Silvermeadow

3

T raffic was heavy on the motorway, the freezing rain continued to gust in across the Essex flats, and Kathy had difficulty keeping Lowry’s tail lights in sight through the sluicing water. Along the way Brock briefed her on North, the real reason why they were there. She felt a disconcerting sense of having been through this before, for in her first encounter with Brock he had been doing exactly this, using the cover of another murder investigation in order to get a lead on this same elusive North. It had been her first murder case as investigating officer, and she had been both flattered and intimidated to have a senior Yard detective like Brock looking over her shoulder. After she got used to him he had seemed benign, fatherly and harmless. Later she had discovered that he had been trying to track down whoever it was in her division who was supplying information to North’s lawyer. Since she was having an affair with the lawyer at the time, she had been the unwitting prime suspect.

She wasn’t sure how far back Brock and North went, but they were already long-standing adversaries at that time, four years before. Brock had led a team drawn from the Serious Crime Branch and Robbery Squad to hunt North following a series of violent robberies in the London area, culminating in what the tabloids dubbed the ‘City Securities Slayings’, in which two young police officers had been shot dead by the escaping gang. North had fled abroad, but had been lured back to the UK and arrested by Brock, only to escape again while in transit between prisons.

‘You say he was with a little girl?’ Kathy asked.

‘Yes. That’s a mystery. He had a wife and a six-year-old boy when he escaped abroad, but we’ve kept an eye on them over the years and there’s been no hint of contact from him. The wife said she’d had enough of him, and eventually we believed her. She and the boy are living in Southampton now. If he had a girlfriend at that time we didn’t know of it.’

‘The girl might just be cover, someone he borrowed for the day.’

‘Maybe.’ Brock looked unhappy. ‘But who would lend their child to an animal like North, for God’s sake?’

It was a chilling thought. Kathy said, ‘And Lowry and the others, they’re in on this?’

‘No, only those that already knew-Forbes, PC Sangster and her inspector. We’ve asked them to keep it to themselves. Simpler that way. As far as Lowry and the rest are concerned, you and I are investigating the disappearance of Kerri Vlasich. And we will do that, while Bren and his team get on with hunting North. The priority is to sift through the security camera tapes from the centre to get any further sightings of him. If we are very lucky there might a shot of him using a credit card, or getting into a bus or a taxi or car. We’re putting a couple of women officers in shifts into the shop where he was seen, in the hope he might return.’

After a while they saw the sign SILVERMEADOW and followed Lowry up the exit slip road to an overpass bridge. From the top of the embankment the view opened up to the west, the blackness of the night fractured by tall lighting masts illuminating a vast carpark with the brilliance of a football stadium. Beyond the cars, thousands of them, lay the indeterminate outline of a huge building which might have been an assembly plant, or a large warehouse complex. Only the electric hype of the entrances, lit up like pinball machines, signified that this was a place at which the public was welcome.

They parked as near as they could to one of the beckoning entrances, beneath a sign which said REMEMBER! ORANGE CAR PARK, AISLE K 4. They hurried through the rain towards the brilliant orange neon WELCOME TO SILVERMEADOW sign. Beneath it, silhouetted against the glass doors, stood a group of motionless figures, waiting. As they hurried closer, Kathy could make out uniforms.

One of them, the oldest and tallest, was in a suit, an identity card clipped to his belt. He stepped forward and shook Lowry’s hand warmly, Kathy noted, then turned to be introduced to them. Grizzled, but looking fit and tough, he gripped her hand firmly and looked steadily into her eyes, like a general receiving a delegation at the frontier of his command, she thought. The others held back and were not introduced, two men and a woman, all dressed entirely in black, in American cop-style caps and leather blouse jackets with insignia on their arms and identity cards on their left breasts.

‘Is this the lot, Gavin?’ Harry Jackson asked, sounding mildly disappointed, as if he’d been expecting an armoured division at least.

‘We’ve got a scene of crime team coming to look at the compactors, Harry. I told them to go to the service road entry, like you said.’

