Silvermeadow

by Barry Maitland

  ‘And you have no idea who this was?’ Kathy pressed her. ‘Wiff never mentioned a wheelchair?’

  Lisa shook her head, wiped her nose and continued.

  Kerri was becoming unreliable, she said. She was taking stuff herself with increasing regularity, especially Ecstasy, and when she became fired up she would say things she shouldn’t, showing off to the boys. She had fights with Naomi over this, and then they discovered that she was stealing from their stock for her own use. When Naomi confronted her they had a big row, and Kerri made her threat. She said that one day soon she would be out of there, going to live with her dad in Germany, and when she did she’d blow the whistle on Naomi’s ring, and make sure she went to jail just like her sister.

  Naomi said they had no choice. She spoke to Wiff, who had told them stories in the past about girls disappearing from the mall. They weren’t fairy-stories, he’d assured them. In fact his boss, who saw everything, knew who was responsible but didn’t interfere because the girls were rubbish, causing trouble. Naomi said that Kerri was trouble too, and that she had threatened to expose them all, which wouldn’t suit Wiff ’s boss. She told Wiff that Kerri was a danger to them all, and that he should tell his boss, and have him arrange for Kerri to disappear like the others.

  That was how they’d killed Kerri.

  Later, at Hornchurch Street, in the presence of a solicitor and a psychologist, Lisa repeated her story in a more coherent version, her tears exhausted now.

  When Brock and Kathy were satisfied that they had heard as much as they were likely to get from her, they joined a waiting group of detectives, collected the warrants and returned to Crocus Court. Gavin Lowry was in the same place, a scattering of cigarette stubs at his feet. There had been no movement from the Taits’ flat.

  When they knocked on the door it was as if they were expected. Brock explained that he had a warrant for the arrest of Naomi on suspicion of possession and supply of a class B controlled drug, and a second warrant to search the Taits’ flat.

  During her formal interview at the station, Naomi began by repeating her earlier denials. When they told her something of what Lisa had said she replied that her friend lived in a fantasy world and made up ridiculous stories. Even when they told her that they had found an assortment of controlled drugs hidden inside the base of the bed in her sister’s bedroom, she maintained her innocence, claiming that they must have belonged to Kimberley.

  Her performance was impressive, and some of those listening to the interview were convinced by it. It was only when Brock told her that they had opened up the portable radio/CD player in her room, and found the banknotes packed tight in the back of the speaker compartments, and told her the exact amount—£31,548—that she broke down.

  The money was the thing, the beginning and end of it all, the profits that she had been patiently accumulating for over a year, the lottery win with which her grandparents would buy their dreamed-of cottage and take them all away from Herbert Morrison and London for ever.

  Her account, when it finally came, tallied closely with Lisa’s, but with one dramatic additional piece of information. At one point, when she had been talking to Wiff, she had expressed doubts about the tale of the monster of the mall who made people disappear, and had suggested that this was a story his boss had invented to keep him frightened and obedient. Wiff had been affronted and had told her things about the man. Naomi said she hadn’t told Lisa about this, because she was frightened about what she was told, and was worried about Lisa keeping it to herself.

  He had a special room, Wiff said, a secret place, a den, where he took the women and kept them before he got rid of them. And Wiff knew who the man was. His boss, who was also scared of this man, had video tapes of him, which he called his insurance. From these tapes he had made some still photographs, one of which Wiff had acquired, as his insurance. Naomi said that he had shown her the picture.

  ‘You’ve seen a photograph of this man?’ Kathy queried.

  Naomi nodded, eyes down. ‘He was with one of the girls who disappeared.’

  ‘With her?’ Kathy repeated carefully.

  ‘Yeah, you know, on top of her, doing it to her.’

  ‘Can you describe the girl?’

  ‘Black hair, thin face, pale, bit older than me. I didn’t recognise her. She looked as if she was asleep, or dead, even though he was on top of her.’

  ‘And the man, can you describe him?’

