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  In The Frame

  Anna Burgin Series Prequel Novella

  David Bradwell

  Contents

  In The Frame

  A note from Anna

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

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  Cold Press

  Out Of the Red

  About the author

  For Carrie

  In The Frame

  In The Frame is the novella prequel to the Anna Burgin series of mystery thrillers, and introduces Anna and journalist Danny Churchill.

  Photography student Anna Burgin didn’t expect to be arrested, but she’s the only suspect for a series of crimes, and the Police have found damning evidence in her room.

  But Anna has no recollection of doing anything wrong. Was it a moment of madness? Or is somebody setting out to destroy her? And is the stranger in the bar really trying to help, or just part of an evil conspiracy?

  A note from Anna

  I didn't ever want to mention this again. I wanted to put it behind me, and pretend it never happened. But Danny finally persuaded me. He said it might help. Please don't judge me. I'm not a bad person, whatever anyone else may tell you. And if you can give me that at least, then maybe we can agree that this should never be discussed again.

  Prologue

  Tuesday, November 21st, 1989

  OBVIOUSLY, having £10,000-worth of the polytechnic’s stolen photographic equipment hidden at the bottom of my wardrobe wasn’t wise, but I didn’t think the police would find it. That’s why I was happy to allow them to search my room. Maybe, in retrospect, that was an error.

  I hadn’t planned on spending my morning being arrested. I wasn’t surprised it happened, though, especially given the overwhelming evidence against me. As the detective was keen to stress, I’d been caught red-handed.

  “You were the only person in the photographic department last night,” he said, “so the only person on the planet with the opportunity.”

  And as for a motive? I was a student, so short of cash for drugs. What’s a little bit of robbery when you have a violent dealer to pay?

  Then, of course, there was the physical proof. I had the stolen goods in my possession.

  “Has anybody else had access to your room since last night?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “Definitely not.”

  There was no possible defence.

  I was taken away for further questioning, much to the voyeuristic delight of my housemates, who seemed disproportionately beguiled by my state of discomfort. I tried to protest my innocence, of course, but even I had to admit that it was a cut-and-dried case. Bang to rights. An easy one for the jury. Throw away the key.

  I pictured the headlines: “Photography student Anna Burgin destroys glittering future in bungled Polytechnic heist.” Not, really, my finest moment, but there was worse to come. Much worse. At the station I was informed that they knew exactly what I’d been up to. The robbery had been definitively linked to similar thefts from other locations over recent months. All were likely to be added to my list of charges. Protesting was pointless.

  I imagined the horrified look on my mother’s face when I returned to Manchester in disgrace - assuming I could somehow avoid the extra ignominy of a prison sentence. She’d always wanted me to get a proper job, never been keen on me moving to London to pursue my passion for photography, and had warned about the dangers of the big city. She told me I’d be throwing my life away when I was consumed by the capital’s darker underside. I didn’t know which was worse: the end of my liberty or the smug look of told-you-so when she heard the news.

  But here’s the thing. I’ve never taken drugs. I don’t have a violent dealer to pay. I didn’t think the police would find the equipment because I didn’t know it was in there. I’d never seen it before, and despite the compelling evidence to the contrary, the robbery really wasn’t me. I just didn’t have the first idea how to prove it.

  1

  Two years earlier

  LIKE most young boys, Danny Churchill had always been fascinated by cars, but he never thought he’d be involved in making them. He had big plans to be famous by the time he was twenty. The job at Sunderland’s Nissan car plant would give him security for the next two years.

  He had it all planned out. Songs written, album titles decided. He’d even designed a progression of labels that would appear on the centre of the vinyl, changing colour and theme as the band’s logo evolved. He’d prepared what he’d say in interviews, and envisaged every major TV appearance, from Saturday Superstore to Juke Box Jury and beyond.

  The concept was simple but he knew it would work. At sixth form, he’d persuaded his friend Chris to come on board. Danny would do all the music, Chris all the singing. Danny would stand looking all moody and mysterious, behind a bank of ever-more-impressive keyboards, while Chris would be the engaging front man. The band’s name was Flag Day, and Danny planned to bedeck the stage with flags of various colours, adding vibrancy and movement and a clear visual identity. He was pretty sure he had it made.

  The Nissan job gave him the money he needed to buy the equipment. Every new synthesiser, sequencer or drum machine would help move Flag Day ever closer to their ultimate destiny.

  The summer of 1987 was filled with great optimism. Danny’s girlfriend, Kate, helped to arrange gigs in pubs and live music venues throughout the north east. They played the Riverside in Newcastle on a battle of the bands night, although their synth-heavy electronica was not quite what the audience was used to. By the autumn they were rehearsing hard, and Danny booked a studio for two days to record four tracks for a demo tape. It was expensive but he was sure it would be worth it.

