by Susan Hill
He walked along to the main park entrance, which had tall stone pillars on either side and imposing wrought-iron gates, the originals, dating from the turn of the last century, and here a CCTV camera was placed to cover both the entrance and the main path. The children’s playground at the far end, which was surrounded by high wire-mesh fencing, could be seen clearly under the street lights and there were cameras on the posts, positioned to view the playing area and equipment.
He walked back. There was little traffic here at this time in the evening, though cafes and bars were open and busy a few yards away.
If Kimberley Still had left with a man by the side entrance, as Stan Barnard claimed to have seen, there was a very slim possibility that the pair could have been caught on the camera outside the flats. If it was real and active and less than ten years or so old, the footage would be digital and the chances of picking up a recording, even now, were good. A warrant to view could be obtained.
Simon supposed that, unless he could now persuade the Chief to give him some help, he would be in for hours of looking at old CCTV images, something he had not done since he was a rookie detective constable. But he had a hunch that it would prove worth his while, that he would find something. There was no record in the case files of any camera searches having been made by the original investigating team, which meant either that indeed they had not been made or that someone had forgotten to write up the notes. Either omission was, in his view, a clear case of professional negligence.
Fifty-four
‘Sis?’
‘Hi – just a heads-up. I’m on my way to the hospital.’
‘Now what?’
‘They’re discharging him. Don’t ask.’
‘Oh help … You’re taking him home with you?’
‘Where else?’
‘While I’ve got you, I had a call from the rehab people – they want to fit my new prosthesis and give me a couple of days’ intensive training but do I really need that, do you think? I’m just at a breakthrough point in this cold case.’
‘You’ll definitely need some time with them – this prosthesis will be more sophisticated than the one you’ve got now which doubtless means more complicated. It’s going to talk to your arm’s computer via Bluetooth.’
‘Wouldn’t a day cover it? I can always contact them if I come up against a problem– or you can help me out.’
‘No, I can’t, Simon, I know next to nothing about it. It’s a highly specialist area, as you should know by now. Why not tell them you’d find it difficult to spend two days there just now, ask them for their opinion? Si, I’ve got to go, I’m in the hospital car park and of course there are no spaces. Let me know what happens. Come round tonight? Dad would appreciate it.’
No, Simon thought, Dad sure as hell would not.
But he went, partly in case he could catch Kieron, partly out of guilt, but also because he had caught himself once or twice lately feeling an unfamiliar bleakness at being alone in the flat he loved so much, probably because he was in it too much just now, so that it was no longer a blessed relief from the job, which he loved but which was so often frenetic. He had time to work up the drawings he had done on Taransay, yet whenever he opened the sketchbooks, he felt an ennui. His gallery was nudging him but he had stalled them. There were evenings when he found nothing he wanted to read or listen to and could find only crime shows on television, which annoyed him because they so often got the procedures wrong. Yet when Rachel had moved in with him, he had not been able to cope – not with her so much as with someone else in his private space.
‘Midlife crisis,’ Cat said, handing him a gin. ‘I’ve had several. You need to get back to proper work.’
‘This case is proper work.’
‘Are you getting anywhere?’
‘Yes.’ He pulled a kitchen chair out and straddled it.
‘You will go up and see Dad?’
‘Soon.’
Cat glanced at him. He wanted to talk to her. She could always tell.
She took the dish of chilli from the fridge and put it in the oven, set the timer and then picked up her glass. ‘Come on, let’s be civilised for once.’
The evening light came into the sitting room, gilding the far wall. Cat opened the windows onto the garden a crack. It was just warm enough.
She sat down and sipped her drink, leaned her head back, closed her eyes. Waited. Said nothing. That was the way you had to be with Simon.
A blackbird was madly singing from the holly tree.
‘I was wondering if I should move,’ he said and at once got up, took both their glasses and went into the kitchen to refill them, so that she had time to take in what he had said and he did not have watch her immediate reaction.
‘Move as in job or home?’
‘Home – wouldn’t want a new patch – not for now anyway. Probably never.’
‘Why?’
Simon shrugged. ‘It might have had its day.’
‘You love it. Always have, always will … least I thought so.’
‘I still do – in most ways.’
‘I think this is part of your coming to terms with what happened. Moving house won’t change everything.’
‘I know that.’
‘Right, what are you tired of – the view from the windows?’
‘Never.’
‘No. The space – the way you’ve arranged it? All that.’
‘No. I might refresh but I wouldn’t want to change anything.’
‘Lack of an outside space?’
‘I’m no gardener, and anyway, I can come here. Or go away.’
‘Lonely?’
‘I’m perfectly self-sufficient.’
‘You think you are.’
‘Here we go – knowing me better than I know myself.’
‘Sometimes. It would be OK to admit to being lonely. It’s in order. People are.’
He shook his head.
