Silvermeadow

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Seems a bit limited, Harry,’ Lowry said.

  ‘No, no. Look’—the security chief spread his hands as if to grapple with this slur—‘the vital thing when you’re designing one of these systems is to be as clear as possible about what your objectives really are. You’ve got to be ruthless about that, otherwise you just end up with tons of hardware, cameras all over the place, wide angle, infrared, pan tilt and zoom, and nothing integrating with anything else.’

  Jackson’s voice had taken on the cajoling tone of a devotee, convinced, proselytising. Kathy watched Lowry, trying to figure him out as he listened impassively to the older man. There was something rather patronizing about the way he was handling Jackson, who, playing the old father-figure copper, was making more of their relationship than Lowry seemed willing to acknowledge.

  ‘First you got to make your DIS analysis, right? That’s deterrent, investigation and supervision, the three strengths of your CCTV system. How will you deploy them? You got to remember what security is all about, Gavin: establishing the normal, and managing the exception. So we generate the exception list, right? Things like vandalism, store pilferage, pickpockets, ram raids, break-ins, armed hold-ups —the potential list is a long one, right?’

  Kathy stifled a yawn. She watched Speedy shove another stick of chewing gum in his mouth, and wondered what he’d done with the last lot. He turned away, ignoring the debate going on behind him, and stretched out his hands to work the buttons and joystick on the control panel on the table in front of him. Kathy watched the expert way he worked the panel without looking down, his eyes glued to the screens, like a kid absorbed in a video game. Perhaps it was this that had made her think him younger than he really was, for when he had turned towards them she had seen the creases of middle-aged skin, his cheek pitted with ancient acne scars.

  ‘So now we link the exception events to hot spots,’ Jackson was going on. ‘Like, the hot spot for a hold-up will be the cash counter or the ATM, so that’s where we need the camera. But now we discover that we’ve got far too many exception events and hot spots for our system to cover. The system has bottlenecks, see? Like one operator can only monitor six screens at max. And each screen can handle the output from sixteen cameras at max, so that’s a total of ninety-six cameras for a single operator system. That sounds a lot, but this is a very big place! So now we have to prioritise our list, and maybe go upstream for some of the items. That means, Gavin, like putting in those bollards against the ram raiders, so as to channel the risk and reduce the hot spots. You follow?’

  ‘I follow, Harry,’ Lowry said, sounding unimpressed. ‘And you’re saying abductions of minors weren’t on your exception list, is that it?’

  ‘Too many hot spots, Gavin!’ Jackson cried indignantly. ‘It could happen anywhere, see? You’d need your ninety-six cameras just to cover that one exception, not to mention the archiving system you’d need to establish a seven-day memory, say, or longer, before you realised that an abduction had in fact taken place. Because one thing you can be sure of, Mr Brock, is that no little girl was dragged kicking and screaming from this place without us knowing about it. If she went, she went willingly, and you’d never even know you’d got an exception on your hands till long after the event. You got me there?’

  ‘Yes, Harry, I understand,’ Brock said, weariness creeping into his voice. ‘What about your tenants? Banks, building societies, big stores . . . there must be dozens of CCTV systems in this place apart from yours?’

  ‘True, and all different. But I think you’d be lucky to find anyone now with a tape going back to Monday. But we will certainly help you find out. One thing you will discover, I can assure you, is that my team will be behind you all the way.’

  ‘Many thanks, Harry. As a first step, we’d like to take all your surveillance tapes away for analysis.’

  ‘But Mr Brock, I just explained. They’ll only go back to first thing this morning, last night at most. I thought—’

  ‘All the same, Harry, we’d better check them all, just to be on the safe side. Is that a problem?’

  Jackson shrugged. ‘No, no problem. We’ve got plenty of new tapes we can use. That right, Speedy?’

  Speedy gave a brief nod, and Jackson gave instructions to a couple of his staff to gather up the tapes in boxes.

  It was only as they were leaving that Kathy noticed that Speedy’s chair had wheels. She said nothing until they were outside in the underground service road, then she asked Jackson, ‘Speedy’s handicapped, is he?’

