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‘Way I heard it,’ Brennan said. ‘Kerridge and Boyle weren’t all that chummy towards the end anyhow?’
‘You heard right. It was a question of who’d screw the other one first. But Boyle saw himself as the heir apparent. Trouble was, he wasn’t the only one.’ Salter laughed. ‘Once Kerridge popped his clogs, various parties stepped into the breach pretty quickly, even before Boyle was back walking the streets. Chief among them, Mrs K.’
Brennan raised an eyebrow. ‘Kerridge’s wife?’
‘The fragrant Helen. Not a lady to be underestimated.’
‘So you think all this is linked? Kenning and Sheerin and these two poor bastards in Wales. Collateral damage in the war of the Manc succession?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Bit thin, isn’t it? I mean, you could well be right. But these were the kinds of buggers who made enemies every way they turned. Might have been a dozen people wanted to take them out.’
‘Might have been. But Pete Boyle definitely did.’
‘You reckon?’
‘Done a bit of digging,’ Salter said. ‘Called in a few favours from a few scrotes. Informants.’
‘Imagine our lot would have done the same. Not aware they found much.’
‘Maybe not. But they didn’t know the question to ask. They didn’t think to ask about Pete Boyle.’
‘Boyle’s a big player in these parts,’ Brennan pointed out. ‘Especially now that Kerridge has gone. His name would have come up.’
‘No doubt. But there’d be no direct connection between any of these cases and Boyle. Or Kerridge, for that matter. Not even Kenning the grass. I only made the link between Kerridge and that drug ring after the event. We hadn’t got it pegged as one of Kerridge’s outfits – still haven’t, officially. It was only after I’d made the link between Kenning and Boyle that I went back and checked the detail of the case Kenning had been involved in. One or two of the players who went down were second-level associates of Kerridge’s. It doesn’t prove for certain that Kerridge had a finger in that particular pie, but I’d wager money on it.’
Brennan frowned. ‘I’m not following this. You’re saying that these cases are all linked to Boyle. But that it’s not a direct business link.’
Salter was smiling broadly now. He had the air of a magician who was in the process of pulling off a particularly neat piece of misdirection. ‘Not quite. Boyle’s got a real business interest in all three cases. But that’s not why they were picked.’ He leaned forward and pulled Brennan’s file towards him, then flicked through the pages until he found the short report on Mo Tallent. ‘Tallent,’ he said. ‘Petty thief and grifter. Spent most of his adult life living in sunny Rhyl, for reasons best known to himself. But born and brought up in less sunny Hulme. Left in his early twenties. Partly because, for one reason or another, he’d seriously fucked off Peter Boyle. And, trust me, Peter Boyle is not someone you want to antagonise.’
Brennan shook his head. ‘Some kind of personnel vendetta? Boyle waited twenty years to get even?’
‘Not quite. Let’s move on to Stephen Kenning. Bit more straightforward, that one. No one likes a grass. He’d sold Kerridge and Boyle down the river on that drugs deal. Even if there was no risk of them being implicated, they must have taken a financial hit. A decent enough motive for icing Kenning. But it turns out there’s a bit more. Kenning is also a Hulme alumnus. The original school of hard fucking knocks. Turns out that Kenning and Boyle were bosom buddies as teenagers. They’d drifted apart over the years. But I’m told that Boyle still thought of Kenning as a mate, pretty much up the point where he shafted the drugs deal.’
‘Did Kenning know he was shafting Boyle?’
‘Who knows? But the effect’s the same, either way. From what I know of Pete Boyle, there’s no way he wouldn’t have taken in personally.’
‘Okay, so Boyle had a personal link with Tallent and Kenning. What about the third guy, Sheerin?’
‘Surprise, surprise. Same again. Another graduate of the University of Hulme. Rough contemporary of Boyle’s. Interesting one, this, though. Couldn’t find much connection at first. No evidence they’d known each other. So I did more digging. Eventually found an older guy who’d been mates with Boyle’s mother. Single parent. Tough as nails, by all accounts. Father had fucked off before Boyle was born, assuming that she ever knew who he was. Anyway, rumour was that Sheerin’s old man had had some sort of fling with Boyle’s mum. Treated her badly. Thought of himself as a hard man, but got short shift when he tried any rough stuff. So ran off with the housekeeping money or some such. Old codger I spoke to wasn’t too clear on the details, but reckoned that Boyle would have reason not to be too enamoured of the old bastard. Or of his son.’