Jackson glanced at one of the uniformed men and inclined his head. The man turned without a word and marched off into the night.

‘Right then, let’s get you into the warm, for a start.’ He stretched out an arm in a gesture of welcome, and the automatic doors, picking up the movement, slid obediently open. Kathy breathed in the warm, scented breeze that billowed out.

‘And may I say, Mr Brock, that it’s a pleasure to meet you at last.’

‘Have we met before, Harry?’ Brock asked. ‘Your face looks familiar.’

‘Don’t believe so. I was at West Ham most of my time in the Met. Were you ever there?’

Brock shook his head.

‘Maybe you saw Harry win the Met snooker championship in 1988, sir,’ Lowry offered. ‘That’s his main claim to fame.’

Jackson chuckled. ‘What a night that was! Hardly get the time to play at all these days, which says something about working in the private sector I suppose. There again, the game always got me into bad habits-smoking and booze. At our age we’ve got to be more careful with our bodies. Am I right?’

Having established a certain level of parity and bonhomie, Jackson took charge. ‘I’ve arranged for you to meet our boss, the centre manager, first, for an initial briefing. Then we’ll inspect the compactor site. Your SOCOs should be here by then. Suit you?’

‘Fine. I’d be interested to see your set-up, too, Harry. Gavin tells me you’re state of the art, is that right?’

‘Well, we do our best. Of course our needs are more modest than the Met’s. Up to now this has been a relatively crime-free environment. That’s really what we’re on about. Prevention.’ He turned and waved through the window of a building society office at a young woman behind the counter. She smiled and waved back. ‘This is a safe community, Mr Brock,’ he went on. ‘That’s why Gavin’s phone call was of such concern to us. You’ll find us completely cooperative, believe me.’

The uniformed couple fell into step behind them as they set off into the mall.

Kathy’s first reaction was of disappointment. She’d expected something spectacular and instead thought it rather plain, with its white polished terrazzo floor and mirrored ceiling strips, and standard shopfronts, but this was only a side mall, relatively quiet and restrained. Soon they reached the main mall, and here the space opened out dramatically, golden light flooding down from above. White steel columns arched up between the shopfronts which lined the broad route, and branched and met overhead, so that the view down the long mall resembled a tree-lined boulevard in winter, all sparkling white and silver, but bathed in the golden light of perpetual summer. Christmas music interspersed with birdsong drifted down from the steel branches from which scarlet banners were suspended between glittering fairy lights. YULETIDE AT SILVERMEADOW they proclaimed, CHRISTMAS IN THE MALL. It was surprisingly busy for the late hour. Throngs of people slowly flowed past the glowing shopfront displays, many in light clothes, despite the December cold outside, for in here it was always warm and balmy. Soon they came to Plaza Mexico, where the shops were of adobe and the plants yucca and giant cactus, and a little later they glimpsed the sails and rigging of a half-scale pirate galleon moored at a seventeenth-century wharf in a side mall.

It was partly the effect of contrast, Kathy thought, having come directly from the Herbert Morrison estate, that caused the sense of disorientation that gradually filled her, as if somehow, while no one was really looking, the city had polarised into two grotesque extremes: one a concrete nightmare, the other a luminous fantasy, all make-believe and impossible sweetness and light.

They moved on through the crowded mall, weaving between pushchairs, bulging carrier bags and clusters of seats and cafe tables, towards what appeared to be the end. But when they reached the place they realised that it was another town square marking a change in direction, and beyond it the mall continued, far into the distance.

‘It’s huge,’ Kathy murmured, ‘like a self-contained city.’

‘Or an airport,’ Brock grunted, sounding determinedly unimpressed.

To their left the line of shopfronts swept away around the square, with balconies looking down over a lower level occupied by the trees of a tropical rainforest, among which dozens of tables and chairs were visible below. The music and birdcalls had changed, ‘Jingle Bells’ giving way to Polynesian guitars and the sound of parrots. Crowded escalators and a glass lift carried people up and down between the two levels.

