Silvermeadow bak-5

by Barry Maitland

  ‘How about unit one-eight-four?’ Jackson suggested.

  ‘Yes,’ Bo Seager agreed. ‘It’s on the next side mall, and vacant right now. The shopfitting for the next tenants doesn’t start till after Christmas. There’s a phone line and a staff toilet.’

  ‘Sounds ideal. What time do you close tonight?’

  ‘Ten o’clock. Another half an hour or so.’

  ‘Then I think we’ll have a quick look at the compactors now.’

  Bo Seager held out her hand, and Kathy now noticed the lines of fatigue round her eyes. ‘I’ve told Harry to help in any way he can, Chief Inspector. These things happen, I guess, even in the most carefully planned set-ups. It’s an aberration, a glitch. Let’s get it cleared up as painlessly as possible, huh?’

  Brock smiled and took the offered hand. Kathy could guess what he was thinking. She hadn’t seen the aberration herself, the smashed figure, so the sentiment was understandable, given her perspective.

  Jackson led the way out of the management offices, on the way picking up a handful of glossy brochures with maps of the centre and dispensing them to the detectives like a tour guide. They followed him to the locked fire door at the end of the service corridor, where he demonstrated the security procedure, tapping his code into the keypad before opening the door and ushering them through to a bare concrete stair landing.

  ‘Is that recorded at all, Harry?’ Lowry asked. ‘Your opening the door?’

  ‘Oh dear me yes, Gavin. All the security doors are networked. The computer records the PIN of anyone opening a door, with time and location. We can provide a printout of all that.’

  ‘Does every employee have a separate number?’ Brock asked.

  ‘Not everyone, no. Each tenant applies to us for numbers for their staff, usually senior staff only. They don’t bother to get one for every salesgirl and cleaner.’

  ‘So, if a manager was busy, say, and needed to send one of the lads down to the service bay to pick up a delivery, what would he do?’

  Jackson was ahead of them on the stair, his voice echoing back up as he replied. ‘Get someone with a code to go down.’

  ‘Or give the lad someone else’s number,’ Brock suggested.

  ‘Strictly forbidden!’

  ‘Still,’ Kathy heard Brock murmur. ‘It is Christmas…’

  They reached the bottom and pushed the bar on another fire door and found themselves on a loading platform on the edge of the service area, the air suddenly humid and sharp with the stench of diesel fumes. High overhead the underside of the concrete slab was strung with colour-coded pipes and ducts, and somewhere in the background, out of sight, they heard the growl and warning signal of a truck reversing. With an athletic hop Jackson jumped down to the roadway, keeping up his tour-guide commentary of Interesting Facts.

  ‘Strong, eh?’ he said, sniffing the air, keeping a watchful eye on their descent to the slab, wet with the trails of truck tyres coming in from the outside. ‘We’ve had a lot of traffic down here today. Diesel fumes are heavier than air, right? So most of the big extract ducts are at low level.’ He pointed to grilles in the face of the wall below the edge of the loading platform. ‘Even so, it can get a bit thick on a busy day.’

  ‘Where’s the blue compactor from here, Harry?’ Lowry said, turning the plan in his hand as though trying to orient himself.

  ‘Round that corner. Not far.’

  ‘Security cameras down here?’

  ‘Only at the entrance to the service road. Not in this area, unfortunately. Not normally considered a hot spot, see? All the shop units backing onto the service road’-he waved a hand at the row of blank doors along the length of the loading platform-‘are alarmed, and we’ve never had a break-in attempt from down here.’

  They marched briskly along the service road to the corner, where the space broadened out into a manoeuvring area. The reversing truck was ahead of them, along with several others backed against delivery bays on the far side. To their right, three figures in white overalls were stooped behind a crime scene tape examining the control panel on a large blue steel box.

  They got to their feet as they saw the group approaching, one of them nodding at Gavin Lowry. ‘Don’t reckon much on trying to take this thing apart. It’s got hydraulic lines, compression springs… Reckon we could do it, or ourselves, a bit of damage if we tried. We need an experienced mechanic.’

  ‘I can arrange that,’ Jackson said. ‘We have a maintenance contract with the suppliers. Don’t know about tonight, though.’

  They agreed to leave the compactors until the morning, the SOCOs moving off to search the surrounding roadways and access corridors.