‘Not being at work all day and occasionally half the night makes a difference. The time I broke my leg I nearly went round the twist being here on my own for most of the day, for weeks on end. I was close to inviting the postman in for coffee, just to talk to another human being. It’s understandable, Si.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where would you move to?’
‘A cottage maybe … village near here?’
‘Roses round the door?’
He threw a cushion at her. Cat was about to catch him off guard by saying a name, but before she could, Kieron’s car came up the drive and Richard shouted from upstairs and, simultaneously, banged hard on the floor.
‘I knew I shouldn’t have left that bloody walking stick by his bed,’ Cat said. A moment later, Kieron put his head round the door. ‘Didn’t know you were coming,’ he said. He looked tired and drawn. ‘Sorry but I’m not going to be sociable. I’ve had budget meetings the entire day and a migraine to finish all. I’m off to a darkened room.’
Simon followed him as far as the hall. ‘One quick question.’
Kieron stopped.
‘I’m at breakthrough with the Kimberley Still case. Can I have extra manpower for twenty-four hours?’
‘Have what you want,’ the Chief said.
Fifty-five
‘Dave.’
‘What do you want? I’m just getting ready to go out.’
‘Nice. Wish I could say the same.’
‘You all right? Your voice sounds funny.’
‘Got someone’s phone.’
‘Whose?’
‘Never mind. You’ve got to go up there.’
‘I can’t, we’re –’
‘Go up there. Put a note under his door.’
‘I’ll do it first thing, Lee.’
‘You’ll fucking do it now.’
‘Or else, oh yeah, there’ll be an “or else”.’
‘There will. Now listen. Write “Thursday 6th”.’
‘That all?’
‘No. Give him the address.’
�
�What’s happened anyway?’ Dave asked.
‘You should know. And you remember the “or else”, because if you don’t do this and do it tonight, there will be be an “or else”, Davie. Man of my word, me.’
‘I’m your brother, Lee …’
But Lee had rung off. And Dave wasn’t stupid. He knew his brother too well not to believe him. Knew what he was capable of.
‘Got to nip out,’ he called to Donna. ‘Back in ten.’
He was in the car and off before she could stop him – not that she’d bother. She never asked questions because she wasn’t interested in the answers.
He didn’t really want to know what Lee was up to either. He just did as he was told when he was told and every now and then, took some money. It seemed to him that he couldn’t be blamed for anything he didn’t know about, and if asked questions, he could tell the truth.
He drove along past The Hill, took a couple of left turns, then skirted the new housing estate and up towards the quarry. Two miles. Three. Sharp left down a narrow track between trees, cursing the potholes. Through an open gateway. Along another track which was barely suitable for any vehicle at all. Stopped in a circle of rough ground at the end and from there he went on foot.
At first he thought the place was empty but then he saw a thin string of dirty yellow light under the door and as he reached it, heard a television, crackling and hissing for lack of good signal. But it did the job of hiding the slight sound as he folded the brown envelope lengthwise, pressed it as flat as he could, and slipped it into the door jamb. The noise from the television continued without a pause.
He crept for the first few yards, keeping his head down, then ran to the car and drove away. He didn’t know what Lee was up to, didn’t know what the message he’d delivered meant or who he had taken it to, only knew the place itself. Lee had never referred to anyone by name, never would, and that was fine, he didn’t want to get any more involved. He stuck by his brother because they had always been the closest and because, no matter what, blood was thicker than water, but that didn’t mean he was happy with the things Lee had done – quite the opposite.
The message in its folded envelope stayed in the door jamb all night, the noise of the television turned up to its loudest having blotted every other sound. It was only early the next morning, because he was always up by six, that he spotted it, read it. And laughed.
Fifty-six
The new DC Simon had borrowed had been in Lafferton CID since the week of his attack. Fern Monroe had come in on the fast-track scheme after having taken a degree in criminology, and at twenty-three was enthusiastic, brainy and abrupt and clearly thought that she was rather above spending hours trawling through CCTV footage.
‘How long is this going to take, guv?’
Simon bit his tongue. She was young, a rookie, she hadn’t had the shine rubbed off her yet. She’d learn.
‘I am hoping less time than you might expect. A note was made on the Still files that all local authority CCTV cameras were ordered to tag their recording for that day. You know about tagging?’
She did not, he could tell by her expression. He could also tell that she would die rather than admit it. Well, he was going to cut her some slack. Just not too much.
‘Oh yes.’
‘So run through it for me.’
‘Certain cameras are marked out.’
‘Not quite.’
‘Sorry, no. I meant certain times.’
Serrailler leaned back. He knew that he would be fairer to her than many a senior CID officer, and that if she did not mend her attitude quickly, they would be unforgiving. They were not bad people, not unkind or impatient, and they had all been at the bottom, at the beginning. But there was still some prejudice against fast-track graduate entrants to the police and someone was always ready to trip them up and make fools of them. If he said nothing now, things would get worse and quickly.