Jackson stopped briefly here to point out the food court below with its Tastes of Five Continents, the entrance to the Grand Bazaar, and, a particular delight, a miniature volcano in a lagoon half hidden among the trees. ‘Our very own Mount Mauna Loa. Erupts every hour, on the hour. You’ll want to see it.’

Kathy didn’t think she would, but didn’t argue. She watched a family stroll past, husband, wife and little boy. The boy was wearing a dressing gown and shuffling along in a pair of slippers, his teddy bear tucked under his arm, looking for all the world as if he’d stepped straight out of his bedroom.

‘Kerri Vlasich had a part-time job in the food court, Harry,’ Lowry said.

‘Is that right? Which one, any idea? There are twenty-six outlets down there.’

Lowry shook his head. They could make out knots of teenagers gathered under the rainforest trees, lounging, swaggering, eyeing each other, older people detouring around them.

‘Never mind. I’ll find out for you.’ He turned away and spoke to the uniformed woman, at whom the small boy in the dressing gown was staring, bug-eyed.

They resumed their journey, past a bamboo thicket in a stand of elaborate planter boxes incorporating seats, litter bins, a small pool, and, half hidden among the foliage, a fearsome-looking gorilla.

Kathy felt uncomfortably warm now in her outdoor coat as they made their way past a queue of small children waiting to meet Santa Claus beneath a huge Christmas tree. Jackson went over and gave Santa a pat on the shoulder as he passed, and the old man playing the role gave a cheery wave and cried, ‘Ho, ho! Hello there, Harry!’

Beyond the tree Jackson paused to let three long-legged girls cross his path, with shorts and damp blonde hair and rolled-up towels, looking as if they’d just wandered off the beach at Malibu or Bondi. Kathy saw him wink at Lowry as he led them on into a side corridor off the mall, where they came to a glass door labelled CENTRE MANAGEMENT.

A young black woman was in the front office, stacking a pile of brochures and promotional literature on the receptionist’s desk. She looked up as they came in and gave them a flash of brilliant white teeth. Jackson introduced her as Bo Seager and she shook their hands in turn and led them through to an inner office where she took their coats and invited them to sit down around a coffee table.

‘Can I offer you anything?’ she asked. They declined. She leaned back against the edge of the large desk and said, ‘Now, how can I help?’

Kathy caught the look of surprise on Brock’s face. So did Bo Seager. ‘Yes, I’m the manager of this place, Chief Inspector. You thought, female? black?’

‘Young,’ Brock replied. ‘You seemed too young.’

She smiled very briefly. ‘Is there any possibility that you’ve made a mistake about this, about the compactor?’

‘I’d say we’re eighty per cent certain at this stage,’ Brock said. He handed her a list of identification marks from eighteen of the boxes found crushed in the same bale as the girl’s body. ‘So far only two of these have been definitely linked to Silvermeadow shops. We’re working on the rest.’

She stared at the list, mouth puckered with concentration. She was elegantly dressed in a dark business suit and cream silk blouse, simple gold accessories, her hair pulled tight to the back of her head. After a moment she exchanged a look with Jackson and nodded. ‘Yes, these could all have come from units in the middle section of the centre that would use the blue compactor. Purfleet Electrical backs right onto the blue compactor area.’

‘We’ll have to check all three compactors,’ Brock told her.

‘What, dismantle them?’

‘Probably. I’ll leave that to the experts.’

‘This is Christmas, you know. The whole basement’ll fill up with rubbish in no time.’

‘I thought Christmas was a couple of weeks away,’ Brock said mildly.

She looked at him incredulously. ‘Your wife does the shopping, right?’

‘I’m afraid not. But I do tend to avoid it whenever I can.’

She took a deep breath. ‘Maybe I should say a little bit about this place. Just so you understand our perspective, Chief Inspector.’

‘I wish you would, Ms Seager. Are those the plans of the centre?’ He pointed to two large coloured diagrams mounted on one wall, between framed certificates awarded by the International Council of Shopping Centres, the Havering Chamber of Commerce, the Ronald McDonald Charity Appeal, and many others.

