Captcha Thief (Amy Lane Mysteries) (14 page)

The first spray of bullets took out the driver’s side windows and rained down glass. Jason cursed and ducked, yanking Owain down behind the dubious cover of the dashboard. When the fuck had everyone started carrying guns?

The suspicious hard men had only just bought his story about Kyle being taken ill and only reluctantly parted with their cash when Jason had threatened to take the kidney away. He had seen the weapons distorting the lines of the coats and wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.

The thick smell of diesel filled his nostrils. The tank had clearly taken a hit, haemorrhaging the last of its fuel, much depleted after his night’s journey. But Jason wasn’t planning on this car becoming his coffin, or one large roasting tin when a stray spark set the whole lot on fire.

He turned the key and the engine miraculously turned over, enough fuel in the lines to give them a little time. Jason slammed the Land Rover into reverse and, still ducking his head, steered them up onto the pavement and back towards the waiting police car.

But Owain, without his restraining hand, starting yanking on the passenger door – desperate to open it, escape the thunderous sound of bullets with their names on.

‘Calm the fuck down!’ Jason yelled, as the door opened and scraped against the fence. ‘And shut that bloody door!’

When Owain showed no sign of complying, Jason steered closer to the fence, effectively shutting the door for him and meaning that they only destroyed a wing mirror when scraping past the cop car. Except the front of the Land Rover was too broad to pass completely and Jason was wedged tight against them. No escape except through the boot, and that was denied them by the dog cage.

Then the noise stopped. The officer in the passenger seat of the police car glanced over to him, just above the line of the window, and Jason met his inquiring gaze with equal confusion. Why stop shooting now?

Owain whimpered softly beside him.

‘Are you hit?’ Jason asked, his voice sounding muffled to his ears.

Owain shook his head, but something wild had overtaken him, adrenaline overriding all his better sense. Jason had no idea what Owain would do next and that frightened him.

A phone was ringing. Owain pulled it out of his pocket and stared at it like it was some mysterious artefact from the planet Zog. ‘It’s Amy.’

Jason snatched the phone out of his hand. ‘Amy, we’re—’

‘They have guns.’ Her voice was taut, flat – she was barely holding it together. ‘They can execute you. You can’t fight back.’

Slowly, it dawned on Jason that he wasn’t surrounded by Armed Response Vehicles, but ordinary police cars. The ARVs would be in Cardiff, maybe Swansea, but that was about half an hour’s drive away. The gang boys could pick them off one by one before backup materialised.

‘You got a plan?’ he asked, hopefully.

‘Stop them getting out of the car.’

Easier said than done. They had no covering fire, no projectiles. It was Jason who couldn’t get out, not them, so unless he managed to wedge them between the wall and a police car, that wasn’t the best plan.

He peered through the windscreen to examine the road for potential obstacles. But the lighting was poor here – he could barely make out the slick of diesel he’d left behind during his frantic reversing, and that was all…

That was all he needed.

Jason killed the engine and snatched a crumpled packet of fags and a cheap lighter out of his jacket pocket. He could light the oil nearest them easily, but then they would go up in seconds, taking the cop car with them.

He motioned for the police officer to roll down his window. ‘On my signal,’ he told him, ‘you have to make a run for it.’

The cop saw the lighter in his hand and blanched but only nodded.

‘Owain, you need to get that cage off, so we can get out.’

‘I can’t—’

‘You fucking can.’ Jason shoved him towards the back seat of the car without further ceremony.

‘Jason, what’s going on?’

‘I need to hang up, Amy. Do you know when—’

‘Ten minutes for the ARVs.’

‘We’ll need a fire engine.’

Amy, thankfully, didn’t question him. ‘Try not to die.’

‘Do my best.’ He threw the phone into the back, rummaging under the seat for anything to stick down the lighter switch. Electrical tape or even a pack of gum…

His fingers seized on a thick A-Z map, folded open to show the back roads of Anglesey. He hauled it out triumphantly.