She sat looking at him coolly through tortoiseshell glasses.
‘DC Monroe, listen. You have been a DC for a few months. Fine. You cannot have experienced everything – or even very much – and you can’t know everything. There is absolutely no shame in saying so. There are plenty of things I still don’t know. Same applies to every single officer in this station. So, let’s start again. Do you know exactly what a tagged day means in terms of CCTV recordings?’
‘Probably not, comprehensively.’
‘You mean “No”?’
She met his gaze defiantly and did not look away. ‘All right.’
‘You mean “No”?’
‘Yes, guv.’
‘OK, got there. Now you’re going to find out and it’s very simple. It isn’t something you’ll come across every day though it isn’t a rare occurrence either. Let’s take this particular case – the disappearance of Kimberley Still, nearly five and a half years ago. How familiar are you with the case?’
‘Not at all.’
Serrailler opened up his laptop. ‘Here – this page and the next – read it and get up to speed. I’ll get the coffees in. Black? White?’
‘Tea, Earl Grey, black. The machine does have it.’
He was waylaid by a couple of people wanting to greet him, and by the time he returned to the room as large as a cupboard that he had purloined for the viewing, DC Monroe had brought herself up to date on the cold case.
‘There are quite a few things that ought to have been done as routine that I can’t find any reports on.’
‘You could say. That’s why we’re here.’ He set down her plastic cup of tea.
‘Thanks, guv. I owe you 90p.’
‘On me. What about tagging?’
‘Got it. So we’re hoping to find that every local authority CCTV record taken on the third of June was frozen, as it were – tagged. It should never be erased, whereas even with digital they do eventually have to erase some data from way back. I was just getting up the LDC stored files.’
‘Good. Find the date and see if they have all been tagged as requested.’ He drank his coffee and watched her fingers speed, concentrating hard. She was clearly an expert and they had never had enough of those. He had watched too many stubby fingers poke and jab ponderously at keyboards.
‘Here we are … it looks as if the tagging worked. Now we just need to find the relevant cameras – there’ll be a database. Shall I access it?’
He noted that she did not say ‘try to’.
Three minutes later the information was on-screen, the relevant cameras narrowed down to four.
‘We can rule that one out,’ Serrailler pointed. ‘That’s in Victoria Street, at the back, away from the park. This one is at the main gates – probably doesn’t concern us for the moment.’
‘So, it’s these two – 245 and 248?’
‘Can we look at the tagged day only?’
‘Third of June … we should be able to – that’s basically why it’s tagged – never to be deleted.’
‘Right – can you find the date? It’s in white on the top above the pictures.’
She found it.
‘This is saving so much time. Glad I’m in expert hands.’
She gave a very small smile.
They started to go patiently through all the images for the day on which Kimberley had gone missing, starting at midnight and one second. There was nothing at all until three, then an urban fox and a cat. Nothing again. Slowly, they caught up with that day, frame by frame, with delivery vehicles, people cycling and walking to work, children going to school, postmen, more delivery vans. Plenty of quiet patches – this was not an especially busy area at any time. They got to four in the afternoon without any sighting of any car near the side entrance to the park. The camera was pointed just away from the pavement.
‘Someone could have stopped a car in this area – here to here – and this camera wouldn’t have picked it up. You can just about make out people going in but no full-on shots. If we’re going to see anything it will be on the camera at the entrance by the
block of flats. That might catch the road and the kerb as well or it might not. It’ll be someone’s law that we’re trying to get a sight of activity in the one small area not covered by any camera at all.’
But at the camera’s date and time of 3 June at 13.11, they got lucky.
‘Look, guv.’ Fern Monroe had pressed pause.
Serrailler leaned forward. The image was not good – they never were – but Fern had paused at a frame which showed a man and a woman come out of the side entrance to the park and cross the road.
‘Go back.’
She ran back to where a car came down the side road, paused and then turned slowly into the entrance to the flats. They watched it park, and what looked like the same man get out. He took the short walk in reverse and entered the park.
‘Freeze that please. Enlarge?’
‘It will make it less clear.’
‘I know – I need to get a better idea of his height and build. There – stop. Russon is white, around five ten, full head of hair, stocky but not fat.’
‘Looks about right but his face isn’t visible.’
‘Shoot forward to where he goes into the park.’
Four minutes and twenty-two seconds passed without sight of him, though three other people came out of the park and one went in.
‘There.’
The man came out again, hurriedly this time with, on his left side, so turned away from the camera, a woman, probably five inches shorter. They crossed the road, towards the block of flats, walking more quickly still. Up to the car. Another frame and the man was opening not the driver’s door but the offside rear. He had the woman directly in front of him, so close that there was little view of her between him and the open car door. The next frame had to be moved to and fro several times because the movements were fast and jerky. The woman seemed to have got into the rear seat, the man slammed the door, went quickly round, got in and reversed, wheels spinning, and then was away left and out of sight of the camera.