  And that’s when it all went wrong.

  The studio days were long and demanding, and the band overran its allotted hours, before having the chance to make a final mixdown. Faced with the choice of a bigger bill or a demo that didn’t do them justice, Danny opted for the former, even though it would mean selling one of his most valuable keyboards to fund it. It was a high price to pay, and made higher still the following day when Chris announced he was leaving to join a more conventional rock band. He took Kate with him.

  It was a depressing situation, but there was no time to mope. Danny had two weeks to pay the studio, so advertised the synthesiser for sale in his local newspaper. A man called and said he’d buy it, and made arrangements for collection later that day. He didn’t turn up. He rang to apologise, explaining that he’d been involved in a minor car crash and wouldn’t now be able to proceed with the purchase.

  “Sorry, mate,” he said, “but I can do you a favour. My day job is the manager of Rock World in Newcastle. Do you know it?”

  “Of course. I bought a drum machine from you,” said Danny.

  “Excellent. Well if it helps I can put the keyboard in the shop for you, and when we sell it, we’ll give you whatever it goes for. No commission.”

  Grateful for the second chance, and with no other buyers on the horizon, Danny took the keyboard to the shop and was given a receipt. He called a couple of days later and was told there’d been a lot of interest and he should ring back after the weekend.
On the Monday, Rock World went out of business. The keyboard was nowhere to be seen. But because he’d been given a shop receipt, Danny had unwittingly relinquished any claim against the manager and was instead an unsecured creditor of a failed business with masses of debt. He’d get nothing.

  So, he lost the singer, the girlfriend, the band and the keyboard, and worse still, the studio was still chasing for payment. More equipment had to go. It was heartbreaking. He was back beyond square one. The police were completely uninterested in the shop manager’s scam. It was a terrible injustice, but it sparked something within him: an urge to keep others from falling victim to similar schemes, and a desire to help expose those who perpetrate them. He didn’t realise it then, but his destiny was sealed.

  And that night, on the BBC Nine O’Clock News, he saw a report that would change his life forever.

  2

  The morning before: Monday, November 20th, 1989

  I QUITE like Mondays. I like the sense of the new and the feeling that things are back underway after the weekend hiatus. I suspect it would be different if I had the drudgery of commuting to an office job, but all I have to do is take pictures and immerse myself in the writings of Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida and Sigmund Freud. Aside from occasional lectures and seminars, I’m free to set my own agenda. I know it won’t last forever, but I’m determined not to get sidetracked by the constant protests and student strikes, and to make the most of my final two years. After that, who knows?

  Hopefully I’ll pursue a career in photography. There’s a privilege and responsibility in capturing a single moment from the timeline of an infinite universe. It’s insignificant in cosmic terms, and yet a single split-second frame can inspire, provoke, or even change the course of history.

  But while I study hard, and I’ve opened my mind to new ways of thinking, a part of me is still the teenage girl who grew up in Manchester, drinking Country Manor and Diamond White when I should have been at home studying for my failed Religious Studies O Level. I live in central London, sharing the eighth floor of a hall of residence in Marylebone Road with seven others. None of us have much money, but we know how to have a good time.

  I spent Sunday with my boyfriend, Todd, helping to clean up the eighth floor common room after a particularly lively party. He’d seemed a bit stressed all weekend, and the hangover wasn’t helping. By the time afternoon came, and he returned home to Swiss Cottage, I set about planning my week and then tried to recharge with a very early night.

  Monday morning is a good time to stay home and focus on theory. After several hours of isolation, dissecting the semiotics of cigarette and alcohol advertising, looking for the hidden messages within, I skipped lunch to start reading about the seventeenth-century Rosicrucian movement. I’m researching synaesthesia and the links between music and colours. Time can slip away when I’m concentrating. When the knock at the door came, I realised I’d missed tea too.

  “Hi,” I said. “What’s up?” It was Amelia, my glamorous half-Japanese neighbour.

  “Just checking you’re all right,” she said. “We haven’t seen you all day.”

  I nodded in the direction of the textbooks, laid out across my desk.

  “I’ve been productive.” I smiled. I was pleased with my progress.

  “Well done, but you look like you need a break. We’re going out for dinner if you’d like to join us? Bring Todd if you like.”

  And that’s why, just past 8pm, I was trying to decipher a menu, seated at a circular table in the window of a Chinese restaurant near Leicester Square, with Todd on one side, Amelia on the other, and three more from my hall of residence (Sophie, Sara and Meirion - our token big, blond, rugby-playing Welshman) opposite. Amelia’s jovial Cornish boyfriend, Allen with an e, made up the numbers. The alcohol and generally good-natured conversation was flowing. Meirion was proudly boasting of his leading role in the previous week’s strike against student loans.

