What She Saw (8 page)

‘Why?' she said.

‘Why what, Macy?' asked Rosen.

‘Why's the world so. . . bad?'

‘Do you know what, Macy,' Rosen replied, ‘I've been a policeman for thirty years and I still ask myself that question every single day. I never get the whole answer, but I always come up with some of the answer. It's also a wonderful world with lovely people in it. Do you want to know who I met today who's a really good, good person?'

‘Who?' She looked intrigued to the point of amazement.

Rosen leaned a little closer, dropped his voice. ‘You.'

‘Me?' Macy's face unfolded in a smile, a bud opening to the light. Then a shadow appeared. ‘Are they going to come and get me, Mr Rosen?'

‘I think. . . if they were going to get you, I mean make sure that you couldn't tell anyone what you'd seen. . .'

‘Kill me?'

‘They'd have done it last night when they had a chance. If they come back to Bannerman Square, it's a huge risk for them. There are going to be lots of policemen around here now.'

‘Promise?'

‘I can promise you lots of extra policemen.'

Macy looked at Bellwood for further reassurance.

‘Macy, if you'd committed a serious crime, would you go back to where you'd done it if there were loads of coppers around?'

‘No way.'

She drank the rest of her water and looked around for the bin. Rosen took the cup from her and felt the clammy heat from her hands on the plastic surface seep into his fingers. Macy still looked sick.

He looked at her mother.

‘Why don't you keep her off school for the afternoon?'

‘I want to go to school. Can I go now?' Macy insisted.

Rosen understood her sudden, urgent prompting to be in school, a place where she felt safe. He also reckoned that she had more information. But to detain her further at that moment would be cruel.

He took out his mobile phone and said, ‘Macy, can I take a photograph of your face?'

‘Yes, but why?'

‘Evidence of your wounds. Don't smile, just look at me, that's a good girl.'

He took three almost identical pictures of her face.

‘Macy, I'll call your school office and explain how you've helped us.' As her mother walked ahead of her into a fresh shower of rain, Macy stopped at the door.

‘There's something else. Something I can't get at.' She touched her skull. ‘Why can't I quite think?'

‘Sometimes,' said Rosen, ‘the mind protects us from too much nastiness by going blank.'

‘Oh,' she replied.

‘Where do you live, Macy?'

‘6F, Claude House.' She pointed. ‘Over there.'

‘Macy!' Her mother's voice cut in from outside the Portakabin.

‘Can I ask you a question, Mr Rosen?'

‘Go on.' He smiled.

Macy pointed at his feet. ‘Why are you wearing one green sock and one red one?'

‘The bedroom was dark. . . I hurried getting dressed. . .'

‘Macy!' Her mother's voice again, this time sharper. And Macy was gone.

‘Poor woman,' said Rosen. ‘Did you see the coat, Carol?'

Bellwood nodded. ‘Expensive shoes, though. Maybe she got lucky in a charity shop.'

‘Carol, get onto CCTV. We need the footage from eight forty-five to ten o'clock, Lewisham High Street. There's a camera near the junction with Lydia Road. Seal off Lydia Road from Bannerman Square to the high street – we need Scientific Support there, quickly.'

Rosen's phone rang out. Mind spinning, he picked up the call: ‘DCI David Rosen.'

‘I need to talk to you, David.' It was Chief Superintendent Baxter.

Rosen, who was about to go back to Isaac Street to catch up on the CCTV, said, ‘I'll be there in fifteen minutes.'

Baxter hung up.

Rosen took a deep breath and, heading towards his car in the thickening rain, saw Macy walk in one direction towards Bream Street Primary and her mother head back alone to Claude House.

18

1.35 P.M.

A
s Rosen entered the incident room, Gold and Feldman paused the CCTV footage. Feldman looked like he was soaking in a river of disappointment.

Gold, chewing gum and frustrated, was the first to catch Rosen's eye as he entered. ‘You're never going to believe this, boss,' he said.

Rosen noticed that Gold was wearing the same shirt he'd had on the previous night when he was handling Stevie Jensen on Bannerman Square. He wondered if Gold had slept in the shirt and felt anxious for him.

‘You know what, Goldie,' replied Rosen, approaching. ‘Bet you I will.'