‘Yes. When was the last time you were in a modern shopping centre?’

‘Ages ago. The one at Croydon, probably.’

‘Right. Before it was upgraded, I guess. A windy, open pedestrian street below the tower blocks. We don’t do it like that any more.’ She spoke rapidly, as if time was very precious, her accent distinctly North American. ‘You haven’t been to Brent Cross? Thurrock?’

Brock shook his head.

‘OK, well, Silvermeadow isn’t just a couple of rows of shops strung between a few anchor stores. It’s a whole leisure experience. It has everything in it you’d want to visit a town centre for and more, all climate-controlled, under one roof. It’s what retailing is all about these days. We got the industry award for best new European centre last year. And it’s big, over a million square feet of trading area, the third biggest retail mall in Europe, probably the best integrated retail and leisure facility this side of the Atlantic. There are two hundred and sixty-eight shops and food outlets, not to mention the cinemas, fitness centre, leisure pool…’ She pointed to coloured rectangles on the plans of the two levels. ‘At peak times, there are over a thousand employees and fifty thousand visitors under this one roof, and they’ve come from all over, not just this area of London and Essex, but the whole of the south-east and from the Continent too: France, Belgium, Holland, Scandinavia. We’re more like a small city than a department store. So when you talk about closing down our compactors, or sealing off the service road, or whatever, just bear that in mind, OK? This is one big beast.’

Brock’s frown had deepened as she had described the huge catchment area, and Kathy could imagine him thinking that North might have come here from almost anywhere. He sniffed and said, ‘And a beast that has a particular attraction to school children?’

‘Well sure, the kids like it here. It’s warm, it’s cheerful, and plenty of them get part-time work here. They love the shops on the main mall, of course, and then there’s the food court and the Hawaii Experience, the leisure centre, the grunge stuff down in the Bazaar, the multiplex cinema. But more than that, it’s where the people are. It’s where the other kids come and hang out. You know what the most popular activity is in the mall? People-watching. Kids are like everybody else, they’re attracted to buzz, to life.’

‘In this case the opposite is what we fear.’

The centre manager pursed her mouth. ‘Look, I’m not being insensitive or casual about this kid, Chief Inspector. I’m trying to explain. This place has a magic of its own. The kids flock here. And where the good people come, the bad people will surely follow, like sharks following the shoals. We do all we can to make this place the safest it can be- our reputation depends on that. But you can’t keep out human nature. Every now and then some sick character will wander through our doors, and we can’t stop him. All we can say is that we invest a lot of money and effort in security, and the chances of a child meeting trouble here are a lot lower than they would be in your average high street.’

The phone rang discreetly and she reached back over her desk to answer it. ‘I’m busy right now… okay, two minutes only.’

She put down the phone and said, ‘Harry, will you talk about the layout of the place for our visitors? I have to deal with something.’ She shrugged apologetically at Brock. ‘Sorry, but Christmas is only about five minutes away in our calendar.’

Jackson stepped forward as she left the room, and began to describe the features of the plans. They were shaped rather like a coat hanger, the long mall bent in its centre where the food court was located in the main square, with other attachments along the arms. Kathy was reminded of the diagrams of futuristic space stations, bits plugged in all over the place because there was no atmosphere or gravity to make them conform to some specific shape. The security chief explained, however, that the bent form came from the fact that the centre was wrapped round the north slope of a low hill, one of the few in this part of Essex. The hill had been remodelled with earth-moving equipment so that- and this was the cunning bit, he explained-the carparks on the flattened hilltop fed people directly into the upper mall level from the south, while the carparks on the lower, north side fed into the lower mall level. In this way, both shopping levels were equally accessible to shoppers, and the flow of people to both was maximised.

The south side of the lower level was buried against the hillside, and it was along there that the basement service road was run, providing secure, enclosed access to the loading docks and storage areas of the shops, as well as to the three compactor areas which they used to dispose of their dry waste.

