Silvermeadow (21 page)

She shrugged and looked at her gran, who said, ‘You know, dear. Like grandpa.’

‘No.’ The girl shook her head. ‘Grandpa has
some
hair, round his ears. This man had no hair. His head was like an egg. Mr Egghead, that’s what he was.’

Brock and Lowry exchanged a look.

‘Was he an old man or a young man?’

Her nose wrinkled up with thought. ‘Probably he
wa
s old. Like him.’ She pointed at Lowry, who was thirty-six. ‘Only
he’s
got some hair.’

She couldn’t remember what he was wearing.

‘When he was standing talking to the girl, was he taller than her?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Where did the top of her head come up to on him, would you say?’ Brock stood beside Lowry and pointed his hand at the level of his eyes, then lowered it as she shook her head. She wrinkled her nose and said ‘There!’ when his hand had dropped below the shoulder.

‘And he had big shoulders,’ she added. ‘Like the Incredible Hulk. Only not green.’

‘What about the time? Can you pin-point the time?’

‘Yes,’ Mrs Tipping said. ‘We’d been watching the five o’clock eruption, as usual. I had a cup of tea, and Belinda an ice-cream.’

‘A gel
a
to,’ Belinda corrected.

‘I was feeling tired, my veins were playing up, and I didn’t want to get up. Then I saw the time, almost five-thirty, and I realised we’d have to get a move on or we’d miss the bus. So we got up, went up the escalator and along the upper mall to the east entrance. The bus leaves at five-forty, and we got there with a few minutes to spare. So you can work it out. It must have been almost exactly five-thirty-five when we passed the spot where Belinda says she saw the girl.’

‘Good.’ Brock nodded. ‘And you’re sure you can’t remember anything else about the man, Belinda? You didn’t see if he gave the girl anything, or if he touched her?’

She shook her head.

‘Could they have been arguing, do you think?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘All right. Now we’ve got a very clever artist here, who can make up people’s faces on her computer, and I’d like you to talk to her, and help her to make a picture of this Mr Egghead for us to see. Would you like to do that?’

‘Oh yes. I like computers.’

‘Well I can see you’re a very bright girl, Belinda. Your gran can stay here and have a cup of tea while you’re busy.’

By the time she was satisfied with the picture, Belinda had attracted a big crowd of officers, eager to see the result.

It wasn’t Eddie Testor, not exactly, but it was very close. The girl had seemed to want to exaggerate and idealise the egg-like head shape, like Humpty Dumpty, with a small face, and the police artist had to nudge her carefully towards a realistic result without violating the obviously vivid picture in the girl’s mind.

Taken with the bulging shoulders and the location, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that Belinda had seen Kerri Vlasich talking to Eddie Testor at almost exactly 5.35 on the evening of her disappearance. Brock turned away, trying to avoid showing on his face the relief he felt. It would have been better if the girl had been older, and if the grandmother had seen the green bag too, but all the same, Belinda was a convincing witness. Kerri had come to Silvermeadow that night. Now there surely could be no doubt.

He saw Chief Superintendent Forbes entering the unit and went over to explain what had happened.

‘Excellent! Exactly what we needed, a witness. Thank God.’ The relief certainly showed on his face. The last press briefing had turned out to be an uncomfortable affair, since he had no real fresh information to give the reporters, who were becoming frustrated by the police’s reluctance to spell out exactly what evidence they had linking Kerri’s disappearance with Silvermeadow. ‘Pity we didn’t know this an hour ago. Premature to call the media back now, do you think?’

‘Let’s follow it up first,’ Brock said. Seeing Lowry looking their way, he waved him over and told Forbes, ‘Gavin was the one who found the witness.’

Lowry accepted Forbes’s congratulations with a cool smile, then turned to Brock. ‘Pick him up, shall we, chief?’

‘Yes, let’s do that. You care to come along, Orville?’

The chief superintendent checked his watch. ‘I’ve got something else lined up unfortunately, Brock. I think I can leave it in your and Gavin’s capable hands, eh?’ He gave them a confident smile. ‘You’ve got my mobile number, haven’t you? Keep me in touch. Let’s get a swift confession, shall we? I have a feeling in my bones that we’re getting close here. An excellent result. Well done again, Gavin.’

But it didn’t prove to be that easy. Eddie Testor wasn’t to be found at the leisure centre, although he had been scheduled for duty that afternoon. After some enquiries it transpired that he’d phoned in sick the previous day, saying that he’d caught a bug and had been told to go to bed for a day or two. But he wasn’t at his home, either, a rented flat above a video store in the centre of Romford. No one in the store or the neighbouring flats and shops had seen him for a couple of days.