  ‘Oh, I knew who he was.’

  They weren’t conscious of it, but everyone listening held their breath for the moment she hesitated before saying the name.

  Later, any lingering doubts were dispelled when she was given a file of photographs of missing women, and picked the portrait of the dark-haired girl that Kathy had found among Velma’s belongings at the hospital.

  ‘This is her,’ she said. ‘This is the girl Mr Verdi was fucking.’

  20

  Bruno Verdi shook his head sadly when they confronted him with the story, as if now he’d heard just about everything.

  ‘You’re not serious?’ he said. ‘My God, if it wasn’t poor Kerri they were talking about I’d be laughing. Instead I just feel sick. Where do kids get these ideas? Watching too many movies, eh? Too much TV. Drug rings? Serial killers? Perverts? What kind of fantasies are these? Whatever happened to childhood innocence, eh?’

  ‘It went out with Mr Kreemee,’ Kathy said.

  ‘Now, now, now. If you’re going to be nasty I’m simply not going to say another word till I have a solicitor present.’ He stroked his moustache with an air of complacency.

  ‘You deny these allegations then, do you Mr Verdi?’

  ‘Of course I deny them!’ he said, angry now. ‘They’re ridiculous. Nothing but teenage fantasies. I’m really quite shocked, Chief Inspector,’ addressing himself entirely to Brock now, ‘that you would give them a second thought. Where is the evidence, eh? Where is this secret room, this photograph, these video tapes? These are the sick imaginings of two young drug dealers who maybe think that if they give you a good story you’ll go easy on them! Eh? I’m right, aren’t I? You must see this.’

  They questioned him for almost three hours, until there was no more to say. Never once did his confidence falter.

  After they released him, Kathy spoke again to Naomi.

  ‘The room that this man had, his den, did Wiff say anything about it? Did he know where it was?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘I think he said it wasn’t far away. That’s all.’

  ‘Did he give any idea of how big it was, what it looked like?’

  ‘No, nothing.’

  ‘What about the photograph he showed you? What sort of room was that taken in?’

  Again she frowned in thought. ‘It was quite a big room, I think. You could see a wall in the background, and a chair.’

  ‘Wallpaper? Curtains?’

  ‘No. Bare blocks, like a garage, or a factory.’

  ‘Anything else? Close your eyes and try to see the scene again. Is there a light fitting or furniture?’

  ‘I assumed they were on a bed. I don’t really know. I can’t picture anything else.’

  ‘But you’re absolutely convinced the man was Bruno Verdi, the man who runs the ice-cream place? It couldn’t just have been someone who looks like him? With a moustache?’

  ‘No, no. It was definitely him. He was looking straight at the camera, with his teeth bared.’ She shuddered. ‘You mustn’t tell him that I told you this. He’d kill me if he knew.’

  ‘I’m afraid he already knows, Naomi.’

  ‘What?’ The girl said it with a yelp of fright. ‘You told him about me and Lisa?’

  ‘We told him that friends of Kerri were helping us. He’ll be able to work it out. He denies it all, of course.’

  Naomi had begun to rock with agitation in her seat. ‘Then you mustn’t let him go until you’ve got proof! Don’t you see?’

  ‘I’m afraid we’ve had to let him go. We have no evidence t
o back up your story. Don’t worry. You’ll be staying here for a while. He can’t hurt you here.’

  ‘And then what?’ she moaned. ‘You don’t know. You don’t know what he’s like. Wiff warned me.’

  Her words bothered Kathy, especially when Naomi was released into her grandparents’ care, in view of her age and the proximity of Christmas. Kathy didn’t think the proximity of Christmas would inhibit Bruno Verdi if her story was true, and Brock agreed that he should be kept under twenty-four-hour surveillance for the time being. A search was begun of industrial buildings and garages around Silvermeadow and in the neighbourhood of Verdi’s home, but no den was found.

