Mirror Mirror: A shatteringly powerful page-turner

by Nick Louth

  Mira’s eyes flashed across to Shah and Jonesy, who both nodded. ‘Manhandled? He punched me half a dozen times, and then tried to strangle me. I don’t know what he told you, but I thought he was going to kill me. I jumped fifteen feet out of a window and ran for my life in my pyjamas in the middle of storm to escape him!’

  ‘Why didn’t you ever report this?’ Croucher said. ‘We could have pressed charges.’

  ‘Are you joking? Against England’s favourite footballer? Even if I won I’d never work again.’

  Highfield smirked. ‘Well, they say there’s no such thing as bad publicity…’

  ‘Oh yes there is, mate,’ Jonesy interjected. ‘You stick to policing and leave the publicity management to us.’

  ‘I am sorry for having to ask you,’ Croucher asked. ‘But have you seen the CCTV footage of the attack?’

  ‘I saw some of it on TV. But I couldn’t face seeing it all. I abhor violence, I absolutely hate it. It disgusts me.’

  ‘Had you ever seen any of the assailants before?’

  ‘I don’t think so. If Lawrence didn’t recognise them, I’m sure that I wouldn’t.’

  ‘He describes them as being dressed as zombies from the TV show you were in.’

  Mira looked at him, gobsmacked. ‘You think I have a private zombie army? Salaried and fully equipped with black wigs and eyeliner?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Inspector, can I remind you that the online phenomenon of the Qaeggan is under no one’s control. They do what they like. They make claim to be my supporters, but I don’t support them, and I don’t approve of what they do. Half the time they are stalking me! Virgil, do you have the pictures?’

  Virgil showed them pictures taken of the graffito on her door. ‘We gave this to the Met police two days ago and we’ve heard nothing,’ Virgil said.

  ‘Well, that’s clearly a matter for the Met,’ said Croucher, a smug smile conveying a clear impression: well, what can you expect from that lot?

  The interview came to an end, and as they were shown out, both detectives asked Mira to sign publicity pictures for them. Once they had the pictures, Virgil followed them to the lift. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to mention this in front of Mira, because she hasn’t seen it, but we believe we have a clue as to who organised the attack on Lawrence Wall.’

  Highfield stopped dead in his tracks, a quizzical look on his face. ‘Tell me more.’

  Virgil steered them off to a small, windowless meeting room at the far side of the building and showed them the three letters that had been sent from Broadmoor. ‘The thing is,’ Virgil explained, ‘it says “Lydia, I’d like to grant your deepest wish.” When we first got this, we thought the gift was the card itself. But it isn’t. The gift is the attack on Wall.’

  ‘That’s quite a leap of imagination,’ Croucher said.

  ‘No it’s not, look.’ Virgil showed them how to look at the text from the edge of the card, which gave the time and place of the attack.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Croucher, looking up at Virgil. ‘This is fascinating. But if the sender is as you say in a secure psychiatric unit he would have great difficulty arranging this, wouldn’t he? I mean, my understanding is that Broadmoor has enormous restrictions on communications from patients.’

  ‘Apparently not,’ Virgil said. ‘This was posted in Peterborough, it didn’t emerge like the others from Broadmoor’s own censorship procedure.’

  ‘They’re not signed, though, are they? There is no saying that they are all from the same person, nor indeed that the artist and the sender are the same person.’

  ‘It would be highly unlikely that we have two people sending the same unusual messages with such similar artwork, surely,’ Virgil said.

  Croucher exchanged a shrug with Highfield. ‘Leave it with me,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘We’ll assess it along with the other stuff.’

  Virgil reluctantly passed the cards across. He’d photocopied them earlier, but felt that the police really didn’t see the significance in them that he did. Having seen the calibre of these two, Virgil decided that he would pursue his own lines of inquiry about Wōdan. If his job was to keep Mira safe, he had to follow his own instincts.

  * * *

  Virgil was just sitting down for a late afternoon meeting at Stardust Brands when things started to happen. First, there was a call for Portia Casals. Thad and Jonesy looked up as she stepped away, her face becoming tight and severe, her voice quiet. When she hung up, her face suddenly lit up. ‘The police have caught the thug who pushed me over in the café. The Crown Prosecution Service just want to know that I will give evidence against him.’

