A Question of Identity (32 page)

‘Did a runner, you mean?’

‘Apparently.’

‘So we don’t know anything.
Apparently
.’

‘No, sir.’

‘He sank without trace four years ago. How much effort was put into trying to find this man?’

‘It looks as if some enquiries were made in the early days . . .’

‘Which led nowhere.’

‘It looks that way, sir.’

‘Was JS red-flagged on the system?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘From the beginning?’

‘Yes, sir.’

The man, who outranked both the others in the room by several degrees, was silent for a moment, finger-tapping the table and looking down. The other two did not look at one another.

‘Right. We need some damage limitation. Here’s what we do.’

‘THIS,’ SERRAILLER SAID,
pointing to a large blow-up image on the wall, ‘is a photograph taken in 2002 of Alan Frederick Keyes. It was used extensively in the press at the time of his trial and is regarded as an extremely good likeness. You’ll each get a copy emailed over. Now, heads up . . . these are half a dozen images done by the identikit team. Take a good look. They are of what Keyes may look like now, given that he has aged ten years – he’s now early forties – but also given that his appearance would have been changed when he got his new ID. These will be emailed too, and you can print them off. They’re going to patrols but they are not on public noticeboards or available to the press, so keep them confidential. We’ve no idea which, if any, he now looks like and of course he could have changed his appearance in small ways several times. So he may have grown a beard, then shaved it off, for example, or had a close-cut beard and grown it longer. You know the sort of thing. I want you to memorise these so far as you can and you need to be able to call all of them up, plus the original of Keyes, on your phone at a second’s notice. You may need to check very quickly and surreptitiously.

‘The man who was Alan Frederick Keyes has a new name but we’ve no idea what that is. Special Op won’t play ball. He is known to have relocated and I’m pretty certain he came onto our patch some time ago but I’ve no hard info about it. Needle in a haystack – yup. But Lafferton isn’t the biggest haystack in
the world and we have to pull it apart. So let’s hope for some luck. Off you go and get these faces imprinted on your memory. Thanks, guys.’

He went back to his office, and sent a text to Rachel. He had sent one earlier, and two the previous day. She was not answering her phone but he had a reply the previous night.
K still v ill. Am at BG most of the time. So hard to watch him. Difficult 2 be in touch with you. R x
.’

All he could do was send loving messages, reassure her that she could ring him any time. Hope. But he felt deceitful that his hope was twisted by his own longing for Rachel to be free and his conscience bit him every time he contacted her.

He went out, to get a decent coffee, fresh air, some exercise, and to go around the town for an hour with his eyes open. He went to the brasserie in the Lanes and got a seat in the window, with the paper and a large espresso. This was the part of the job he had enjoyed as a junior – hanging about, watching, scrutinising faces, the way people walked, the routes they took, learning the routine of a place. You went out with something in mind and perhaps saw nothing, or perhaps by chance hit upon something quite different, and sometimes you even got the information or the person you’d gone out looking for. He remembered one beautiful summer afternoon when he’d been with the Met, and after a weary morning processing a car-theft gang, had gone out to sit at a pub table on a Soho pavement and drink a bottle of lager. He remembered everything about the five minutes after he had sat down. He had turned his face to the sun and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, a couple of men had come to sit at the next table. Both had worn lightweight summer suits and sunglasses. They were drinking vodkas with ice. And with a twist in his gut Simon had recognised them as two major players in a violent drug-running and fraud gang, who had been in the sights of half the CID of London since a raid months earlier, during which both had escaped. He had turned sideways, taken a sip of his lager, and sent an urgent text on his phone. Then he had gone on apparently reading the paper and drinking. The men had been absorbed in conversation, taking no notice of the street
scene, the passers-by, or other people who were now filling up the tables.

A large posse of uniform, plus added CID presence, had come out of the pub door and from a side alley as if someone had waved a wand. The men had been surrounded and handcuffed before they knew what was happening. By the time anyone else had clocked the incident, it was over. Simon had stayed where he was, quietly finished his lager and ordered another.

