Red Notice

14

The woman walked downhill, away from the Heath, towards the dry-cleaner’s. Her daughter stuck close by her side. The police cars and helicopters were frightening her. And so was the man in the wheelchair.

He seemed hunched with age and pain and, shadowed by his hat, his face was as pale as a ghost’s. A scarf was wrapped around his neck and a blanket covered him right up to his chin.

‘Where are we going now?’ the child said. ‘Can we go home?’

The woman shook her head. ‘Later, darling. First we have to go back to the shop.’

‘But I want to go home, Mamochka.’

‘Not now, little one. Later, I promise.’

The man in the wheelchair smiled at the child and held out a hand from under the blanket for her to grip. ‘What is your name, little one?’

She didn’t take the hand, moving still closer to her mother. ‘Lilya.’

‘Do you like living here, Lilya?’

‘It’s not like my real home.’ Her tone was sullen. She missed her little friends and her uncles, who spoiled her with sweets.

‘A lot of things here are not like home,’ her mother said. ‘Some are better, some are worse, but at least we are safe.’

They turned a corner, away from the police vans throwing out streams of officers to create an outer cordon around the incident on the Heath.

‘And what can go wrong on such a beautiful day?’ the man said. ‘It’s so warm you would scarcely believe it was autumn. Tell you what, Lilya, I have just one little job to do in that steamy, smelly dry-cleaner’s, and then we can all go and get some ice-cream. Would you like that?’

She brightened at once and even took his hand as a couple of speeding police cars screamed past. A moment later, a van turned in towards them and pulled up with a screech of brakes. Two policemen jumped out and threw on their hi-vis jackets. The van drove past and stopped once more. More men streamed out and began erecting a barrier across the street.

The woman slowed her pace as the two officers approached them. Her daughter gave her an uncertain look.

‘Don’t worry, Lilya.’ The man squeezed her hand. ‘Policemen here are not like the ones at home. Give them a nice smile. Now, let’s keep moving. We don’t want to miss that ice-cream, do we?’

The policemen’s instructions were to be on the alert for a solitary six-foot male of East European appearance, in his mid-thirties, of slim build with pale complexion and dark brown hair. A frail old man in a wheelchair, clutching his granddaughter’s hand, barely merited a second glance. He hardly looked strong enough to keep his thick, black-framed glasses perched on his aquiline nose.

They gave the anxious-looking woman a polite nod and carried on up the street, their gaze raking the gardens to either side. Rotors chopped the air above them as a police helicopter swooped overhead and began to hover over the edge of the Heath, dominating the sky to prevent the media getting any closer to the incident.