‘Owain, is it—’

But he didn’t have time to finish, the doors of the gang’s car opening and three shadowy figures emerging. Jason crouched on his seat and lit the A-Z. It smouldered, the plastic cover giving off an acrid stench, before the cheap insides caught in a burst of flame, devouring the roads of North Wales in an instant. Jason stepped on the smashed remains of his window and the cop’s, enough leverage to fling the burning book towards the oil.

A shot rang out and Jason fell back into the car, just as the book landed in the middle of the road. And … nothing.

‘Shit. Owain—’

A burst of flame streaked across the road, driving the men back towards their car. Jason crawled into the back of the Land Rover, to find Owain still wrestling with the screw at the top of the cage.

‘Almost,’ he said, but they didn’t have time for ‘almost’.

Jason flung his full weight at the cage and the screw snapped, bringing down the cage with Jason on top of it. The boot released from the inside and the two of them tumbled out, the police officers herding them behind Bryn’s car.

Sirens filled the air once more, as Bryn and Matt joined their huddle, fleeing like a large multi-limbed monster away from the fire and letting the huge red engine see to the mess they’d made.

‘You’re bleeding,’ Owain said suddenly.

Only then did Jason feel the searing mark across his temple, blood coursing over his cheek and down his neck.

‘Jason, you’ve been shot.’

Amy hated this part more than any other – waiting for Jason to come home.

In the heat of the moment – literal heat, in this case – her anxiety still ruled her but she had purpose, direction. She could call for reinforcements, she could provide intelligence to the field. But in the aftermath, when the fire was out and the bad guys were carted off to the cells, she only had inertia.

She could not run to him, wait by his A&E gurney and press his hand like Cerys. She couldn’t awkwardly pat his shoulder and offer him a lift home like Bryn. No, she could only wait for him to return, make a cup of tea and try not to fuss like her anxiety demanded of her.

It was most important that he didn’t think he had to worry about her, not tonight. So she removed the empty wine bottle, dumped the multiple coffee cups in the sink, and pulled on a clean T-shirt. She could keep it all together just a little longer.

The lift ejected him as the midday sun was streaming through the gaps in the curtains. She surveyed him critically, taking in the white patch of gauze taped to his head and the way he walked unaided to the sofa, despite Cerys hovering at his elbow.

‘It only took off a few layers of skin,’ he said immediately, without preamble. ‘It’s gonna scar but it’s not gonna stop me doing anything. I feel fine.’

‘There’s blood on your shirt.’

The dark cloth was saturated with it, his right shoulder to his elbow starting to shed rust-coloured flakes.

Jason glanced at it and scowled. ‘Aw, shit.’

‘Head wounds bleed a lot,’ Cerys chimed in.

Cerys’ comment irked her. Amy had watched enough medical dramas to know that. She didn’t need Cerys coddling her as well as Jason.

‘Where’s Owain?’ she asked, a little pettily, just to see Cerys flush.

‘At home,’ Cerys said, brusquely. ‘He doesn’t like hospitals.’

‘You should get back to him,’ Jason said.

His voice was neutral, but Amy knew he was trying to get rid of his sister. As much as she hoped it was so they could spend some time together, she knew it was more likely he simply wanted to avoid an argument between her and Cerys.

‘Is he…?’ Cerys trailed off, glancing at Amy. Whatever she wanted to ask, she obviously thought Amy was too fragile to hear it.

‘A bit shaken up,’ Jason said.

Cerys left without another word, as if she’d heard more in his words than had been plainly said.

The kettle finished boiling, the button having been pressed as soon as Amy saw Bryn’s car pull up. She didn’t know why he hadn’t come up, merely waiting for Cerys’ return so he could deliver her to Owain. Maybe he suspected Amy would ream him out for his involvement in Jason’s nocturnal activities, and he would be right.

She made the tea and delivered a mug to Jason, her hands steady as a rock. She was in control. He would never know. ‘Do you have a headache?’

‘I told you, I’m fine.’

‘
Fine
is a broad spectrum.’

‘Like when you use it?’