Eddie Testor, it seemed, had disappeared.

By the time Kathy got back to unit 184 that evening, after following up a number of reports from the police information desks in the malls, the excitement generated by Belinda and the hunt for Testor had evaporated. Phil, the action manager, still at his sentry post by the door, filled her in in lugubrious detail. ‘Best you pack it in for the night, Kathy,’ he concluded. ‘You’re not getting paid for this anyway, not with my overtime budget.’

‘Thanks, Phil.’ She did feel weary, and thought of Leon.

She went to a phone in a quiet corner and was dialling his number when she heard a familiar female voice in the background.

‘We particularly wish to speak with Sergeant Kolla,’ the voice said, in a piercing tone. ‘We have information for her . . . There she is! We can see her over there. Sergeant! Sergeant Kolla!’

Reluctantly, Kathy put down the receiver and turned to see Phil vainly trying to restrain Harriet Rutter. The use of the first person plural was probably not a case of the royal we, she saw, for the tall figure of Professor Orr was there too, looming in support in the background.

She took them into the interview space and sat them down and tried to look enthusiastic. ‘You’ve got some information, Mrs Rutter?’

‘We feel so stupid. You see, we knew the poor girl. We knew her quite well, didn’t we Robbie?’

Orr nodded without comment.

‘A lively young thing, bubbling with life. I can’t believe it’s her. It was only just now, when we were passing one of your posters, that Robbie said to me, isn’t that our young friend at Snow White’s? And I said, good heavens, yes!’

‘And how exactly did you know her, Mrs Rutter?’

‘Well, we like to get to know the young people who work here. And she was a favourite of ours. Robbie has a weakness for Snow White’s pancakes, and I love the milk shakes . . . Yes!’ She laughed, slightly shame-faced. ‘Milk shakes!’

‘Strawberry,’ Orr said.

‘Quite delicious. I’d never had one before. She persuaded me to try it, Kerri did. She said I must try it at least once in my life, and she said it so mischievously, that I just agreed. And it was delicious. So we made it a regular thing, a pancake and strawberry milk shake. Once a week.’

‘On a Monday?’ Kathy asked hopefully.

‘No, Wednesday. I don’t know why. No reason, really. It’s just nice to have little habits, to mark the days of the week.’

‘Yes?’ Kathy smiled, waiting for more, but there didn’t seem to be any more. ‘So, did you a see Kerri on the Monday? The sixth?’

They shook their heads. ‘No. We just thought you’d want to know . . . that we knew her.’

They saw the look that Kathy wasn’t quite able to keep out of her eyes.

‘Oh, you’re disappointed,’ Mrs Rutter said, and they both frowned at once, as if she’d reproached them.

‘No, no. Not at all. Every little bit of information is useful,’ Kathy lied. They just want to find out what’s going on, she thought, want to be part of it, like everybody else, play a little role in the drama in the mall. It would probably be humiliating for the secretary of the Silvermeadow Residents’ Association not to play a part, to be able to speak as an insider to her committee.

‘Have you had a good response from the public?’ Mrs Rutter asked stiffly.

‘Oh, we’ve had a lot of reports, yes.’

‘But have you had a positive lead?’ she insisted, slightly belligerent now, as if she had a right to know.

‘Have you got a suspect?’ Orr put in bluntly.

‘I can’t discuss that I’m afraid,’ Kathy said, trying to be patient. ‘There are a number of leads we’re following up.’

Mrs Rutter nodded, as if she’d had her answer. ‘We know how you work. Look to the family first, eh? That’s usually where the answer lies, isn’t it?’

‘Really, Mrs Rutter, I can’t discuss it.’

‘That’s all right,’ she said, huffily. ‘That was our first thought too. That ridiculous little man. She said he gave her the creeps. Well, if it was him . . .’ She stopped and changed her mind. ‘It doesn’t matter. Come along, Robbie. We’ve taken up enough of the sergeant’s time.’

‘Mrs Rutter, hang on,’ Kathy said. ‘What little man? Who are you talking about?’

‘Her uncle, of course.’

‘Uncle?’

‘Well, that’s what she called him. Bruno Verdi, I’m talking about, or whatever his real name is. The so-called chairman of the Small Traders’ Association.’ She said the words with contempt. ‘That arrogant, trumped-up little man who presumes to tell the rest of us how this place should be run!’

