are You Awake. Had Gracie’s name appeared there? People wanting obscene photos of a famous YouTuber? Did Alex Black look into her, find the stuff about her younger brother, see her impersonation skills and recognise a twisted opportunity? ‘You live in London, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Like twenty minutes away.’ She was close to their offices. Did that mean Alex Black wasn’t, or just that he didn’t want to get his own hands dirty? He couldn’t be here and taking Lottie at the same time.
‘Do you have contact details for Alex?’ Saunders had abandoned his calm stance in favour of writing down what Gracie was saying.
‘Only an email address,’ Gracie said. ‘He contacted me via my website.’
‘Where do you meet him?’ Nasreen asked. They could see if there was CCTV. If he selected the locations it would give them an idea of his potential patch; they could compare it to the GPS results from Lottie’s FitSpo.
‘I’ve never met him,’ Gracie said.
‘What?’ Saunders sounded disbelieving. ‘You expect us to believe you created a false identity, took a job with the police force and then shared sensitive information with someone outside – all for some guy you’ve never met?’ The final words were a growl.
Gracie blinked, her lip trembled. ‘He told me it was better this way, that I wouldn’t get into trouble if I didn’t meet him. That I’d have deniability.’
‘You stupid girl.’ Saunders shook his head.
Nasreen couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Why, Gracie – why did you do it?’
The words hiccupped out of her. ‘You hurt Harry!’
She didn’t understand. ‘Your brother?’
‘You hurt him.’ She stabbed a finger towards her.
‘I’ve never even met him,’ Nasreen said. Had Black lied to her? Lied about her? Why would he do that? Why was he fixated on her? She tried to remember if she’d ever met anyone called Alex, ever arrested an Alex, but there was nothing.
‘Cops like you!’ Gracie was sounding hysterical. ‘He’s ill, but they arrested him anyway, they hurt him. He was bleeding. It was Gross Misconduct! But no one wanted to listen. Society isn’t interested because he’s a young white man. You should be answerable for your actions!’
Nasreen’s heart was racing, Gracie’s words felt personal; she was directing them at her.
Saunders sounded calm. ‘The IPCC takes all accusations of misconduct seriously. Believe me.’ Had there been previous complaints against Saunders? Chips, she could believe: he clearly favoured the old-fashioned ways when they were necessary, but Saunders always felt squeaky clean. His face betrayed nothing. He sighed. ‘So you thought you’d go on a one-woman spy operation, is that right?’
Gracie stared at him.
‘What exactly did Black say to you, Gracie?’ Nasreen tried.
‘He said he had proof, but that he needed someone on the inside to help him with the exposure. And that it had to be a woman.’ Gracie seemed to have exhausted herself with her crying, her words now landing flat and hard from her mouth.
‘Did you follow me into the ladies’?’ Nasreen said. She daren’t look at Saunders.
Gracie nodded. ‘I could see when you were going from the security cameras.’
She knew it. ‘Did you look at my phone, Gracie?’
‘Yes.’ The girl nodded.
Black had used this girl to get information on them and they still had virtually nothing on him. ‘And you never communicated with Black in any other way? Did you ever speak on the telephone? Text? Anything?’
‘No, I told you …’ Gracie sounded exasperated. ‘He said we had to keep contact between us to the email address only.’
‘We’re going to need that email address, and to look at your phone and your computer at home,’ Saunders was saying. But Nasreen knew they wouldn’t be able to track the email: every form of communication he’d used so far had been encrypted.
‘And you didn’t know he was planning to take Lottie?’ Nasreen asked.
At the sound of Lottie’s name, Gracie started sobbing again. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I emailed him, but he’s not replied. I thought … I don’t know. I hoped it wasn’t how it looked. That, like, maybe she was in on the sting as well?’
‘Jesus,’ Saunders said. ‘What do you think this is – James Bond?’
‘I thought it’d be like WikiLeaks – a whistle-blower. DCI Burgone seems nice, like maybe he was involved and this was to draw someone into the light? I don’t know. I didn’t know what to think.’
Nasreen couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He’d got inside Gracie’s belief system. Convinced her she was doing the right thing. So that even when Lottie was kidnapped she still thought it might be part of the plan. She thought of her staring at Lottie’s face on the news. She would have seen the frightening message of her he’d sent: it was everywhere. The blood. The tape. Her eyes. ‘Why didn’t you say something when he released the photo of Lottie – you must have known then that something was wrong?’
Gracie started to cry again. ‘I didn’t know what to do. If I told you what I’d done I knew I’d be in trouble.’
Nasreen’s heart hardened. If Freddie hadn’t spotted the ring, made the connection, they might not have realised. Presumably ‘Lorna’ would have just stopped turning up to work. Even if they’d found compromising things on her computer, it could have taken them weeks to find the evidence linking Gracie to Alex Black. ‘You chose to save your own skin.’
Gracie didn’t reply, she just cried harder, the sobs racking her body. Another victim of Alex Black.
‘I’ll get an external officer – one who’s not known to you, to formally charge you,’ Saunders said. ‘PC Goldstein will sit with you till then.’
Once they left the interview room, Nasreen leant against the hallway wall. Gracie didn’t know who Alex Black was. They hadn’t been able to reach Daisy Jones. No one at Romeland High School would be in until later that morning. They were running out of options and time. She took a deep breath. There was one thing left to try. But it was the very thing she feared the most.