  Kathy, meanwhile, had heard nothing further from Leon. Several times she almost rang him, but then stopped herself with the thought that it would be a weakness, and that Christmas was itself a kind of a test, and once that barrier was passed then perhaps . . .

  As she’d left his house that morning, Brock had made some comment about sharing a Christmas Day lunch if she wasn’t doing anything else, but they didn’t speak of it again and she assumed he’d forgotten.

  As evening drew on, Kathy found herself in a deserted office in the Hornchurch Street station, listening to the sounds of a party somewhere far away in the bowels of the building. It was Christmas Eve after all, and the whole building had experienced a sudden excrescence of glittery decorations and tipsy bonhomie.

  She didn’t want to go home to her empty flat, and the thought of her large bed and glossy appliances struck her as ridiculous. Since her credit card statement had arrived she’d found it impossible to recapture the mood in which she’d splashed out, and she thought of herself as having suffered a crazy spell, a black-out, yet another victim of the Gruen Transfer.

  But it wasn’t just that. He had been there too, part of the transaction. It had been a signal to herself, and maybe to him also, of where she thought she was heading. Perhaps that was part of what had gone wrong.

  Any road, she said to herself, in her Aunt Mary’s flat Yorkshire brogue, and immediately winced with guilt. She had still done nothing about their Christmas presents. In her head she heard Uncle Tom’s gloating: Told you so! So wrapped up in herself she’s forgot us.

  And to what purpose? North had got clean away, and so, in his own way, had Verdi. She couldn’t believe that Naomi’s vivid description of the photograph had been invented, yet they had nothing. Again and again they had uncovered lies: Verdi, Testor, Harry Jackson, Lisa and Naomi. The ground had been thick with them and they had duly unearthed them, one by one, like diligent archaeologists scraping back the layers, finding shards which in the end amounted to nothing. She remembered her training, the law lecturer who had kept on at them, nagging: There are only three kinds of admissible evidence: forensic, witness and confession. Now they had ended up with no confession, no witness, and the only useful forensic evidence likely to be in a room that they couldn’t find, and perhaps didn’t even exist.

  By rights, she thought, there was only one place it should be, this hidden room, and that was at Silvermeadow itself, the focus of everything. Yet this was the one place it couldn’t be, surely, the place that had been searched not once, but twice.

  She suddenly found the idea of Silvermeadow, its lights and warmth and bustle, rather appealing, which was a measure, she assumed, of how depressed she must be feeling. A shriek of drunken laughter echoed from the corridor. Better there than here, anyway. She would get a card and present for the relatives, and a single cracker, funny hat and microwave Christmas dinner for herself.

  21

  The mall was packed with a seething, anxious mob. The customary trance-like atmosphere had given way to a mood of urgency, as last-minute shoppers, heads down, frowning, rushed from shop to shop, scoring names off lists. The carols sung by a local school choir, amplified throughout the centre, had to compete with the wailing of over-excited children and the furious hubbub of raised voices.

  Halfway along the mall Kathy spotted Harriet Rutter seated at a café table. Her heart sank, and she stopped. At that moment the phone in her bag began ringing. She turned against a shopfront to answer it, putting a hand to her other ear. Through the glass she could see a child strapped into a pushchair angrily battering a rack of wrapping paper with its tiny red boots.

  ‘Kathy? Brock here. What on earth’s that noise?’

  ‘The roar of rampaging shoppers. I’m at Silvermeadow.’

  ‘Really? What are you up to there?’

  ‘I forgot to get presents for my relatives in Sheffield.’

  ‘Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom? You’ll be in deep trouble.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘What? Can’t hear you. Look, the reason I called was to check you were still all right for Christmas lunch tomorrow.’

  ‘Really?’ Kathy brightened. ‘Is it still on?’

  ‘Of course. Unless you’ve had a better offer?’

  ‘No. You neither?’

  ‘No. We can call it the Rejects’ Lunch. The Salon des Refusés.’

  Kathy laughed. ‘What can I bring?’

