Silvermeadow (38 page)

As she searched through that and the other tapes, trying to find any signs of North before and after her sighting, and getting annoyed with herself for the slow and inefficient way she was working the machine, and frustrated by the mechanical way in which the cameras cut in and out of scenes regardless of their possible importance, she realised how much easier this would have been with somebody like Speedy at the controls. Without his inquisitive eye to guide it, the whole system was clumsy and arbitrary, as likely to miss a crucial event as capture it. How fortunate for North and his accomplices then that Speedy hadn’t been around. And who knows but that Speedy’s cunning, prying eye might even have recognised someone among them, and zoomed in and followed the suspect, maybe right out to their car, and caught their registration number, and the faces of the others . . .

But he hadn’t, and without that guiding hand the tapes were frustratingly unhelpful, the external ones completely useless, with only distance shots of acres of rain-battered cars, dazzling headlight flashes, and tiny black figures scurrying through the darkness.

The removal of Speedy had been very lucky for the robbers in another way too, of course, for it had closed the Vlasich murder case and with it unit 184 and the police presence at Silvermeadow. North would presumably have seen the press reports of Speedy’s death on Friday, but would he have realised its implications for his operation?

Kathy returned to scanning the tapes, but without much enthusiasm. She found it hard to concentrate in the way that was necessary, as the others were doing, systematically freezing frames and identifying figures to be later enlarged and enhanced and printed out for identification. After a while her mind returned to Speedy.

Because they had only been aware of the first crime, Kerri’s murder, when Speedy died, they had never really doubted the connection between those two events. But suppose Speedy had been removed in order to clear the way for the second crime, the robbery? Perhaps he had even seen something on his screens to warn him of what was coming, as Sharon had hinted, and had had to be disposed of, and in a way that would make the police assume a connection to Kerri’s murder, rather than forewarn them of the robbery.

This was fanciful, she told herself, and she was getting tired. There had been ample forensic and other evidence to link Speedy to Kerri’s murder, from her backpack to the ketamine and hair samples—although Leon had seemed concerned at the absence of Kerri’s fingerprints at either Wiff ’s den or Speedy’s house.

Kathy tried his mobile again. It was switched off. Her phone at home was on the answering machine. She sighed and returned to her task.

In another office, Brock was sitting down with Bo Seager. Like Harry Jackson, she too had been away from Silvermeadow when the robbery had happened, and had phoned Brock soon after learning of the details, insisting that she come to Hornchurch Street rather than meet at the shopping centre. She was tense, agitated even, and asked if she could smoke a cigarette. When it was alight she continued fiddling with the gold lighter while she asked Brock to describe to her exactly what had happened.

At the end of it she said flatly, ‘This is terrible.’

Brock said nothing, watching as she slapped the lighter down on the cigarette packet on the table, then tapped the filter tip of her cigarette up and down on the lighter, her eyes fixed on it without seeing, eyelids blinking rapidly.

‘Now we have five dead,’ she said. ‘They’re really going to have my ass.’

‘They?’

‘The board.’ She took in the questioning look on his face. ‘Oh yes. This will be my fault. Nathan Tindall is desperate to have my job. He feeds poison to all the other money men on the board.’

‘It’s hard to see how they could blame you for any of this.’

‘I get the blame for everything that happens inside those eighty acres, David. That’s my job.’

She took a deep lungful and then exhaled, speaking through the smoke. ‘They had inside help, did they?’

‘We don’t know yet.’

‘But you think?’

‘I’d rather not say at the moment.’

She nodded, as if he’d confirmed it. ‘Of course they did. And I guess it could be me, right?’

‘Could it?’

‘Why not? We’d all think about it for a million or two. I got Harry Jackson out of the way, didn’t I?’

‘Did you?’

‘Yeah. I sent him to a security conference that’s on in London at the moment. We agreed months ago that he should go. Really bad timing, so close to Christmas.’

‘Where was this?’

‘At the Barbican. Ironic, isn’t it? He missed his own case study.’

‘Is there any other reason I should suspect you, Bo?’ Brock asked, smiling.

‘Actually there is.’ She took another deep draw on her cigarette. ‘You see, I’ve seen this done before.’

