Justice Mirror

by Simon Hall

  His voice cracked and almost broke, but Newman gulped in a hurried breath and rallied.

  ‘I’m wondering what’s happening to her. Fearing it. Dreading it. I see her face everywhere, even when I close my eyes. Every time the phone goes, I think it’s someone calling to break the news – to tell me…’

  Dan nodded at the unspeakable, unthinkable fear, but kept quiet; let the ending of the interview play out. And it did – how it did.

  ‘I can’t eat, I can’t sleep,’ Newman continued. ‘I can’t do anything. I’m so lost. So damned helpless. All I can do is think about Annette. I’d ask – please, please, if anyone has her, or knows where she is, please help bring her back to me.’

  ***

  Adam held open the door and they walked across the compound to the satellite van. On the road outside, amidst the white haze of a cherry tree, Dan saw a glint of polished glass.

  ‘Ouch!’ he yelped, bending down to massage his knee.

  Adam, Newman and Katrina stopped too. ‘What?’ Adam asked, impatiently. ‘Come on, we’ve got to feed the interview.’

  ‘Only a touch of cramp. It might not have been such a good idea to go for a run this morning.’

  It was 7.28 when Dan handed the memory card to Loud. ‘Cutting it a bit fine, aren’t you?’ the engineer grumbled, holding up a list running to several pages. ‘You wouldn’t believe who’s waiting for this.’

  They’d left Nigel in the MIR to pack up the camera and lights. A police driver was ready to give Newman a lift home, but he said he would like to see the interview being fed.

  ‘I’ve spent enough time at home lately. All I’ve got there are thoughts of Annette.’

  Newman watched his words being replayed on the monitors. ‘You were right about the open neck,’ he told Dan. ‘And the powder. I look almost human, for once. Sorry if I snapped at you.’

  Dan patted the man’s shoulder. ‘It’s no problem. I would say I know how you’re feeling, but how could I?’

  ‘You only asked a few questions. Will that be enough?’

  ‘Six or seven minutes are plenty. Most radio and TV stations and websites will run the interview in full to start with, then use clips later. The newspapers will lift some of your quotes.’

  ‘And use one of their old pictures of me to illustrate it?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Dan replied, trying to keep his voice neutral.

  ‘I can’t believe you got all that stuff out of me. About Annette, and well…’

  ‘All I did was let you talk.’

  Newman reached out a hand, took Dan’s and shook it hard. ‘Nice try, but I’d say there was a bit more to it than that. If you ever get fed up with this TV lark, just call. I could use a man like you. I don’t know how you do it. You always look so calm on camera.’

  ‘I usually think of it as a tissue thin layer of bluff,’ Dan replied. ‘It hides the panic in my head.’

  ***

  They walked back upstairs to the canteen to get a coffee. It wasn’t yet eight o’clock, but already felt well into the working day.

  Newman had gone home with his police escort. First, Adam and Katrina asked if he could see any possible significance in the letters PP in the ransom note. Newman thought hard, but said he couldn’t.

  On the way upstairs they checked the TV, radio and internet. The interview was everywhere. In major news events, there is often a remarkable consensus amongst journalists about the headline.

  Father’s Emotional Plea to Kidnappers over his Missing Girl was running on most stations. The websites were using a photograph of Newman in his open necked shirt. It had clearly been taken in the police station’s backyard.

  ‘Anything to do with you, that?’ Adam asked, wryly.

  ‘With a story like this there are bound to be snappers trying to get a shot of Newman,’ Dan replied, as innocently as he knew how. ‘Anyway, isn’t it what we want? Maximum exposure?’

  Adam chose to answer by folding his arms and adopting a knowing look.

  Dan fetched the drinks. He had spent many painful years failing to get used to police tea and coffee, and today he faced the worst of fates. The canteen wasn’t open, so he had no choice but to chance the machine.

  It grumbled and gurgled, as if suffering chronic indigestion, and eventually produced three small cups of jet-black liquid. Dan picked them up, pointedly holding the offerings at arm’s length and carried them over to the table. In the best tradition of the police service, Adam added milk and a couple of sugars. Katrina took hers pure black and bitter.

