What She Saw (14 page)

‘I've been to the lectures he gives at New Scotland Yard,' she replied, coyly.

‘James, thank you for coming so promptly.'

Bellwood glanced over her shoulder and back again. Rosen noticed the flicker of a smile cross her face.

‘James, this is Carol Bellwood, my deputy.'

Dressed in a black linen suit with a white, open-necked shirt and no tie, Henshaw looked like he'd just stepped out of a department store window display.

How different we are
, thought Rosen, sipping his coffee and noticing the undertow of shyness with which Bellwood shook Henshaw's hand.

Bellwood turned to Rosen and asked, ‘Why did you call us here?'

He reached for the edge of the Portakabin door and closed it over, exposing the fresh graffiti.

‘They're right under our noses. This appeared some time between ten last night, when I locked up, and seven fifteen this morning, when I arrived here.'

Bellwood and Rosen turned to James Henshaw, who stared at the symbols.

Rosen noticed that now work was at the forefront, Bellwood's demeanour had changed: the glimmer of attraction she'd displayed moments earlier had been replaced by professional focus and self-discipline. And he dreaded the prospect of Bellwood ever leaving or being transferred.

Henshaw said, ‘Yes, David, you're quite right – they're under our noses and operating in this neighbourhood. Not that that makes life any easier for us. On the contrary. What's your take on it, Carol?'

‘We're looking for them but we don't know what they look like, who or where they are. So we're at a disadvantage because. . .' She recalled the lecture she'd attended where Henshaw had spoken about the significance of graffiti. ‘They're marking this as their territory and letting us know that in their eyes we're interlopers. They're letting us know that even though we can't see them, they're watching us and that
gives them a psychological advantage. In vandalizing our property with their symbols, they're claiming ownership of us.'

The academic analysis that had intrigued and stimulated her at Henshaw's lecture, when applied to the cold light of day, made Bellwood shudder inside.

‘Anything to add, David?' asked Henshaw.

‘I've checked the rest of the Portakabin, but there's nothing else there. I felt, I'll be honest, I felt quite afraid when I saw this.'

Henshaw stayed silent but Bellwood asked, with kindness, ‘Why?'

‘I felt like a marked man. I believe this is aimed at me because I'm in charge and I've been here most often.'

‘You're right, David. I'm sorry, but you're quite right in my opinion,' said Henshaw.

‘James, I called you here because I want to know the significance of its location. The door. . . why the door?'

Henshaw seemed to retreat back into himself, and Rosen instinctively knew that the profiler's take on his question wasn't going to be good news. He was clearly trying to frame his words carefully.

‘It would help if I knew what the symbols
meant
.' Henshaw indicated the vast space around them, and the Portakabin. ‘They could well be watching us now,' he said. ‘This small structure represents your personal space, yours and your team. The door is the boundary. They're right on that boundary, they want you to know that.'

Rosen weighed it up. As the logic of Henshaw's point of view unfolded in his mind, his skin crawled, and he felt the weight of the breath entering his lungs.

‘David.' Bellwood took a step closer to him, stood at his shoulder. ‘You're not alone – this is aimed at all of us.
We
are
their
enemy because
we're
out to get
them
.'

Rosen nodded. ‘If they're at the boundary, then there's really only one place they can go. That's over the boundary and into that personal space.'

On the wind, the noise of a moving train on the Docklands Light Railway.

He considered their weapon of choice.

There was little protection from fire.

And even though Rosen could feel his blood pressure rising, his face warm and red, he considered what it was to be turned into a human torch, knowing that the only options were disfigured agony or death.

Given an option, Rosen knew which one he'd take.

Death.

33

10.45 A.M.

A
t eight o'clock, through a phone call to Bream Street Primary's head teacher, Mrs Price, Rosen had arranged to meet Macy Conner's teacher, Miss Harvey, at eleven that morning. Less than three hours later, he travelled to the school as a passenger in Bellwood's car.

‘The future belongs to those who are educated for it.' On a large board beside the gate, the mission statement and the name ‘Bream Street Primary' stood out in white letters against a blue background over-arched with a rainbow.

At a quarter to eleven, the electronic gates of the school swung open and, window down, Bellwood steered slowly into the almost full car park.

The sound of the playground drifted from the other side of the building; the collective noise of spirited children, the clamour of play.

At the front of the building, Rosen rang the bell and the door swung open slowly. Entering, he focused himself on the task in hand. Information. Now.

At reception, a woman who looked as if she'd been born with a smile on her face glanced at their warrant cards and pushed a Child Protection Document and paper visitor badge at them, saying, ‘Please
read and sign the document. Sign and date the visitor badge, thank you.' She checked a Post-it note on the ledge in front of her. ‘You're here to see Miss Harvey?'

An unpleasant electronic beeping suddenly sprang from within the building. Rosen glanced inside and saw an engineer on a ladder, working on the school's security alarm.

‘Yes, we're here to see Miss Harvey,' Bellwood confirmed.

A plate-glass door swung open and Rosen and Bellwood made their way to the narrow two-seater sofa just inside reception.

The engineer continued with his screwdriver in the box on the wall and the sound died as suddenly as it had started.

At the foot of the ladder, the school's site manager looked on, a kindly looking man who seemed to be on the verge of anger. ‘You said you'd fixed it last time! Twice in two nights I've been called out of my bed by the neighbours because it's gone off in the dead of night,' he said.

‘Well, I'm sorry,' replied the engineer. But he didn't sound it.