‘CCTV on Bannerman Square,' said Gold. ‘Word up from forensics. Someone's taken two gunshots at the camera. First one's buckled the cage, the second's screwed the side of the camera.'

‘We've watched hours in the lead up to it,' said Feldman. ‘Not one single frame of anyone casing the camera or doing damage to it.' He pointed to the screen. ‘These are the moments leading up to the point where it was gunned. They're typical of the whole day.'

Gold pressed ‘play'.

‘So, what we've got is a really good view of Bannerman Square, round about three fifteen, specifically this. . .'

On screen, a young mother pushed a toddler in a buggy. The image shuddered and the mother carried on pushing her baby. As she disappeared off screen, the screen went blank.

‘Got you,' said Rosen.

‘Is she deaf?' asked Feldman.

‘Freeze-frame the young mum,' said Rosen. ‘Between the first and second bullet.'

Feldman froze an image of the woman. The quality of the picture was poor but there was no doubt that the woman didn't instinctively jump or turn her head to the sudden noise of a gunshot from just across the square. In the image, she just looked ahead, her head slightly dipped, talking to her child. She was heading for Claude House, the housing block where Macy Conner lived.

‘She'd have looked if she'd heard it, so she's either used to guns going off and has nerves of steel,' said Rosen, ‘or she's stone deaf.' He paused. ‘Or they used a silencer on the gun. We need to find her, fast.' He focused on Feldman and was glad to have a team member with his level of inexhaustible patience.

‘I'll go through the lists of tenants, narrow down women with small children in the Bannerman block,' said Feldman. ‘It shouldn't take long.'

‘I'll print off an image of her.' As Gold picked out a clearer image, Rosen said, ‘Get it copied and I'll get the uniforms to door-to-door the flats again and find her.'

Feldman smiled enigmatically at Rosen.

‘Go on, Mike, what's amusing you?'

‘You're about to hit me with something. . . tricksy. Let me guess. CCTV footage of all the traffic incoming to the Bannerman Square vicinity?'

‘We're looking for the stolen Renault Megane that Thomas got burned in,' said Rosen. ‘It's got to be there somewhere on CCTV – they had to come in from one of five routes to Bannerman Square.
It's ordered – the footage'll be here in the next couple of hours.'

‘I love making lists. I love looking at hours and hours of CCTV footage,' said Feldman, a small smile on his face, his voice deadpan.

Gold, however, did a poor job of masking his dismay.

‘I don't take it for granted. From either of you.'

Rosen looked across at Superintendant Baxter's door and knew he had to crack on. He addressed both Gold and Feldman: ‘I left a message on Tracey Leung's voicemail. She hasn't got back to me yet. We'll get the inside track from Tracey on who in the gangs especially likes playing with guns.'

‘You think the gangs could be involved in this shit?' asked Gold, incredulous.

‘If there's a gun involved on Bannerman Square, I want to check out what's what with the local gangs.' Possibilities raced around Rosen's mind. ‘Yes, I understand your scepticism, as they don't usually go in for kidnapping small children, but it could be the case that whoever's abducted Thomas has paid a local bad boy to take out the CCTV camera. Let's see. Keep trying Tracey for me, OK?'

Baxter's door. ACCs. Rosen took a deep breath and knocked.

19

1.43 P.M.

T
here was no reply. Rosen opened the door. Baxter was at his desk, engrossed in his laptop, furiously typing.

Rosen took advantage of his superior officer's distraction and took stock of the room, particularly the wide-angled group photograph of the class that Rosen and Baxter had passed out from at Hendon just under thirty years earlier. Academically, Rosen had been mid-table, but tops in physical matters, street smarts and plain common sense. Baxter was an academic high-flyer, but beneath the middle in just about everything else.

Rosen knew that Baxter wasn't the Renaissance Man he liked to project. The two had a silent contract: whatever conflict passed between them, Baxter knew his former classmate would never talk about that other world they had shared when they were both young and raw.

Baxter stopped typing, looked at Rosen as if he was surprised to see him.

‘David. Have you recruited your forensic psychologist yet?' He clicked the mouse to send an email. ‘Henshaw, Welch or Simon? Take your pick or I'll pick for you.'

‘Don't push me around, Tom.'

