Chasing Innocence

by Potter, John

  ‘The software works like a normal video player.’ He demonstrated fast forward and rewind. The digits were now accelerating like a stop watch, cars appearing as momentary flares on the screen. He pressed pause.

  Brian looked from the screen to Adam. ‘Seems simple enough but what about the other cameras?’

  ‘That’s the clever bit, watch this.’ Adam pressed a key and the image switched to a bird’s-eye view of the car park, from a camera mounted high above the services entrance. The time stayed the same. He moved through the different cameras, the next inside above the main services doors, looking along the main concourse. It showed the corralled area of tables on the left and the shops on the right, the image frozen with bodies mid-motion. The next camera faced the line of shop entrances. A third camera pointed back along the main concourse to the entrance, the shops on the left, the seated area on the right. The final two feeds were blank screens with the time stamped at the bottom. He switched to the camera covering the shop entrances.

  ‘How come the picture is so clear?’ Brian asked.

  ‘It’s the quality of these cameras and the lighting. I could make a fair guess at the branding on that woman’s handbag if I wanted. They probably rely on the quality to make convictions.’

  ‘The blank screens are dead cameras?’

  ‘Yup, the computer stamps the blank image anyway.’ He switched back to the car park slip road.

  ‘Very good.’ Brian reached across to his drink. ‘So we step through this until Sarah’s car shows up.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Adam fast-forwarded through the images, a brief glare on the screen heralding the headlights of each new car. They watched through to 17:45. ‘I called Sarah about this time,’ Adam said, concentrating on the screen. ‘She was approaching Delamere.’

  The images played on, the time marching forward. Then the screen flared and Adam paused the image at 17:49. The green Rover was frozen on the screen as it turned into the car park, a smaller silver car right behind. ‘That’s it, that’s Sarah and the Rover!’ They both leaned in.

  ‘Christ, Adam, she’s not being very discreet, could she have got any closer?’

  Adam studied the image, hypnotised by the small silhouette of Sarah inside the silver car. ‘The Rover turned off the motorway unexpectedly.’

  ‘Take it back a couple seconds,’ Brian instructed. ‘Think we had the number plate there.’ He produced a small worn notepad and a very short pencil from his back pocket. The image skipped back several seconds and then froze. The lettering of the number plate was clearly highlighted against the luminous background. Brian wrote it down. ‘That a match for the one she gave you?’

  ‘It is, except before I wasn’t sure on the last two digits. We are now. Detective Boer will be pleased about that.’

  ‘Yeah, well we won’t get too excited just yet.’ Brian looked at the screen. ‘Jump to the other camera and see if you can zoom in and get a look at him.’ Adam switched to the bird’s-eye view above the services, showing a much smaller image of the Rover pulling into a space at the far end of the car park. Sarah’s car continued almost completely around, parking diagonally opposite and closer to the services exit. Adam froze the image when the Rover door opened and zoomed in. The Rover grew to a quarter of the screen’s size.

  Brian fidgeted impatiently. ‘Is that as close as you can get?’

  ‘Yup, at this distance the camera has limits like your eyes do.’ He zoomed closer and the image broke down into square blocks of colour. He zoomed out and centred on Simon, his head and shoulders above the top of the car door, pink and dark smudges but no defined features. He let the footage play, pausing again as Simon opened the boot, but they were at the wrong angle to see anything. They watched him grow on the screen as he moved towards the camera, into the bright circle of light spotlighting the entrance. Adam paused the image, filling the screen with Simon’s head and shoulders.

  ‘Bingo!’ he said. ‘That’s the difference we get with him closer. The only detail we can’t see is the colour of his eyes.’ They both stared at the face.

  Brian spoke first. ‘Let’s hope Sarah’s following the right car, this guy looks like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Big though, hard to take down. Follow him inside.’ Brian copied the time stamp into his notebook, 17:53:37

  Adam switched to the inside camera. The top and rear of Simon’s head appeared, walking straight over to a mini arcade on the right. He positioned himself and turned so he could look back at the entrance.

