The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths (6 page)

We slowly settle, or I do. Buzz tells me about how he’s been. I say little bits about the course, though I’m not meant to say too much. Something happens with food. I think I’m probably a bit wooden to start with, but Buzz knows not to take too much notice. I warm up.

And by the time we’re eating our main course – steak for him, trout for me – Buzz says, ‘OK. Holiday.’

He says it in a way that makes me realize this isn’t just a welcome-back-Fi evening, it’s something more than that, I’m not quite sure what.

I give him a big smile and say, ‘Holiday! Tell me more.’

‘OK, we wanted sunny, we wanted beaches, we wanted hot.’

I nod. ‘Yes.’ Another big smile, unloaded for free.

‘Turkey, Greece, Morocco. All lovely, but they’d probably have been better last month than next month, so’ – pause for dramatic effect – ‘I’m thinking the Caribbean. Either Florida, Mexico, or one of the islands.’

I’m all ready and primed to give him the response he wants, but I’m not sure what that is. Delight, I assume, and I give out plenty of that, but I have a feeling I’m missing something. Buzz spreads brochures over the table. Colored pictures, blue seas, white sands. Men in red shorts chasing balls. Lots of women, with legs much longer than mine, wearing bikinis and smiling like Moonies.

I say, ‘Oh Buzz, this looks amazing.’ Turn some pages, say it again, or some variant of the same thing.

I still think I’m missing something, but I’m not sure what. Buzz doesn’t give any clues or, if he does, I can’t read them.

‘So,’ he says, once the plates have been cleared and someone has asked us about puddings, and we’ve said no, just coffee, except that I’ll have peppermint tea instead of coffee, and can we have the bill at the same time, please. ‘So?’

‘It looks amazing.’

‘But which one?’ He sorts out the brochures. Shows me the best Florida option, the best Yucatan one, the best island one, which is apparently a resort hotel in Saint Lucia.

He wants me to choose.

I interrogate his face, trying to figure out which one he likes. He sees me doing that and says, ‘No, Fi. I want you to choose. Whichever one you like. Let’s make it special.’

That last phrase, I’ve learned, is code for doesn’t-matter-if-it’s-expensive, but that is itself, I think, code for doesn’t-matter-if-it’s-expensive-but-let’s-not-go-crazy-now.

The Saint Lucia place is the most expensive, the Yucatan place is the cheapest, so I put my hands down on Florida and say, ‘I love this.’

He does that Buzz thing of looking into my eyes and saying, ‘Are you sure now? It’s what you want?’

I say yes, say it emphatically. And in saying it, it becomes true, or true enough. I’m lucky to have this man, who does these things for me. Who is this patient.

I say, ‘Do you remember when we first came here? What a pain I was?’

‘Not a pain, exactly …’ Buzz’s gallantry kicks automatically into gear, then hits the Hill of Truth and loses momentum fast. ‘But not easy, no.’

‘I was wearing this.’ I touch the base of my neck at the join of my collarbones. My gesture includes both necklace and dress.

‘I know. I remember.’

I’ve realized what it is I’m meant to say. The thing I was missing before.

‘I missed you,’ I said. ‘Four weeks. It felt like a long time.’

Buzz’s eyes melt and he says, ‘Me too.’

When we get home, we do have sex. First once, fast and energetically, because we both need it. Then we chat a bit, and Buzz makes tea and brings it back to bed, and then we have sex again, but slowly and properly, and I no longer feel weird at all, or no more than always.

And when he’s done, and his eyes are drooping, and I think I’ve done everything that a supergreat and perfect girlfriend is meant to do on evenings like these, I sit across his thighs, bouncing gently up and down.

‘You haven’t told me what happened to the Hayley Morgan thing.’

‘Bloody hell, Fi. Really? Nothing’s happened with the Hayley Morgan thing.’

I consider that response, but think it deserves another bounce. ‘
Something
must have happened.’

‘Fraud Squad stuff, isn’t it? They’ve interviewed everyone at the superstore, checked if anyone is driving a Jag when they ought to be driving a Fiesta, that sort of thing.’

‘What about SOCA?’

SOCA: the Serious and Organized Crime Agency, which handles major league fraud, among other things.

‘SOCA? It’s not big enough for them. You know that.’

