Silvermeadow bak-5

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Alison Vlasich?’ She pondered as they sat down. ‘Is she a redhead?’

  ‘No,’ Kathy said. ‘Light brown hair, shoulder length. Thin, pale complexion.’

  ‘Anaemic-looking? Looks like she needs a good steak and a Guinness?’

  ‘Yes, I’d say she does.’

  ‘I think I can place her. In the kitchens, behind the counter. So it was her daughter they found? Poor woman, that’s terrible.’

  ‘She happened to mention to us that she’d heard stories here of another girl disappearing at Silvermeadow.’

  ‘Here? Really?’

  ‘Yes. Apparently one of the nurses on this ward told one of the cooks about a patient here, an old woman, who was saying she’d lost her daughter out there.’

  Sister McLeod frowned. ‘I don’t remember that one. How long ago would that have been?’

  ‘We’re not sure. Maybe last spring or summer.’

  The nurse shook her head doubtfully, took down a book from a shelf behind the desk and began thumbing through its pages. It seemed to be a daily record, each page a day. She worked her way slowly through the days, pausing from time to time over a name.

  ‘I had a fortnight in Marbella second half of August,’ she said. ‘You been there?’

  Kathy shook her head.

  ‘Nice. Hot though.’ She turned back a page and frowned, stroking a name with her finger tip. ‘Velma. She had a photo of a daughter… about all she did have.’

  ‘Velma?’

  ‘That’s what it sounded like, but no one knew her name for sure. Admitted here on the twelfth of August. Gave us a bit of a scare at first. Thought she might be a TB case.’ Sister McLeod turned the pages. ‘Yes, here. She died during the night of the twenty-eighth of August, while I was away. Pneumonia.’

  ‘And you think she might be the one?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I remember she did go on about the girl in the photo. She was in a bad way when she came in. Been living rough. She didn’t seem to speak much English and she had no identification.’

  ‘How old was she?’

  ‘Hard to say. Her skin was weather-beaten and leathery and she looked seventy-plus. But the post-mortem reckoned she was still ovulating, or would have been if she hadn’t been in such a state. I remember we talked about it the day I came back.’

  ‘Who do you think might have been the nurse who spoke to the cook?’

  ‘Well, could be several…’ She looked through the book again and read out a few names, some of whom had moved on to other wards or hospitals, and others who were still at WEG. Finally she said, ‘Jenny Powell perhaps. She’s still here. You could try her.’

  ‘She was on the ward at the time the woman was here?’

  ‘Yes, and she likes mysteries.’ She grinned at Kathy. ‘Especially tragic ones.’

  Nurse Powell wasn’t due on until the afternoon shift, but Sister McLeod phoned the nurses’ home, and after some delay Jenny Powell came to the phone, exchanged some weary curses with the other nurse and spoke to Kathy. She remembered Velma well, she said, the old, mad lady who had kept the ward awake at night speaking in tongues, none of them English. Her fretting, feverish appeals had been to God rather than the health service, for she invariably clutched a crucifix in one hand and a small framed photograph of a girl in the other. The girl was black-haired, dark-eyed like her, and in her lucid moments she had told anyone who would listen that she was ‘daughter, daughter’. In Velma’s coat pocket they had found a grubby folded sheet of paper on which someone had printed a message with a marker pen.

  ‘It said something like “have you seen my daughter”? or “help me find my daughter”, something like that.’

  ‘I see,’ Kathy said. ‘And what was the connection with Silvermeadow?’

  ‘That’s where they brought her from. She collapsed in the mall there, and they called an ambulance.’

  Nurse Powell added that the hospital administration had notified the police and the social services about Velma and her message, in the hope of tracing her identity and family, but as far as she knew nothing had come of it.

