He looks at his mentor and friend, and winces at the lies he’s telling.
‘I have to say, I’m so disappointed,’ Leo says sincerely.
‘I know. Thank you,’ Ryan says. He hesitates, just for a second, wondering if he’s doing the right thing. But it’s the police – or it’s her. His resolve crystallizes like hardened clay. There is no contest.
‘Right, well, you know …’ Leo pauses, and Ryan thinks he’s going to elaborate, but maybe he changes his mind, because he just looks at him and says, ‘Yeah. I get it. Effective immediately – it has to be, with UC work.’
‘I know.’
‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out, Ryan.’
‘Me too.’
‘Any idea what you’ll go and do?’
Ryan stares at Leo’s immaculate desk. The question is enough to crack his features with an ironic smile. He guesses he will have to go and be a painter/decorator, like he said he is.
‘Nah, I’ll figure it out, I guess.’
‘Will you still come to give your evidence? Your work was – invaluable.’
Ryan glances at Leo. He can feel his gaze is cold. ‘I know,’ Leo says. ‘I know we didn’t find Eve.’
‘Yeah,’ Ryan says. That cuts him up. Maybe if he hadn’t met Jen. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened like this. Maybe he could’ve stayed longer. But he wouldn’t choose it. Not now he’s met her. He’s a goner, for ever. Happily so.
‘The daughter – at the law firm,’ he says quickly. ‘I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know. And the dad … honestly, he’s just a small-town idiot.’
‘Is he?’
‘Concentrate on Joseph. Not even sure the dad knew the significance of passing the addresses,’ Ryan lies.
‘Your evidence will be useful …’
‘I’ll do it – if you don’t go after the dad. Just Joseph. The other foot soldiers.’
‘I’ll talk to those on the top landing,’ Leo says slowly, seeming to understand that Ryan is negotiating, even if he doesn’t know why.
‘Okay.’
One problem solved. He might get away with this. All he needs to do now is become somebody else.
‘But hey – we’ll get the main man, you know? He’ll go down for twenty.’
‘Yeah. Well,’ Ryan says sadly, standing there in front of Leo’s desk. ‘Doesn’t seem worth it, somehow. Not without the baby.’
‘I get that,’ Leo says amiably. This must happen all the time, especially in undercover. He holds his hand out, and Ryan slaps the legend into his palm. The police-issued passport and driving licence in Kelly’s name. All gone.
‘Yeah. You know, Ry, I don’t think I’d do it if I had my chance again,’ Leo says, taking the documents.
This stops Ryan. ‘Really?’ he says.
‘Yeah, I mean – it’s no way to live. What’s the difference, really, between pretending to be a criminal and being one?’
Ryan doesn’t answer the rhetorical question, just looks at Leo, who shows him the door after a few seconds. ‘Adieu,’ Leo says softly as he leaves.
Ryan always wanted to change the world, but it doesn’t matter any more. Maybe he’s bitter but, suddenly, Ryan feels chewed up by a system he hadn’t even thought twice about getting involved with. From here on, Ryan vows, he will not give a fuck what anyone thinks of him: society, employers – anyone. He won’t let anybody get to know him. He will only let one person in: her.
He goes to his cupboard to say goodbye to it. He leaves most things here, at the station. The only things he takes are the talismans he can’t bear to part with. His badge and the missing-person poster with the baby on it. They are too precious to lose.
He’ll keep them with him, for ever. Whoever he is.
As he leaves, he thinks of the Jiffy bag sitting underneath the passenger seat of his car, containing a new fake ID, purchased from a criminal last night. He has no choice but to become Kelly. Anything else would tip people off. Joseph knows he likes Jen. He can’t be with her but become somebody else. There is no way back: he’s stepped into an identity as Kelly, petty career criminal, and now he’s got to live it.
Kelly Brotherhood: that’s the surname he chose when he elected to go undercover as Kelly, the criminal.
Brotherhood. To honour the real Kelly.
He thinks about what Leo said about the heads of organized-crime gangs. How they stay under the radar. No travel, don’t pay tax.
So he won’t go abroad, won’t get through airport scanners, shouldn’t ever get pulled over. But he can live. Love. Get married.
He tells his mother through tears. Then he tells a couple of Joseph’s associates that he’ll call them up when he’s back in the game but he’s staying under the radar for a while since Joseph’s arrest. After all this, he gets a tattoo. His skin scratches and burns, hot, as the needle scars his skin for ever. His wrist is marred, branded with his decision, made in haste in the middle of the night as the clocks went forward, but which he knows he will never regret. The date he fell in love with her, and the date he became himself.
Day Minus Seven Thousand One Hundred and Fifty-Eight, 12:00
It’s the day Jen meets Kelly. She’s always known this date, when the handsome stranger walked into the law firm. But, today, sitting at her desk working on the enormous 2003 desktop computer, she waits to meet him for the first time.
She has that March feeling. Fun in the sun and laughing with him. She will always feel that way – whatever happens. Whoever he is. Whatever his reasons for his betrayal, his secrets, his lies.
She never liked working in the reception area of her father’s law firm – people always thought she was a secretary – but today, she likes the vantage point. The plate-glass windows. The bleak March high street outside. The silence of the reception, ancient and sweeping and hers.
‘Jen,’ her father says, walking into the foyer. She turns her gaze to him. He’s forty-five. Strapping. Big, happy, healthy. She can’t bear it. His youth and his betrayal. His connection to Joseph. When she visited him in 2021, had the garlic bread with him – he must have known … he must have known what Kelly had been up to. Surely?
‘We need to file the Part 8 by four o’clock,’ he says.
‘Sure, sure,’ she says, no idea what he’s talking about.
As she’s pretending to type, clicking around on the fucking enormous and antiquated computer, she notices movement outside.
And there he is. It’s Kelly. Trying to look inconspicuous but, because she knows him, she sees him. He sticks out.
And he’s watching her. Trying to look like he isn’t. In a hoody, the same denim jacket he wears tomorrow on their date. That hair …
‘Jen?’ her father says. ‘Part 8?’
But Kelly’s coming in. A head poked around the propped-open door. A March gust whooshes in. They never liked the door closed, didn’t want to deter patrons.
‘All right,’ Kelly says. Her husband, who doesn’t yet know her name. Whose motivations she doesn’t yet know. ‘Just wondering if you want any painting and decorating done?’