Captcha Thief (Amy Lane Mysteries) (22 page)

Bryn found her at the hospital, hunched over in one of those garish plastic chairs that were made to torture. He’d spent too long in one when Owain was in surgery, and saw the weight of a similar burden on that young girl’s shoulders.

‘Miss? I’m Detective Inspector Bryn Hesketh – might I have a word?’

The girl looked up at him, startled, revealing the rust stains across the front of her V-neck pullover, stiffening her long, gaping sleeves.

‘Am I in trouble?’

Her thick native Welsh accent was coloured with panic, and Bryn hastily shook his head as he sat down beside her. ‘No, you’re not in trouble. What’s your name?’

‘Heddwen. Are you going to tell my parents I was here? They think I’m staying over at a friend’s.’

Bryn judged her age at about fifteen, sixteen, and decided to barrel on. ‘Not if you don’t want me to. Though I’m guessing you were meant to be in school today.’

Heddwen nodded. ‘We were meant to get back in time for Double Art. But I … I couldn’t leave her.’

She looked down the corridor, as if expecting her friend to walk through the doors at any moment.

‘Do you know anyone who might want to harm Leah?’

‘Corelia.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘She likes to be called Corelia. And I guess it’s about what we did for Ada.’

The name triggered something in the back of Bryn’s brain. Ada Lovelace – his hacker’s heroine, and her favourite alias. Still, he asked the child: ‘Who’s Ada?’

Heddwen shifted uncomfortably. ‘She’s working with Corelia on this geocaching thing.’ She glanced up to check she hadn’t lost him. ‘She paid for us to go to Belfast to find a clue there. In exchange, she’s going to tell us the Welsh geocache, when she solves it.’

‘How long have you been into geocaching?’ Bryn asked, careful to pronounce the word correctly to avoid alienating her.

‘Not long,’ she said, with a small smile. ‘Corelia loves it though. It was all she could talk about, this competition. She’d been trying to find the clue at the museum for weeks, she said. Every day she went up there but she couldn’t find it. She even asked one of the museum staff to give her this private tutorial so she could get behind-the-scenes access. But then that guard died and she couldn’t get in anymore.’

She fell silent, almost exhausted, as if she hadn’t spoken that many words together for a long time.

‘She was so excited,’ she added, finally. ‘We didn’t know it was dangerous. It was just a game.’

The early morning train rolled into Cardiff at the end of the Friday morning rush. Jason fought his way through the crowd of commuters, spilling someone’s expensive coffee as he barged through. Part of the tunnel between platforms was still cordoned off and Jason could see the dark stain on the floor to mark where Corelia had fallen.

Past the ticket barriers, he contemplated the buses for half a second before joining the taxi queue. He needed to get home and grab some shuteye before Amy lurched into another minefield.

He didn’t know what had gotten into her lately. He was usually the trouble magnet in this partnership, the risk-taker and the marauder. Amy was the sensible, cautious one, always ready with a warning tone and a hundred reasons for him to stay at home.

But now she was making deals with a blackmailer, thief and murderer, sending teenagers out on missions to Belfast and attracting the attention of the National Crime Agency. All his illusions about his anxious, risk-averse boss were being shattered by these revelations.

And damn it, if that didn’t make him love her just that little bit more.

Jason stopped dead in the middle of the pavement. Love her? Where the hell had that come from?

No, that was wrong. She was his boss and his best friend and that was all. He liked her, of course he liked her. He maybe even
like
-liked her a little bit, because he was a man with eyes, but love?

Someone barged past him to take his place in the taxi queue, and Jason came back to earth. He was sleep-deprived, that was all. He needed to get home and get this bloody case over with before it ruined the last of his good sense.

The taxi ride passed in a blur as he fiddled with the strap on his backpack and tried not to think too hard. His bike – that was a safe topic. He needed to get his bike from Dylan’s. Except thinking about the bike meant thinking about Frieda, the conniving bitch, which led to thinking about the kiss in Bangor. Which returned his thoughts to Amy’s green eyes, flecked with a hundred thousand little bits of brown in just the right light.

Fucking hell, he was in trouble.

He stumbled out of the cab, tipped too much and made his way to the front door. He talked at the box, the voice software opening the door for him. He went up one level to Amy’s floor, planning to check in before he ran for his bed. He wanted to see her and he didn’t. He was furious with her and he felt something else for her, which left him feeling ropey as hell.

She was on the couch, wrapped up in her dressing gown, the ghostly pale skin of her arms exposed. Her head lolled against the arm of the sofa, neck extended to reveal more stark white flesh.

A vivid memory flashed into his mind, a crime scene photograph, and Amy’s confident assertion that the human neck couldn’t sustain such-and-such an angle and live.

Jason surged forward, hands flying to her neck to check for a pulse.

Amy yelped and smacked him in the face.

‘Fuck!’ The heel of her palm had caught his cheekbone, sending shooting pain into his eye socket.

‘What are you doing?’ Amy shrieked.

‘M’sorry, m’sorry – got the angle wrong.’