  ‘Well, since you’re at the shops, you could see if you can find a Christmas pudding. I’ve already got the duck.’

  Kathy rang off and smiled to herself. A duck. So he’d been shopping too.

  She continued along the mall, and reached Harriet Rutter. She seemed to be alone, only one plate and cup in front of her, her gaze aimlessly scanning the moving crowd. Kathy paused reluctantly and said, ‘Hello Mrs Rutter. How are you?’

  The other woman turned with a vague smile that chilled as soon as she realised who had addressed her. ‘Ah . . . Sergeant.’

  ‘Are you on your own? Is Professor Orr not with you?’

  Harriet Rutter shook her head abruptly. Kathy noticed that she seemed to be holding herself stiffly upright, like a widow at a funeral. And now she looked more closely, she was almost sure that there was moisture gleaming in the corners of the woman’s eyes.

  She really didn’t want to stop and hear the story, whatever it was, but she felt compelled to ask. ‘Is something the matter? Are you all right?’

  Mrs Rutter shook her head, speechless, and this seemed so completely out of character that Kathy was taken aback.

  She took the other seat at the table. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Robbie and I . . . have had a falling out. That’s all.’

  ‘Oh. I am sorry. Do you know, I think it’s Christmas that does this. Everybody seems to have the same problem.’

  The other woman looked at her doubtfully, as if to see if she was making fun of her.

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with Christmas. It’s my fault. I should have been more patient . . . more sympathetic.’

  ‘Oh dear. Do you want to tell me? Is there anything I can do?’

  Mrs Rutter’s eyes widened. ‘You!’ she whispered, and turned abruptly away, behaving almost as if it was all Kathy’s fault.

  Kathy was puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

  Mrs Rutter slowly turned back to face her, mouth set defiantly. ‘I mean that Robbie was devastated, utterly devastated, by the treatment he got from you people.’ She spoke in an uncharacteristically low tone, almost a whisper, as if she didn’t want anyone else to hear. ‘You have no idea what I’m talking about, have you?’

  ‘No, no I don’t.’

  ‘I suppose you deal with hardened criminals all the time, don’t you? And you assume that everyone’s the same. Well I can tell you, by the time you and that Sergeant Lowry had finished with Robbie, the poor man was a wreck. He hasn’t been able to sleep, or eat. And he’s not a weak man . . .’ The tears were flowing freely now. ‘He was in the army, long ago, and he’s coped with all the usual trials of a long and useful life. But you humiliated him. You made him out to be rubbish. You hurt him.’

  Kathy was stunned, and felt herself wilting before the ferocity of the woman’s outrage. ‘Mrs Rutter, Professor Orr seemed quite all right when I last saw him. He didn’t like being questioned, of course, bu
t he was co-operative, and didn’t seem too distressed.’ But that was before Gavin Lowry had had a go, and she remembered how angry Lowry had seemed afterwards.

  Mrs Rutter wasn’t interested. She turned away and wiped her eyes and nose with a small handkerchief and recomposed herself. ‘What’s really galling is that that awful man has got away with it. That’s what Robbie can’t abide.’

  ‘DS Lowry?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘No! Bruno Verdi!’ She curled her lip as she pronounced the name like an obscenity. ‘He put those things in Robbie’s filing cabinet. Any fool could have worked that out in one minute. Even the police. He’s an evil and spiteful little man . . . But, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You’re afraid of Verdi?’

  ‘Of what Robbie may do. That’s why we quarrelled. I wanted him to put it out of his mind, forget about it, but he can’t. He says he’s going to expose Verdi. He’s become obsessed by the idea.’ She shook her head hopelessly. ‘How can he?’

  Kathy had the sudden notion that Orr’s outrage at being accused of possessing a dirty video might just be because it had touched a nerve, and perhaps one that Mrs Rutter might have recognised. Maybe she had had her own suspicions about the great man’s proclivities. Didn’t they used to chat up the young people in the malls together? And then there was the matter of the coins.