It wasn’t quite teasing, the way he said it, and Amy’s smile was shadowed in return. They both knew that
fine
was relative for her, and that she had never yet said otherwise anyway. It could be more accurately called a polite fiction, a very British way of dodging that awful question ‘How are you?’

‘Where is Frieda?’

She hadn’t meant the question to be so abrupt, but when she’d thought it, she had to know immediately. But the real question lurked beneath the surface of her words.
Why wasn’t she with you?

‘Still in North Wales, I guess. Matt’s going to fill her in.’

‘Who’s Matt?’

Amy guessed he was the man Bryn and Owain had picked up at the Hilton, but even she needed more than a first name and a blurry CCTV image to identify a person.

‘NCA agent. He turned up to run things down here while Frieda was up north.’

‘So that was his operation, last night?’ Amy had found a new target for her anger.

‘I guess so. I think it was a bloody mess by the end.’

Amy chewed on her tongue, suppressing the urge to rant about how he’d been shot in the head – as if he didn’t know. ‘It was clever, what you did with the fire. What did you throw?’

‘A-Z.’ Jason wore a self-satisfied smirk.

At least it had gone better than his last piece of arson, but Amy kept that thought to herself. He didn’t need reminding of the fire that had almost cost Amy and Owain their lives, flames that still haunted them now.

‘You need to rest,’ she declared. ‘And then you can debrief.’

‘I do need a shower,’ he said.

It took her a moment to make the connection, before her cheeks flamed scarlet. ‘About your trip!’

Jason grinned, the long tail of tape beside his right eye crinkling at the motion. ‘I know what you meant,’ he admitted. ‘Just like to see you blush.’

‘No one likes that,’ she muttered darkly, sure her face had come over all splodgy and pink, like a blancmange.

‘It’s pretty on you,’ he said, before heaving himself off the sofa and heading for the bathroom. ‘I’m gonna nick your shower cap.’

Amy watched him go with a slack jaw.
Pretty?
No one had ever called her pretty, not when there was Lizzie beside her, with her blonde curls and perfect smile.

If Jason thought her pretty, did that mean…?

She pushed the thought aside and returned to AEON. He had been hit by a bullet, she reminded herself. He wasn’t in his right mind.

But a feeling of warmth curled in her belly, delighted beyond words. With a new-found enthusiasm, she returned to her case files, collating all the evidence from last night and adding it to the records.

Now Jason was beside her again, they would be able to make sense of this. She had a feeling it was all coming together for them. Any minute now, Bryn would ring with the news that the painting had been found and they were only one step away from the killer.

‘They know nothing about the painting.’

Bryn snorted. ‘Of course they’d say that.’

‘Except they’ve happily confessed to human trafficking, drug smuggling and the organ trade.’ Matt counted the list off on his fingers. ‘Why cover up the theft of one painting?’

‘The price tag?’ Bryn hazarded, but it sounded thin even to his ears.

At least the press officer had something positive to spin on a dreary Monday morning, even if they were no closer to finding the damn painting or their killer.

‘Where are we on Paul’s possessions?’

‘Lab’s still processing,’ Owain said.

Bryn spared a glance at his detective sergeant. He’d tried to keep him at home, get him to take the day off, but Owain insisted on returning. Even after a shower and fresh clothes, the smell of burning diesel hung around him. Too close.

Matt sighed, as if he had momentarily forgotten he was working with Cardiff’s finest and not some fancy twenty-four-hour London lab. ‘Then what do we have?’

Bryn’s sleep-deprived brain informed him that Amy had never replied to his text last night, but then she had spent most of that evening fretting over her assistant. Maybe he should give her another nudge.

‘Bryn?’

He snapped back to the room, as the chief constable lurked in the doorway.

‘A word?’

Bugger, he couldn’t avoid him any longer. Bryn followed, meek as a lamb, his brain struggling to think of excuses why he couldn’t accept a promotion. But the fog in his brain proved to him exactly why he should take the job – he was getting too old to go haring about in the predawn hours before working a full shift of a Monday. And his daughters would sleep easier at night knowing Daddy was home and only going to a desk in the morning.