‘So you’re saying that all these three, one way or another, had bad blood with Boyle? Sounds a bit tenuous as a motive for murder.’
‘Of course. But that wasn’t the motive for the murders. That was just the reason why these three particular poor buggers got chosen.’
‘So what is this? Boyle gets out of prison. Sees his hoped-for empire beginning to disintegrate. Barbarians at the gate, all that. So sends out some warning messages. That the idea?’ Brennan looked sceptical.
‘Pretty much. These three were well chosen. Whoever employed Tallent would be one of the interlopers into Kerridge’s lucrative sex-trade operations. Sheerin was doing business for one of the gangs who’ve been drifting into Kerridge’s traditional territories in Cheetham Hill. As for Kenning – well, like I say, no one loves a grass. There’ve been a few other incidents as well, less serious than these three. Premises getting torched. The odd beating up. One or two serious Saturday night injuries.’
Brennan’s expression hadn’t changed. ‘You realise that serious Saturday night injuries aren’t that uncommon in central Manchester? It’s a trend even our lot have managed to spot.’
‘Yeah, unlike any of this.’ Salter bent down from the table and lifted a laptop bag on to the table. He unzipped it, fumbled inside for a moment, and then pulled out a plastic wallet stuffed with papers. ‘I’ve been through a stack of those cases. Some I’ve dismissed. A couple of the fires look like genuine accidents or insurance jobs. Some of the beatings are just muggings or domestics of one sort or another. But I’m left with maybe eight or nine incidents, apart from our three biggies, which I could link back to Pete Boyle.’ He pushed the wallet across the table towards Brennan. ‘Have a look.’
Brennan pulled out the papers and flicked quickly through them, stopping every now and then to read one of the reports more carefully. Eventually, he looked up. ‘Okay. I don’t deny it’s interesting. But Boyle’s a big fish in this pond. You could probably link anything back to him if you tried hard enough.’
‘Three murder victims who grew up within half a mile of him? One went to school with him? Another’s dad screwed Boyle’s mum, in more ways than one? Hell of a coincidence.’
Brennan nodded. ‘Let’s say you’ve convinced me. Or half-convinced me. Where are we going with this?’
‘This is why you’re here. The secondment. It’s why I wanted an experienced investigator. Someone local, with decent inside knowledge. Someone who could pull the right levers, if need be, with the local police.’
‘I’m flattered,’ Brennan said. ‘Though I’m not sure you’ve got the right man. If I pull any levers at the moment, it’s likely just to bring a bucket of crap down on my head. I’m not exactly flavour of the month.’
‘They’ll forgive you soon enough once you’re not under their feet as a permanent fucking reminder.’ Salter leaned back in his chair and watched Brennan carefully. ‘I think we’ve got full-scale fucking gang warfare going on here. Boyle’s taking out or warning off all his competition, one by one, step by step. It’s diverse enough that it slips under the radar of you local plods – here, North Wales, Derbyshire, wherever the hell it is. But it’s targeted so that no one on the receiving end of it will have much doubt what it means. And as an added bonus he’s settling a few old scores on the way.’
‘What about Kenning? The grass. He wasn’t competition.’
‘You reckon? Word was that Kenning didn’t turn Queen’s evidence out of the goodness of his heart, but because he’d been promised a nice little nest-egg by someone who wanted to corner the market.’
‘I saw the place he was living,’ Brennan countered. ‘Must have been a fucking small nest-egg.’
‘It’s a sad world. People don’t always deliver on their promises. One of our dirty little secrets. That the life of a superannuated supergrass isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’ Salter pushed back his chair and stood up, in the manner of one indicating that the meeting was coming to an end. ‘So. You game for it?’
‘I’m still not entirely clear what it is,’ Brennan said.
‘We’re trying to build a case against Boyle. It’s been a slow process. Not least because we fucked up so spectacularly last time. So this time we want to do it absolutely by the book. I want you to act as evidence officer. Work through what we’ve got. See if it stacks up. Tell us where the gaps are and what we need to do to fill them. I can give you some intelligence resource from my team, though not much. We’ll give you authorisation to work with the local plods, so you can finagle any information you can from them. Though good luck with that.’