  ‘Fabulous news,’ said Thad.

  ‘Let’s get him to clean off the graffiti too,’ said Jonesy.

  Before she could sit down again, Virgil’s phone trilled. He picked it up, and saw that the CCTV in Battersea Harbour had been triggered. He called up the live image. It wasn’t great resolution on the iPhone screen, but it was good enough to capture a young woman with long hair and a baseball cap on the platform. He couldn’t see her face, but she did appear to have glasses. And she was young, a teenager at most.

  ‘Cops after you too?’ Jonesy said.

  ‘Hold on…’ Virgil stood up and watched as the girl opened a small backpack and took out a book, a torch, an iPad and a sleeping bag. She then sat down.

  ‘Are we going to have this effing meeting or not?’ Jonesy asked.

  ‘Sorry. I’ve caught one of Mira’s stalkers. She’s a young kid, somehow got into the building on the maintenance floor above Mira’s apartment.’

  Virgil immediately rang Stefan Kados and told him. ‘Can you get up there straightaway? She looks harmless enough, but I want to know how she got in.’ He passed on the description. Kados said he would go up with one of the female receptionists.

  Virgil hung up, delighted. Setting up the wireless camera hadn’t been quite as hassle-free as Virgil had hoped. In the first twenty-four hours he got a dozen alerts triggered by the numerous maintenance people who came and went during the day on the lower level walkways. He then had to return and reset the device so that the beams were only triggered by movement on the highest platform, where the telecoms cabinet leading to the radio mast was. The next three days there were no alerts, and he began to think the device wasn’t working at all. Now he knew it was. If this was just a kid, than at least it was one thing less to worry about.

  ‘Alright. Sorry about that,’ Virgil said. ‘Where were we?’

  ‘Our strategy for separating Mira’s brand from the Village of the Dead,’ said Thad. ‘There is the analysis Jonesy prepared.’

  Virgil stared at the document on the table in front of him. ‘Ah. I haven’t had time…’

  ‘Okay. In case you hadn’t heard,’ Jonesy chuckled, ‘the Hollywood blockbuster version tanked. A hundred million dollars spent, and only took two million on its opening weekend. Critics hated it.’

  ‘It shouldn’t damage Mira too much,’ Portia said. ‘She’s only connected with the TV version. But it’s a good time to emphasise other aspects of her brand.’

  ‘Okay,’ Virgil said. ‘What do you need from me…?’

  ‘You’ve read the blogs and posts and seen them up close,’ said Jonesy. ‘What chance is there that these effing zombies are going to melt away?’

  ‘The hardcore, probably not much,’ Virgil said. His phone rang again and he stared at it. ‘Sorry. I’ll have to take this.’ As he answered the call Virgil saw Jonesy toss his pen on the desk, and fold his arms. It was Stefan Kados at Battersea Harbour. ‘I’m sorry Virgil. We’ve got a bit of a problem.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘The girl ran away, and onto one of the roof walkways. We lost sight of her. We just called the police.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll be right over.’ He hung up. ‘I’m sorry everyone, I’ve got to go.’

  ‘What is it now?’ Jonesy snorted.

  ‘You want Mira to escape the zombie con
nection? Why don’t you come with me and catch the one who’s marauding around the roof of her apartment building?’

  When Virgil left, he wasn’t surprised to do so alone.

  * * *

  The police were already there when Virgil arrived at Battersea Harbour. There were two WPCs at the door, and after explaining who he was, one of them escorted him in the lift to the maintenance floor. Out in the dome, a uniformed police inspector, loud hailer at his waist, was talking to Kados. Beyond him, two officers were out on the roof, crouching on the walkway with both hands on the handrails as they advanced into a gusty wind. Virgil didn’t rate their chances of catching a nimble twelve-year-old.

  ‘Want me to go out there?’ Virgil said by way of introduction.