Jackson yawned and scratched his bum. He wasn’t a great public speaker, Kathy thought, and his account was laboured and repetitive. He pointed out other features-his security centre located at the entry checkpoint to the service road, the leisure pool and fitness centre on the north side, the cinema complex-but then ran out of steam. Brock and Kathy got up to examine the plans more closely.

‘There’s a profile of your boss in here, Harry,’ Lowry said. He waved a newspaper, Silvermeadow News, at them. ‘Born in Trinidad, daughter of an English father and Trinidadian mother, thirty-six-year-old Deborah ‘Bo’ Seager is the high-flier who leads the Silvermeadow management team. Educated at schools in England and at university in the US, Bo honed her shopping-centre management skills with the big players in the US and Canada-Trizec, Cadillac Fairview and Olympia amp; York- before coming to the UK. Bo admits her private life-’

‘Is shit!’ Bo’s voice preceded the door slamming behind her as she marched back into the room and threw some papers onto the desk. ‘Sorry about that. Harry, your trooper asked me to let you know that Kerri Vlasich worked in Snow White’s Pancake Parlour, usually two shifts a week. They haven’t seen her the past week.’

‘Right, boss. I’ll take our visitors there when they’re ready.’

‘What bugs me,’ Bo Seager said slowly, ‘is how they could have got her to the compactor.’

‘How’s that?’ Brock asked.

She seemed almost reluctant to explain, then came and stood between him and Kathy in front of the plans. She placed a carefully manicured nail over the blue compactor position. ‘The general public aren’t welcome in the service areas, Chief Inspector. There are service corridors connecting the rear of the shops to the delivery loading bays, and service lifts to take goods up to the upper-level shops, but all these corridors are out of bounds to the general public. True, there are passages that connect the rear areas to the main mall’- she pointed them out on the plans-‘and in the event of a fire the public could escape down these passages and out through the service road. But there are security doors blocking these corridors, controlled by locks which open automatically in the event of a fire alarm. These locks are also controlled by keypads, and traders and staff are allocated security numbers to open the doors in case they need to have access that way. What I’m saying is, the only ways into the compactor area are through the rear service door of a shop unit or down a common service corridor protected by a security code.’

‘An inside job, you mean?’ Brock said quietly. ‘Someone on the staff?’

She frowned and bit her lip.

‘That’s not quite true, boss,’ Jackson said. ‘There’s the people who come in through the vehicle entrance- the delivery drivers.’

‘Oh yes, of course!’ Bo’s face brightened.

‘She could have been picked up and murdered somewhere else entirely,’ Jackson said to Brock. ‘Then brought here in a delivery truck, and dumped in the compactor when the coast was clear. That would be my bet.’

‘Yes, Harry!’ She nodded vigorously. ‘That must be it!’

‘Interesting,’ Brock said, ‘but we’re running ahead of ourselves. Ms Seager, unless something breaks quickly, it sounds as if we’re going to be involved in a lot of checking and interviewing. It’s possible that we’ll have to bring a number of officers here for a while at least. We could bring our own mobile offices onto the site, but if you’ve got anywhere suitable it might be more discreet.’

‘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’ve 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?’

‘Yes, Harry, I understand,’ Brock said, weariness creeping into his voice. ‘What about your tenants? Banks, building societies, big stores… there must be dozens of CCTV systems in this place apart from yours?’

‘True, and all different. But I think you’d be lucky to find anyone now with a tape going back to Monday. But we will certainly help you find out. One thing you will discover, I can assure you, is that my team will be behind you all the way.’

‘Many thanks, Harry. As a first step, we’d like to take all your surveillance tapes away for analysis.’

‘But Mr Brock, I just explained. They’ll only go back to first thing this morning, last night at most. I thought-’

‘All the same, Harry, we’d better check them all, just to be on the safe side. Is that a problem?’

Jackson shrugged. ‘No, no problem. We’ve got plenty of new tapes we can use. That right, Speedy?’

Speedy gave a brief nod, and Jackson gave instructions to a couple of his staff to gather up the tapes in boxes.

It was only as they were leaving that Kathy noticed that Speedy’s chair had wheels. She said nothing until they were outside in the underground service road, then she asked Jackson, ‘Speedy’s handicapped, is he?’

