Day Minus Six Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-Eight, 23:00
It’s late. Jen is in the bath. She can’t wait to go to sleep and wake up someplace else, tomorrow.
A hot pool of confusion gathers in her stomach.
Undercover. Undercover. The word, ugly and huge, thrums underneath Jen’s breastbone like a heartbeat. So this is why. No PAYE job. No social media. No parties.
Kelly has been living under an assumed identity for twenty years. But why did he never tell her?
She thinks she has pieced it together into the right order. She wishes she could ask Andy, but he won’t even have finished his degree yet. Not even he can help her now.
She stares at the frosted window, thinking it through.
Kelly went undercover. His evidence sent Joseph to prison. Twenty years later, Joseph is released, comes looking – at the law firm – for Kelly, trying to start up his crime ring once again, with all the old players in it. If Kelly refused to obey Joseph, Joseph would suspect he was the undercover officer. If he complied, he became a criminal, proper. Kelly couldn’t win.
And, since Joseph had served twenty years for the crimes he committed alongside many of his foot soldiers, he held leverage over them: if they didn’t comply, he could turn them in. But with Kelly, Joseph had an even stronger hold, one Kelly wasn’t fully aware of: if Joseph reported Kelly’s past crimes, the police would come looking and discover that Kelly was still living under his assumed identity—illegally. Or worse, they’d find out he was committing new offences, without the police’s knowledge.
This led to the exchange of a package containing the stolen car key, forcing Kelly to comply. Todd was present when Kelly and Joseph met again, along with Clio, and it was then that Todd and Clio fell in love. Kelly instructed Todd not to tell Jen about his connection to Joseph, and later, he also told Todd to end things with Clio. Kelly must have confessed everything that night in the garden, revealing his true identity to Todd. Todd described it as the most messed-up thing he’d ever experienced. Kelly likely showed him his old badge, the poster—Jen can just picture that conversation taking place in Todd’s room, with Todd hiding the badge, phone, and poster from her.
Kelly began working for Joseph again, but when he suspected that Joseph might realize he was the policeman who put him in prison, he reached out to Nicola for help in desperation. Nicola, it turned out, wasn’t a criminal but had been undercover back then. She was police. Kelly must have felt trapped, and confessing to Nicola must have seemed like the least terrible option.
In exchange for her silence, and because of the danger Joseph posed, she asked Kelly for a favor. This likely involved Kelly passing information about Joseph’s ongoing crimes to the police. Perhaps Nicola even arranged protection for Kelly, which could explain why Jen saw police cars circulating. Maybe that’s why they arrived so quickly that night, even before the ambulance. They were waiting to intervene, but it was just too late.
Nicola must have been harmed by Joseph two nights before Todd committed his crime—the Section 18 wounding with intent that Jen overheard in the police station. Joseph must have figured her out. Now out of prison, he would have scrutinized every contact for signs they weren’t who they claimed to be. It would have been easier to identify her as police since she never left. That’s why Nicola looked so different at Wagamama’s—she wasn’t in her undercover role.
And realizing who Nicola was must have led Joseph to Kelly.
So Joseph finds out and comes for Kelly in the middle of the night at the end of October. Wasn’t he armed? Didn’t he reach into his pocket for a weapon?
The police arrived almost immediately after the murder, likely aware that something was about to happen.
And then they betrayed Kelly by arresting Todd, even though Kelly had sought Nicola’s help. No wonder he was furious at the station.
And what about Todd? Now it all seems clear to Jen. He wanted to protect his father. Upon hearing about Nicola, he bought a knife. On his way home, he recognized Joseph, saw he was armed, and panicked. So he did the only thing he could: he protected his dad, no matter the cost.
