Off the Rails

∨ Off the Rails ∧

2

Choreography

DC Colin Bimsley and DC Meera Mangeshkar were watching the train station. They had no idea what their suspect might look like, or any reason to assume he would appear suddenly before them on the concourse. But Mr Fox knew his terrain well and rarely left it, so there was a chance that even now he might be wandering through the Monday morning commuters. And as the St Pancras International surveillance team was more concerned with watching for terrorist suspects after a weekend of worrying intelligence, it fell to the two detective constables to keep an eye out for their man. At least it was warm and dry under the great glass canopy.

Each circuit of the huge double-tiered terminus took half an hour. Bimsley and Mangeshkar wore jeans and matching black nylon jackets with badges, the closest anyone at the PCU could come to an official uniform, but Bimsley was a foot taller than his partner, and they made an incongruous pair.

“Down there.” Meera pointed, leaning over the balustrade. “That’s the third time he’s crossed between the bookshop and the florist.”

“You can’t arrest someone for browsing,” Bimsley replied. “Do you want to go and look?”

“It’s worth checking out.” Meera led the way to the stairs. Colin checked his watch: 8:55 A.M. The Eurostar was offloading passengers from Brussels and Paris, the national rail services brought hordes of commuters from the Midlands and the north, the tubes were disgorging suburbanites and reconnecting them to overland services. Charity workers were stopping passers-by; others were handing out free newspapers, packets of tissues and bottles of water; a sales team was attempting to sell credit services; the shops on the ground-floor concourse were all open for business – and there was a French cheese fair; tricolour stalls had been set out down the centre of the covered walkway. Travellers seemed adept at negotiating these obstacles while furling their wet umbrellas and manhandling their cases through the crowds. Was a murderer moving among them?

“There he goes again,” said Meera.

“You’re right, he just bought a newspaper and a doughnut, let’s nick him. Uh-oh, look out, he’s stopped by the florist. I’ll make a note of that; considering the purchase of carnations. Definitely dodgy.”

“Suppose it’s Mr Fox and you just let him walk away?”

“You want to call it? I mean, if we’re going to start stop-and-search procedures down here, we’d better have some clearly defined criteria.”

“You can come up with something later – let’s take him.” Meera paced up through the crowd, then stopped by the French market, puzzled, looking back. “Colin?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Something weird.” She pointed to the far side of the concourse. There half a dozen teenagers had suddenly stopped and spaced themselves six feet apart from each other. Bimsley shrugged and pointed to the other wall, where the same thing was happening. “What’s going on?” Meera asked.

All around them, people were freezing in their tracks and slowly turning.

“They’re all wearing phone earpieces,” Meera pointed out.

Now almost everyone in the centre of the station was standing still and facing front. Beneath the station clock, two young men in grey hooded sweatshirts set an old-fashioned ghetto blaster on a café table and hit Play.

As the first notes of ‘Rehab’ by Amy Winehouse blasted out, the two young men raised their right arms and spun in tight circles. Everyone on the concourse copied them. The choreography had been rehearsed online until it was perfect. The station had suddenly become a dance floor.

“It’s a flash mob,” Meera called wearily. The Internet phenomenon had popularised the craze for virally organised mass dancing in public places, but she had assumed it had fallen out of fashion a couple of years ago.

“I took part in a flash-freeze in Victoria Station once,” Bimsley told her, watching happily. “Four hundred of us pretending to be statues. It’s just a bit of harmless fun.”

“Well, our man’s using it to cover his escape.”

“Meera, he’s not our man, he’s just a guy buying a newspaper and catching a train.”

But the diminutive DC did not hear. She was already running across the concourse, weaving a path between the performers. The song could be heard bleeding from hundreds of earpieces as the entire station danced. The tune hit its chorus – they tried to make me go to rehab, but I said no, no, no – and the choreography grew more complex. Colin could no longer see who Meera was chasing. Even the transport police were standing back and watching the dancers with smiles on their faces.

As the song reached its conclusion there was a concerted burst of leaping and twirling. Then, just as if the music had never played, everyone went back to the business of the day, catching trains and heading to the office. Meera was glaring at Colin through the crowds, furious to find that her target had disappeared. But just as Meera started walking toward Colin, someone grabbed at his shoulder.

Colin turned to find himself facing a portly, florid-faced businessman who was slapping the pockets of his jacket and shouting incoherently. “Hey, calm down, tell me the problem,” Bimsley advised.

“You are police, yes?” screeched the man. “I have been robbed. Just now. I was crossing station and this stupid dancing begins, and I stop to watch because I cannot cross, you know, and my bag is taken right from my hand.”

“Do we look like the police?” Colin asked Meera via his headset.

Her derisive snort crackled back. “What else could you be?”

“Did you see who took it?” Bimsley asked the businessman. “What was the bag like?”

“Of course I did not see! You think I talk to you if I see? I would stop him! Is bag, black leather bag, is all. I am Turkish Cypriot, on my way to Paris. The receipts are in my bag.”

“What receipts?”

“My restaurants! Six restaurants! All the money is in cash.”

“How much?”

“You think I have time to count it? This is not my job. Maybe sixty thousand, maybe seventy thousand pounds.”

“Wait a minute,” said Bimsley, “you’re telling me you were carrying over sixty thousand on you – in cash?”

“Of course is cash. I always do this on same Monday every month.”

“Always the same day?” Bimsley was incredulous. How could anyone be so stupid?

“Yes, and is perfectly safe because no-one knows I carry this money, how could they?”

“Well, what about somebody from one of your restaurants?”

“You tell me I should not trust my own countrymen? My own flesh and blood? Is always safe and I have no trouble, is routine, is what I always do. But today the music start up and everybody dance and someone snatch the bag from me. Look.” The irate businessman held up his left wrist. Dangling from it was a length of plastic cable, snipped neatly through. “I want to know what you will do about this,” the man shouted, waving his hairy wrist in Bimsley’s perplexed face. “You must get me back my money!”

Meera came back to his side. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Colin said, sighing. “Just another bloody Monday morning in King’s Cross.”