The smile vanished from Brock’s face and he leant forward. ‘Go on.’

‘In Canada. About two years ago I spent a month in Toronto, as part of a centre management course. I was mainly based downtown, in the Eaton Centre, but while I was there there was a big hold-up at one of the suburban shopping malls, at Yorktown. Most of the big out-of-town North American centres don’t have the service tunnel arrangement we have at Silvermeadow because it’s relatively expensive to build and maintain, but Yorktown was like us, too big for its site, so they put the service bays underneath to save space. One day some bandits got into the service areas and hid out until a security truck arrived and gathered up the cash from all the stores. On the final pick-up they jumped the guards, took their uniforms and calmly climbed into the truck, and the driver drove off with them inside. They hijacked him once they were out in clear country. But they made a mistake.’

‘What was that?’

‘They tied up the guards and locked them in a storeroom, but one of them managed to make enough noise to attract help. The cops caught up with the truck before the gang could clean it out, and they nailed them all. This lot didn’t make that mistake.’

‘No, they made very sure that couldn’t happen. Interesting. And the Canadian gang had inside help?’

‘The security man at the service road entrance checkpoint. He’d got bored with his job, and had passed the time working out how it could be done. He mentioned it to his brother-in-law, who knew some bad people. But for a time it looked as if someone in the centre management office had been involved, maybe even the centre manager himself. The police gave him a tough going over, and afterwards the centre owners got rid of him anyway, just in case.’

‘I see.’ Brock rubbed a hand through his beard thoughtfully. The connection with Toronto corresponded chillingly well with what they suspected of North’s movements. It sounded as if he hadn’t been idle while he’d been away.

‘If our case did follow your Canadian model, who would you nominate as the insider?’ he asked. ‘Assuming it isn’t you.’

She shrugged. ‘Speedy? Who else?’

‘Yes. Well, with or without your help, that place of yours seems to have become a magnet for killers, Bo.’

‘Yeah.’ She stubbed the cigarette out angrily. ‘It’s a nightmare, Brock. A dream that’s turned sick. I’ll tell you that for nothing.’

It was after midnight when Kathy got home. There were the remains of a take-away Chinese meal on the table, an empty bottle of Chilean red beside it, and Leon asleep on the sofa. He opened his eyes and watched her for a moment as she stood at the table scavenging the remains of the beanshoots and noodles.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’ She shot him a smile as she lifted the fork to her mouth. ‘Sorry about the meal,’ she mumbled, mouth full.

‘Haven’t you eaten?’

‘Not much. You know how it is.’

‘Serious, is it?’ He yawned and slid a hand across his hair.

‘Ten million quid. Two dead.’

He nodded. ‘That’s what they said on the news.’

‘Then you know about as much as me,’ she said, and turned back to scrape at the foil container.

‘And tomorrow?’ he asked.

She shrugged, came over and slumped down beside him. ‘I’ll have to go back. I’m really sorry.’

‘That’s okay. I understand.’ He stroked her brow.

‘Tuesday evening. I’ll go with you to Liverpool.’

His fingers hesitated in their caress through her hair. ‘You sure? Can they spare you?’

‘Oh yes. This is a manhunt now. I’ll check with Brock, but I’m sure it’ll be okay.’

‘I could leave it till after Christmas.’

‘No, I want to get away with you. Really, I’m interested. I’m sorry I reacted the wrong way before.’ It occurred to her that she seemed to be saying sorry a lot. ‘What did you do tonight?’ she asked.

‘Not much. Bit of TV.’ He sounded bored and glum.

‘What about tomorrow?’

‘No idea. Do you think Brock will need me on your case?’

‘He hasn’t contacted you?’

‘No.’ He looked rather forlorn.

‘I think the Robbery Squad have their own lab liaison.’

‘Oh, well. I can wash my hair,’ he said with a sigh. ‘And watch your new microwave. And polish your new TV.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be. But maybe we should think about moving closer to that place. The way things are happening to them, they need you there permanently.’

‘I could fix you up with a job at Cuddles.’

‘Thanks. Golliwogs section, I suppose.’

Kathy laughed. ‘The lab hasn’t come up with anything new on Speedy and Wiff, has it?’

