Silvermeadow bak-5

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Perfect cover,’ Brock announced. ‘The place was packed with people with bulging shopping bags. They could walk out without the least suspicion. Even if something had happened down in the service road to arouse suspicion and cut the operation short, the people in the mall could stroll away without suspicion. They might have been women for all we know, frazzled shoppers with bags and pushchairs and kids hanging from their elbows- maybe the little girl North was seen with a week ago. And when the two gunmen got to the final stairway without a problem, they simply took off their jackets and helmets and joined the crowd and walked away too.’

  ‘How come the driver in the security truck didn’t twig what was going on, chief?’ someone objected.

  ‘We’ll be looking a lot more carefully into that,’ Brock said, ‘but so far his story seems plausible. The two men he saw going from stair to stair were the same build as his crew, and were wearing their clothes and radios. While they were out of sight they followed procedure exactly, reporting in every two minutes until the very end. Radio reception wasn’t perfect, but the voice that made the reports was like the one the driver expected to hear: east London, working class, a bit breathless from the stairs.’ Brock nodded to the man in the leather coat at his side. ‘Mr Brown’s initial assessment is that he’s probably telling the truth. But it’s likely they had some inside help at Armacorp, and we’ll work on that assumption.’

  ‘And at Silvermeadow?’ someone else asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  One of the Robbery Squad officers put up his hand.

  ‘You’re certain it’s our friend, Brock?’

  ‘I think we can be pretty sure of that.’

  ‘So he’ll be aiming to leave the country again?’

  Brock frowned. ‘I think that may depend on the little girl he was seen with last weekend.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘If she was part of a new family he brought into the country with him, it wouldn’t make sense to bring them in just to do a job, would it? Maybe he intends to settle down with them here. Maybe he thinks enough time has passed for us to have forgotten about him.’

  They considered this doubtfully. ‘Risky. Where was he hiding, do we know? Argentina, wasn’t it? Good cover, a family of tourists from Argentina.’

  ‘We believe he had moved on to Canada. We had a report of him there over a year ago, and we suspect he may have entered the UK at the end of November under a Canadian passport in the name of Keith Nolan.’

  The officer drew a sheaf of files and loose papers from his briefcase. ‘We grabbed what we could on our way out, but it sounds as if you’ve got more current info on our friend.’

  Bren brought the newcomers up to date on what they’d discovered of Nolan’s movements, as well as the current whereabouts of North’s relatives and known associates. From this they began to compile a priority list of raids to be co-ordinated for that night.

  When Brock asked for further comment, Kathy, with some reluctance, spoke up. ‘I think I might have seen him this afternoon, about two p.m., outside Cuddles on the upper mall. It was only for a second, and I couldn’t be sure, so I didn’t report it. But I’d like to check the centre’s camera tapes.’

  Brock gave her a wry smile. ‘Yes, I was coming to that. You’ll need quite a bit of help. We have to analyse every tape that was running in this place this afternoon. We know the timing of what we’re looking for, but that’s about all. We’re looking for men with black trousers, men of the right build, men who look like our most recent shots of North, little girls like the one he was with last weekend, and anyone on Bren’s list. It’s going to take a big team, and lots of machines. Can you help us, Gavin?’

  An hour later Kathy and half a dozen other officers were seated in front of VDUs in a room at Hornchurch Street, starting to go through the first batch of tapes from Silvermeadow. It was going to be a long night, she guessed, for all of them. Once search warrants were issued the raids would begin, the questioning of known associates, the gathering of evidence. She had told Leon she’d be home by eight at the latest, and they had planned to go out for a meal. She’d tried his mobile number a couple of times, but the line was busy. For all she knew he might have been called in to the hunt too, looking for forensic clues at Silvermeadow.

  The video watchers had plans of the shopping centre marked with the camera zones, and Kathy began with a tape for zone 16, in which Cuddles was located, and covering the early afternoon period. The screen began sequencing through four views of the mall, each held for a few seconds in turn. She identified the view that corresponded with the area outside the soft toy store, and fast forwarded to the time at which she had seen the figure in the mall.

  But he wasn’t there. She found the right time, for in one of the short sequences she saw herself emerge from the shop, and Mrs Rutter waving an arm at her, but by then the man she was after had disappeared off the bottom of the frame, while in the previous clip, ten seconds before, he was still invisible in the crowd.

  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 di
stance. 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.