  The inspector looked up, moustache bristling. ‘Thank you, but we can’t have you creating dangers for yourself or her. The child was seen to leave the walkway and walk across the glass roof panels over the atrium. They’re probably strong enough to take a man’s weight, but they’re slippery as hell and I’ll not risk anyone crossing them. If Ms Roskova could come here, she might be able to talk the child down. Otherwise we’ll get a negotiator.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Virgil. Before that, he decided to let himself into Mira’s apartment. The management company didn’t have a key, and Virgil kept it to himself that he did. He went quietly down the emergency stairs onto her floor and surprised a young girl standing by the lift. She was wearing Qaeggan facepaint, glasses, and a backpack. When she saw him, she gave a little shout of alarm and frantically pressed the lift call button.

  ‘It’s alright, I’m not going to hurt you,’ Virgil said. She tried to dart around him, but he blocked her. ‘Come on, I’ve just a few questions to ask then I’ll let you go.’

  ‘You won’t hand me to the cops?’

  ‘No. And if you answer me honestly, I might give you a very quick tour of Mira’s apartment.’ He slid the electronic key into the lock and opened the door a crack.

  ‘Cool!’ she said, then looked up at him. ‘I remember you. From the building where Mira works.’

  Virgil stared at her. ‘Ah! You…you wanted promotional pictures. I do remember. Steff and…’

  ‘I’m Ellie,’ she said.

  Virgil ushered her into Mira’s flat and closed the door behind them. ‘So how did you find out she lives in this building?’

  ‘It said so in a magazine last year.’ She opened her backpack and pulled out a much-used iPad with a cracked screen and dirty case. She tapped and flicked the screen like a pro, then showed Virgil an article. It was from the May 2014 edition of the Wandsworth and Fulham Property Gazette. He started reading: ‘Village of the Dead beauty Mira Roskova has recently paid two point five million for a penthouse in the yet-to-be completed Battersea Harbour apartment complex, further buttressing the attractiveness of this exclusive development.’ Virgil was horrified. If a kid could dig this obscure nugget up so easily, then she really wasn’t safe from those with professional skills and worse intentions.

  ‘The mag said a penthouse at Battersea Harbour, which is the top, right? But we didn’t know which building. So Steff brought some flowers and kept asking the doormen at each building where she should leave them for Mira. In the end someone told her.’

  ‘But how did you get in?’

  ‘I walked in with a family who lives here, like I was their kid. I got in the lift and no one asked. Course, I wasn’t qaegged up then. I put the make-up on later.’

  ‘How long have you been staying here? Isn’t your family worried?’ Virgil asked.

  ‘Nah. My Dad don’t care, my mum’s on drugs and my brother’s in young offenders. I mostly come after school, couple of hours, stayed overnight three times I reckon. Got some good pictures of her too, wanna see?’ She offered him the iPad.

  ‘No thanks. So how did you get off the roof just now?’

  ‘I slid down onto Mira’s patio, then climbed over onto next door’s. There’s a window there which is slightly ajar. I was able to use this to slid it open.’ She showed Virgil a retractable metal tape measure.

  ‘You’re quite the little burglar, aren’t you?’ Virgil asked. ‘Is this all just to get close to her?’

  The girl shrugged. ‘I think she’s brill. I’ve seen everything she’s done. I even saw that shit film they just done. I just look around me, at home and school and the streets, then I look at her. What she’s got an’ that. They say anyone can be whatever they want, if they try hard enough. Well, I just want to be like her.’

  Virgil gave Ellie a very cursory tour of the living room, and saw her eyeing a giant box of chocolates that someone had sent Mira a week or two ago, and which still lay untouched on the kitchen counter.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ Virgil asked.

  Ellie shrugged. He went to the fridge and looked through. Four bottles of champagne, a limp baton of celery and some cream cheese.

  Ellie looked under his arm. ‘So that’s princess food, is it? That keeps her skinny?’

  ‘I guess it would,’ Virgil said. ‘Tell you what. Let’s get out of here. I’ll buy you a pizza if you tell me some more. I want to find out exactly how you Mira fans get your information. But you’ve got to promise not to come here again, okay?’

  ‘Hmm. Extra toppings and a stuffed crust?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Then it’s a deal.’ She offered him a small chilly hand for a high-five.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  SIXTEEN DAYS

  Virgil was surprised that a journalist would choose to meet in a vegetarian café rather than a pub, but the falafel at the Kali Deli in Shoreditch was delicious, and perhaps journalism had moved on too. He had already finished a plateful when the Telegraph’s home affairs editor Peter Childswicke walked in, almost an hour late.

