‘I’ll get plates and glasses,’ Kathy said, and handed the remote to Leon. ‘See if you can figure out how to work the video. One of the security guys at Silvermeadow gave me a tape he said I’d want to see. We can try it out.’
When she returned a few minutes later Leon was standing staring at the screen, transfixed. ‘Who did you say gave you this thing?’ he said.
‘Oh, don’t tell me it’s tacky.’
‘Look.’ He rewound the tape and began it again as she came to his side.
It was hard at first to make it out: a night scene, the camera dazzled by a car’s headlights, then tracking after it, across a dark wasteland. The car stopped, some way away, and the camera zoomed slowly in on it as a figure got out and began cleaning the windscreen.
‘Hang on…’ Kathy said.
A second figure had got out of the car, the picture brightening and becoming clearer as the camera zoomed closer and adjusted to the lighting levels. The second figure moved to the side of the first. They turned towards each other, and after a moment’s hesitation they began to kiss. By the time they broke apart, their upper bodies and heads were large in the screen and clearly identifiable.
‘Hell…’ Kathy breathed. ‘That’s us.’
The picture jumped: a new scene, bright lights, the camera panning across a shopfront, stopping, then zooming in on a woman lying on a bed, shoes off, bouncing, then sitting up with a self-conscious smirk on her face.
‘The bastard…’ Kathy whispered. ‘The creepy little bastard.’
The screen went blank.
Afterwards Kathy tried to recall what had gone through her head. She remembered the stories of people who wouldn’t let travellers take their photographs for fear that some part of them would be stolen, and for the first time she understood what they meant. She did feel robbed, intruded upon, assaulted, and the fact that she had no physical damage to show for it only somehow made it more insidious. And she also understood for the first time the fuss that people made about surveillance cameras, which up until then had seemed neutral, even benign.
But it was Speedy that most bothered her, the hand controlling the camera, the intention behind the electronic eye. The way he had giggled and squirmed when he handed her the tape, and called her ‘babe’.
‘I’ll knock the bastard’s head off,’ Leon said.
‘That wouldn’t look good. He’s a cripple, confined to a chair.’
‘Why’s he done it? He’s obviously trying to embarrass you.’
Kathy tried to remember exactly what he’d said, something about looking at it before she decided whether it was ‘worth a wider audience’, and she felt a cold chill creep over her skin.
‘He couldn’t exactly blackmail me with it, could he?’ she said. ‘Just make me look stupid. Bouncing on a bed at the height of a murder inquiry. I feel bloody stupid. Imagine if Brock saw it!’
Leon put an arm round her shoulders. ‘How many days off have you had in the last month? I don’t think you have to feel guilty about buying a bed. I don’t think you need to feel guilty about anything.’
‘No.’ But that was the result all the same. It made you feel guilty, so you’d be looking over your shoulder next time.
It had a dampening effect on the rest of the evening, and Kathy found herself making sure the lights were off, the curtains drawn and the door to the sitting room closed before she took off her clothes and slid under the new duvet with Leon.
Brock, too, felt on edge as he cooked some pasta for his dinner. Partly it was the lonely sound of rain spattering against the kitchen window, partly Bo Seager’s conversation, but mostly it was a matter of timing. The machine had been organised and set in motion, so far without result. Data was being amassed, but key pieces were missing, forensic most of all. There would be action soon enough, but not yet. There was no point beating the table about it. It was only a matter of timing. It would come.
He really wanted to ring Suzanne, but thought it might be a bit soon after their last conversation. Not good to sound pushy. And then he thought of Bo Seager’s explanation for Kathy’s air of intensity, and smiled. If only things were that simple. Kathy was surely driven by deeper demons than that. Although, now he came to think of it, she had seemed different that day. Calm. Almost euphoric. Probably the anticipation of a fresh case.
He opened a bottle of red, drizzled some olive oil on a chunk of bread, and sat down to eat. When he was finished he put his feet up and dialled a number on his phone.
‘Suzanne?’
‘David! I’m glad you called. I wasn’t sure when to ring you, with your new case. How is it?’
‘Just getting started.’
‘I saw someone on TV tonight. A rather pompous man in uniform, talking about a murdered girl. Is that your case?’
‘You’ve got it. Probably abducted from one of those big new shopping centres.’
‘Silvermeadow, yes, I’ve read about that place. I’d love to see it. Do you like it?’
‘Not my cup of tea. Huge place, a sort of shopping fantasyland.’
‘ Th e Ladies ’ Paradise.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a book. Zola. About a wonderful new department store that takes over Paris. I’ll lend you my copy if I can find it.’
‘Thanks. How are your plans?’
‘Our trip? Well, I’ve got dates for a pantomime, Pete r Pan. Will you come with us?’
‘Certainly. I always had a soft spot for Captain Hook.’
‘Oh. That’s interesting.’
‘And accommodation?’
‘The place I’d had recommended is booked up. I’m trying somewhere else.’
‘You’re daft. I told you what to do. Stay here. It’ll be so much simpler.’
‘The children will wreck your calm sanctum, David. You’d hate it. We’d end up fighting.’
‘Rubbish. Anyway, maybe I need my calm sanctum being shaken up a bit. You can get too set in your ways, I’m told.’
‘Your job does all the shaking up you need. Two small children.. .’
‘Bugger the children, Suzanne. I’d like you to stay here. Just to try.’
‘Ah… Well, put like that, so eloquently, I’d have to give it serious thought.’
‘Exactly.’
Later, on the edge of sleep, a chain of thoughts passed through his mind. He had to force himself awake to reconstruct it. It went something like this: pantomime- improbable characters (Widow Twankey, Captain Hook, etc.)-the improbable Italian, Bruno Verdi, in the food court-the joke about Guiseppe Verdi not being such a great composer if he’d been called the English equivalent of his name, plain Joe Green-they were checking Bruno Verdi, but what about Bernie Green? Then he’d fallen deeply asleep.
7
K athy went straight to the security centre the following morning, wanting to have it out with Speedy Reynolds, but a different man, one she hadn’t seen before, was operating the cameras, and Harry Jackson came out of his office to tell her that Speedy wasn’t back on shift until that afternoon.
‘You get the daybooks all right, Kathy?’ he said.
‘Yes, great. Thanks for that, Harry.’
‘Anything else I can do, just shout. Any results yet from yesterday’s bunfight?’
‘The walk-through? No, nothing definite.’
‘Better luck this afternoon, eh?’ He seemed remarkably relaxed and jovial today.
She left him and went up to the unit to start work on the reports that had accumulated from the previous evening. As she entered the upper mall she was aware of something going on, people standing looking upwards,