‘Not as far as I know.’ He yawned again, filling his lungs noisily. ‘They’re handing it all over to division now. Why would the kid own an antique coin, do you think?’

‘Wiff?’

‘Yes, among his stuff. Seemed odd.’

‘What did it look like?’

‘Nothing much. Small, black and worn smooth.’

‘That reminds me of something.’

‘My cock, do you mean?’

Kathy laughed and slid her hand up his thigh. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘That’s it. I think of little else.’

‘Liar,’ he said.

15

T
he next morning Essex was shrouded in fog. It muffled the sound of traffic on the motorway and forced it to slow to a crawl in the denser pockets, where the light of the hidden sun barely penetrated.

When she finally reached the Silvermeadow junction Kathy stopped at the top of the exit ramp and gazed out over the site. The grey building was a ghostly presence in the mist, like an alien craft freshly landed in the fold of the slope and surrounded by a scattering of cars, capsules attendant on the mother ship. In contrast to the deathly gloom of the morning, it was clearly alive, for light glimmered from its spine along the route of the mall arcade, and Kathy could almost swear that she could make out the faint tinkle of jingle bells, even at that distance. A few dark huddled figures were scurrying between the cars and the centre, parasites trapped in a world of machines.

She thought of her imaginings of the previous evening, that Kerri’s murder and North’s robbery, and all the accompanying deaths and mayhem, might be part of one conspiracy, not two, and immediately felt the improbability of the idea, as if the daylight, even daylight as dim as this, cast things in a more realistic light. Crime happened like everything else, not at evenly spaced intervals but in clusters and bunches. Feast or famine. Nothing for a time, then all at once. So Silvermeadow was catching up with its normal crime load after a quiet interval. The fact that both series of crimes had happened here was simply coincidence.

Everyone else seemed to believe this. Not that it was discussed, but when she walked down through the service road and spoke to a SOCO crew combing the basement for further evidence without much hope or enthusiasm, and again when she went upstairs to the temporarily reoccupied unit 184 and talked to the few people there, Kathy had the clear impression that everyone took it for granted that Silvermeadow was no longer relevant, that the real centre of the action had moved elsewhere. Like stage hands cleaning up on the morning after a big show, they saw themselves as far removed from the real actors, who were now waking, no doubt, to champagne breakfasts in some remote first-class hotel, or on a jumbo jet high above some distant ocean. Silvermeadow, they seemed to feel, had been the innocent setting for the robbers’ latest gig, just as it had unfortunately accommodated Kerri’s killer.

She walked along the deserted upper mall and came once again to the balcony overlooking the food court and rain forest, giving a nod to the gorilla who still crouched in his bamboo grove. But Silvermeadow wasn’t innocent. After spending a week here, nothing about the place felt coincidental or innocent. From start to finish the centre was calculated and manipulative, dressed up to deceive. If it had been a suspect rather than a place, she would have said its manner was guilty as hell.

As if the beast could sense her thoughts, the escalators in front of her gave a sudden growl, then lurched into motion, and simultaneously from the trees below came the twitter of electronic parrots. Two disparate events, Kathy thought, still caught up in her doubts. What links the parrots and the escalators? The place, the time, and the hidden hand that presses the switch. And if you wanted to find that hand, it wouldn’t matter which event you investigated, because both would lead back to the same place.

From one of the food units down below came a rattle of a security grille being raised. It came from Bruno’s Gelati, and as she watched she saw the owner step out and gaze around at his patch of the food court. He was wearing a black waistcoat over his white shirt today, and was looking very sleek and pleased with himself, his hair and moustache gleaming with oil in the bright Mediterranean glow of the lights. He moved among the tables making small fastidious adjustments, straightening a chair here, wiping a surface there. As Kathy watched him she recalled the story of the little girl he had enticed into his ice-cream van.
Mr Kreemee
. The thought made her feel slightly sick, but then, she reminded herself, the story had no significance for their case. Just another coincidence, that he should be here, that it should be his niece who had been taken. The world was full of coincidences, and the fact that a violent robbery had followed hard on the heels of a murder was just one more. She turned away from the rail and walked away.