There were many brief snatches of movement, mostly of cars stopping at the kerb then moving off, and several pedestrians walking by. Conducted in silence, it had the eerie feel of a cheap horror film, with snatches of movement and the play of car headlights forming shadows across the pavement. The footage was grainy and stuttering, and whoever had sold Mrs Carvalho the system hadn’t gone for high-end technology. But it was clear enough to make out some detail of faces and clothing.
He’d been at it for nearly forty minutes when a figure went by just beneath the camera. He almost missed it, but for the glint of light off the metal stick in the figure’s hand. He hit rewound then played the scene again. A buzz of excitement went through him. It wasn’t a stick; there was an odd shaped attachment at the top.
A metal crutch.
He breathed easily and replayed the footage over and over, watching the figure ghost by, seemingly hugging the building and bent over. Female or slim male? Female. There was something about the build. From what he recalled about her, Clare wasn’t exactly sylph-like, but neither was she a weightlifter.
Then the area around the figure flared with light as a car pulled up at the kerb nearby, and the face became clear.
It was Clare.
Rik took out his mobile and called Harry.
‘Got a sighting.’ He gave the address of the beauty salon. ‘And I think the manager fancies me. Her name’s Carvalho. You’d better hurry — I’m frightened.’
‘Keep your legs crossed,’ replied Harry. ‘Two minutes.’
Rik ducked his head through into the main salon and beckoned to Mrs Carvalho. She followed him and he showed her the footage, pointing out the glitter of the crutch.
‘A colleague’s on his way to verify it, but I think this is her.’
‘Poor dear,’ the owner replied softly, a frown of concern etching her forehead. ‘Why is she walking like that?’
‘She had a stomach operation. It’s not fully healed yet and she shouldn’t be on her feet.’ He tapped the hard drive. ‘Can I isolate this section and email it to my computer? I’ll need to distribute this to others helping in the search.’
‘Of course, yes.’ She watched while he did it then said, ‘I hope you find her. This is not a good place for a young woman alone late at night.’
Voices approached and Harry walked in. He nodded at the woman and said, ‘Thanks for your cooperation, Mrs Carvalho. It’s good of you.’
‘Miss,’ she corrected him, and patted her hair, eyelashes fluttering. ‘Always happy to help.’
Harry peered at the screen. ‘It’s her.’
They made their escape, leaving the owner excitedly regaling her customers with the story.
‘She was heading north,’ said Rik. ‘But I’m not sure that helps us much.’
Harry took out a street map and stabbed it with his finger. ‘There’s a four-way junction up ahead with side streets. It’s going to be messy finding out which way she went from there. But it’s all we’ve got.’
It took them a further two hours of false starts, broken cameras, reluctant owners and poor footage around the large junction to find other premises with a private CCTV that offered a decent, useable clue. This one was above a bingo hall in Camberwell Road, showing Clare’s figure heading due north towards the area known as Elephant amp; Castle. She was bent over and seemed to be leaning on the crutch more than she had been earlier.
‘She must be hurting,’ Rik commented. ‘Could you do that? I couldn’t.’ His voice carried a hint of admiration.
‘No,’ said Harry. ‘Nor me. Come on.’ He thanked the bingo hall manageress for her help and led the way back onto the street.
‘Where to?’
‘She’s going for the river,’ said Harry. He made a note in his notebook. He’d been plotting the position of street cameras as they went, building the progress line ready to hand over to Ballatyne. The MI6 man might not be able to do much with it very quickly, but being able to give him precise positions where Clare had passed by would narrow down the search time considerably.
It made him wonder what Clare had in mind, and whether she was absolutely clear about her intentions. The closer she got to the centre of London, if that’s where she was heading, the greater became the density and coverage of street cameras. And that exposed her to enormous risks of discovery by the MI6 trackers as well as the Russians. On the other hand, tracking a single figure through the streets, camera by camera, was not that simple, unless someone had access to real-time footage and knew exactly where to look. If the followers on either side got that much, then they would have Clare in their sights, unless he and Rik could get to her first.
He consulted a street map. The Elephant amp; Castle would be a nightmare for the two of them to check out. There were several roads leading off from the main gyratory system, and a maze of smaller streets Clare could have ducked into to stay out of the open. Covering them all would be impossible without an army of helpers or direct access to the street cameras from a central position.
He followed the map with his finger, leap-frogging ahead. Clare probably knew this area as well as he did. If so, she’d have probably headed for somewhere familiar, somewhere she could join the army of night people gathering in the area and lose herself among them. That meant only one logical destination: Waterloo Station.
He texted Ballatyne.
EIGHTEEN
‘Where are you right now?’ It was Ballatyne, in answer to Harry’s text. He sounded rushed.
‘Near Waterloo. We’ve had a sighting of Clare.’
‘Never mind that. This is not an instruction for you to get involved, but an update. There’s been a shooting at King’s College hospital. The security control centre was raided by two armed men. They forced their way in and made the operator hand over a hard drive with CCTV footage of the night Tobinskiy was killed. Then they shot him.’
‘Dead?’
‘No. He’s alive but hurting.’
‘Any indications who they were?’
‘The guard was able to talk just before he went into the operating theatre. He said the man doing all the talking sounded English at first, but an accent came through a couple of times. There was another man who stayed outside the control room. He looked East European and was built like a wrestler. There’s footage of him and the shooter leaving the building together through a side door. Then nothing. The police are working on cameras in the area, but my guess is these jokers will merge into the background.’
‘Russians?’
‘Undoubtedly. Looks like the FSB team decided to get hold of the footage. Comes across as panic measures to me, probably to cover their tracks from their visit the other night.’
‘Why would they bother?’ Harry countered. ‘There’s the footage from today’s entry. They’re clearly not worried about leaving evidence. Not that it proves who they were.’
A long pause. ‘Good point. In that case they must be counting on tracking down Clare before we do and getting out of the country. Thanks to the obstruction by the hospital authorities, they now have a lead on us. As soon as they scan that hard drive and put out pictures to their resident network on the streets, Jardine’s hours are numbered.’
‘Wasn’t there a backup drive?’
‘That was the backup. And the hospital’s still dragging its heels in releasing the original footage.’ His breathing echoed down the line. ‘I give them about four hours before the executives are hit with a massive court order which will freeze their balls.’
‘Good luck with that.’ Harry gave this new development some thought, then said, ‘It would help if we could cut this short.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Following her trail is taking too long; she could be anywhere. She’ll probably be looking for help by now, and there’s a limit on who she’d approach. Do you have that name for me? There must have been at least one person she was friendly with. Nobody works in a complete vacuum.’