  ‘Stop!’ Brian instructed. ‘Guess he is the right guy.’

  ‘There’s a doubt?’ Adam asked.

  ‘There’s always doubt. No point us tracking the wrong guy because he caught Sarah’s eye at the right moment. So we make sure, and that my friend,’ he nodded at the image, ‘is pretty damn sure.’

  Adam studied the screen. ‘He looks like he’s waiting for someone?’

  ‘He is, he’s waiting for someone to search him out as they walk through the entrance. Keep your eye out for Sarah.’ Adam nodded and fast-forwarded. The time ticked to 18:01:47. Simon stepped from the arcade and into the services, moving through the crowd.

  ‘Must have thought he was in the clear. Take us back outside to the main camera, see what your wife’s been up to.’ He looked down at his notes. ‘Back to the mug shot of Simon.’

  Adam flicked between cameras to the car park, playing the images in reverse, people walking fast backward. He stopped at 17:53:35 and then set it playing. They both watched Sarah’s stationary car, partially blocked by the yellow time stamp. After a few seconds a small shadowed shape emerged, moving away from the services around the edge of the car park.

  ‘Christ, what’s she doing?’

  ‘Checking out the Rover,’ Brian stated. ‘She’s got nerve, that’s for sure.’

  Adam watched Sarah peer into the Rover, then disappear from view behind it, as if she were kneeling, and then seconds later she stood and walked towards the services. ‘I told her to be careful,’ he exclaimed, plaintively.

  ‘You should pay attention. She’s doing what she had to.’

  Adam let this pass, mostly because a building sense of dread rendered him mute. They were looking at images from over twelve hours ago. He paused playback as Sarah emerged into the light of the services. He zoomed in and centred on his wife’s head and shoulders, the light picking out her features. A chill crawled up his spine. She was looking directly into the camera, through time, right at him. There was nothing hopeful in her eyes any more, just narrow determination.

  Brian struggled to pull his eyes from her face. He saw more than determination. To him she looked driven and haunted. Sarah Sawacki was a very interesting woman.

  Adam forced himself to switch to the third camera inside, looking back towards the entrance. They watched Sarah walk towards them, tracking her progress through each internal camera, to the bagel bar just as Simon disappeared into the toilets.

  ‘He didn’t even see her,’ Brian said. ‘He wasn’t even looking. Fast-forward to when he comes out.’

  ‘What exactly are we looking for?’ Adam asked.

  ‘Anything at all. Anything that might tell us more about this guy, anything.’

  Adam fast-forwarded to the point where Simon re-emerged. ‘Was that almost ten minutes he was in there?’

  Brian compared times. ‘Eleven minutes twenty-eight seconds to be precise.’

  ‘What was he doing?’

  ‘I dunno. Taking a dump? Can you see anything different, same clothes?’

  ‘It all looks the same.’ Adam rewound to a full image of Simon emerging, illuminated by harsh light outside the toilets. ‘I can make out detail on the T-shirt, like a faded logo.’ He filled the screen with Simon’s chest and the faint outline of a logo, changing the colours of the image, darkening and lightening, moving slowly between different contrasts and hues, the logo sometimes clearer and then fading.

  Brian tilted his head. ‘Is that three lions?’

  Adam no
dded. ‘Looks like it. The light’s picking out old glue or discolouration in the fabric. You might not notice stood next to him. That’s about the best I can do right now.’

  ‘Three lions isn’t going to get us far. Where’d he go after?’

  They watched Simon turn from the toilets back to the main concourse and into a shop, switching cameras and seeing him stand by a rack of magazines. Adam paused the image as Simon reached for a magazine.

  Brian scuffed his chair closer. ‘What magazine is he picking up?’

  Adam jogged the image backwards and forwards, Simon now frozen with the magazine in hand. It gave them an angled view of the cover. He enlarged it on the screen, a blue cover centred with two smudged shapes of white. One letter of the title was clear enough to guess at.

  They both leaned in, shoulder to shoulder. ‘Is that a bird?’ Brian squinted.