  There was a quick way to get from geriatrics to administration, apparently, but only regulars were advised to try it. Kathy took the safer route back to reception by way of Emmerdale and then followed The Benny Hill Show out to the offices of the hospital administration. After a couple of false starts she was taken through a vast open-plan office to the work station of the records manager (stakeholder services), a middle-aged woman who was focused on devouring a large cream bun. After wiping her mouth and fingers she shook Kathy’s hand and offered her a chair while she searched her computer for ‘Velma’. It didn’t take long, and when the file came up on the screen it was clear that the computer knew no more about the woman who had died on the twenty-eighth of August than Sister McLeod and Nurse Powell-no name, birth date, nationality or next of kin. It had allocated her a patient number, with a cross-reference to another number with an ‘R’ prefix.

  ‘R for repository,’ the woman explained. ‘Her belongings were sent to repository.’

  ‘Are they still there?’

  ‘Should be. We keep unclaimed property for twelve months, then dispose of it. It doesn’t look as if it’s been claimed, if there’s still an R number on file.’

  ‘Can I have a look?’

  ‘You can look, but if you want to remove it you’ll probably have to apply to the coroner’s office.’

  The woman guided Kathy back to the lift lobby and told her how to get to the enquiry counter of the repository in the basement, where she filled in a request form and was presented with a large brown cardboard box with reinforced corners, with the R number printed on its label. Inside were Velma’s few pathetic remains. The largest item was her black coat, threadbare and grubby. Holding it up by the shoulders Kathy could see how small she must have been, the shoulders as narrow as a child’s. There was a label at the collar, but the maker’s name, korda, meant nothing to Kathy, and there was no care label or other clue as to its origins.

  There was one plastic bag containing articles of ill-matched clothing which looked as if they had come from a charity or secondhand shop, and another smaller one with personal possessions. Inside was the crucifix and framed photograph of the girl, as well as a small plain wedding ring, a purse with a few coins, and a small bag of cough sweets. There was no printed message.

  ‘I’d like to borrow the photograph,’ she told the man behind the counter. ‘To check with our missing persons files.’

  ‘Yeah, don’t see why not. You’ll have to sign for it.’

  She did so, and managed to find an exit to a staff carpark, from which she made her way out to the street, and eventually back to the visitors’ carpark in which she’d left her car.

  She drove out to the suburb in which Speedy lived, and this time the hope of a lottery win seemed more likely, even inevitable. If there was a connection between Kerri Vlasich’s murder and the robbery, then Speedy, dying so neatly in between the two events, was surely it.

  Kathy began with the old couple next door to Speedy’s house. They examined the photographs of North and his old associates with greedy interest and a running commentary: ‘Ooh, look at this one! He’s evil, isn’t he? Wouldn’t want to meet him on a dark night…’

  Only they couldn’t recall seeing any of them before.

  Kathy tried the whole street with no more success, and finally returned to her car, defeated. The only mildly relevant information she’d gathered had been the suggestion from a woman across the street from Speedy that he was sometimes visited by someone in an Audi, or an Opel. Kathy took out her notebook to check which it was, and opened it at the notes of her meeting with Sister McLeod.

  As she scanned the pages, the date twelfth of August, when Velma had been admitted, suddenly struck her. She flicked back to earlier notes, but couldn’t find what she was looking for, and finally started up the car and returned to Hornchurch Street, where she began searching through the boxes
of material that had been brought back from unit 184 at Silvermeadow. Eventually she found her photocopies of Harry Jackson’s daybooks, and thumbed through to the entry she was after.

  When she reached Silvermeadow a watery winter sun was gleaming on the cars which half-filled the carpark. A van with a TV current affairs programme logo was parked at the foot of the service road ramp, and Kathy saw the solid figure of Harry Jackson further along the unloading platform with a knot of technicians, pointing out the stairway and storeroom where the two guards had been found.

  She walked over to the security centre and found Sharon on duty at the control window.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Course.’

  Kathy stepped inside. ‘Harry giving guided tours is he?’ she said.