‘Bryn,’ the chief said, pressing a plastic cup of machine-made tea into his hands, ‘I think you’re the man for chief super.’

No beating around the bush here. Bryn decided to be equally candid. ‘I’m not sure I am, sir.’

The chief tsked softly. ‘Don’t play coy now. The budget’s protected for another year, after the special measures, and you can pick whoever you like for the four new detectives.’

Bryn was surprised at the numbers. ‘Four?’

‘Well, naturally we’ll cover Jenkins and Aitken after they move over to Cyber Crime. On top of the two vacancies, that makes four.’

Bryn froze.
Cyber Crime.
That was why Owain had been so keen to hang about with Amy, had spent all those hours with the new equipment. Why he’d been ordering Catriona about as if he were her boss. Why he’d protested so strongly against Amy’s further involvement in the case.

‘Everything all right, Bryn?’

‘Yes, sir. Fine. I’ll think about it.’

But his mind was elsewhere, reeling at the betrayal. Owain had never said a word to him. And Bryn knew exactly why.

The chief’s smile was tight, superficial. ‘Think fast. I have fellows from all over asking after the job, DCIs of five years or more. I won’t be able to hold them off forever.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ Bryn made his exit, his tea slopping over the edge of the plastic cup in his haste to get away.

But he couldn’t go back to the office, couldn’t look Owain in the eye when he felt so wounded. He resolved instead to go to the museum, walk the galleries, speak to the experts again. Catch Talia and ask her about Frieda Haas.

He dumped the cup into the nearest bin, still full, and walked out into the rain without his coat. He was soaked through by the time he made it to the museum – only to find it locked up. A small sign declared they were closed on a Monday.

He went round to the side door, but security declared no one was at home and wouldn’t even open the door. Instead, he walked into Cathays, towards a collection of mostly deserted cafés and pubs holding their breath in anticipation of the students’ return.

Bryn drank his tea slowly, ignoring the buzzing of his phone, sure he would see Owain’s name on the screen and not wanting to deal with that. What could he say to him? The immediate feelings of anger had died away to be replaced by confusion, guilt. Had Owain been trying to tell him something and he hadn’t paid attention? Had his injuries affected him so badly that he now no longer wanted to be part of the street work?

Owain had always liked the scientific side of evidence, particularly computer forensics, and he was rapt with attention for Amy when she explained how she had dubiously obtained this titbit or that. But to spearhead a new investigation division, without saying a word?

Bryn knew it wasn’t personal, not to him. Owain hadn’t said anything because of Amy. Because an official police Cyber Crime Unit would end their work with her and leave her bereft. He remembered how passionately Jason had argued for her inclusion on this case. What would this do to her?

It might also explain Owain’s coolness towards Cerys, this sudden desire to avoid her, fob her off with work excuses. It would be hard to explain to his girlfriend how he’d put her brother out of a job.

Jason would go spare. Bryn started planning how he might break the news, and then stopped. This was Owain’s mess – let him deal with it. Their partnership was on the way out and Bryn would no longer be his direct superior officer, no longer responsible for him except as a friend.

If a friendship could survive a betrayal like this.

Jason woke in the middle of the afternoon, tangled in the blankets of Amy’s bed.

He lurched upright, completely disorientated. How had he ended up here? Had Amy invited him? Had they…?

But the memories trickled back in around the pounding in his head. After his shower, he’d been asleep on his feet. Amy had helped him from the sofa to her room, not wanting him down in the basement where it was harder to keep an eye on him. He’d put up a token protest before letting her tuck him in and falling straight to sleep.

He had a couple of missed calls – one from Dylan and one from Bryn. The bike could wait, as he was in no fit state to ride it and he’d need to buy a new helmet to replace the one at the bottom of a mountain lake. And he hoped Bryn had reached Amy without his intervention, though they both often failed to get through to her.

Blanket over his shoulders like an old woman, he shuffled into the living room, glad for once of the muted light filtering through the closed curtains. Amy twisted in her chair and smiled at him, video playing on her third monitor as she worked with pictures and a spreadsheet on the other two.