  ‘That was a very moving interview,’ she said, as Dan sat down.

  Nature does have a habit of flaunting her achievements. A total eclipse, a meteor shower, the colours of a rainbow or the unique sparkle of a diamond are all impossible to ignore. And proud Mother Nature hadn’t missed the opportunity to emphasise Katrina’s eyes. She was one of those people who blink at approximately half the average rate for the human race, and it accentuated the different shades.

  Be it that, or the surprise of the compliment, or perhaps the potent mix of the pairing, Dan was left with no option but to flounder.

  ‘Oh, was it? Oh… thanks.’

  ‘It really brought Annette to life. I felt I got to know her from your questions.’

  ‘Um, yeah, well… thank you.’

  ‘And it was clever, the way you led Newman into putting some powder on.’

  ‘Yeah, it wasn’t bad at all,’ Adam agreed, rather begrudgingly. ‘He made her out to be a bit more of an angel than she actually is, but otherwise it was ok.’

  ‘In what way?’ Dan asked.

  ‘Annette’s got a caution for possessing cannabis. It was after some party. It wasn’t much, and I’m surprised we even bothered. You have to have enough to get half the city higher than the clouds these days.’

  The rancour of the detective’s disapproval could have soured the air. Dan had to look away to hide a smile. He was sure Katrina was doing the same.

  ‘But I suppose it wasn’t really relevant to the interview,’ Adam conceded, loftily. ‘Now, enough of this self-congratulation. Annette’s still missing. So – what next?’

  ‘We keep waiting,’ Katrina said. ‘To see how the kidnappers react to the interview.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘It’s all about patience.’

  ‘I never really got the hang of patience,’ Adam replied. And now Katrina and Dan exchanged a look, and a smile too.

  A trio of policemen walked into the canteen. At the sight of a senior officer, all made a play of collapsing onto chairs with the exhaustion of their work. One seat squeaked loudly. The sound was reminiscent of a fledgling bird.

  Dan stood up, knocking over the remains of his drink.

  ‘Be careful, will you,’ Adam protested. ‘This suit’s new.’

  ‘Get me a car.’ Dan said. ‘Now.’

  ‘What for? Where to?’

  ‘Our studios. I’ve just realised how I know the bird song in the ransom call.’

  Chapter Ten

  Like one of the family who has never quite fitted in, the news library lived life a little detached. It was in the far corner of the Wessex Tonight studios, part of a modern annex to the Victorian mainstay.

  The library overlooked the garden; an accident of appropriateness. It was one of the few calm havens in a building more familiar with looming deadlines, running feet and shouted commands.

  Dan had long mused on how much history was contained in one small room. He discovered a bond with the library early in his career. The simplicity of its peace appealed in days that could feel filled with incessant noise.

  The delightful anachronism of the metal cabinets filled with card index files lined one wall. For years now, records of all the stories Wessex Tonight covered had been saved on computer. But there were many decades of the programme, and all were remembered in these files.

  A project to transfer them to the far less romantic destination of a hard drive, or set of memor
y sticks, had been mooted for many years. But in the great tradition of the British, it had never quite been got round to.

  Dan was quietly pleased by this. Computers may be faster and more efficient, but they lacked the soul of these indexes; the yellowing colour of the card and the smell of the past.

  All of which made precisely no impression on the pragmatic detective with a missing young woman to find.

  ‘So we’re in a library,’ Adam complained, as they strode through the door. ‘So what?’

  He’d been carping for most of the short drive. In truth, although Dan could remember covering a story featuring the mysterious sre, sre, sre birds, he wasn’t sure exactly where and when. More importantly, he had no thoughts at all about what help it could be in finding Annette.

  As Adam so deflatingly put it, ‘We’re hunting kidnappers and you’ve got me following a lead which consists of some birds singing?’

  ‘Well… yes.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound great.’

  ‘No,’ Dan conceded.

  ‘Not even anywhere close to approaching great.’

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘So why are we doing it?’