‘I’m an experienced investigator. But I’ve not worked in your environment before. You must have people around who’ve got more of a track record in that kind of work.’
Salter nodded, smiling, as if this was a question that he’d been waiting for. ‘Maybe. But we’re stretched to the fucking limit. I’ve a national team, trying to juggle major operations from here to sodding Portsmouth. Half my lot are so wet behind the ears they’ve barely been weaned, and most of the other half are the kinds of alcoholics and deadbeats who couldn’t swing a return back to proper policing. I’ve got a clutch of officers working undercover that I’m not even supposed to talk about. And I’m not even based up here. I spend half my life stuck in the fucking ivory tower in Westminster filling in forms and writing reports so my superiors can prove to the politicians that we’re not squandering their tax money on liaison trips to the fucking Bahamas, or whatever it is that they think we do when they’re not looking.’ He paused and took a breath. It sounded like a prepared speech, or at least a speech that Salter had delivered before. ‘That’s why I need someone like you, up here, who can get some real nitty-gritty work done.’
Brennan pulled the wallet of papers back towards him. ‘Okay. I’ll give it a shot.’ He looked up at Salter, with what looked like genuine amusement on his face. ‘After all, given what I’ve come from, it’s not like I’m got much fucking option, is it?’
4 (#ulink_6e277747-fd47-5064-be73-26821053989c)
The whole thing felt wrong. Too soon. Too risky. Too ill-prepared. Shit, the last time she’d done this they’d spent months preparing her for it. They’d had the legend worked out to the last detail. Every minute of her fictional past. Every last nuance of her character and personality. She’d had an answer worked out to every possible question that might be thrown at her.
They’d put her through exercise after exercise. Memory tests. Role playing. Even that bloody farce where they’d snatched her from the airport car park and terrorised the life out of her. By the time she’d hit the street, she’d been note-perfect.
And now, what? Just over three weeks of scrambled briefings, cobbled-together documentation, hurried liaisons with informants who clearly thought they had better things to do that make her life any easier. And here she was, sitting outside the head honcho’s office about to stick her head firmly on the block. The whole thing felt so bloody amateurish.
The smart-suited young secretary emerged again from the main man’s office and regarded Marie with a look of disdain. ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said, with no obvious sign of sincerity. ‘He really won’t be much longer.’
The secretary didn’t bother to offer any explanation for the delay, but Marie hadn’t really expected any. She’d already assumed, perhaps unfairly, that this man, McGrath, was most likely just sitting in there with his feet up reading the Daily Star. For all that she felt unprepared, Marie had seen through this place immediately.
She smiled at the secretary. McGrath doubtless called her his PA. ‘Not a problem,’ Marie said. ‘I appreciate how busy Mr McGrath must be.’ She smiled warmly at the young woman, who now smiled uneasily back, perhaps growing conscious that her assumptions about Marie might not be entirely justified.
That was the only consolation, Marie thought. She might feel as if she’d been tossed carelessly into the deep end, but she’d already seen enough to know that, for the moment at least, she wasn’t out of her depth. Bunch of cowboys, she thought, glancing around at the large secretary’s office. All show, and no substance.
It had taken her a few minutes to register the fact when she’d first arrived. On the surface, it had all looked impressive enough. A neat little unit in a serviced office block just off the main drag near the centre of Chester. Half a mile and a world away from the city of Roman remains and bijou fashion shops, but it probably still had what the property agents would describe as a prestigious address. The Victrix Business Park, for Christ’s sake.
Inside, though, it wasn’t quite right. The place was an old factory that had clearly been converted hurriedly. Okay, perhaps not quite as hurriedly as she’d been converted into Maggie Yates – and, come to that, couldn’t they have found a more prestigious name for her as well? – but more hurriedly than the building’s pretensions required. She was no expert, but even sitting here Marie could see that the wallpaper was badly applied, the paintwork sloppy, the carpet cheap and already beginning to wear. Even the office furniture looked outdated. Not, she suspected, the kind of image that McGrath was hoping to project.
There were other signs, too. As the secretary had led her in from the chilly unattended lobby, Marie had glimpsed the rear courtyard through one of the windows. A miniature junkyard – an old fridge, a discarded sink unit, a broken table lined with paint pots, all overgrown with weeds. If the offices had been recently converted, she might have thought it was just waiting to be tidied, but this place was no longer new.
