There was something very irritating about all this, Brock felt, as if the team had been on some management course together-How to Get Your Way in Meetings-and had worked out beforehand how they would tame him, while Lowry and Kathy were left to sit in silence on each side of him like a pair of china dogs. Kathy might have read his mind, for she broke her silence.
‘That’s an interesting choice of words, Mr Tindall,’ she said. The finance manager glanced at her in surprise, as if she should know that she didn’t have a speaking part. ‘“Serial killer on the loose”. Has there been any suggestion that this may have happened before?’
Brock saw a look of shock flare briefly on Tindall’s face, and also a rapid exchange of looks between Jackson and Lowry.
‘What the hell do you mean by that?’ Tindall snapped, recovering himself.
‘The victim’s mother, Mrs Vlasich,’ Kathy continued, ‘mentioned in interview that she was frightened for her daughter’s safety if Kerri had come to Silvermeadow, since she had heard rumours that girls had disappeared from here in the past.’
Jackson and Tindall immediately began protesting together, shaking their heads in disgust, while Bo Seager looked merely irritated, Brock thought, and Kathy expressionless, watching them. He couldn’t see Lowry’s face, but it was he who restored calm, speaking without raising his voice.
‘We were aware of that,’ he said, addressing himself alternately to Brock and Bo Seager. ‘One of our officers checked out the stories when Mrs Vlasich first raised it. We found no basis whatsoever. It’s just hysteria.’
‘Yes,’ Jackson nodded. ‘We did the same. Nothing to it. Rumours, hysteria, like Gavin says.’
Bo leant forward intently towards Brock. ‘Well, it just confirms how important it is to avoid encouraging ideas like that.’
‘Rumours grow on secrecy,’ he replied. ‘Far better to have it out in the open and eliminate the possibility if we can. I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on our plan.’
For a moment it looked as if Bo was going to fight, but then she shrugged and conceded with a smile. ‘Okay, but let our publicity people work with yours on handling the press, please?’
‘Certainly.’ Brock got to his feet. ‘Thanks for the snack, and for your co-operation, Ms Seager. We do appreciate it.’
She laughed out loud at this. ‘Just so long as we can speak frankly, Chief Inspector.’
When they reached the front door Lowry hung back to speak to Jackson, and Kathy and Brock went out alone into the mall crowd.
‘That was news to me, Kathy-the serial killer.’
‘Yes, sorry. I wasn’t going to mention it until I’d done some more checking. I just thought they needed shaking up a bit.’
‘Well, it did that all right. I thought Gavin sounded rather defensive. Do you think there could be anything in it?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Mr Brock! Kathy!’
They turned round and saw Jackson weaving through the throng. ‘Just wanted to say, no hard feelings, eh? Mr Tindall likes to sound like he’s well hard, but they both know you’ve got a job to do.’
‘Of course, Harry,’ Brock said. ‘We’ll work with you on the walk-through. You’ll help us, will you?’
‘Course, course. And Kathy, that stupid rumour. Maybe it would put your mind at rest if you had a look through our security daybooks, eh? We record every little incident in there. If anyone had been aware of anything weird going on, it’d have to be recorded there. Okay?’
‘Thanks, Harry. Yes, I’d like to borrow them for a day or two if that’s all right.’
‘No bother! I’ll send them up tomorrow first thing. Night.’
‘Good night, Harry,’ Brock said, and they moved off again through the strolling crowd. ‘Well, that’s more like it, Kathy. The books will be more use than that glossy report he did for us.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘They are. I photocopied most of them this afternoon while he was out.’
6
L eon Desai was in unit 184 when they returned, chatting to one of the clerical staff. Seeing him there, unexpectedly, Kathy got that little jolt she’d experienced seeing him that morning. He looked good, very trim and sleek in his black leather jacket and jeans, she thought, with his brown skin and blue-black hair. She saw a couple of the women eyeing him and thought yes, you wouldn’t mind being seen with that.
‘Hi.’ He grinned at them both.
‘Hello, Leon,’ Brock returned. ‘All done?’
‘Yes. Even had a shower and a swim downstairs in the pool. Feel a lot better than I did after I’d finished crawling around on concrete and grease all day. I just wondered if anyone could give me a lift in to a tube station. The guy who brought me out here this morning has gone.’
‘Certainly-’ Brock began.
‘I’ll do it. I’m going north of the river.’
‘You sure, Kathy?’ Leon asked. ‘Anywhere I can pick up a tube.’
‘Not a problem. I’ll just get my coat.’
They ran across the rain-swept tarmac and Leon held his umbrella over her as she unlocked the car. As they got in it occurred to Kathy that there is that moment when a couple, getting into a car together on a wet windy night, slamming the doors shut, experience a sudden compression of space, as the world shrinks to the intimate cabin around them. After a few seconds the effect fades, the mind adjusts to the new dimensions, and normal service is resumed. But for that moment they may be caught unawares, their mental-space reference tricked, and their sense of the proximity of the other dramatically heightened. At that moment, she thought, if there is the potential for something to happen, it probably will.
She glanced across at him, and found that his dark eyes were fixed on her. Unnerved by that look, Kathy said lightly, ‘I can’t believe Bren told you that, about Martin Connell. I haven’t seen him in ages.’
‘He didn’t say you were still seeing him, just that you were still obsessed with him.’
She flushed at the word ‘obsessed’. ‘That’s ridiculous. How would Bren know, anyway? And, come to think of it, Bren was the one who first put the idea in my head that you might be gay.’
‘Naughty Bren. Let’s go round to his place and beat him up.’
She smiled. ‘Better not. He’s bigger than both of us.’
‘Why would he do that, though? Does he fancy you?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘I wouldn’t say there’s any “of course” about it, Kathy. It’s not that hard.’
She looked away, got the car going with quick, hard gestures and drove off. She felt quite absurdly unsettled and she couldn’t imagine how they were going to get through a long car ride together. As they approached the edge of the carpark, she recalled that she had been in this situation before with Leon, and had evaded its possibilities and regretted it afterwards. And she had a sudden sharp sense of how much she would regret doing that again. She braked hard and switched off the engine.
‘Let’s just think this through,’ she said, as if this was some practical sort of project. ‘You have to ask why we let Bren put us off, don’t you? I mean, we didn’t exactly struggle against his guiding hand, did we?’
‘Ah, it was the colleague thing,’ Leon said. ‘You and I, we don’t really approve of the colleague thing, relationships with people at work, do we? We’re embarrassed by it. It gets in the way, it’s messy.’
‘Yes, that’s true. That was one of the disastrous things about Martin, that he was connected to my work. Also he was married, and he was a total bastard.’
‘Was he really?’
‘Oh yes. You’re not married though, are you, Leon?’
‘No.’
‘And you’re not a bastard.’
‘It’s sometimes hard to know. Maybe everyone is.’