  ‘Just – a feeling.’

  It was Katrina who again took on the role of referee. Perhaps it was one she had quickly realised was required when dealing with the odd relationship before her.

  ‘There’s nothing else we can do at the moment,’ she soothed. ‘So we’re not losing anything and we might just make a gain.’

  The journey up to the studios had been a five minute interlude. Adam drove, intermittently wondering whether the kidnappers would have heard Newman’s interview and grumbling about the tenuousness of the lead. Dan sat in the back, trying to remember the story and the enigmatic birds, but instead found himself studying Katrina.

  It was another fair morning. The traffic was light, with almost as many buses on the roads as cars.

  The fine hair on the back of Katrina’s neck made for a chevron. It took no Olympian leap of Dan’s imagination to see an inviting path downwards.

  He focused instead on a couple walking past. Both were plump, to push the euphemism to its limits, and sweating in the day’s warmth.

  The straps of Katrina’s bra bevelled through the white of her blouse. They were edged with patterns of lace. Dan wondered happily if it was silk or cotton.

  The strolling couple were wearing skimpier clothes than might have been advisable. The exposed flesh shone like a snowfield in the sun. The male of the species lit a cigarette, which it passed to the female.

  The outline of a dark shape patterned the back of Katrina’s shoulder. It was small, subtle, difficult to make out through her blouse, but looked like a tattoo. Dan thought he could see the details of a figure, perhaps a loop on top of a cross.

  Subtlety was not something which came easily to the smoking couple. Most of their legs and arms had been inked. It was as if they’d made a block booking at the tattooist.

  Tattoos, Dan reflected in one of his common philosophical moments, were all very well for now. He was not, however, looking forward to a generation of tattooed grandparents.

  But Katrina’s looked strangely intriguing. And probably meaningful too, knowing what little he did of the woman.

  ***

  As if fate were also sceptical of his hunch, the duty librarian was the one Dan was expecting and dreading. Brenda was a lady in her very late 50s, an old school staffer whom Lizzie disliked and had set about ushering towards retirement. Part of the deal was weekend work, which suited her well.

  It wasn’t taxing and didn’t usually demand any speed of response. Today, instead of replacing tapes in the archive or unearthing long forgotten sequences of pictures, they found her gazing out at the garden and polishing the spoons of the library tea set. She truly was the last empress of a forgotten world.

  ‘Daniel,’ she exclaimed softly, as he walked in. ‘How lovely to see you again, and your friends too.’ She surveyed Adam with a maternal smile. ‘Is this your brother? He looks like you.’

  The detective’s snort of a reply was far more revealing than mere words.

  ‘And this must be your wife. I’m sorry, partner we say these days, don’t we?’

  There was an odd silence before Dan stuttered, with a triumph of unconvincing wit, ‘Err, no, I’m afraid no such luck.’

  He hastily introduced the two police officers, and yet again had to request Brenda not use the name he viewed as reserved for maiden aunts, tax demands and court summonses.

  ‘But Daniel is so much nicer,’ she objected, with all the force of Neville Chamberlain on a bad day. ‘Now, would you like a cup of tea? I’ve got a lovely set of fruit teas. And some sponge cake I’ve just made.’

  ‘I’m sorry, we’re in a hurry,’ Dan interjected, before the chatter could gain momentum.

  ‘You young people always are,’ she replied, sadly. ‘The pace you go, you miss so much of life.’

  ‘It’s called news,’ Dan hissed under his breath, before adding, ‘If you wouldn’t mind helping me look out some stories? I need ones from my time covering the environment.’

  Brenda’s face warmed with nostalgia. ‘I loved the reports you did then. Lots of ponies and otters and our wonderful countryside. So much nicer than now. These horrid murders and kidnappings and—’

  ‘I know what you mean. But can you find the stories I did on birds, please?’

  ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of tea?’

  The ominously lurking Adam emitted a noise that sounded like a rocket preparing for take- off.

  ‘Yes,’ Dan said. ‘Sorry, I mean no, we don’t want one. As I said, we are in a hurry.’

