Silvermeadow

by Barry Maitland

  ‘How did you ever put your life in his hands, Harry? I did it by mistake. What’s your excuse?’

  He held her eyes and said, ‘I got a letter today, Kathy, Christmas Eve. Me and Bo Seager, both. Our services are no longer required. The company would appreciate it if we would clear our desks and piss off.’

  He glanced back over his shoulder at North, who was now humming to himself as he ate.

  ‘Now I’m a slow learner—it took me fifty years to figure it out—but I’m not so slow that I had to wait for them to tell me. You only get one shot at life, this is not a dress rehearsal, seize the day—all those old lines, they are true. You don’t understand because you’re young, Kathy. You think you have time to spare. Well, you don’t. None of us does. I finally understood that when Connie told me she wanted to leave Gavin for me, and I realised that this was my very last chance, and after this was nothing. And I looked back over my life, and saw it for how it had really been: fifty years fretting over pennies, stuffing around, making do. And I thought, No more, no more. I didn’t know what I was going to do about it, but I was going to do something.

  ‘That afternoon I walked through the mall, smiling at the shoppers, passing the time of day, and thinking, What a load of fucking zombies. Don’t you realise how utterly pointless you are? I’ve wasted most of my life trying to keep you safe—for what? And it was then I spotted Upper North.’

  Perhaps North picked up his own name above the sound effects from the TV. He called over, mouth full of food, ‘What you talking to her about?’

  ‘I’m just putting this one straight on a few matters, Greg.’

  ‘What’s the point?’

  Jackson eased back slowly from the wall. ‘Yeah, you’re right. There is no point.’

  But there had been a hint of regret, and Kathy guessed he still wanted to tell her how it had happened.

  ‘Why didn’t you just go for the reward?’ she said quietly.

  He looked her in the eye. ‘I checked that later. Ten thousand quid. About what I expected. Pennies.’

  ‘Honest pennies.’

  He snorted and began to turn away.

  She said quickly, ‘I can see how you were able to fool everyone else, Harry. I just can’t understand how you managed to fool yourself.’

  He turned back, about to say something, but she cut in, ‘Murder isn’t like other crimes. You can’t balance a human life against cash. He can, but that’s what makes him different. You’ve persuaded yourself you can live with it, but you’re wrong.’

  Jackson shook his head slowly. ‘No. We don’t have a choice between life and death, Kathy, only between death today and death tomorrow. Enough of my friends have passed away over the years for that to finally sink in— everybody dies. Once you really accept that, that it’s not a matter of whether but of when, it puts everything else into perspective. Him’—he nodded down at the figure on the ground—‘he’s dying a couple of days or a couple of months before he might have done. So what? He’d only have wasted the time anyway. I can make better use of it than him.’

  ‘What makes you think North isn’t looking at you in the same way?’

  He smiled at her. ‘That’s why the money is already deposited equally in two Swiss bank accounts, one in his name and one in mine. That way neither can steal from the other. Don’t worry, I’ve thought a lot about this. It’s a finely balanced arrangement.’

  ‘He needs you to hide him here . . . and you need him . . . ?’

  ‘I need his silence, Kathy. Because unlike him I’m not going to be on the run for the rest of my life. I’m going to retire quietly with my new family, buy a villa overlooking a Mediterranean beach, and live like a king.’

  He seemed quite unconscious of what Kathy would have to conclude about her own future from his sharing this rosy vision with her.

  She pretended not to notice, and said, ‘So you did it all between you? Just the two of you?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Although he tried to sound cool and offhand, Harry was clearly still somewhat in awe at what they’d done.

  ‘To North’s plan?’

  ‘No,’ Jackson leant forward to Kathy’s ear, ‘my plan. When it comes to planning, ex-coppers make excellent villains. Greg North’s expertise is more in the—’

  ‘Execution.’ Kathy finished the sentence for him. ‘Yes, I’ve gathered that. Still, it must have been his idea, originally?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ Jackson shook his head, pleased by her look of disbelief. ‘I’d worked it all out long before I saw him in the mall that day. Bo got me started, actually. She told me, early on when we first began working together, about this holdup at a mall in Canada, and after that I used to think about it sometimes, just for my own amusement, working out how it could be done.’