Even the staff weren’t up to scratch. There had been no one at the reception desk in the lobby, and no response when Marie had pressed the electric bell on the desk. After a while, she’d used her mobile to phone the number she’d been given. The secretary had answered the call and, after a few minutes, had bustled officiously through into the lobby. Marie suspected that the secretary and McGrath himself were the only occupants of this part of the building.
She knew that these thoughts were partly just a displacement activity, a way of not thinking too hard about the fragility of the ice beneath her. Salter had been full of reassurance and had even wheeled out Winsor, the psychologist, to confirm just how emotionally resilient she would be in the face of diversity. Or something like that. Winsor had spouted his familiar professional gobbledygook and she’d nodded politely, knowing by then that it was all going to happen anyway.
Jesus, then there was Liam. When she’d finally broken the news that she was going back out into the field, he’d responded better than she’d feared. He’d taken the news calmly, shrugged, told her that, yes, of course she had to keep things going at work. He absolutely understood that. He wouldn’t want it any other way.
She’d enjoyed a few seconds of relief at his reaction before she became concerned. At first, she thought that Liam was reverting to the passive-aggressive style he’d perfected in the early days of his illness. But this felt different. This felt sincere. And that raised questions about what was going on in Liam’s head. There were times, already, when he seemed like a different person.
She’d tried to put all that from her mind as she’d made her way up here. She and Liam had danced round the issue of her departure, talking about the practicalities rather than the emotional impact of their separation. The practicalities had been challenging enough. She’d had to ensure that a suitable care regime was in place for Liam. He was already barely capable making his way around the house, even in the wheelchair, and was no longer able to look after himself reliably. He had two carers, funded by social services and supplied through some agency, who had been coming in twice a day to prepare him a meal and, essentially, check that he was okay. After a little negotiation, they’d managed to add another visit in the evening while Marie was away. Marie had had the impression that the main carer, Sue, hadn’t been all that impressed by the idea of Liam being left alone overnight. But what other option did Marie have?
‘Mrs Yates?’
Shit. She almost missed her cue. That was why, in some cases, undercover officers stuck with their real names, or at least their real forenames, to minimise the risk of that moment’s hesitation. Or, worse still, of reacting to a name that wasn’t supposed to be yours.
She recovered herself in time. ‘Miss, actually,’ she said. ‘Divorced. I decided to go back to my maiden name. Don’t ask.’ She laughed, rising to her feet and holding out her hand for McGrath to shake. ‘But please call me Maggie. Pleased to meet you.’
‘Likewise.’ McGrath was observing her with an expression that managed to remain just the right side of lecherous. ‘Please come through – Maggie.’ He gestured for her to precede him into his poky office. She could feel his eyes making a full appraisal of what was likely to lie underneath her clothes. If she’d harboured any doubts about actually getting the job, she began to feel more confident now that it was in the bag.
‘Please. Take a seat,’ he said from behind her. There was a faint trace of an Irish lilt in his voice, she thought, though you had to listen for it. Or know something of his history. She lowered herself into the chair facing McGrath’s desk, and waited while he seated himself opposite. The desk was a mess – unsorted piles of paperwork, messy looking files, a discarded coffee cup.
‘Good to meet you, Maggie,’ McGrath said. He’d wasted no time in taking up her invitation to use her first name. ‘You come highly recommended.’
She smiled. McGrath’s non-professional interest in her was so transparent that it was difficult not to play up to it. ‘Not too highly, I hope. I don’t know if I can live up to it.’ She knew exactly how highly she’d been recommended, and by whom. More of the string-pulling that they were so adept at in the Agency. It was clever stuff. It was usually a tame informant who’d set the wheels in motion, getting the word about her out on the grapevine. In this case, according to Salter, they’d got wind of the fact that McGrath was looking for a discreet administrator to help him keep the various strands of his business in order. Looking at this place, she wasn’t surprised. McGrath had positioned himself, as so many of them did, as a legitimate businessman, running a more or less straight operation in parallel with his seamier activities. But, looking at the desk, she could imagine that administration wasn’t McGrath’s strongest point.
