Captcha Thief (Amy Lane Mysteries) (7 page)

How did such bungled surveillance lead to such a successful heist?

The bike was like a temperamental stallion – barely tamed, constantly trying to kick out and wanting to show off exactly how fast he could run.

Jason felt Frieda laughing against him as he understeered again and clipped an overgrown hedgerow. They were in the middle of Snowdonia National Park, now less than an hour from Bangor, and the exhilaration of the journey was morphing into the nerves of reaching their destination. One hotel room or two? One bed or two? And how exactly did he feel about those options?

And what the hell was he thinking? He’d agreed to accompany a woman he barely knew on a trip across the country to investigate a crime by … what? Asking questions? Surveillance? Breaking heads? He’d had a lot of time to think on this journey, and he was no closer to figuring out what he was doing here.

As they neared Mount Snowdon – not that he could tell much of anything in the dark – Jason was forced to slow down. The midnight air was cold and thick with a descending mist, the bike’s driving lights only illuminating a few short yards ahead. Jason crawled through the fog, the bike barely topping thirty miles an hour in the dense clouds that were forming around them.

He had the sense of being watched, as if the towering yet unseen mountains were looking down and judging him. He shivered from the chill, or maybe just the creeping feeling over his spine, like someone was walking over his grave. The silent forests and majestic lakes rang with the magic of King Arthur’s court, age-old monuments to a former glorious time when knights fought dragons and women rose from the frigid waters to present the one true king with his almighty sword.

The stone edifices absorbed all sound, so that all he could hear was Frieda’s breathing and his, out of step and harsh in the night air. If he could see more than a few feet in front of him, he was sure the view would be breathtaking. As it was, he was confined to predicting the curves of the road ahead and not falling through the flimsy-looking barriers preventing them from a drop into God knows what.

A sudden chill swept over him, a strong breeze blowing from the right. Jason glanced over, but he could see nothing but inky blackness shrouded in swirls of mist. He fought to keep the bike’s line, cornering into the wind. Frieda’s hands shifted on his waist, and he felt her fingers flex through the leather as she leaned with him.

The lorry came out of nowhere.

The horn blast warned him a few seconds before impact. Jason swerved the bike to the left and braked hard, but the bike fishtailed and he felt the rear wheel lift as if a weight had been thrown off.
Frieda.

The bike toppled, skidding across the lorry’s path and taking him with it. The asphalt tore up his leathers, the agony in his trapped leg fighting to be heard over the death knell in his head.

Inches from the front wheels of the lorry, Jason closed his eyes.

And jerked them open, as the heavy lorry whistled past his head and the bike slammed against solid rock.

Jason flew through the air, an ungainly ostrich in flight, and plunged into the lake.

Amy couldn’t sleep.

The coffee had done nothing for her, and the red wine chaser made her heart beat unpleasantly fast, her face flushed and too hot. Where was Jason? Bangor had plenty of mobile phone signal but his GPS locators all remained off-grid. Her mind supplied the 1001 ways that he could die in the Middle of Nowhere, Wales, but she tried to fight away those thoughts.

He was fine. He had to be fine.

Unable to monitor Jason’s wellbeing, she sought out a distraction. When flash games and Sporcle quizzes failed to hold her attention, she indulged in her favourite loathed pastime – checking in with her parents.

The bank account opened up for her easily enough. It was her father’s third new account in six months, which deepened her suspicion that he was involved in something unsavoury. Tax avoidance or money laundering for the obscenely wealthy. Something else she could hate him for, while he remained blissfully unaware.

From their recent transactions, they were in Monaco. Expensive restaurants and wine by the case and private casinos. Amy wondered if Lizzie was going to join them, play happy families without her. She had forgiven her sister for reaching out to their parents, but something about the image still stung.

Lizzie remembered living with their parents better than Amy did. Lizzie had lived with them in their beautiful Whitchurch house, while Amy clung to her grandmother’s skirts and stayed in the little Cardiff terrace, away from the light and the outside. Of course, when they’d abandoned their children to see the world, Lizzie had been forced to share Amy’s attic and the burden of Gran’s fading mind.

It was the theft that set them free. Amy had watched their travels for months, yearning for some connection to them when the postcards and calls dried up. Taking the next step had been difficult only because it crossed a moral line – the child who stole from her parents.

Her phone buzzed. She pounced on it but was disappointed to see Owain’s name staring back at her. He’d added a few more names to their rogues’ gallery. Amy matched a couple to faces she’d flagged, and added the others to her list.