Amy froze, her entire body stiff as a board, before she pulled her dressing gown closer around her. ‘The angle for what?’

Jason waved towards her neck with one hand, clutching his cheek with the other. ‘Your neck! The angle of your neck.’

Amy self-consciously raised her hand to cover her neck. ‘What’s wrong with my neck?’

‘Nothing! I thought you were dead – you’re not dead, it’s all good.’

Amy’s hands went to her face, rubbing at her cheeks to colour them. ‘Shit, do I look that bad?’

Jason went into the kitchen to raid the freezer for peas. ‘You look fine, you look great. Your neck looked weird, for a second, because I’m tired. That’s it.’

Amy followed him, folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the counter. ‘You could have called my name before assuming I was dead.’

‘I panicked.’ Jason clapped the peas to his cheekbone, their presence in the freezer purely for such a purpose. Neither of them could stand peas, unless they were mushed puree beside a nice bit of cod and chips.

After a moment, he realised what was missing – or, rather, who. ‘Where’s Cerys?’

Amy folded her arms closer and said nothing.

Jason pushed. ‘Where is she?’

‘She came. She left.’

Jason could read between the lines. ‘You fought.’

‘Doesn’t matter. You need to sleep.’

‘Amy—’

‘Tonight we need to make our move.’

‘The museum?’

Despite his fatigue, his heart rate picked up and he felt a new surge of energy. The thrill of facing danger never really went away.

‘The museum. Tonight, we save “The Blue Lady”.’

After the hospital, Bryn went home and woke his daughters by kissing them in their beds.

‘Silly old man,’ his eldest said, turning her back to him and snuggling under the duvet.

But he couldn’t shake the thought of that small, hunched-over girl at the hospital, waiting for her friend to wake up – if she would ever wake up. Two curious, adventurous girls who had got mixed up with Amy Lane.

He’d already seen the toll that association had taken on Owain, on Jason. He’d seen it in the mirror. The tense hospital nights, the broken bones. Of course, Amy had experienced her fair share of those wounds, but that was her choice. Where she led, they would follow.

Well, not Owain anymore. Owain was dancing to his own tune, one running at a jarring discord to Amy’s. How much of that decision had been based on his injuries, his scars, physical and mental? How much blame for losing his partner could he lay at Amy Lane’s door – and how much would he have to bear for himself?

He slept badly, a hundred nightmares of his daughters bleeding out in Central Station, sitting tense in a hospital waiting room. Of Owain and Jason, Cerys and Amy, dead and dying. Pain and loss, in myriad permutations and combinations, that all screamed to him
failure
.

He made his way to the office early. The super had delayed the announcement of his promotion until after this case was solved, but he had the keys to his new office. On a floor above everyone else, removed from the work and the buzz of the investigations. Was he happy that this feeling of directionless wandering, this lack of purpose, would replace the heartache and sleepless nights? Or would those never leave him now?

He had made his choice, regardless. Bryn couldn’t see the point of dithering over it. They had to get through this investigation, in whatever limited capacity they were allowed to participate, and then he was moving on. He wasn’t leaving anyone behind now, no one he was close to in the detectives’ paddock. His former colleagues had all left or met their fate.

He walked past the detectives’ office out of habit and was surprised to find the door open. Matt and Frieda were deep in conversation around the murder board, while Owain and Catriona sat to one side with a laptop. A few other NCA agents were milling around or completing paperwork. Bryn wasn’t sure any of them had gone to bed.

He attempted to slip past, but heard his name and returned to the doorway. Matt beckoned him forward and Bryn stepped into the alien place that had once been his domain, more hours lived in than his own home.

‘Deigning to let us paupers through the door?’ he said, unable to resist.

Matt didn’t rise to it. ‘The stabbing yesterday – you didn’t inform us it was relevant.’

Bryn had been hoping to keep that under wraps a little longer, do some real detective work before his last bow. Owain hunched further over his laptop and Bryn realised he was responsible for the leak, perhaps monitoring Indira’s lab reports for just such an eventuality. He knew he shouldn’t expect anything different now, but it still smarted.

‘I had reports of a possible connection last night,’ Bryn conceded. ‘I was waiting on the forensic evidence to be sure.’

‘The paint on the clothes is a match,’ Matt said. ‘Dr Bharani logged her findings this morning.’

‘Where do you think a schoolgirl got the money to buy two return flights to Belfast?’ Frieda said suddenly. ‘Unless she didn’t buy the tickets. Also note the plural – who was with this girl, this underage girl? Perhaps a case of grooming?’

Bryn didn’t like what they were implying one bit, but he also didn’t want to give away what he’d learned from Heddwen without a fight. This was still his investigation.

‘We’ll need to track down the source of the tickets.’

‘We’ve done it,’ Catriona said. ‘Disposable credit card, no registered address. It will take time to gain access to the airline’s IP address data.’

‘Of course, we don’t need any of that, do we?’ Frieda smiled, all ice and sharp edges. ‘We know exactly who’s responsible for this. So, why don’t we all just stop dancing around the issue?’

