Death Watch

DC Mark Birley stretched out his legs under the table which held the CCTV screens in the security booth at the dock gates; his left leg was bandaged from the game on Saturday, when the opposition fly-half had raked his boot down Birley’s shin bone, lifting the skin away, damaging the muscle. He looked at his left fist where the knuckles were still swollen. If he’d hit him any harder he’d have had to arrest himself. He grinned, drank some cold coffee, rubbed the heel of his palm into his right eye, and focused again on the screen.

He was good at this, he knew enough about Peter Shaw’s methods to know that. The DI didn’t do Buggins’ turn – he worked out what you had a skill for and made sure it wasn’t wasted. Since the inquiry had begun Birley had spent eighty hours in front of CCTV screens, because he had an eye for detail and the strength of mind to concentrate when every nerve in his body wanted sleep. Beside the table was a pile of video cassettes running back a month. His job was to locate the Rosa’s dockings, then see if he could pick up the registration numbers of any cars making double visits. And any signs of a bicycle, too – high-tech, a racing model, with a pannier.

He watched the film at treble speed; cars swishing across the quayside, HGVs, the stevedores swarming like Rosa to appear off the dockside. There! It docked, in Keystone-cop time, and the captain’s Volvo was winched off the fo’c’s’le onto the quayside. He ran the film speed down to real time and began to make a note.

Despite his level of concentration he was still half listening to the real world. A car engine idled as someone pulled up at the barrier. In the outer office he heard the security guard separating the glass screens so that he could take the driver’s ID and paperwork.

‘The Rosa,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘Captain should have left a note.’

Birley stood quickly, moving to one side so that he could see through the hatch to the security window. He watched the guard flicking through a pile of documents.

‘Here it is…’ He made a note and passed a book across for the woman to sign. Birley clocked the car: a Vauxhall Zafira, new, spotless, with a parking permit in the window marked QUEEN VICTORIA HOSPITAL – SENIOR STAFF.

Then she was gone. Birley stepped into the guard’s booth. Turned the book round to see the scrawled name.

Mrs Jofranka Phillips.