  Adam did the same. ‘Not sure, looks more like a boat, maybe a yacht if that letter is an H.’

  Brian sat back and blinked. ‘I think you’re right. A yachting magazine?’ He pulled open the atlas. The top two points of his upside down triangle were Blackpool and Hull. ‘I guess they’d have marinas. Let’s see what else he picks up.’

  Simon kept looking at the same magazine. Adam let the images run in real time but it was difficult to see whether he was flicking through it or actually reading. Then Simon stepped across to the till and paid for the magazine and then immediately exited into the food court.

  Brian closed the atlas on his lap. ‘Swing over to Sarah, see what she’s up to.’

  Adam did, finding Sarah hunched over a table with a hand to her ear. Two cups of coffee and her bag were sitting on the table. The time stamp was now 18:18:22. ‘She must be talking to me.’ Adam said, watching a ginger-haired man pass beside her table, then two frames of him reaching across it and then away.

  ‘Pause that.’ Brian said, thoughtfully. ‘That must be one of the guys that took her phone.’

  Adam forwarded through the images. ‘She said some guy knocked her drink over.’ It occurred to him as he watched that this was their last conversation. The time stamp now read 18:23:01. They watched Sarah stand and step onto the main concourse.

  ‘Switch to the camera above the entrance.’ Adam did. The seats were now on the left, the shops and arcade on the right. The first frame showed a smudge of ginger at the bottom. As they stepped through the images it moved towards Sarah.

  ‘Slow it down. There’s another one somewhere, probably behind her.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ Adam asked.

  Brian looked sideways at him and then back at the screen. ‘Must be where she lost the phone.’

  They watched the ginger-haired man walk into Sarah, then a dark-haired man pull free Sarah’s bag. He ran straight into Simon and then spreadeagled on the floor. Simon handed Sarah her bag.

  ‘Now that’s interesting,’ Brian said.

  Adam was incredulous. ‘Are we really sure he’s the right guy?’

  The images kept playing and Simon turned away. ‘Oh Christ!’ Adam said, watching Sarah and Simon link hands. She looked so small next to him.

  Brian grinned. ‘I guess this is where she got his name, she doesn’t mess about. Jump back outside and fast-forward.’

  Adam’s finger paused over the key and then he switched to the bird’s-eye view outside, watching Simon make his way to the Rover. The headlights came on and the car reversed. It looped around the top of the screen and down the right side, passing behind Sarah’s car then off the screen. Her headlights blinked on and she followed.

  Adam began rewinding the images. ‘I’ll see if we can track the pickpockets.’

  ‘Don’t bother.’ Brian stood, stuffing the maps into the bag with the atlas.

  ‘But…’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘They attacked Sarah, we should see where they went.’

  ‘Leave that to the police. It’s not important. Time for Warwick, Mr Sawacki.’ He held out his hand. ‘Keys.’

  ‘Keys?’

  ‘The car keys, come on.’

  ‘You’re not insured, Brian, I can’t let you drive.’

  Brian laughed out loud, the sound echoing into the ceiling. It was the first time Adam had heard him laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Adam, you’re going to be busy going over every square inch of every image we just looked at. And then checking that T-shirt logo some more. And then you’re going to do the whole lot again and then again.’

  ‘But, you aren’t insured.’

  ‘This isn’t your neatly ordered world, remember? It’s the one where the good-looking Samaritan drove away with my daughter stuffed in his boot and your wife following in hot pursuit. I promise to drive carefully.’

  THIRTY-TWO

  Sarah heard a distant metallic sound and then the close rumble of heavy concrete in front of her. It was the only wall, she had decided, where a door could be. A thin sliver of natural light crept into the small space and she pulled her legs back and shifted into a squat on the mattress. The door was two breeze blocks thick, edging further into the room. The gap between each block was filled with hardened foam, the same between the blocks and the plywood panelling. For soundproofing, she imagined. The door stopped and a thick arm moved into the space, pushing the block sideways, the muscles in the arm taut with the effort.