Bryn said nothing, his notebook burning a hole in his jacket pocket. The only admissible evidence that confirmed Amy’s involvement was in that notebook, Heddwen’s statement pretty damning as to her involvement. Bryn wasn’t exactly sure what charges could be brought against her for engineering that trip, but Frieda was angling for child abuse. She could definitely pick up counts of fraud and perhaps endangering the life of a minor, if they could make a case that she had foreseen the risks.

Given that she had knowingly collaborated with a thief and a murderer, it might not be all that difficult for the prosecution to make that leap and have the jury swallow it. Especially given that Amy’s character witnesses were an ex-con and coppers she’d fallen out with.

‘Amy Lane,’ Frieda said, finally, when it was obvious no one else would say it.

Bryn saw Owain flinch, but still said nothing.

Frieda continued, addressing her words directly to Bryn. ‘Amy Lane – or, as we now know her to be, Amy Loach. Born 15th September 1988 to Ralph and Marie Loach with one older sister Elizabeth, ordinarily resident in Brisbane, Australia.’

Bryn felt a heavy feeling of dread suspend over him. This wasn’t some light background research – Frieda Haas knew Amy’s life inside out, including the pieces she had kept buried from even those closest to her.

Frieda went on. ‘Attended a private primary school and then fell off the educational radar. Fell off the radar entirely, in fact, until Amy Lane appears at age 15. A completely new identity, one which gained five million pounds virtually overnight. Which, coincidentally, was exactly how much her parents lost when their bank account was raided by hackers.’

Shit. Bryn understood now why Frieda was telling them this, why she was sharing the details of what must be a high-security investigation at the NCA.

They were implicated, all of them. Aiding and abetting a bank robber, even if only through maintaining a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy when it came to Amy’s money. Bryn had assumed it was an inheritance – he just hadn’t realised she’d got it while her parents were still alive.

‘What happens next? This thief and con artist insinuates her way into multiple police investigations, including serial murder and breaking a drugs ring. Cases which are now all tainted by her criminality.’

The last of the blood drained from Bryn’s face. All those convictions, all the bad people they’d put away – how many would get off now? He remembered the aftermath of the crooked cops discovered in their department, how many criminals had walked as a result of that furore. How many more would go free because he had run to Amy to solve his problems?

‘Finally, this little sociopath’s reckless behaviour ends up with a teenage girl getting stabbed, fighting for her life in hospital.’ Frieda’s eyes pierced him, hollowed him out and exposed him. ‘And you still want to protect her?’

He had a split second to decide, to give himself one last chance at redemption, to save his career and maybe that of the boy cowering in the corner.

But did he trust Frieda Haas? She had lied to them from the start, sent Jason into danger, and was relishing every moment of their humiliation. His gut revolted against her. Did he really want to get in bed with the NCA to save his own arse?

He said nothing, and the moment was gone.

‘This is the last nail in her coffin, Mr Hesketh. Do you really want to be buried with her?’

‘Talia Yeltsova,’ Bryn said suddenly, finally finding his voice. ‘How does she fit into this?’

Frieda visibly withdrew, not expecting to be questioned. ‘That is none—’

‘You were seen talking to one of the key players in a murder investigation. As long as we’re being honest, Ms Haas…’

‘She was helping me with my inquiries,’ Frieda said, shortly.

‘Talia doesn’t know Amy,’ Bryn countered.

The silence lingered. Even Matt was looking at her curiously, her supposed colleague also in the dark.

Bryn had all day to wait.

Finally, Frieda relented. ‘I approached Talia, using her visa difficulties for a local contact. She thought Mr Roberts could make a connection to Amy Lane, perhaps through the geocaching group. In vain, as it turns out.’

Bryn felt bilious fury rise in his throat. ‘You knew! From the beginning, you knew about the geocaching and you said nothing?’

‘It wasn’t relevant!’

‘It sure as hell is now!’

‘How about we don’t throw stones and bring the whole house down?’ Matt interjected, his calm voice grating on Bryn’s last nerve.

‘The house is already all over the fucking floor – can’t you see that?’

Matt gave him a look of pity. ‘Your house, perhaps.’

It was over. For all his worries this morning, about trading apathy for a good night’s sleep, he would never have to worry about that again. He had time enough to find something new to do with his life.

‘Owain?’

He looked up at Frieda’s voice and Bryn saw that it hadn’t clicked for him yet. The implication of that cold bitch’s words had yet to sink him. He was still her puppy dog, if slightly more subdued.

She walked over to him with the calm, cool confidence of a woman who knew she was desired, and bent down to kiss his cheek.

‘I’m sorry.’

Bryn watched from a distance as Owain’s world collapsed in on itself and he understood, truly understood what had happened. He had turned away from his friends for this woman, for his career, and now it was in tatters.

Their eyes met across the room and Bryn wanted to tell him it would be all right, they would survive this. But he could no longer be Owain’s anchor in a storm.

He looked away, breaking the last tenuous thread between them.