‘Paralysed from the waist down, Kathy. Motorbike accident, about five years ago. Hence his name. I’d known him long before then. He’d been a bit of a tearaway in the old days, and when I was at West Ham he was a snout of mine for a while. I fixed him up with this job. Speedy Reynolds is living proof that our company’s disability action plan is more than just pious words.’

Kathy wondered if he was being sarcastic, but the expression on his face was all sincerity. Harry Jackson was that sort of a bloke, it seemed.

‘Hell of a job he’s got,’ Lowry murmured.

‘But it’s as if he was born to it, Gavin,’ Jackson replied. ‘They all take turns at the consoles but he’s the best camera control operator I’ve ever come across. He never loses interest or concentration. I don’t know how he does it, frankly. It would drive me barmy.’

As he took them back along the service road, Brock striding ahead, Kathy heard him say quietly to Lowry, ‘Here’s the number of my mobile, Gavin. Give me a ring direct anytime you think I might be able to help. You don’t need to go through the boss upstairs. Especially if you think you’ve spotted any little problems with the security here, know what I mean?’

Lowry nodded. ‘Rough with you, is she, Harry?’

‘She’s tougher than she looks. Often the way with the ladies these days, eh?’ Harry said, and seeing that Kathy was listening to their conversation, he chanced a wink in her direction. ‘This way, Mr Brock,’ he called out, and led them into a side service corridor, staying this time at the lower level, so that when they finally emerged through a security door into the sudden noise and bustle of the mall they found that they were close to the food court surrounding the tropical forest grove. The thinness of the barrier between the bare concrete and block service areas and the exotic glitter of the public areas was disconcerting, as if to confirm that what passed for reality here was no thicker than a skin of chrome or paint.

It was just after ten and the crowds were now thin, dispersing towards the exits and the wet night beyond. The waitresses at Snow White’s Pancake Parlour, identically dressed in laced-front Snow White costumes and incongruously perched on roller skates, were drooping with fatigue beneath their rosy-cheeked, scarlet-lipped make-up as they cleared and wiped down the tables. The manageress confirmed that Kerri Vlasich had a regular shift on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and had worked both the previous weekend, but, like the girls, could add little more.

While Brock and Lowry spoke to them, Kathy noticed Harry Jackson amble over to two men standing in front of the next unit, a Chinese fast-food counter called the Peking Duck. One of the men was Chinese while the other looked like a caricature of an Italian in a gondolier’s striped jersey and red scarf, presumably from Bruno’s Gelati next door. She followed, picking up their conversation.

‘Two weeks to Christmas, and everybody’s going crazy,’ the gondolier was saying, with an expansive Latin sweep of his arms. ‘It’s all very well for Mr Chang here. He can call in half the Chinese population of east London if he needs help, but I have to make do.’ He gestured at a second gondolier, a weary man who looked too old for the part, wiping down the tables outside Bruno’s Gelati. At closer range the Italian seemed even more theatrical, with a florid complexion, his thick black hair, eyebrows and moustache looking fresh from the bottle.

He caught sight of Kathy moving to Jackson’s side. ‘Who’s your new friend then, Harry?’ he asked mischievously. ‘New security officer? Bit of an improvement on your usual crew.’

‘Not quite, Bruno.’ Jackson introduced Kathy to Bruno Verdi and Mr Chang. ‘There’s a bit of a fuss about a missing girl, worked at Snow White’s. They’ve brought in the heavy mob. Sergeant Kolla here is from Serious Crime Branch, Scotland Yard.’

The gondolier appeared surprised, his bushy eyebrows rising.

Mr Chang said anxiously, ‘They must be real worried. I heard the girls mention that someone had been missing from work today.’

‘Worse than that. They found her this morning, murdered.’

Now both men looked shocked.

‘Murdered!’ Chang shook his head in horror. ‘That’s terrible.’

‘There’s been no positive ID on the body yet, Mr Jackson,’ Kathy warned.