  He stopped at the sound of North’s laughter from the other side of the room as he watched the cartoon film while the police messages continued on the radio.

  ‘Turn the small light on, Harry,’ North called out suddenly. ‘This one reflects in the screen.’

  He got up and switched off the bright overhead fluorescent while Jackson turned on a small desk lamp on a chair beside the bed, creating a pool of light in a now darkened and shadowy room, the far end illuminated by the flickering screen to which North returned.

  Harry came over and began to lead Kathy towards the bed. She stumbled, then, as he grabbed her arm, she whispered urgently, ‘Harry, please, let me try to help Orr. Let me at least sit with him.’

  He glanced over at North’s back, then shook his head. ‘Forget it, Kathy. Just sit down on the end of the bed. You’ll be more comfortable.’

  Kathy stared at the old man on the floor, unable to detect any sound or movement from him now, while Jackson searched among her things for the key to her handcuffs. When he found it he unfastened the cuff on her left wrist and clipped it to the bed frame, then sat down at the other end of the bed and gathered her possessions together. He picked up her notebook and put the rest of the things down onto the floor out of her reach.

  ‘So, you worked out how it could be done,’ Kathy prompted. She no longer really cared how they’d done it, but knew she must try to keep him talking to her.

  Jackson, reading her notes, didn’t reply at first. Then he said, ‘How much do you know about Bruno Verdi?’

  ‘Know, or suspect? I suspect that he murdered his niece, Kerri Vlasich, and before that two other girls, maybe more.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Jackson returned his attention to the notebook, turning the pages slowly.

  ‘Do you know?’ she prompted.

  ‘Some time ago we had a bit of a problem with a girl called Norma Jean. You know about her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yeah. Vagrancy, thieving, soliciting, dealing, shooting up in the toilets. Not unique by any means, but more persistent than most. Nobody seemed prepared to deal with her.

  ‘Well, one day I was down the gym with Bruno and Speedy and we were talking about Norma Jean. Bruno was complaining about how we weren’t solving the problem, and how it was beginning to affect business. I said I’d love to get rid of the girl, if anyone could tell me how, and Bruno said, if I really meant that, he could take care of it. When I asked what he meant, he looked kind of sly, you know, and said he could arrange to have her taken to Birmingham.’

  ‘Birmingham?’

  ‘He said he knew of a refuge there. Once there, he was sure Norma Jean wouldn’t want to come back. I said that sounded good to me. He said the only problem was that she wasn’t likely to go voluntarily. So it was a matter of finding some way to persuade her, for her own good of course, and ours. He said he could arrange this, if security would turn a blind eye, and if necessary cover up for him afterwards.’

  ‘You agreed to this?’ Kathy said, incredulous.

  ‘I didn’t know about his earlier history with the ice-cream van then, and he seemed genuinely concerned for the girl, wanting to help her start again. Honestly, Kathy, I thought he was doing us all a big favour.’


  ‘What changed your mind?’

  ‘Few months ago I had a run-in with Speedy. I’d caught him before taking drugs, or under the influence, but I’d always given him the benefit of the doubt. I knew he was on pain-killers, and I thought that was what was making him groggy. But this time I caught him red-handed with speed, and I said he was out. So then he told me a few home truths about what was going on in this place, things I didn’t know about.

  ‘He told me that after our conversation in the gym, Verdi had asked him if there was anywhere at Silvermeadow where he could keep Norma Jean for a few days, to frighten her, so she’d know not to come back. They’d looked at the building plans together, and found this room at the back of the plenum that wasn’t used, because it was practically inaccessible. So Verdi did some work on it, fixing it up with a solid door and moving in furniture, and Speedy removed it from the computer plans of the building. Part of the deal was that Speedy wanted a CCTV camera installed, so he could watch what went on in the room from his control console.