He had no such luck today. He read the paper, drank two coffees and then went out to walk about the town, until rain and a bitter wind whipping down the side streets drove him back to the station.

No one else in the team had any luck either. It was scarcely surprising. Uniform patrols might have success but when you did not know exactly what the wanted person really looked like, the odds were too long. It would be luck or nothing. He went back to an afternoon of dull admin.

At the same time, a man in a navy parka identical to dozens of other navy parkas about the town that day drove towards the centre of Lafferton. He had mid-brown hair, an unmemorable face, and an elderly silver-grey Ford Focus. He went slowly in and out of the streets and inadvertently down a one-way route and had to reverse out of it. As he did so he managed to run over the kerb, shaving by a cyclist with little to spare.

‘Shit.’

‘Excuse me.’

The PC was tapping on his window with the usual, neutral expression.

‘Good afternoon, sir. I wonder if you realise that you had a bit of a close shave just now.’

‘I do apologise. My satnav took me down this street, not recognising it as a one-way, bloody thing, and then of course I had to reverse and it’s very narrow.’

‘Best to rely on the evidence of your own eyes and use satnav as a backup in a town centre situation, sir. Now you’re pulled up, may I see your driving licence?’

The man produced it out of a black wallet.

‘Thank you, sir. Any other ID on you at this time?’

He had a snooker club ID card with his photograph, and a couple of bank cards, plus the paper section of his licence. The constable took his time over scrutinising them, then checked the car’s tax disc and registration with the central database. The reply came back within seconds.

‘Thank you very much, sir. Everything in order. Just make sure you pay full attention to street signage in the future. You staying with us long?’

‘Not sure yet. Possibly tonight.’

‘Right, well, safe journey. On your way.’

As the Focus drew up at the next traffic light, the man’s mobile phone beeped for a text. He pulled into a garage forecourt.

What the fuck are you doing getting caught by a plod?

He swore and deleted, then drove on towards an area of new housing, built, it seemed, on the design of a complicated crop circle. He had set his satnav for the postcode that contained Duchess of Cornwall Close. He saw it ahead, glanced and then accelerated past. Red-and-white crime-scene tape was still hanging limply outside one of the houses.

He spent the rest of the day alternately driving about without any apparent aim, and parking and walking up and down residential streets, looking about him in a rather vague and bored way.

He left the town just after the evening was drawing in and headed ten miles for an anonymous, functional motel by a service station. He checked in, went to his room, showered, changed, sent a couple of texts, and then went down, with his iPad, to the bar. He ate a burger and chips supper, and did not leave the motel until after breakfast the following morning.

His movements were monitored and recorded on the fifth floor of the building in which he worked.

After he checked out just after eight the next morning he drove around until he found a piece of waste ground behind a disused warehouse, where he unlocked the car boot, took two number plates from a canvas bag, removed the existing ones and exchanged the tax disc on the windscreen for another. He then locked the boot and drove off, once again in the direction of Lafferton.

During the afternoon, he approached the sheltered housing complex and turned into the street adjacent to Duchess of Cornwall Close. The area was deserted. Lights were on in two of the bungalows; a car showing a disability badge was parked in a designated space. The man reversed out of sight of a street light and opened his door. As he did so, a police car emerged from the shadows in which it had been concealed and stopped beside him. Two patrolmen leapt out.

‘Afternoon, sir. We meet again.’

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. What kind of luck was this, to be pulled up by the same copper twice?

‘Can I ask what you’re doing here? Going to visit someone in the Close or what?’

Copper number two stood in front of him, arms folded, daring him to run, while his old friend, copper number one, walked round the car quickly, then held his torch to the number plate.

Thirty seconds later, the man was inside the patrol car.