‘You’ve only been down for a few hours,’ she said, checking her clunky wristwatch. ‘I’ve got this.’

Jason ignored the hint to go back to bed and shuffled closer to the monitor. What he’d originally thought was CCTV was actually a full-colour live broadcast from Amy’s badge-sized camera. After he’d lost the last one, she’d made its successor out of a gaudy plastic daffodil, which he hated wearing in public.

But who the hell was wearing it now?

‘Just heard the bell. Hopefully out in five.’

Cerys’ voice rang out from AEON’s speakers and Amy turned back to the monitor.

‘What’s she doing?’ Jason asked, caught between curiosity and irritation. It had only taken two days of absence for Amy to replace him in the field.

‘Checking out a lead at a school.’

‘You could’ve woken me,’ he protested. He was home now and Cerys had probably missed some lectures to run around for Amy.

‘You’re too old to be at school.’ Tact was not Amy’s strong point. ‘And you have a massive bandage on your head. I only need her to confirm a meet-up and then I can work remotely.’

‘Why are you even looking at a school?’ He’d missed a lot in forty-eight hours, it seemed.

‘One of the girls was acting suspiciously at the museum. I found a boy who took a picture of her and sent him a message from her to meet after school.’

‘You impersonated a teenage girl to the boy who fancies her?’

‘Yes.’ Amy looked up at him. ‘Problem?’

‘You don’t think this might … have some consequences?’

Amy existed in a world of data and investigations. Sometimes, she seemed to have no concept that her techniques might have an impact on the people involved in her machinations.

‘They might hook up. That would be nice. Unless she does turn out to be a criminal mastermind. Then not so much.’

‘Amy Lane, matchmaker,’ he teased.

‘Hooking up gang spies and introverts since 2014.’

Pupils were pouring out of the school now, and Amy fiddled with something on Cerys’ microphone feed to filter out the background noise.

‘I’ve made the suspect. Eleven o’clock.’

‘She’s as bad as you,’ Jason muttered, as Amy tagged that region of the video feed.

‘There she is,’ she said, after a moment, pointing out the girl with her mouse. ‘On her own, as I suspected.’

Cerys slowly turned, as the girl came closer, watching her approach the main gate.

‘This should be it,’ Amy said, a white-knuckle grip on her mouse.

Suddenly, a girl bumped into Amy’s suspect, grinning awkwardly and holding up her phone.

‘Damn! Get out of the way!’ Amy yelled at the screen.

But the girl didn’t move, trying to engage their suspect in conversation, though the target regarded her suspiciously.

‘Cerys, get closer,’ Amy said, suddenly, even though she had no way to hear her. She typed on her screen, sending a text, and heard Cerys’ phone buzz through the speakers.

‘Right you are,’ Cerys mumbled, and moved in.

Not that her proximity helped any, because they were both speaking in Welsh and Cerys’ command of the language was as bad as Jason’s. However, the word ‘Instagram’ featured heavily.

‘Gotcha,’ Amy said, opening up another window. ‘Now let’s grab our suspect’s number.’

‘How can you do that just by looking at her?’ Jason asked, incredulous.

‘Because I have the phone number of that girl talking so earnestly to her. Our little Instagram fanatic. Phones make a connection when they come into close contact and so … ha!’

She copied and pasted the new number into her text app and typed a message. Jason leaned over to read:

she likes you. be kind. @

Their suspect withdrew her phone from her pocket and stared at it. Then looked about her as if searching, as her admirer struggled to hold her attention. And looked right at the camera.

‘Think I’m made,’ Cerys said and started to move.

‘Hold position,’ Amy said, then texted the command to Cerys. She was too used to the headset communication, Jason realised. How they worked together. This was an improvised op from the beginning.

The suspect extricated herself from the photographer with difficulty, and marched over to Cerys, waving her phone in her face.

‘Is this you?’ she demanded to know, thick North Wales accent full of indignation.

‘Um … I guess…’ Cerys said, hesitantly.

‘Are you from the geocaching forum?’

Jason stared at Amy in bemusement. ‘Amy…’

‘What the fuck are you doing at my school?’