The key word, of course, was discreet. In her short telephone conversation with McGrath, they’d maintained the fiction that she would be looking after the above-board element of McGrath’s business – an import/export business which, according to the records she’d checked at Companies’ House, had a turnover barely large enough to cover her requested salary. But the grapevine had been very clear that McGrath was looking for someone to help run all parts of his business, including those elements that were kept hidden from the light of day.
Maggie Yates came highly recommended to fulfil that particular brief. The story was that she’d been the brains behind her ex-husband’s business, an East End mix of legitimate market-trading and more clandestine dealing. She’d given her husband loyal support, up to the point where she’d caught him dipping his hands into the till to subsidise his affair with some Dalston pole-dancer. She’d withdrawn a sizable sum from the business account, packed her suitcases, and headed north, leaving her ex with a pregnant pole-dancer and a pile of debts. It was a decent story, filtered skilfully through a succession of friends of friends. Creating an undercover legend was a little like money-laundering, she’d sometimes thought. The original source gets lost along the way, and the story becomes a little more legitimate each time it’s passed on. The figure who’d recommended her to McGrath had sincerely believed everything he’d said, having received the story himself from someone he considered reliable.
Marie had been nervous about it, because again they’d had so little time to prepare the ground. It had been well-handled, but there was always the risk that someone would pick up the phone and speak to the wrong person, and the whole house of fictional cards would come tumbling down.
It might still happen, but she felt more confident now that everything had been running for a few weeks. The rules were different in this world. If you wanted the right person, you couldn’t call the JobCentre or some local temp agency. All you could do was rely on word of mouth. And McGrath wasn’t entirely stupid. He’d take his time, trust her only as far as he needed to until he was confident of her loyalty and discretion. The recommendation might get her through the door, but it was her own abilities that would keep her there. That, and the fact that already McGrath was virtually panting like a lascivious dog.
‘We’re a small but ambitious business,’ McGrath was saying, in the tone he probably reserved for the local Chamber of Commerce. ‘On the way up, you might say.’
‘You said it was primarily import/export?’ she asked, feeding back the line that McGrath had given her over the phone. ‘What sort of things?’
‘Pretty much anything that I can sell at a profit, if I’m honest,’ McGrath said. ‘We’re probably more of a distribution business than a straight importer. Take stuff off people’s hands, then sell it on for a bit more.’
Marie didn’t doubt it. From what she understood, most of McGrath’s legitimate business comprised the kind of tat that was sold on market stalls or by street vendors. Tawdry plastic items from China. ‘A middle man?’ she offered.
‘That’s about it. Cream off a little slice for myself, that’s the idea. So, Maggie, tell me about yourself. I understand you’ve experience in this kind of line.’
She nodded, and began to trot out the well-rehearsed lines about her ex-husband. She didn’t go into the detail of how and why she’d supposedly split up with the fictitious ex, but she knew that all that background would have been carefully fed to McGrath. He was clearly as interested in her marital status, or lack of it, as he was in whatever relevant work experience she might have.
That side of the job made her feel uneasy; but she knew that as a female undercover it was almost inevitable that you’d sometimes make use of your femininity to gain some advantage, particularly over men like McGrath. You couldn’t be too precious in this line of work. If the likes of McGrath were so easily distracted by the simple fact that she was a half-presentable woman, it would be stupid not to benefit.
In any case, she told herself, this time it was just part of her new character. The glamorous divorcee. She knew she was pretty decent-looking – enough to attract a few overlong glances in a male-dominated office, at least. But her usual instinct was to play down her appearance – minimal make-up, neat but low-key business suits, nothing that might attract unwanted attention.
As Maggie Yates, though, she’d raised everything just a notch or two above how she would normally choose to appear. She was wearing a business outfit that was slightly more brash, that showed an inch or two more leg and cleavage, than she would normally consider. She was wearing a little more make-up, her hair dyed a shade or two lighter than usual. She’d even managed, to her great amusement, to persuade Salter to cough up for a couple of pairs of earrings on expenses.
She’d been surprised, when she’d first effected the changes, by how much her new outward appearance influenced the way she felt and behaved. She felt a different kind of confidence, aware of the impact her appearance had on a certain type of male. Even Salter had seemed more flustered in her presence. McGrath, on the same basis, looked as if he might dissolve into a small puddle on the office floor if she were to gaze at him too intently.