  Brenda nodded slowly, put on her glasses and tapped at a computer.

  ‘Puffins!’ she said, happily. ‘You were on the Isles of Scilly. Such beautiful birds. Lovely, coloured beaks.’

  ‘Yes, that’s puffins. What else?’

  ‘Oooh, look! Choughs. Such character – those funny red legs.’

  ‘Yep, that’s choughs. What else?’

  She tapped at more keys. ‘Ah, red kites. Wonderful birds of prey, absolutely majestic.’

  ‘And not what I’m looking for. Any others?’

  The computer screen scrolled. Page followed page. Slowly. Very, very slowly.

  ‘Cirl buntings!’ she exclaimed. ‘What striking little birds. Such a lovely, vibrant yellow; just like the flowers in my garden.’

  The ramble continued, but Dan wasn’t hearing. His eyes were set on the screen.

  ‘That’s it. Cirl buntings.’

  Adam was at his shoulder. ‘Cirl buntings?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You’ve brought us here to look at some scabby little bird. That’s it?’

  With admirable restraint, Dan ignored him. ‘Brenda, could you get the tape please?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes. Now.’

  She ambled over to a storeroom. Invisible footsteps paced back and forth and Brenda returned with a grey plastic box. Dan opened it and loaded the video cassette into one of the players.

  ‘A beta tape?’ Katrina queried.

  ‘It’s one of the great ironies of TV. Back in the ’80s, when there was the format war, VHS won the mass market, but the television industry chose beta. We thought it was better quality and more reliable.’

  Dan skimmed through the stories. There were floods, government cutbacks, health warnings about the dangers of sunbathing, county shows. And now a group of small yellow birds in a tree, all singing.

  Sre, sre, sre.

  Dan paused the tape. ‘That’s it. The noise from the ransom call.’

  Adam stared at the screen. ‘Well whoopty-doo,’ he grunted. ‘I can’t say how overwhelmed I am at this dramatic breakthrough. A boy scout bird spotter’s badge to us.’

  ‘Adam, for fuck’s sake, shut up!’ Dan snapped. ‘I’ve had a bellyful of your whining.’

  ‘Don’t you dare tell me to—’

  �
��Don’t either of you ever use language like that in here,’ Brenda intervened, with surprising steel. ‘Now look at the report nicely, or you can leave.’

  Diplomatically, Katrina reached over and set the tape playing. Her shoulder brushed Dan’s. It felt firm and toned. He could smell the freshness of her perfume.

  The screen flickered with a countdown and a familiar voice began a commentary:

  ‘Once common, cirl buntings are now sadly rare. Loss of their habitat and changes in farming methods are being blamed. But the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has begun a project to try to increase numbers. They’re recruiting landowners to help, by managing areas in a bunting-friendly way. It’s not such a big job as you might think. Cirl buntings tend to be found in significant numbers in only a small part of South Devon, around the village of East Prawle.’

  Dan turned, readying a triumphant look from the very summit of his stock of I told you so expressions. Victory in The Battle of the Little Yellow Birds was his and it was time to parade it.

  But Adam was already on his mobile and heading for the door.

  ***

  Once more, the gate into Charles Cross stood wide open. Just inside, by the armed response cars, the officers were again checking their guns. But where before it had been routine, a drill, rehearsed a hundred times or more, this was the call to arms.

  It was in the eyes, focused and sharp. It was in the movements, calm, practiced and precise. And there was no banter. This was their time.

  Cops jogged from the police station’s back doors. One carried a weight of body armour, his head hidden behind the mass of reinforced plastic. A woman bent low with the burden of a small, metal battering ram. Helmets, gas canisters, a loud hailer joined the armaments.

  A line of police vans stood, their back doors open, waiting. A sergeant convulsed back and forth, shouting instructions. A spin of blue lights cascaded around the compound.

  A group of officers were bent over a patrol car, a map spread across its bonnet. From the windows of the police station, faces stared out.

  Claire jogged from the back doors and picked her way over. From the urgency, the impetus of this unflappable investigator, it was clear what she had to tell would be significant.