  “Philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point is to change it,” he said, repeating the slogan from the Student Union’s banner.

  “What is it this week?” asked Allen. “Loans again? Or cuts?”

  “Or apartheid?” added Sara, through a cloud of hand-rolled cigarette smoke.

  “Loans again,” said Meirion. “I take it all you bastards will be joining the march on Wednesday?”

  “I’m in,” said Sara. The rest of us tried not to catch his eye. We all broadly agreed with the causes, but we weren’t quite as militant in our actions.

  “You bunch of bloody lightweights,” he said, when nobody else answered.

  “Speak for yourself,” said Sara. “I did the South African Airways sit-in.”

  “Well I’m bloody proud. And bollocks to the rest of you.”

  I zoned out as the conversation turned to the current catering crisis and censorship of the reporting of events from Northern Ireland. I felt Todd’s hand under the table, edging under the hem of my skirt.

  “I’m so glad you could come,” I said, turning and leaning into him. “It’s a political madhouse. Are you not drinking?”

  “No, I brought the car,” he replied, in his distinctive Scouse accent. “I was hoping you might come back with me.”

  Todd had invested the proceeds of his part-time bar job in a secondhand Vauxhall Astra. It was a real bonus at times, as I’ve never got on with the Tube. I sighed.

  “I’d love to, but alas not tonight. I’m so sorry. I can’t stay out long. I’ve got an early start tomorrow. I want to crack the Rosicrucians by lunchtime.”

  “I can have you back before daybreak.”

  “And I need another good night’s sleep!” I laughed. “Maybe tomorrow, though?”

  “Can’t. I’m working the next three nights. The weekend then?”

  “It’s a deal. Looking forward to it already.”

  Across the table, the conversation turned to a forthcoming Anti-Fascist Action benefit gig. Allen whispered something to Amelia. I followed their eyes to Meirion and Sara, who were getting on as well as usual. We’d all thought they were going to get together, but he had a girlfriend from Wales who came to stay occasionally, and to his credit he was always faithful. As far as I knew, anyway. When he wasn’t flying the red flag, he played bass in a rock band, and Sara seemed to be his biggest fan. He was pouring wine with all the subtle finesse of a chimpanzee wearing boxing gloves.

  The starters arrived and the conversation and debate got louder, intermingled with much laughter at the various anecdotes of brushes with authority. I could see disapproving looks from diners at a couple of the other tables, but I was powerless to lower our volume. But then I noticed that Sophie seemed unusually quiet. I leaned forward.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. She looked pale. I noticed she hadn’t touched her food, and her glass was still full. I knew Sophie well, as she was on my course, although she’d taken a couple of years off after school before joining and so was slightly older than me. She was normally the vivacious one, with her dyed red hair and hand-customised outfits. It was unlike her to shun alcohol.

  “I don’t feel too good, actually,” she replied.

  “That’s not good. Is there anything I...”

  She cut me off, excused herself, then stood up and headed towards the front door and out into the street. The others looked up, concerned, but I said I’d follow.

  “Sorry, I just needed to get some air,” she said when I joined her. “It seemed so hot in there. I thought I was going to throw.”

  “Can I get you something? A glass of water?” I asked.

  “No, I’ll be fine. I just need a moment. A few deep breaths. You go back in. I’ll be okay.”

  She didn’t look okay and I wasn’t going anywhere.

  After a few minutes Todd came to join us. He’s about 6’2” so nearly a foot taller than me. I was aware we looked slightly odd when standing next to each other.

  “Can I do anything?” he asked. He’d brought my leather jacket, which was thoughtful, but
I wrapped it round Sophie. She was shivering.

  “I think I ought to be getting home,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Hey, don’t worry. I’ll come with you.”

  She shook her head.

  “No. I’m okay. I’ll just get a cab. Thank you, though.”

  I looked at Todd.

  “I’ve got my car,” he said. “I’ll give you a lift back.”

  “No, seriously, you two go back in and enjoy the night. I’ll be okay. I’ll just... Oh God.”

  She didn’t look well at all. I turned to Todd. If she wasn’t going to accept the offer, I’d take it up on her behalf.

  “I think that would be an excellent idea, if you’re sure,” I said. He nodded, popped back into the restaurant to get his keys and jacket, then set off to get the Astra.

  “Thanks, Anna,” she said when it was just the two of us. “I just feel so guilty. I haven’t felt great all day. I shouldn’t have come.”

  “Don’t be daft, these things happen. We’ll get you back in no time.”

  “I can’t ask you to come too. You haven’t eaten all day.”

  “It’s fine. It’s a mercy mission.”

  She looked at me.

  “Seriously. You stay. I’ll be all right. Honestly. If Todd’s happy to take me back, that’ll be brilliant, but you stay with the others. I don’t want to ruin it for everyone.”