McGrath nodded as she finished her brief account. ‘So, do you think you’d be up to handling things round here?’ The innuendo was inescapable, even if unintentional.
She looked coolly around her – at the shabby office, at the piled mess on McGrath’s desk. ‘I wouldn’t imagine there’s anything here I couldn’t handle,’ she said. Jesus, she thought to herself, don’t push it too far. McGrath might not be responsible for his actions. She smiled innocently. ‘I can give you a little run through my past experience, if you like, Mr McGrath.’
‘Andrew,’ he coughed. ‘Andy, that is. Please call me Andy. Everybody does.’ He picked up a pile of papers from the desk and shuffled them as if trying to imbue the documents with some significance. ‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I’ve already heard very good reports about you.’
‘So what is it I’d be doing?’ she said. ‘If you were to offer me the job, I mean.’
‘Well,’ he coughed again, ‘eventually, I’d be looking to you to keep the place ticking over. I’m out of the office quite a lot of the time, what with one thing and another. I have to be out there getting the deals. So I need someone who can keep the show on the road in my absence.’
Marie glanced towards the door. ‘What about your secretary?’
McGrath shrugged. ‘Lizzie’s just a kid, really. She can answer the phone, type a few letters. Bright enough, you know, but not really able to keep on top of a place like this.’
‘Well, that would suit me down to the ground,’ she said. ‘I’m used to running my own show, more or less, so I’m happy to do as much or as little as you need.’
McGrath frowned slightly and she wondered whether she might have overplayed her hand. ‘Well, obviously there’s a lot I’ll need to hand over to you. It may take a while.’
She nodded, trying to look contrite. ‘Yes, sorry. It’s just that I’m keen to get this. It’s been a difficult time… well, you can imagine. Need to build my confidence up a bit, probably. Prove that I’m still up to it–’
It was McGrath’s turn to look embarrassed. ‘No, I didn’t mean – look, I’m sure you’ll be perfect in the job. When can you start?’
She blinked, as if the offer had taken her by surprise. ‘You mean I’ve got the job? Well, thank you. Really. I won’t let you down. I can start more or less immediately if you’d like.’
McGrath rose from his chair, holding out his hand. ‘Well, pleased to have you on board,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to … lick us into shape.’ The innuendo had returned, she noticed, now she’d accepted the job. She was beginning to suspect that this was going to be a long few months.
She took McGrath’s hand. He shook her hand firmly, in the manner of one who’d seen fictional businessmen doing this kind of thing in films, then, almost inevitably, held on for just a few seconds too long. ‘Yes, good to have you on board,’ he repeated. ‘One of the family and all that.’ He paused, his smile broadening. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve made too many friends up here yet,’ he added. ‘Perhaps we should celebrate your arrival? Over dinner, maybe?’
Oh yes, she thought. It was going to be a bloody long few months.
5 (#ulink_322f60dc-0b0a-51d1-a904-aea0407974fa)
He’d almost lost her. He’d had to look twice, maybe even three times, to be sure it was her. That surprised him. Usually one photograph was enough, if the likeness was a decent one. He had a superstition about that, always approaching it in the same way. He’d stare at the photograph for minutes on end, and then he’d hold the picture to his forehead, as if somehow absorbing its essence.
He knew that the last gesture was little more than superstition. But somehow it had developed as a habit, and now he felt it helped him memorise the face. He knew, though, that it was important to analyse what he was looking at. Not just the superficial trappings – the style or the colour of the hair, whether or not the person was wearing glasses, facial hair or the use of make-up. Those things could be changed.
Instead, he concentrated on the detail of the face itself – the shape of the chin, the nose, the ears, the mouth. Above all, the eyes – not so much the colour or the shape, but their look, their expression. It was harder with a poor photograph, but if the image was a good one, the eyes were the most revealing part of all. If he could look into their eyes, he would recognise them every time.
And he was good at this. They came to him because they knew he’d get it right. He’d identify the targets, no matter what they did. And many of them – most of them, maybe – were keen not to be spotted. They did their best to change themselves, and he had to laugh sometimes at the feebleness of their attempts. The ones who took to wearing sunglasses, or who dyed their hair or grew a beard. Even if he hadn’t studied their features so closely, most wouldn’t have fooled him. They were still essentially the same people – walking and speaking and behaving the same as before.