Baxter sighed. ‘Close the door, David.'

‘I've already closed it.'

On Baxter's desk there was a new family portrait: Baxter and his wife standing behind their seated children, now sixth-formers. It was taken only weeks after Baxter's mistress of three years had made it to sergeant and dumped him in favour of a higher-ranked commander.

‘Henshaw's the best,' said Baxter. ‘I agree, but why do
you
think so?'

‘I had that meeting with the assistant commissioners this morning. They want a profiler on board—'

‘Since when do the ACs run investigations on the ground?'

‘Since Thomas Glass's father went to Capital Radio and said he apportioned a large degree of blame to the Metropolitan Police for what's happened to his son. Not acting fast enough, not doing everything possible, poor communicators. . . It's a long list, vague and unsubstantiated, but juicy enough for a damning phone-in debate this morning.'

Rosen imagined the scene. Baxter, political doggie, doing sit, stand and heel to the ACs because that was the way it worked. Baxter did it to those beneath as those above did it to him.

‘I've done everything humanly possible.'

‘Except pick a profiler. ACs Cotton and Telfer don't understand why you're not using a profiler.'

‘So you reminded them about Peter Cale,
Doctor
Peter Cale, early days of the Herod case. . .'

Baxter looked battered.

‘Cale had us all convinced that Herod was a woman. . . half the team spent a week on HOLMES, the rest went tracking down females with any form for abducting children or attacking pregnant women.'

‘David, I remember it well.'

‘Remember how Cale then did a sudden about-face and declared it may not be a woman after all? Same day, Alison Todd was abducted, victim number two.'

‘OK, David, listen. John Glass is going to the IPCC. I've been told to start a damage limitation programme on the conduct of the case so far. Make sure no stone is left unturned. Profiler!'

Rosen watched the colour red rising from Baxter's collar line carry on upwards.

‘I'm happy to argue the case for selective use of resources.'

‘It was a lecture,' snapped Baxter. He composed himself. ‘Not a debate.'

Silence.

‘Who do you want, David? Name your man.'

There was something different about Baxter: he looked worn down, and, in that moment, Rosen amazed himself by feeling sorry for his boss.

‘OK. At half past nine last night,' said Rosen, ‘all we had was a missing child. Now we've other information, we could use a profiler and I'd like James Henshaw on board.'

Baxter said, ‘Thank you. And thanks for not reminding me that I insisted Doctor Cale be made central to the MIT chasing Paul Dwyer, also known as Herod.' He exhaled, loudly. ‘I'll call Henshaw personally. OK, David, I know you're busy. You can go now.'

Rosen stopped at the door when Baxter suddenly asked, ‘Why do
you
think Henshaw's the right man for this case?'

Rosen smiled. Baxter was cribbing notes for his next run-in with the ACs. He fixed his face, turned and, looking at Baxter, saw a man who was down to the last of his energy.

‘The perpetrators aren't paedophiles but there are at least two of them involved, possibly more. What binds them? Abnormality. Off the scale. Henshaw's our man. He's got a great track record on cases of collective insanity. Send him to me, Tom, ASAP, Bannerman Square.'

20

3.55 P.M.

A
s the late afternoon rain stopped, Rosen arrived back at the mobile incident room in Bannerman Square. He asked the PC manning the Portakabin if there had been any visitors, but had predicted correctly: not one.

He scrunched up a greasy brown McDonald's bag, the large fries and cheeseburger packaging still inside it, and dropped it in the bin by the desk. He felt a shiver of guilt at the thought of the hard work that Sarah put in to making calorie-controlled lunches but with his stomach full, his mind, he told himself, could focus.

His phone rang.

‘DCI David Rosen.'

‘Hi, David, DC Riley.'

‘Problem at A and E?'

‘No. I've just emailed you the list of people who attended A and E last night.'

‘Copy the whole team in on it. Thanks, Barry.'

Rosen opened his laptop and turned it on, but his attention was drawn away by something he saw on Bannerman Square through the open door of the MIR.

He stopped what he was about to do and watched.

Stevie Jensen, on his way home from school, had acknowledged a younger girl who was tying something to the scene-of-crime tape that cordoned off the place where Thomas Glass had burned in a Renault Megane.