She glanced up at the clock. 02:13. Yet another sleepless soul in the city of Cardiff tonight. But Cerys would be lying in their bed, waiting for him when he decided to rest his eyes or wake her for an embrace that would make him forget sleep, forget the nightmares.

Amy had her cold, lonely apartment. No assistant sleeping downstairs or making her hot chocolate in their kitchen. No one to wake when her darkness was too deep and she just needed someone to hold close.

Jason touched her shoulder, her arm, and sometimes he hugged her – when she was teetering on the edge of panic or despair. The times he knew about. But he was a friend, nothing more. He would always retreat, to his family, to his women.

Amy shut down her banking program and watched the gallery footage again. Anything to distract from the chill in her that was nothing to do with loss of heat, the emptiness of the silent rooms, the lack of
him
.

The shock of the water robbed him of his breath and Jason fought not to gasp and drown himself in his panic.

But he hit the bottom immediately, free to kick up to the surface if he could ignore the raw agony. Adrenaline won over pain and he broke the surface into the mist on the water, no way of telling where he was in the bloody lake.

His helmet was a goldfish bowl and he wrenched it off his head, letting it sink. He heard the shouts from somewhere behind him and he tried to turn, his sodden leathers weighing him down.

A powerful flashlight swept across the water from the bank and Jason raised an arm to wave, sending a surge of frigid water over his nose and mouth. He spluttered but kept waving, until he heard an answering shout.

‘I see him!’

Jason wasn’t going to wait around to be rescued, the cold already sinking deep into his bones and no Amy to send the emergency services to his exact location within moments. He started swimming towards the light, surprised when his legs hit the bottom within seconds. He got the gently sloping bank under his feet and staggered the last few feet to the safety of the shore.

‘Fuck, you all right, mate?’

The man’s voice was trembling as he seized Jason’s hand, helping him stumble out of the water pooling around his ankles. Jason couldn’t see anything of him behind the strong light, but he was grateful for the strong arm steadying him.

‘Bit c-cold,’ he stuttered, his body starting to shiver in the night air.

From behind the man, he heard someone or something come down from the road.

‘Where the fuck is my bike?’ Frieda grabbed his jacket and shook him. ‘What have you done with my bike?’

Jason was startled into silence, unable to resist her angry hands on his jacket. But his flashlight-wielding saviour got between them.

‘Leave off, love. He just came out of the water. Your bike’s probably smashed against the wall up there.’

‘You bastard!’ she screamed, and any illusions he’d been harbouring about Frieda vanished in the face of her naked fury. ‘I never should’ve brought you here!’

‘Love, he could’ve died in that water. Or under my wheels. You need to calm down.’

Belatedly, Jason realised that the man must be the driver of the lorry. The memory of his up-close encounter with the vehicle’s wheels threatened to buckle his knees, but Frieda still had a tight grip on his leathers.

She let go of him, shoving Jason onto his arse before rounding on the lorry driver.

‘Who are you? You were all over the road!’

‘It’s been a long night,’ the man said evasively.

‘Asleep at the wheel? This is a police investigation now. Hand over your licence and registration.’

The man bolted, scrambling for the barrier and dropping his torch. The light threatened to roll into the water, but Jason flapped at it with his arm, dragging it towards him. He pointed it at the barrier, to see Frieda pinning the man to the ground and handcuffing him.

‘I am arresting you for dangerous driving…’

Jason missed the rest of the spiel, though he knew it off by heart by now. He reached inside his leathers and pulled out his phone. It was dead, dripping filthy water. Amy was gonna kill him.

‘Get off your arse and help me!’

Frieda’s words finally penetrated and Jason prised himself off the grass, the torchlight guiding him to where she had her handcuffed prisoner sitting beside a scraggly bush.

‘I don’t know—’

‘I don’t care. Watch him while I call it in.’ She wrenched the torch from his hand and shone it at her face, as if she were telling ghost stories around the campfire. ‘If he escapes, I’m arresting you for aiding and abetting.’

She marched off, taking the light with her, and Jason felt his way to their captive in the dark. He had no idea what to say – the man had saved his life, but he had tried to run, so was definitely guilty of something.

‘Sorry about this, mate,’ he said, which was ridiculous.

‘Don’t worry. Bitch cop caught me out, didn’t she?’