  ‘Trying to calm them down. Some hope! They want all the nasty details. You were here last Saturday, weren’t you, Kathy? Maybe you should speak to them.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘I’m really glad I wasn’t here. It makes me feel sick to think about it, them shooting those two guards like that, in cold blood, like an execution. It could have been me, or any of us.’

  ‘Yes, well, you lot were a bit thin on the ground that day. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m doing a follow-up, rechecking where everyone was on Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘I thought you’d got all that information.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ Kathy shrugged, ‘just making absolutely sure, you know.’

  ‘Sounds as if you’re stuck.’

  Kathy smiled and opened her clipboard with the schedule compiled from the statements which had been previously taken from the security staff. ‘They showed you photographs, didn’t they, Sharon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just take another look, to be sure.’

  Kathy opened the envelope and laid out the pictures once more. Sharon shook her head firmly.

  ‘All right. So where were you on Saturday?’

  ‘With my fiance, doing Christmas shopping.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘No, I have enough of this place in working hours. We went into Brentwood. We were there all afternoon. It was bedlam.’

  ‘Right.’ Kathy checked off the entry in the schedule, then looked out of the window and pointed at the group further down the service road. ‘And Harry was in central London, at a conference…’

  Sharon gave a vague smile but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Did he have a good time?’

  Sharon shrugged and looked away. ‘S’pose. Better ask him.’

  ‘Didn’t you talk about it?’

  ‘We mostly talked about the robbery.’

  ‘Yes…’ Kathy looked closely at the other woman, wondering why she was sounding so evasive. ‘But…’

  ‘But?’ Sharon turned and stared blandly at her in an unconvincing demonstration of frankness.

  ‘But you also talked about Harry’s conference, right?’

  ‘Oh… yes.’

  ‘Well?’

  Sharon blushed suddenly and turned away. ‘You’d better ask him.’

  ‘I’m asking you, Sharon,’ Kathy insisted. ‘Come on. What’s the problem?’

  ‘What do you mean, problem?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I think: I think you don’t like telling fibs to coppers.’

  Sharon’s blush deepened sharply. ‘You’ll lose me my job,’ she muttered. ‘That’s what’s the problem.’ She looked out of the control window towards her boss and the TV crew.

  ‘I can be discreet, you know. What’s he done?’

  Sharon sighed. ‘Oh, it’s nothing really, but I don’t want to sneak on him. We bumped into him when we were shopping that afternoon, about two.’

  ‘At Brentwood?’

  ‘Yeah. He said he’d got bored with the conference and come back early. But he made me promise not to let on to Bo or anyone else. Wouldn’t look good.’

  ‘I see. He was on his own, was he?’

  ‘I think he was looking for someone. That’s what it looked like, when I spotted him. He seemed embarrassed to meet us-because of the conference, I suppose.’

  ‘And you didn’t mention this before, when you were interviewed?’

  ‘I wasn’t asked, was I? Anyway, it’s not important, is it?’

  ‘No, no. You’re right. I think we should do as he asked and just keep it to ourselves, don’t you?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Sharon grinned with relief. ‘I mean, it’s not as if it’s the first time.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. He slips off for an hour or two sometimes and gets us to cover for him. Speedy used to reckon he had a secret girlfriend.’

  ‘What, Harry?’

  ‘Well, he’s not that old…’ Sharon blushed again. ‘I mean, he’s in pretty good nick. Considering.’

  They both laughed and Kathy sat down beside her and they went through the list of all the security staff, checking off from the work schedules where they would have been on the Saturday.

  When they were finished Kathy glanced out of the window again. Harry Jackson and his visitors had moved further on down the service road.

  ‘Okay, now I’d like to ask you to be discreet, Sharon.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘I still have one or two loose ends from the Kerri Vlasich case that I should have tied up days ago, and I don’t want Gavin Lowry and the others knowing I forgot. I don’t think it’s important, see, but I have to put in a report. Maybe you could help me.’

  ‘Yeah, if I can.’

  ‘Okay, well, there was an entry in your daybooks for last August I needed to check.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Sharon offered, but Kathy took the photocopy of the missing page from her bag and showed it to her.