  ‘So he was able to tell me exactly what Verdi did to the girl. I’m not sure she knew too much about it—she was doped with some stuff Speedy was experimenting with. Then after three or four days, Verdi “took her to Birmingham”. That was the phrase he used for dumping her in the compactor. And the problem was, I was implicated in it. They could say I’d put them up to it, encouraged them from the beginning. And not just in that one case, either. Some time after Norma Jean we had a similar problem with another difficult kid, a foreign girl, and I said to Verdi, sort of joking, that I wished she’d sod off to Birmingham too, and he smirked and tapped his nose and said he’d see about it.’

  He paused, and Kathy saw that the pages of the notebook he held in his fingers were trembling.

  ‘Speedy knew Verdi was killing the girls?’

  ‘Yeah. He’d seen him do it on camera, and he had the evidence on tape.’ He glanced back over his shoulder at a holdall at the side of the room.

  ‘You got the tapes from Speedy’s house,’ Kathy said. ‘You murdered Speedy and Wiff.’

  ‘Greg did it,’ Jackson said softly. ‘It had to be done. They were in the way, and we needed to get you lot to leave Silvermeadow.’

  Kathy tried to take in the implications of this. Her head was buzzing and sore, the noise from the TV and radio distracting. ‘And Kerri? Did Verdi kill her too?’

  Jackson didn’t answer. He looked away, then North’s voice called from the other end of the room, ‘News,’ and Jackson got to his feet and went over to the TV.

  While they were occupied, Kathy tried to explore what she could of her surroundings. She couldn’t reach the suitcase or other things at the top end of the bed, nor could she get anywhere near Orr. The bed frame was surprisingly heavy, and gave a loud creak when she tried to move it. She hesitated, tried again, but could only shift it with difficulty, an inch or so at a time. She felt under the mattress and sleeping bag, hoping for something she might use as a weapon, or to prise open the handcuffs, but without success.

  After ten minutes Jackson returned, carrying two glasses of red wine. ‘Nothing on the news,’ he said, handing one glass to her.

  ‘Doesn’t he mind sharing?’ she asked, nodding at North, engrossed now in some soccer.

  ‘His taste runs more to the chemical than the grape,’ Jackson muttered.

  Kathy sipped at the wine. It burned her split lip and the taste reminded her of her evening drinking with Brock. The thought filled her with a sense of loss and despair. He wasn’t coming to rescue her. No one was. Jackson was right: this was a truly stupid way to spend Christmas Eve. She didn’t want to listen to more of his story, yet she knew she must keep him talking.

  ‘So this was the room,’ she said.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘That Verdi used.’

  ‘Oh, yes. When Speedy explained it all to me, I went and had it out with Verdi. I told him I didn’t want to know about Birmingham, or what he’d done with the kids. As far as I was concerned he’d taken them to a refuge, and that was that. I told him the basement room was off limits now, the locks changed, and there were to be no more disappearances.’

  ‘How did he take it?’

  ‘The way he takes most things, with that big operatic smile that means nothing.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Maybe three or four months ago.’

  Long before Kerri disappeared then. Kathy had the feeling she didn’t want to hear about Kerri.

  ‘It was some time before I put the basement room together with the perfect robbery. The problem with the Canadian hold-up Bo had described wasn’t the heist itself, but the getaway. There isn’t going to be much time between robbing a security truck and having the alarm raised, and when the robbery takes place in an out-of-town shopping centre there aren’t any surrounding city streets to get lost in. There’s great access to the motorway, but it’s covered with cameras.

  ‘But suppose the robbers could disappear into the centre itself—the last place people would think of looking for them. I thought it was a neat idea. I looked closely at the way Armacorp did their collections, and I reckoned I could see how it could be done, using that hidden room.’

  ‘But how did North get down here after the robbery? Not through the security centre door into the plenum.’

  ‘Same way the kid Wiff got in and out of the plenum, through the drop ducts. There’s one in each of the stairways. North climbed down the last one with the uniforms and cash, and I replaced the grille after him and spent a couple of hours locked in a toilet cubicle, out of the way.’