  ‘Paralysed from the waist down, Kathy. Motorbike accident, about five years ago. Hence his name. I’d known him long before then. He’d been a bit of a tearaway in the old days, and when I was at West Ham he was a snout of mine for a while. I fixed him up with this job. Speedy Reynolds is living proof that our company’s disability action plan is more than just pious words.’

  Kathy wondered if he was being sarcastic, but the expression on his face was all sincerity. Harry Jackson was that sort of a bloke, it seemed.

  ‘Hell of a job he’s got,’ Lowry murmured.

  ‘But it’s as if he was born to it, Gavin,’ Jackson replied. ‘They all take turns at the consoles but he’s the best camera control operator I’ve ever come across. He never loses interest or concentration. I don’t know how he does it, frankly. It would drive me barmy.’

  As he took them back along the service road, Brock striding ahead, Kathy heard him say quietly to Lowry, ‘Here’s the number of my mobile, Gavin. Give me a ring direct anytime you think I might be able to help. You don’t need to go through the boss upstairs. Especially if you think you’ve spotted any little problems with the security here, know what I mean?’

  Lowry nodded. ‘Rough with you, is she, Harry?’

  ‘She’s tougher than she looks. Often the way with the ladies these days, eh?’ Harry said, and seeing that Kathy was listening to their conversation, he chanced a wink in her direction. ‘This way, Mr Brock,’ he called out, and led them into a side service corridor, staying this time at the lower level, so that when they finally emerged through a security door into the sudden noise and bustle of the mall they found that they were close to the food court surrounding the tropical forest grove. The thinness of the barrier between the bare concrete and block service areas and the exotic glitter of the public areas was disconcerting, as if to confirm that what passed for reality here was no thicker than a skin of chrome or paint.

  It was just after ten and the crowds were now thin, dispersing towards the exits and the wet night beyond. The waitresses at Snow White’s Pancake Parlour, identically dressed in laced-front Snow White costumes and incongruously perched on roller skates, were drooping with fatigue beneath their rosy-cheeked, scarlet-lipped make-up as they cleared and wiped down the tables. The manageress confirmed that Kerri Vlasich had a regular shift on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and had worked both the previous weekend, but, like the girls, could add little more.

  While Brock and Lowry spoke to them, Kathy noticed Harry Jackson amble over to two men standing in front of the next unit, a Chinese fast-food counter called the Peking Duck. One of the men was Chinese while the other looked like a caricature of an Italian in a gondolier’s striped jersey and red scarf, presumably from Bruno’s Gelati next door. She followed, picking up their conversation.

  ‘Two weeks to Christmas, and everybody’s going crazy,’ the gondolier was saying, with an expansive Latin sweep of his arms. ‘It’s all very well for Mr Chang here. He can call in half the Chinese population of east London if he needs help, but I have to make do.’ He gestured at a second gondolier, a weary man who looked too old for the part, wiping down the tables outside Bruno’s Gelati. At closer range the Italian seemed even more theatrical, with a florid complexion, his thick black hair, eyebrows and moustache looking fresh from the bottle.

  He caught sight of Kathy moving to Jackson’s side. ‘Who’s your new friend then, Harry?’ he asked mischievously. ‘New security officer? Bit of an improveme
nt on your usual crew.’

  ‘Not quite, Bruno.’ Jackson introduced Kathy to Bruno Verdi and Mr Chang. ‘There’s a bit of a fuss about a missing girl, worked at Snow White’s. They’ve brought in the heavy mob. Sergeant Kolla here is from Serious Crime Branch, Scotland Yard.’

  The gondolier appeared surprised, his bushy eyebrows rising.

  Mr Chang said anxiously, ‘They must be real worried. I heard the girls mention that someone had been missing from work today.’

  ‘Worse than that. They found her this morning, murdered.’

  Now both men looked shocked.

  ‘Murdered!’ Chang shook his head in horror. ‘That’s terrible.’

  ‘There’s been no positive ID on the body yet, Mr Jackson,’ Kathy warned.

  ‘Worse still,’ Jackson charged on. ‘They reckon she may have been killed here.’

  Verdi seemed suddenly immobilised, the colour fading from his face. He swallowed before finding his voice. ‘What was her name?’ he asked hoarsely.