Rosen smiled at the site manager, who offered Rosen a conspiratorial glance. On his boiler suit he wore an ID badge:
MR ALEC FINN
.

‘This rotten burglar alarm system is going to be the death of me,' Finn observed to Rosen. The system beeped as the engineer examined the central control box. He turned the screwdriver and the system let out a horrible howl. Noise as a form of torture. He turned the screwdriver back and the howling stopped.

Rosen now focused on another noise: a sound coming from somewhere deeper inside the building. It was crying, interlaced with a babyish voice protesting a point. The swing door opened and a well-dressed woman emerged, one hand sealed around the hand of a boy of around ten years of age. Holding his other hand was a calm but fierce-looking classroom assistant.

‘It weren't me!' The boy was genuinely distressed, his tears frantic, his indignation deep. ‘I don't do that stuff any more, honest to God, Miss, I swear. . . The RSPCA got me head sorted, honest.'

‘Chester, I don't want you to speak at the moment.' The well-dressed woman was firm but kind. She caught Rosen's eye as she opened a door, name-plated
MRS PRICE HEAD TEACHER
. He recognized her voice from the phone call that morning.

A bell above their heads clanged into sudden life. A clock on the wall read five to eleven – the end of playtime.

Behind the closed door, the boy's crying grew more hysterical.

‘DCI Rosen?' A young woman approached. Her face was pale and drawn, her eyes red and wet with the residue of tears. Rosen shook her hand. It felt damp and chilled, like she'd been washing it under the cold tap.

‘Miss Harvey?' Rosen checked. She nodded.

‘I'm afraid we've had a rather unfortunate incident,' explained Miss Harvey, as the noise behind Mrs Price's door escalated. ‘Come on, follow me.'

She walked away at speed. Rosen and Bellwood followed.

‘I'm on non-contact time now. I'll make you a drink in the staffroom.'

As they reached the staffroom door, Rosen indicated the vinyl floor with a subtle gesture. Bellwood glanced down.

There was a single drop of blood on the tiles.

34

10.53 A.M.

A
s Miss Harvey made tea, Rosen drifted to a notice board, drawn there by a pool of pictures of young smiling faces.

The title of the board read: MEDICAL NOTICES.

A seven-year-old girl with asthma, a nine-year-old girl with a nut allergy, an eight-year-old boy with diabetes and, at dead centre of the faces, Chester Adler, the ten-year-old boy who he'd just seen protesting his innocence to the head teacher.

Rosen looked at the picture of the boy, aware that Miss Harvey was snuffling quietly as she poured hot water onto tea bags.

Chester Adler, his face smiling and utterly gormless.

His condition: epilepsy. What to do if Chester fits?

Triggers: stress, strobe-effect lighting.

Please note: Before Chester goes into a fit, he will sit/stand rigidly, go pale, sweat, eyes will glaze.

Rosen joined Bellwood at the cluttered table that dominated the large and untidy staffroom. Miss Harvey brought three teas to the table and sat down with a sigh.

‘I'm sorry, we appear to have arrived at a bad moment.'

‘Chester. . . you probably saw and heard him at the front. He's just killed our class pet, our gerbil.' Miss Harvey clearly found it hard to believe the words coming from her own mouth.

‘I'm sorry,' said Rosen. ‘Are you OK telling us about Macy Conner?' He focused the moment, aware of time passing.

‘One of the brightest girls I've ever taught.' The certainty was impressive but Rosen estimated, by her fresh complexion, that Miss Harvey could only have been a teacher for two or three years: it was a limited compliment. ‘And Macy's as stubborn as a mule when she has an idea in her head.'

‘What's her art work like?' asked Rosen, recalling the drawing of the two men who had assaulted her as she attempted to buy electricity for her home.

Miss Harvey smiled, ‘Well, even clever children can't be good at everything. She's an absolute star, but she can't draw and she doesn't do
fiction –
that's the big thing in her head.'

‘How do you mean?' Bellwood returned the ghost of a smile that crossed the young teacher's face. ‘She doesn't
do
fiction?'

‘Well, I asked her to write about someone or something she liked, and she did a report on “A Day In The Life Of Mr Finn”. . .'

‘Your school caretaker?

‘Site manager. She came up with a detailed, articulate account of Mr Finn's day – how and why he's so important to the school, that sort of thing. You can get the smell of the school's boiler room out of it, but if I ask her to retell a fairy story, say “Red Riding Hood”, she'll do three lines, and grudgingly at that. And if I ask her to read and explain from an encyclopaedia, brilliant; Harry Potter? She turns into this tongue-tied, almost near-robot. I've explained to her, you have to do fiction
– I've coaxed her, I've tried bribing her, I've begged her, but all she ever says – the same old thing, time and time again – “Miss Harvey, what's the point if it isn't true?”'

That's good news
, thought Rosen, who then asked, ‘What do you think it is with her?'

‘She sees fiction as a form of lying. She's one of those rare human beings who'd rather drink poison than tell a lie. She lives with a very sick grandmother who's drummed the whole truth thing into her.'

‘And she's consistent with the truth?'

‘Absolutely.'

Rosen felt a shiver of pure happiness where he usually felt a worn-out antagonism at the duplicity of human nature.

‘And she's bright, you say?'

‘IQ of 157.'

‘My sister's a teacher,' said Bellwood. ‘She said to me there were a few children she couldn't stand, the vast majority she could bowl along with quite nicely, and the odd one she'd trust her house keys to. You know where she's coming from?'

‘Yes, I do.'

‘So where does Macy fit in on that spectrum?'