‘Worse still,’ Jackson charged on. ‘They reckon she may have been killed here.’

Verdi seemed suddenly immobilised, the colour fading from his face. He swallowed before finding his voice. ‘What was her name?’ he asked hoarsely.

‘Vlasich, Kerri Vlasich,’Kathy said, ‘and she’s still officially only a missing person. I’ve got a photograph…’ She went to open her shoulder bag, but stopped at a sudden movement in front of her. Bruno Verdi had slumped back onto a chair, so abruptly that at first she thought he had fallen. He sat rigid, eyes wide but unseeing, his face startlingly white now against the artificial jet black of his hair.

‘All right, Bruno?’ Harry Jackson looked at him curiously.

Verdi suddenly blinked and shook his head, inhaling deeply. ‘Sure

… sure…’ he mumbled, shaking his head. ‘It’s okay… it’s nothing. I been on my feet all day, that’s all. I’m okay.’

Mr Chang looked concerned. ‘He has blood pressure. I’ll get you a drink of water, Bruno.’

‘Did you know this girl, Mr Verdi?’ Kathy asked.

‘Girl?’ He blinked at her, looking puzzled, as if he’d forgotten who Kathy was.

‘Kerri Vlasich.’ She showed him the photograph.

He stared at the picture for some time, then said simply, ‘I recognise her, yes.’

‘When was the last time you saw her?’

Mr Chang hurried back with a plastic cup, which Verdi took and put to his mouth.

‘I couldn’t say,’ he said at last. ‘They come and go, these girls. Come and go.’

Later, as they left the food court, Jackson filled them in on some of the characters.

‘Bruno Verdi is one of our more colourful tenants, and he has a bit of clout, too. He’s the chairman of the Silvermeadow Small Traders’ Association. Very vocal on security and the like. He’ll be useful in helping us organise things, if it comes to large-scale interviews, talking to staff and so on.’

‘I’ve no doubt it’ll come to that, Harry,’ said Brock.

They were walking around the coral shores of the lagoon that surrounded the volcano.

‘What are the centre’s opening hours?’

‘Normally ten till ten for the general public. Management office nine till five, six days, but Ms Seager’s there longer than that. The building shuts down during the night from eleven till six. During those hours the perimeter’s secured and an outside contractor comes on call with dog patrols of the outdoor site. Otherwise our security centre is manned all the time.’

‘Okay, well I don’t think we can do much more tonight. We’ll be back tomorrow morning at nine. Maybe you could arrange access for us to unit one-eight-four, so we can start to get things organised. We shall certainly be wanting to go round the shops interviewing staff, and we’ll need to organise a search of the centre too.’

‘A search, chief?’

He looked worried. Kathy noticed that he had lapsed into the slang of the force, addressing Brock as if he were his senior officer.

‘Is that a problem?’ Brock asked.

‘Not for me, chief, but it’s a big job. This is a huge place. How close do you want to look?’

‘We need to find where the girl was assaulted and undressed, and we need to find her belongings, her clothes and the frog bag.’

‘If-’ Jackson began to object, but Brock lifted a hand to interrupt.

‘Okay, I take your point about her possibly being assaulted somewhere else and brought in here only for disposal, but we need to check anyway.’

‘Sure. Well, you’ll need plans of this place for a start. I’ll get them organised, shall I?’

‘That would be very helpful.’

As she watched them shake hands, Kathy thought that Harry Jackson seemed on a bit of a high. Maybe, she thought, he misses the grubby world outside after all.

Towards midnight, Kathy drove home the long way, orbiting London on the M25 round to Junction 25, a Diana King tape playing softly. Too late now to meet up with her airline pilot, who was probably packing his boxer shorts for another trip to LA or KL in the morning. Nicole had thought they might have had a perfect relationship, since he would be away most of the time circling the globe, while she would be equally absent poking about in London’s garbage. Ah, Kathy thought, but what about the one weekend in six when they did manage to touch base together? Might they be like the gelati man, unable to handle the shock of reality, discovering that the gloss is only microns thick?