I give an annoyed grunt, which coincides with another bounce, which hurts Buzz enough that he lifts me off him, making a noise in the back of his throat which tells me I need to behave.

‘Sorry, love.’

‘Do you
ever
sleep?’

‘When I was at YCS, my work day started at four a.m. I had to set the alarm for two forty.’

‘What’s YCS?’

He doesn’t want an answer to that question, though. He wants to be allowed to get some rest without me annoying him. I turn the lights off and give him a kiss. ‘Sleep well, old man. I missed you.’

‘I missed you too.’

It feels like the truth, both ways round.

I think about wearing a bikini on white Floridian sands. Buzz in red shorts chasing a ball, like a golden retriever after a stick.

I do love Buzz. Love him the best way I am able, which might not be a very good best. And I wonder, not for the first time, if he is simply mistaken about me. If he would not be happier with someone else.

His snores deflect the question. I snuggle down beside him and go to sleep.

9.

The office, Monday morning. The normality seems strange. I feel like I’ve been away a million years. Most people have hardly noticed I’ve been gone.

Bev Rowlands, says, ‘
Fi!
How was your course?’

‘It was fine. Quite fun, actually.’

‘God, I’d never do anything like that,’ says Bev, then starts telling me about an outdoor training course she did once where she had to climb up some rope netting strung between two pine trees.

I don’t quite understand the point of the story, but say ‘gosh’ anyway.

As we’re chatting, DCI Jackson walks past and says, ‘Well done, Fiona,’ but doesn’t stop.

The morning briefing is full of busy nothings. Huw Bowen’s manslaughter case, the one I initially wanted, has turned dull. No new murders. No proper assaults, no good ones. A presentation from some traffic officers about various pre-Christmas campaigns they’re running. A talk about cost-cutting and the correct use of community support officers.

When I use the Ladies, I notice that the mirror has streak marks and the soap dispenser nozzles are gummed up. I use paper towels to remove the streak marks and do a basic job on the soap nozzles too.

I’m tasked to process paperwork on a couple of cases that are coming to court. Someone assigns me to help on a team that is developing advice on how to avoid thefts from vehicles. The first of our meetings takes an hour and forty minutes and the gist of our advice will be, ‘Lock your car and hide your valuables.’ Or, to simplify further, ‘Don’t be a bloody idiot.’

I suggest that as a slogan and everyone looks at me.

I read all the statements accumulated by the Fraud Squad inquiry. They’ve done just as Buzz said. Interviewed everyone local. Checked for unexpected inflows of money. Checked anyone with access to the store’s management suite on the day when the offending payroll entries were made. Verified with Swindon that those entries were in fact made locally. And that’s it. The inquiry hasn’t been closed, exactly, but it’s been effectively killed all the same. The T.M. Baron money went from the UK to Spain to Belize and we haven’t yet been able track it beyond that point.

One morning, on the way into work, I buy one of those big chocolate cookies, still warm from the oven and chewy in the middle. Make a big cup of black coffee, no sugar. Take these gifts to DCI Jackson’s office. Tell him what I want. Say, ‘Pretty please.’

‘You don’t give up, do you?’

He’s not bothered by my request as such, but he’s wary of offending his counterparts in Fraud.

‘There
is
a dead body here,’ I say. ‘This is our case too.’

‘Yes.’

‘And I don’t need much time. If I can’t sort things quickly, I’ll leave it.’

He asks what I specifically want to do. I tell him.

‘OK. I’ll speak to Fraud. But here’s the deal. I’ll get Owen to give you proper instructions. You complete those instructions as written. You complete them within a day. And normal rules apply, Fiona, OK?’

Normal rules: that’s Jackson-speak for me not doing anything to piss him off.

‘Yes, sir.’

I stand and offer my very best salute. Saluting senior officers is pretty much unheard of these days. Police officers are required to salute at Remembrance Day services and in the presence of a hearse or the sovereign, but those things don’t come along every day and it’s possible that my mark of respect is lacking a certain technical precision.

‘Fiona, we’re done. You look like a gay man waving.’

I leave the room. As well as the coffee and cookie, I brought a file full of the Morgan paperwork, in case Jackson wanted to inspect it. He didn’t, but the door has a heavy self-closing mechanism and I find it hard to open with my one free hand. In the end, I have to put the folder down, use both hands on the door, then pick up the folder when I have it open.