‘Right, let’s have an explanation, sir, and try to make it a good one. I catch you driving somewhat carelessly in the town centre yesterday. Number plates and disc all come up fine, matching your ID. I let you go with a caution about road safety. Thought no more about it. Now I find you parking out of the way in the immediate area of a crime scene – which is why you were stopped. Routine at the moment for every car that parks in the vicinity. Only to find your number plate doesn’t match the one you had on this car yesterday. Nor does the disc. Seems the same car. You’re the same driver. So what’s going on?’

Copper number one got back into the driver’s seat.

‘Checks out. Checks with the name, the ID, the road fund licence, car itself.’

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit.

His mobile beeped for a text.

‘I need to pick this up.’

‘If you don’t mind, sir . . .’

But he had the screen open.
Abort. Abort. Abort. We’ll deal
.

‘My boss,’ the man said. ‘He’s about to contact you.’

‘Oh yes? Now why would that be?’

‘Confirmation of my bona fides. Explanation.’

The two cops exchanged a glance. Then the radio went live.

‘Base to 108. Driver of car licence number OYO 04 JOH to be released without further questioning. Confirm action taken.’

There was a slight pause.

‘There you go. My boss’s seen to it. Sorry about all this,’ the man said. ‘No one’s fault.’

Though he knew it was his. His fault for driving carelessly, his fault for getting too close to the crime scene without taking permanent police presence into the reckoning. His fault.

Shit.

‘Out you get then.’

He got out of the patrol car. ‘Cheers,’ he said.

Neither of the coppers spoke. They just watched as he walked to his car, started it and drove away.

Shit.

Another text.

Get your arse back here now.

His car left Lafferton, going surprisingly fast for a 1.2 Focus, in the direction of the motorway to London.

I could have been an actor, the guy said once. He watched me put on the new sort of clothes. He followed me for half a day, just walking around, going into a shop, a post office, a pub. I could have been an actor if I’d thought. I’d have quite liked that. I’d got my walk a bit different, to go with the new clothes, held myself different, I’d never once looked uncomfortable, I’d looked as if it were – well, normal. Normal.

I knew that. None of it ever bothered me.

Only what was inside here, in my head, that bothered me. At first I thought it had all gone, didn’t cause me to lose any sleep, but then little things began to niggle. Only not often. I’d wake up and think, ‘Fuck, who am I?’ Voting. I’d always voted Labour. Never thought twice. Now I was supposed to be a right-wing Tory, veering towards BNP. But in my head, I couldn’t do it. I could never think like that. The voting ballot’s secret so that was all right, I voted how I always had. But in my head . . .

Sometimes the whole thing did my head in so much I had to go to bed. I got migraines. I’d never had anything like that. The only headache I might have had was the usual if I’d a bit of a hangover, which wasn’t often as I’ve never liked drinking to excess.

But I got really blinding headaches, with zigzags in front of my eyes and flashing lights and being sick as a dog. I got them more and more often. In the end I had to go to a doc, and he asked me how long I’d been getting them and when I said not too long, he was surprised. Said people usually started getting them as teenagers. Asked what
triggered them, if I could think of anything – usually something you eat, he said, like chocolate, that’s common, or red wine, but could be lots of other stuff. I said I hadn’t noticed anything.

He gave me some tablets and they helped a lot. Didn’t stop the headaches coming but they made a big difference when they did.

But I knew they’d never go altogether until my head was sorted out. Who I was. Who I really was. The one that had been born, or the one that hadn’t.

The days when the migraine headaches were really blinding, when I could hardly see, I took double the tablets, and when they began to work, I started going out at night again, like the old days. His days. The first time, that woman Elinor Sanders, I sat on a wall behind some bushes and when the pain quietened down to just a blurred feeling, I went in.

And straight away, as soon as I’d finished, I felt something like a shotgun going off inside my head and it cleared. The migraine might never have happened. It was like a boil bursting.

But why didn’t that ever happen before? Why didn’t he get migraine headaches? The one that was born, I mean? Keyes. Go on, say the name. Alan Keyes. Why didn’t he?