‘You think Mr Verdi is Kerri’s uncle?’

They saw the disbelief on Kathy’s face and hesitated, as if some long-cherished gossip were coming under attack. ‘That was how Kerri referred to him one time,’ Mrs Rutter said stoutly. ‘“Uncle Bruno’s watching me again,” she said, and we thought it was her nickname for him, but she said, no, he really was her uncle, but they didn’t speak, and he gave her the creeps. That’s what she said, and I could believe it, because we saw the way he watched her too, from the front of his ice-cream place, watching her and the other girls on their roller skates. It made my skin crawl.’

‘You obviously don’t like him,’ Kathy said carefully. ‘But is there anything concrete you can tell me?’

‘The man’s clearly a phoney,’ Orr said. ‘He knows about as much about Italy as Harriet’s cat. I asked him once where he came from, and he said Rome. So I said, ah Rome, my favourite city, the Ponte Vecchio, the Pitti Palace, the Uffizi, and he just smiled and agreed. Well, you get my point—all those places are in Florence! He had no idea. I even tried a bit of Italian on him. I may be a bit rusty, but he just mumbled something and walked off.’

‘
Rude
man!’ Mrs Rutter hissed.

‘I’d say “gelato” is about as much Italian as he knows,’ Orr said dismissively.

After they left, Kathy tried to make sense of what they had said. Clearly there was some kind of feud between the ‘residents’ and the Small Traders’ Association, and some more personal animosity between their two leading figures, but the story of an ‘uncle’ seemed bizarre. Surely they must have misinterpreted something Kerri had said, and embellished it for Kathy’s benefit. Easy enough to check, she thought, and picked up the phone.

It rang for some time before Alison Vlasich answered cautiously. ‘Yes?’

‘Mrs Vlasich? It’s Sergeant Kolla from the police. How are you?’ The words came out automatically, and Kathy winced as she said them.

‘Oh, you know . . . what you’d expect I suppose.’ The voice sounded weary and flat.

‘Yes. Of course. I just wondered if there was anything we could do.’

‘No, I don’t think so. The social worker is very good to me.’

‘Oh, that’s great. Look, maybe you could help me with something. Is there another member of your family working at Silvermeadow, by any chance?’

There was a long silence. Eventually Kathy broke it. ‘Hello? Are you still there, Alison?’

‘No,’ the voice said faintly. ‘No one of my family.’

‘Oh, fine. You see, someone told us that they thought Kerri had an uncle working there . . .’

‘Yes.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Yes.’ The voice was almost inaudible.

‘Yes, she had an uncle?’

Another pause. ‘That’s right.’

‘But I thought you just said . . .’

Every answer seemed to take for ever, and Kathy began to think she’d have to drive over to talk to the woman face to face.

‘Not in my family. He’s in my ex-husband’s family.’

‘What relation is he to your ex-husband, Alison?’ Kathy said, trying to sound as if it were a matter of no great significance.

‘He’s Stefan’s brother.’

‘Stefan’s brother works at Silvermeadow? What does he do there?’

Kathy heard her sigh, then, ‘He runs an ice-cream shop.’

‘And he’s called Vlasich?’ Kathy persisted.

‘Not any more. He used to be Dragan Vlasich. Now he’s Bruno Verdi.’

Kathy stared at the notepad in front of her, shook her head. ‘Alison, you never mentioned this before.’

‘Didn’t I? No . . . it didn’t seem important.’

And Bruno Verdi hadn’t mentioned it either, she thought, nor Stefan Vlasich. What the hell’s going on?

‘Did Kerri and her uncle get on, Alison?’

‘He helped her to get her job,’ she whispered.

‘But did they get on? Were they on good terms?’

‘I’m tired now. I’ve taken a sleeping pill.’ And the line went dead.

Kathy thought. She remembered someone, early on, referring to another Vlasich with a record, apparently unconnected with this family. She went over to the computer and logged in, and tapped her request, and waited, until it came up on the screen: Dragan Vlasich, charged in June 1992 under the Sexual Offences Act 1956, the charge dropped in September of that year.

She tried to ring Brock, but his mobile requested her to leave a message, and she put down the phone and thought some more. Well, that was why they’d kept quiet, wasn’t it? Knowing what was on his file, they must be trying to protect him, Alison and Stefan. And surely neither of them would do that if they thought it remotely possible that he could have harmed their daughter. Looked at in that way, their silence seemed to vindicate him rather than the opposite.