Jackson stares at me. His eyes are impassive, but his lips move. The only words that come out are, ‘One day. Normal rules.’

10.

Swindon. Roundabouts and distribution centers. Big white industrial sheds surrounded by dwarf willows and artificial lakes. Wire fencing.

I park in a 250-bay car park. Sign myself in, in a high, glass-fronted lobby. Get a plastic badge and am told to go to the third floor. Three people waiting for the lift: two men and a woman, all in dark grey suits. The woman is saying something about warehousing issues in Poland, but falls silent when the lift comes. We travel up in silence.

On the third floor, there’s another reception desk. I’m feeling a bit spacey – I often do in these places – so I have to blink a few times before finding the name I need.

‘Kevin. Kevin Tildesley,’ I say, when I’m done.

The woman behind the desk says something. I sit down. There are magazines on a low table –
Furniture World
,
Furniture Today
– but I resist their lure.

Every ten seconds or so something electronic bleeps. I look at my hands and try to remember who I am.

Then Tildesley arrives and I feel immediately less weird. He takes me through to a small conference room with a view out over the dwarf willows and the phony lake. Tildesley feels more cheerful this time, less stressed. I guess he’s feeling more secure about his job. That the mess won’t end up being blamed on him.

I explain why I’m here. Tell the truth. About T.M. Baron, and the money that went to Spain, and the money that was withdrawn in cash. Tell him about Hayley Morgan and how she died.

‘Christ,’ he says. ‘Jesus.’

No one really knows what it’s like to die from a combination of rat poison and starvation, but it isn’t good. The poison in question was a second generation anti-coagulant. The stuff works by thinning the blood so much that the body’s capillaries become dangerously permeable. Blood starts to leak into joints and muscles, so that victims literally bleed to death, though the bleeding is all internal. Scientific studies of hemophiliac pain suggest that the effect is moderately to severely painful. And not particularly fast.

‘We’ve done what we can to chase up the ultimate recipients of the cash, but the money has long gone offshore. Outside the EU, even. So we need to work on the front end. When the scam was set up. How it was set up. How it was kept going.’

‘OK. Yes. OK. As you can imagine, there’s been an inquiry here.’ Tildesley raises his eyebrows in an imagine-the-drama kind of way. ‘Some of our historical procedures were, quite frankly, lax, and of course on the audit side …’

We get into the nuts and bolts. Tildesley isn’t that great at explaining things, but he does understand his subject.

Historically – that is, in the Days Before Kevin – payroll was administered both locally and nationally. So the system was constructed and audited at national level, but it made use of inputs generated locally. ‘So if, let’s say, the manager of the Bridgend store needed to hire some extra staff for Christmas, he’d have made a request in the regular way. We’d approve that sort of thing instantaneously, normally. Then he’d have entered the names and payment details at store level, and the data would have flowed through to our national payment system.’

‘OK. I get that. But assuming that the boss of the Cardiff store wasn’t fiddling the system himself – and we don’t think that he was – how come he didn’t instantly notice the fraud? It’s a big store, but there aren’t
that
many employees.’

Tildesley is shaking his head. Now that he’s not worried about keeping his job, he likes the excitement. Feels like the Swindon-accountant version of a trawler captain caught in a Newfoundland storm. Water waist-high on the foredeck and foam seething on a lee shore.

‘Yes, but that was the clever thing. We assess performance store-by-store and region-by-region. Now obviously lots of our costs are completely local. What a store uses in terms of power, for example, or their staffing bill. But you’ve got other costs that are regional, and others that are national. So all our buying activity is national, but a lot of our marketing and promotion might be regional. The way we work that out is we allocate a set proportion of regional costs to each store in the area. Same thing with our national costs. That way, we get a fair view of the profitability of each store.’

I nod. ‘OK …’

‘And our two individuals – Morgan and Gibson – were given a
regional
coding, not a local one, not a national one. So the store manager saw the names, and assumed they had nothing directly to do with him. The national payroll team saw that these two names were inputted via the Cardiff store, and assumed it was some regional activity being led out of Cardiff. Both ends of the operation thought the other one was in control.’