  ‘Vlasich, Kerri Vlasich,’Kathy said, ‘and she’s still officially only a missing person. I’ve got a photograph . . .’ She went to open her shoulder bag, but stopped at a sudden movement in front of her. Bruno Verdi had slumped back onto a chair, so abruptly that at first she thought he had fallen. He sat rigid, eyes wide but unseeing, his face startlingly white now against the artificial jet black of his hair.

  ‘All right, Bruno?’ Harry Jackson looked at him curiously.

  Verdi suddenly blinked and shook his head, inhaling deeply. ‘Sure . . . sure . . .’ he mumbled, shaking his head. ‘It’s okay . . . it’s nothing. I been on my feet all day, that’s all. I’m okay.’

  Mr Chang looked concerned. ‘He has blood pressure. I’ll get you a drink of water, Bruno.’

  ‘Did you know this girl, Mr Verdi?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘Girl?’ He blinked at her, looking puzzled, as if he’d forgotten who Kathy was.

  ‘Kerri Vlasich.’ She showed him the photograph.

  He stared at the picture for some time, then said simply, ‘I recognise her, yes.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw her?’

  Mr Chang hurried back with a plastic cup, which Verdi took and put to his mouth.

  ‘I couldn’t say,’ he said at last. ‘They come and go, these girls. Come and go.’

  Later, as they left the food court, Jackson filled them in on some of the characters.

  ‘Bruno Verdi is one of our more colourful tenants, and he has a bit of clout, too. He’s the chairman of the Silvermeadow Small Traders’ Association. Very vocal on security and the like. He’ll be useful in helping us organise things, if it comes to large-scale interviews, talking to staff and so on.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt it’ll come to that, Harry,’ said Brock.

  They were walking around the coral shores of the lagoon that surrounded the volcano.

  ‘What are the centre’s opening hours?’

  ‘Normally ten till ten for the general public. Management office nine till five, six days, but Ms Seager’s there longer than that. The building shuts down during the night from eleven till six. During those hours the perimeter’s secured and an outside contractor comes on call with dog patrols of the outdoor site. Otherwise our security centre is manned all the time.’

  ‘Okay, well I don’t think we can do much more tonight. We’ll be back tomorrow morning at nine. Maybe you could arrange access for us to unit one-eight-four, so we can start to get things organised. We shall certainly be wanting to go round the shops interviewing staff, and we’ll need to organise a search of the centre too.’

  ‘A search, chief?’

  He looked worried. Kathy noticed that he had lapsed into the slang of the force, addressing Brock as if he were his senior officer.

  ‘Is that a problem?’ Brock asked.

  ‘Not for me, chief, but it’s a big job. This is a huge place. How close do you want to look?’

  ‘We need to find where the girl was assaulted and undressed, and we need to find her belongings, her clothes and the frog bag.’

  ‘If—’ Jackson began to object, but Brock lifted a hand to interrupt.

  ‘Okay, I take your point about her possibly being assaulted somewhere else and brought in here only for disposal, but we need to check anyway.’

  ‘Sure. Well, you’ll need plans of this place for a start. I’ll get them organised, shall I?’

  ‘That would be very helpful.’

  As she watched them shake hands, Kathy thought that Harry Jackson seemed on a bit of a high. Maybe, she thought, he misses the grubby world outside after all.

  Towards midnight, Kathy drove home the long way, orbiting London on the M25 round to Junction 25, a Diana King tape playing softly. Too late now to meet up with her airline pilot, who was probably packing his boxer shorts for another trip to LA or KL in the morning. Nicole had thought they might have had a perfect relationship, since he would be away most of the time circling the globe, while she would be equally absent poking about in London’s garbage. Ah, Kathy thought, but what about the one weekend in six when they did manage to touch base together? Might they be like the gelati man, unable to handle the shock of reality, discovering that the gloss is only microns thick?

  4

  Kathy returned to the Hornchurch Street station first thing the following morning, and found PC Miriam Sangster in the canteen, eating a meal after coming off night shift. The building seemed less bleak in the wan morning sunlight, and the emergency seemed to be over, gas supplies resumed to the kitchens and the reassuring smell of deep-fat frying heavy in the air.

  Sangster struck Kathy as a brisk, intelligent woman, a wary, sceptical set to her eyes.