  ‘This is the one. Were you around on that week, do you remember?’

  Sharon studied the entries. ‘That’s my handwriting and initials. The two cars broken into on the Wednesday. I remember now. It was hot. People were leaving their car windows cracked open.’

  ‘Right. What about the entry on Thursday, the confused woman?’

  Sharon frowned, thinking. ‘Yes, I remember. We’d had problems with her before. She was mental, I reckon. Nobody could understand what she was saying. She passed out in the mall, and we called an ambulance.’

  ‘How big was she?’

  ‘Oh, tiny. Fierce dark eyes. She had a bad cough, too. Spitting and coughing over everybody. Yuck.’

  ‘Black coat?’

  ‘Ye-es. I think she did.’

  ‘Did she have a sign?’

  ‘A sign?’

  ‘Yes. A message on a piece of paper?’

  Sharon shook her head. ‘Don’t remember that. Mind you, she tried to hide or run whenever anyone in uniform appeared. Oh yes, I remember! She was begging, that was it. Stopping people in the mall and pestering them. Speedy caught her on tape.’

  ‘Did you get a name?’

  ‘No idea, sorry.’

  ‘You say there’d been trouble with her before, but I didn’t notice any other daybook entries.’

  ‘Well, sometimes Harry would say not to bother putting trivial things in the book. Why? What’s the interest?’

  ‘She had a daughter we were trying to track down. This is her picture.’ Kathy took the photograph from her bag.

  ‘Oh, I think I know her…’ Sharon squinted at the portrait. ‘She looked a bit older than this. Hang on a tick.’ She got up, brought over a couple of the daybooks and began to turn the pages. ‘Somewhere…’ It took her a few minutes, but eventually she found the entry, almost illegible, in late May.

  ‘That’s Carl’s writing. He’s hopeless.’

  ‘What does it say?’ Kathy asked, peering at the scrawl.

  ‘“Cash theft at supermarket, f. employee, police called.” Carl and I both went. One of the girls who restocks the shelves was caught taking money from the handbags of other women who work there. This was her.’ Sharon nodded at the photograph. ‘S
he was thin as a rake, and refused to say a word. The store insisted on making a formal complaint so they could get rid of her, but in the end it was them who got into trouble.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘They said the girl was called something ordinary, like Mary Smith or something, but they couldn’t provide proof of identity, or age, and when they checked her social security number it was wrong. Social services and the tax people got onto it. Someone said the girl was on the run, or an illegal immigrant.’

  Kathy thought, Wiff Smiff and Mary Smith. ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Dunno. We saw her in here a couple of times afterwards, I remember, and kept an eye out for trouble. Then she stopped coming, I suppose.’

  ‘Like Norma Jean,’ Kathy said.

  ‘Norma Jean?’

  ‘Oh, she was another trouble-maker in the daybooks, Sharon. Before your time. You’ve never heard the others talk about her?’

  ‘No, can’t say I have. Have you asked Harry?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s all history now. I just had to cover any possible similar incidents in my report. You don’t know of any, do you? Girls reported missing?’

  ‘You don’t think Speedy-’

  ‘No, no. The case is closed. And as I say, I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention to anyone that I was in here tying up these loose ends. I should have done it before.’

  Kathy left, avoiding Harry Jackson and the TV people.

  At Hornchurch Street she found Bren and Gavin Lowry together in the incident room, checking through interview statements. They looked up as she came in, and Bren said, ‘Something going on, Kathy? You look pleased with yourself.’

  ‘Not sure,’ she replied. ‘Have we got Harry Jackson’s statement about last Saturday here?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Lowry pointed at a pile of paper. ‘Silvermeadow staff statements. Why? What’s up?’

  ‘Tell you in a moment.’ Kathy pulled off her coat and sat down at the table, searching through the papers until she found what she wanted. The two men waited in silence while she read, nodding as she scanned the single page.