  Harry Jackson drained his glass and glanced at his watch. Kathy didn’t want him to leave, certainly not until she had found some way to hold North at bay.

  ‘But why on earth involve a madman like North, Harry?’ she said.

  ‘Because I’d never have done it otherwise. I had a plan all right, and I was beginning to feel desperate enough to dream about the money, but I was no hold-up merchant.

  I’d never done anything like that before. In my heart I didn’t believe I could do it. It was only when I recognised him in the mall that day that I thought, for the first time, that I might actually go through with it.’

  He glanced at her glass. ‘You’re not drinking.’

  ‘No. I can’t face it.’

  ‘You should drink. It’ll make you feel a bit better.’

  Kathy laughed. ‘It’d take more than a glass of wine to make me feel better, Harry.’

  ‘I could get you a bottle of something else. What do you like? Vodka? Scotch?’

  He is feeling guilty, she thought. He’d feel better if I died with a smile on my face. Some hope. This was why he was talking so much—his guilt, and presumably because there was no one else to confess to, apart from North, who wouldn’t have understood his need. Kathy doubted if Connie knew much of the real story.

  ‘I don’t think so, Harry. Here, you have the wine.’

  He shrugged and took the glass. ‘Look,’ he said, so softly she had to lean over to hear, ‘I’ll do what I can to help you, okay? Don’t worry, and for God’s sake don’t annoy him.’

  ‘Are you a Catholic?’ she asked.

  ‘Lapsed,’ he said, surprised. A sudden look of consternation appeared on his face, as if he thought she might be about to demand a priest to give her the last rites. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just wondered. So you walked up to North in the mall and said, I know who you are, did you?’ Kathy asked. ‘He must have been pleased.’

  ‘Not quite like that. I followed him out to his car and we had a conversation. I told him who I was, and said that before I decided whether to turn him in, I had a proposition to put to him. I said I was looking for a partner to help me steal a few million quid, if he was still in the business.’

  ‘He believed you?’

  ‘After a while. He told me he’d come back to the UK to see his girlfriend, Sophie, who had had his kid while he was abroad. He’d never seen the little girl,
and he wanted to persuade Sophie to come away with him. His funds were running low, too, and he’d been talking to one or two old mates about doing another job. Only he was finding that people weren’t so pleased to see him, after all the publicity he’d got the last time.’

  ‘The bank job in the City. He killed two coppers. Didn’t that bother you, Harry? Or did your amazing discovery that everyone has to die one day make that all right?’

  Kathy had resolved not to antagonize him, but there was something so self-absorbed about the way he was going on that she hadn’t been able to hold back the bitter words.

  Jackson looked sharply at her. ‘I’d watch that tongue, Kathy. You won’t find North as patient as me.’

  She bit back a reply.

  He looked away, as if he was losing interest in talking further with her, and she came in quickly with the question she most needed answered, but dreaded most.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question about Kerri Vlasich. Did Verdi kill her?’

  He looked down at his shoes, then rose slowly to his feet. ‘I think we’ve talked enough.’

  ‘Who did kill her, if he didn’t?’

  He was checking his watch again. For a moment he seemed about to say something, but then shook his head and began to walk away.

  ‘You did, didn’t you, Harry?’ Kathy said. ‘Kerri used to baby-sit for Sophie Bryant, and one time she saw you there, with North, and recognised you from Silvermeadow. That’s why she had to die.’

  Jackson stopped and looked back at her, his face expressionless.

  It had been a guess, but the only way Kathy could see that Kerri could have put herself at risk was by baby-sitting for North’s girlfriend. Seeing North alone would have meant nothing to her, but seeing Jackson with North would mean something once the robbery had been carried out and North’s picture was in every newspaper. Then Jackson’s dream of a quiet retirement with Connie would be blown, and, like North, he would be on the run for ever more.

  And it meant that Jackson was prepared to kill for that dream; that he hadn’t just tolerated North’s murdering, but had himself killed in order to protect himself. Which was why his words of reassurance to Kathy, that he would do what he could to help her, were meaningless.