  ‘They switched me to nights,’ she said, wiping her mouth with a paper napkin. ‘Still getting used to it.’

  ‘I hate that shift,’ Kathy said, spreading butter on toast. ‘Did you hear about the Vlasich girl?’

  ‘Yes, people were talking about it. Gavin . . . DS Lowry’s working with you, isn’t he?’

  ‘Mm. But you were on your own for some of the time when you saw Mrs Vlasich, weren’t you? I thought I’d better go over it with you.’

  ‘Is there a problem?’ Sangster asked carefully. ‘About what I did? I wrote a fairly full report.’

  Kathy sensed the other woman’s caution, just as she had with Lowry, in talking to an outsider. ‘No, no. No problem,’ she reassured her. ‘I’ve seen the report. I just wondered how you felt yourself about the business with the father.’

  Sangster shook her head. ‘It was hard to tell without seeing him or the girl. There was a lot of fear on the mother’s side, as if she’d played it out so many times in her imagination, losing Kerri to the father, that when it actually happened she kept swinging from disbelief to absolute certainty. But the company he works for in Hamburg did confirm that he was abroad in Poland, not the UK, working for them on some pipeline project.’

  ‘Yes, I saw that in your report. But he had other relatives in Hamburg, didn’t he? They could have come over for her, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes. And there was a Vlasich in the computer, too, with a sex offence on his record, but that turned out to be a dead end. So without any other evidence it seemed simpler to assume she’d gone on her own, probably hitching, and probably to see her dad—she’d threatened to do it. Course, it’s easy to say now . . .’ she concluded defensively.

  ‘No, no one’s suggesting you should have done anything differently, Miriam. You spoke to her friends, didn’t you?’

  ‘I saw two of them at the school, Naomi and Lisa. Mrs Vlasich said they were Kerri’s closest friends, but they knew nothing. They said they had no idea she was planning to run away, and they seemed credible to me. Naomi is the brighter of the two, Naomi Parr—I’d start with her if you want to talk to them. They both have jobs at Silvermeadow, too.’

  ‘How do they get over there? It’s quite a way.’

  ‘The centre runs special bus services to bring people i
n from surrounding towns. One runs right past their school and the estate.’

  ‘Convenient.’

  ‘Yes. You’ve seen Mrs Vlasich, have you?’

  ‘Yes. When we told her the news. She was very shaken up, of course, didn’t say a lot.’

  ‘You mentioned Silvermeadow, did you? Did she say anything about that?’

  Kathy noticed a certain hesitancy in the way Sangster said this. ‘That did seem to shake her, when we mentioned that. It seemed to hit her then. She went to pieces after that. Why?’

  Sangster hesitated, then leant forward. ‘Did she mention the others?’

  ‘Others?’

  The constable frowned and lowered her voice. ‘Gavin will say this is rubbish, but there’ve been stories going round about Silvermeadow: young girls going missing, a monster in the mall, stuff like that. Mrs Vlasich had obviously heard them, and she confided in me, after Gavin had left. The idea really terrified her.’

  ‘Nobody’s mentioned this. It’s not in your report.’

  ‘No, of course not. It’s just another one of those urban myths. You know, like that tattooed man with the hangman’s noose who’s supposedly been spotted in every other multi-storey carpark between Glasgow and Exeter, or the West African cannibal prince who lives on baby stew and has been seen—really, actually seen—with a baby’s tibia through his nose, by a friend of a friend of half the population of Leicester.’

  Kathy smiled. ‘Yes, I know. And you’d heard the Silvermeadow stories yourself, had you? Before Alison Vlasich brought them up?’

  ‘Yes, I’d heard them, not through my job but from my partner. He’s a schoolteacher, and he was told about them by the kids in his class. He told them that they were just fairy-tales reinventing themselves, like Babes in the Woods, Little Red Riding Hood. But the kids wouldn’t have it. They knew the stories were true. They’d heard them from someone who had actually spoken to someone else who was a close relative of someone who had been there at the time. They were so convinced that he told me about it, and I agreed to check the computer. And of course there was absolutely nothing to it. I couldn’t find a single missing person report that made any mention of Silvermeadow. I told Gavin about it afterwards, and he advised me to forget it.’