  Kathy stared at the mute blue box, trying to imagine how it would have been done. A loading platform ran down its far side and across the back end, providing the height from which waste could be hoisted into the feeder scoop on the top of the machine. The platform had a ramp connecting it to the roadway, so that laden trolleys could be rolled up. And the girl had been light, only eighty-eight pounds Brock had told her. One man could have managed it without difficulty, and probably quite openly, with her packed inside the plastic bag inside a cardboard box. The box itself would probably tell them nothing-next to the compactor was a big wire trailer full of loose boxes waiting to be loaded into the machine, any one of which would have done.

  Brock walked up the ramp, pulled a large box out of the trailer and took it to the scoop on the machine. It fitted easily through the opening. ‘Then what?’ he called to Jackson, looking up at him from the roadway.

  ‘Hit the green button.’

  He did so. The machine gave a slight lurch and a snort, as if waking from a nap. An amber warning light on its top began flashing, a steel cover slid automatically across the feeder opening, and with a deep throbbing the motor cut in. After a moment’s pause the compactor began vibrating with the passage of the hydraulic ram down its interior. There was a sound of crackling and crunching as the material inside was crushed harder and harder against the far end. Then a moment of heavy, throbbing consolidation followed by a long, deep sigh as the hydraulic pressure was released, the ram withdrawn slowly. When that was complete, the light and motor switched off and with a final shudder the machine went back to sleep.

  They walked back with a cold breeze fanning their faces, refreshing in the humid, fumy fug of the service road, until they saw a striped barrier across the way ahead, controlling access at the foot of the entry ramp, a guard visible at a control window to one side.

  Jackson led them into a large, brightly lit room glittering with VDUs, computer screens and zoned alarm panels alive with winking multi-coloured lights. As he described the functions of the pieces of equipment and introduced them to his operatives, Kathy noticed that Harry Jackson had relaxed.

  ‘Nothing like a bit of technology to make everyone feel more secure, eh?’ he said. ‘That’s what people want to keep the bogeyman at bay these days. In the States the latest thing is to have your security centre right up there, in the mall, where everyone can see you behind plate glass, with all your computers and communication equipment, and they can all feel safe in the knowledge that Speedy there is keeping his beady little eyes on everything on legs.’ He nodded at one of the figures watching the VDUs, a pony-tailed man who raised a hand in acknowledgement without turning away from his flickering screens, his jaw muscles working on gum. ‘Although it wouldn’t be Speedy sitting there, nor me come to that, because we’re not photogenic enough.’

  He gave a laugh, and raised a smile from Lowry.

  ‘Straight up, Gavin, it’s true. You should see the girls they have on mall patrol in some of those places in Florida! They look like Hollywood film extras. Leads to a glamourisation of the industry, see?’ He shot a quick glance at Kathy to see if he’d said something inappropriate. Or perhaps her silence was beginning to bother him. ‘I suppose it’ll come to us all, eventually.’

  ‘You keep yourself in pretty good shape, Harry,’ Lowry said. ‘You’v
e lost a bit of weight since I saw you last.’

  ‘I do my best, Gavin. At my age you’ve got to take care of yourself. And we’ve got everything here at Silvermeadow, you know. I work out at the gym three times a week, and have a swim most days.’

  ‘What sort of crime do you get here, Harry?’ Brock asked.

  ‘Shop theft’s the main thing, as you’d expect. We work closely with the tenants’ own staff on that. Mostly it’s pathetic or perverse-old ladies or kids from well-to-do homes. Once in a while we get the professionals trying to hit the place, and that’s when we particularly value help from the local CID, of course, like Gavin here. After shoplifting comes car theft from the carparks outside. Again, both amateurs and pros.

  ‘We have, on occasions, had our more exciting moments.’ He smiled grimly. ‘An armed robbery at the bank, and two ram raids last year-stolen vehicles were driven through the glass mall doors and smashed into a shopfront inside. One, a jeweller’s shop, was during shopping hours, and a shopper got run down as they drove back out again. We’ve put bollards at all the mall entrances now to combat that.’

  ‘What about violence against individuals-robbery or assault?’

  He shook his head. ‘Very little. Too chancy, really, with having to make your escape out of the building on foot, and patrols in the mall. Occasionally we get complaints of handbag theft, or some kid comes out of bodybuilding all pumped up and knocks an old geezer in a walking frame. That’s the main thing, really. There are so many different types come here, you’re bound to get some accidental conflict. We’re as much babysitters as watchdogs. We’re all trained in CPR and first aid, and we’re much more likely to be called out for a heart attack or a mislaid toddler than for a crime. Know what I mean?’