They sat together in the dark, Jason massaging water out of his leathers as he tried to keep moving, stop himself stiffening up. He couldn’t hear Frieda’s voice, so she must’ve wandered farther down the road. Didn’t want to be overheard – or couldn’t get signal. They could be here a while.

‘Would you mind reaching for my fags? Inside left pocket. And help yourself – you look fit to drop.’

‘Could still get the drop on you,’ Jason said lightly, feeling his way to the cigarettes and lighter inside the man’s jacket. ‘My neck’s on the line too.’

He placed an unlit cigarette in the man’s mouth by the flame of the lighter, before lighting him up and helping himself to the offered cigarette. He might have quit, but if this wasn’t a time for vice indulgence, he didn’t know what was.

He replaced the lighter and fags, before taking back the man’s cigarette – he probably shouldn’t let the prisoner choke on his own fag.

‘What you done then?’ Jason asked, in the conversational tone of the prison yard.

‘You police?’

‘Nah. Work for a PI, but nothing official.’ He suddenly seized on an idea. ‘You’ve come from the port, right? Holyhead?’

The man leaned forward and Jason let him take another drag, his grimace lit only by the crumbling glow of the ash.

‘What’s it to you?’

‘We need to know a thing or two about what’s going on up there. And you’d be in the perfect position to tell us. Can’t speak for Her Ladyship, but that might be worth something. See what I’m saying?’

His companion was silent for a long time. Jason brought the cigarette back to his lips, but he shook his head. Jason stubbed it out against his boot and smoked his own to the stub. He’d quit again when he felt less like Frosty the Snowman.

‘I may know something about what’s coming in and out of the docks. And … who you might talk to, to make it run smooth, like.’

Jason grinned in the dark. He’d show Frieda exactly why she’d brought him along.

At six o’clock on Sunday morning, Bryn was tucking into a bacon butty at his desk when the phone trilled.

The sound echoed in the deserted office and Bryn picked it up curiously. ‘Hesketh.’

‘Bryn, it’s me. Jason.’

Bryn glanced at the clock to double-check the time, and glanced out the windows for good measure. Still dark, and definitely not a decent hour for a Sunday.

‘You’re up early,’ he said, before a stab of fear hit his heart. ‘Is it Amy?’

‘No, she’s fine. I think. Listen – I’m in Bangor with Frieda.’

Bryn gawped. A blob of ketchup dripped off his butty and onto the keyboard.

‘Well, that’s … something.’

‘I got a bit … I can’t get through to Amy, let her know I’m all right. And you know what she’s like.’

Bryn knew enough about his pet hacker to figure she was pretty pissed off that her assistant had buggered off to North Wales with some pretty girl from London. But on that point he kept quiet. ‘What should I tell her?’

‘I’ll try her again when I get settled in a hotel. And not to worry. Cheers, Bryn.’ Jason sneezed loud enough to wake the dead. ‘Shit, I’m coming down with something. Fucking water.’

All Bryn’s detective instincts kicked in. ‘What happened to you, exactly?’

Jason paused. ‘Promise you won’t tell Amy?’

‘Second thoughts, best you don’t tell me.’ Bryn didn’t want to get between those two, curiosity be damned.

‘I’ll keep you updated.’

‘And how will Agent Haas like that?’

‘She’ll learn to live with it, won’t she?’

The edge in his voice told Bryn that at least some of the shine had come off. He’d seen the way Jason had looked at Frieda in the detectives’ office. He’d obviously fancied her enough to tag along to Bangor, but he’d hopefully got the measure of her now.

Bryn had seen enough London coppers to know they were hewn differently to Welsh police, and the National Crime Agency knew how to find a humourless hard-arse. The local divisions were a different story, but Bryn’s mind skirted away from those thoughts. The Welsh Division of Organised Crime Command was lying dormant and no one had any desire to resurrect it.

‘Bryn? You still there?’

‘Yeah, I’m here. Just keep an eye out, will you? NCA may be leading on this but I … well…’

‘I’ll keep you in the loop,’ Jason said, and it was as good as a promise. If there was one thing Jason wore well, it was loyalty.

‘Stay in touch.’

Bryn hung up the phone and absently picked up his cold sandwich. Why was Frieda Haas in Bangor? And why hadn’t she mentioned she was leaving the capital? She had commandeered his investigation and then left him to it, no word of what she was doing or when she’d be back.

While the cat’s away…
It seemed the investigation was back in his hands and he intended to make full use of that time – and his secret weapon.

It was time to bring his hacker back into the fold.