  The block came to rest and Simon’s large frame filled the entrance, almost as formidable as the concrete door. Then he moved back, disappearing from view, leaving a square of open space. She was looking into the garage, but where was she? She fought every instinct to run for the opening, forcing herself to stay where she was. He reappeared with the girl in his arms, ducking then shuffling through and towards her. He kneeled and leaned forward, lowering the girl onto the mattress.

  Sarah tightened her grip beneath the blanket, around the leg of the small footstool. She lifted it a little so the blanket fell free and then with every ounce of strength, swung it around in an arc defined by the low ceiling, aiming at the back of his head. Her fury exploded with the physical action, the effort forcing a low growl. Simon shifted his weight too late in reflex to the sudden movement, the stool catching the side of his head, raking his ear and bouncing hard off his shoulder. She immediately swung back around, aiming another blow, eyes wide, the growl turning to a scream. That was stopped short by the flat of his hand as it pistoned outwards, smacking into her chest and sending her sprawling across the room. She thumped into the wall, books from the shelves falling around and onto her.

  Winded, she sucked in air, desperately looking for the stool. But he was already moving towards her, narrow paths of blood winding darkly down the side of his face and the stubble on his chin. She braced herself for a violent reaction but there was no evidence of anger in his eyes, just an incredulous curiosity that verged on compassion. He leaned in, his shadow moving over her body. He studied her, taking the whole of her in.

  ‘Sarah Sawacki, why did you have to follow me?’ A statement more than a question, asked in the same soft accent.

  She blinked back at him, her white shirt rising and falling as she collected her breath. He wiped blood from his chin and continued. ‘In four hours last night you created more problems for me than I’ve had in the last four years. That is something to be admired, at least by me. Sadly not by anyone else here. You’re lucky the brothers are busy, fixing the problems you have created. Hakan is not much better though, not so much a lover of pain, just of answers.’

  Sarah breathed in as if to say something, but he stopped her with an index finger over his own lips. He picked up the wooden stool and looked back at her. ‘I really wish you had not followed me.’ And then he shuffled back to the gap and ducked out. Seconds later his face reappeared. ‘You can come out by yourself or I can come and get you.’

  She did not move. He had not laid a single speculative finger on her, nor had she seen the realised opportunity chase across his eyes. She had seen something, was
it regret? Panic bubbled heavy in her stomach as she thought through her options, long enough for him to stoop back down and only then did she move, slowly crawling towards him, past Andrea asleep on the mattress in the corner.

  The door was part of the garage wall, opening into the room from beneath the work bench. She had to crawl through the opening and out from under the bench before she could stand, realising the space must somehow be claimed from the kitchen. She brushed herself down and watched Simon, keen to know how the door closed in the vain hope she might figure out a way to open it from inside. He leaned over the bench and pulled free a metal cable attached to a hook on the wall. The wall was also home to saws, lines of screwdrivers, spanners and various other tools. She liked the idea of a saw, but to reach them she had to get past him. Otherwise, save for a stack of yachting magazines, the garage was clean and empty. Cleaner than any garage she had ever seen.

  Simon glanced at her as if assessing her intentions, pushing his hand into a thick glove and pulling the metal cable towards him, as if doing a bicep curl. The muscles in his arm and across his body bulged, stretching the material of his T-shirt, now stained with blood from his head. The door slowly inched back across the opening and then towards them, finally dropping into place with a heavy thud. If she had not just watched it close, she would never know it was there.

  ‘You’re so clever,’ she said.

  He smiled thinly and laid the glove and cable on the workbench, before ushering her out of the garage, through a hallway and into a living room, closing the doors behind them. The living room stretched away further than it was wide, a brown sofa on the right. On the left white vertical blinds reflected most of the daylight back out to the day.

  In the middle of the room was a plain wooden chair, on the carpet beside the chair a bag of black plastic cable ties. Her stomach turned and she stopped. Simon’s hand clamped on her shoulder and directed her around and down onto the chair.

  ‘You can struggle,’ he said, ‘in which case I will hold you down. Or you can just let me do this. Either way it’s going to happen.’