  ‘I’d like a complete list of all reported security incidents since the centre opened, Harry,’ Brock said. ‘Can you manage that?’

  ‘No problem.’ He nodded. ‘It’s all on the computer.’

  Lowry said, ‘Sounds boring, Harry.’

  ‘Depends what you’re after, Gavin. Far as I’m concerned this is what policing should be like, how it used to be. We get to know our public. We open up early two mornings a week so the over-sixty power-walkers can do their six lengths of the mall before the rest of the customers arrive, and we make sure the kiddies and the pregnant mums get front-row seats when Mount Mauna Loa erupts for the Hawaii Experience.’ Jackson beamed-the rosy-cheeked village constable, Kathy thought.

  The closed-circuit television screens were of most immediate interest to Brock, two banks each of six screens, each screen split into four images that continuously flicked from scene to scene. Brock went over and stood between the two people monitoring the screens, seated in shirtsleeves, their leather jackets slung over the backs of their chairs, one Speedy and the other, introduced now as Sharon, the young woman who had been in the reception party at the mall entrance. Brock leant forward, asking questions, and they showed him how their control panels worked, selecting individual images, freezing, zooming, panning.

  Harry Jackson turned to Kathy, trying to include her. ‘Ever worked in this part of the country, Kathy?’

  ‘A little. I was in traffic for a while before I joined CID.’

  ‘But never in Two Area, eh? I think I’d have remembered if I’d come across you.’

  She shook her head. ‘I was in Eight Area before I went to SO1.’

  ‘Ah.’ Jackson seemed satisfied, the genealogy established.

  ‘Gavin and I go way back. We were at West Ham together,’ he said to her. ‘When did you arrive, Gavin?

  Eighty, was it?’

  ‘Eighty-one,’ Lowry said.

  ‘Then you moved on to Dagenham. And who’s your chief now?’

  ‘Forbes.’

  ‘Old Mother Forbes? What’s he now? Going for commander, last I heard.’

  ‘No, no, no.’ Lowry shook his head dismissively. ‘No way. Chief super still. He should do what you did, Harry. Get out.’

  Jackson chuckled at that one. ‘Think anyone would have him, Gavin? Not out here. Not in the real world, mate.’ He turned to Kathy, wondering if he’d been tactless. ‘Met Mr Forbes, have you, Kathy?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s not exactly what you’d call a hands-on working copper. A committee man, not like Mr Brock there.’

  ‘Not any more, Harry. Forbes is SIO on this one.’

  ‘Senior investigating officer! Forbes?’ Jackson exploded, then, seeing Brock turn sharply to see what was going on, lowered his voice and murmured, ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Gavin. For all our sakes.’

  ‘Harry,’ Brock called. Jackson snapped to attention and hurried over. ‘Would it be in order for me to brief your people here?’

  ‘Course. Hush everyone! Listen up, please. Chief Inspector Brock from Scotland Yard wants to say a few words.’

  Brock cleared his throat, the hum of the machines suddenly loud as the humans went quiet. ‘We’d appreciate your help in tracing the movements of a fourteen-year-old girl by the name of Kerri Vlasich, from the Herbert Morrison estate, who was last seen at her school on Monday, sixth of December. The body of a naked girl matching her description was found earlier today, and it seems probable that it was dumped in the blue compactor here at Silvermeadow.’

  This sparked a murmur of interest. Speedy turned from his consoles, and Kathy caught a glimpse of a pale face, jaw working on chewing gum, the screens reflecting in his large eyes.

  ‘We would be interested in any recent sightings of the girl. She had a casual job in the food court, at Snow White’s Pancake Parlour, and we shall be distributing photographs and a description of her shortly. She had shoulder-length blonde hair, was slight of build, and when she left home was carrying a distinctive backpack in the form of a bright green frog. Does this ring a bell with anyone?’

  People shook their heads. There were so many people going through the mall.

  ‘Your video tapes should help us, Harry,’ Brock went on. ‘It may take a bit of a search…’

  ‘Ah, that would be something. But I’m afraid not.’ Jackson shook his head regretfully.

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Because the tapes are reused almost as soon as they’re run through, Mr Brock. Right, Speedy?’ Speedy nodded. ‘Six-hour tapes, rotated in threes or fours. That’s the way the system’s designed, with a twenty-four-hour memory, long enough to identify and recover the sort of incidents we meet. Archiving just isn’t part of our requirement. It’s not set up for the kind of situation you’re looking at.’

  ‘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?’