  ‘So sorry. Bloody editorial meetings expand to more than fill the time available,’ he said. Childswicke was a rotund sixty-something of patrician demeanour, his florid jowls humid with the effort of hauling his bulk up three flights of stairs. He shrugged off a dark grimy mackintosh, and further loosened the tie which was clearly struggling to contain his fleshy neck.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ Virgil said, indicating the plate of crumbs. ‘Once you’d texted me, I thought I’d use my time usefully.’

  ‘No, not at all.’ Childswicke ordered a vegetable lasagne. ‘So, I understand you have some information about where this Wōdan fellow is?’

  ‘I have, but I want to trade it for some insight into this piece which I’m told you wrote.’ Virgil took out a printout of the Telegraph piece that he’d seen in Mira’s flat. ‘I want to discover if your “invisible monster” is actually Wōdan.’

  Childswicke took off his spectacles, breathed on the lenses, and cleaned them briskly on a napkin. ‘Well, that is an interesting speculation.’ He replaced his glasses and looked carefully around the room, assessing each table of diners. ‘Just checking for High Court judges,’ he chuckled, before leaning forward on his elbows.

  ‘Can you tell me about the crimes this guy committed?’ Virgil asked.

  ‘Well, here is what I have pieced together. In March 2005, you may recall, three British schoolgirls disappeared while on a trip to Venice. It was a massive case.’

  ‘I recall it, but I was in Afghanistan at the time. Remind me of the details.’

  ‘Keeley Corcoran, Amber Tompkins and Destiny Simpson. They were all from the same school, Halliday High, in Clitheroe, Lancashire, aged thirteen and fourteen, on a five-day school trip. You know the kind of thing: art, architecture and history. They failed to show up for dinner on day two. Huge search, local police, lah-di-dah. Nothing. Three days later, the rest of the schoolgirls go home, and for three months not a dicky bird from the Carabinieri. Press is going mad of course. Think of the papers we can sell! Lovely girls, are they alive or not? Amber was a champion swimmer with Olympic potential. So far so mysterious, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So then, after thr
ee months, the Italian police make an arrest. And that’s that. No info, nothing for a long time. I sat on my arse outside the regional police headquarters for many sweaty days waiting for some detail, then finally. Bingo! They had charged a local man, one Guglielmo Russo, aged thirty-six. Tersest police statement I ever saw. No detail, nothing. But with the help of a friendly staffer in the local police, we managed to get a little inside information. The first shock was that there were no bodies recovered, nothing. She had heard there was some other evidence, and whatever the Italian cops knew, they weren’t letting on.’

  Childswicke looked sideways, and leaned further forward. ‘Now, Italian courts don’t use a jury, even for major crimes. They have the Corte d’Assise, with two professional judges and six lay judges. And these guys sat in secret in advance of a full trial, and considered some documents. One was a legal opinion by the senior Italian prosecutor, one was a representation from a foreign power, and one a psychiatric report. They then decided our suspect, Russo, was not mentally fit to stand trial. However, now it gets complicated. In Italy since this thing called Basaglia Law, they basically closed down all the secure psychiatric hospitals in favour of community treatment.’

  ‘For everyone?’

  ‘Ah,’ Childswicke held up a finger. ‘Not the really dangerous ones, like Russo. So he stayed in prison, but under a different statute. That meant the press wasn’t allowed to know anything about him, privacy and all that, and there was legal wrangling over whether he would ever go to full trial.’

  Virgil scratched his head. ‘I don’t get how this relates to anyone in Britain?’

  ‘Bear with me,’ Childswicke said, his smile exhibiting the pleasure of gradual revelation. ‘We have a good source in the Home Office. And I mean very high. And this source said that Russo wasn’t Italian at all. He’s a Brit, name of Jonathan Pearson, who had been given at least two new identities and had his own handler within the department. That explains the representation by a foreign power. We made our own checks and discovered that someone in the Home Office, who has the ear of the Home Secretary, got him brought home from Italy. In theory it was to face trial here.’