The task force from Serious Crime, led by Detective Chief Inspector David Brock, had known exactly who she was talking about, and she had immediately identified the photographs of Gregory Thomas North, a professional criminal with a record of violent armed robberies, known as Upper North because of his dangerous habit of psyching himself up with amphetamines before a job.
‘You heard the voice, Pauline,’ Brock said gently. ‘And you saw him?’
‘I… think so. I looked up as soon as I heard it, and I saw a man walking past behind my customer, talking to a little girl he was holding by the hand. He didn’t look at me. He just walked on out of the shop, and I… everything went blank.’
‘She fainted, sir.’ PC Sangster spoke. ‘Two of the other sales assistants went to help her, and when someone saw me passing by in the mall they called me in to help.’
Brock turned to her. ‘I don’t suppose you happened to notice this man and the little girl?’
‘No, sorry. The place was packed out this morning.’
Brock picked up from the table a copy of an image of a man’s face, based on photographs of North, modified on the computer to Pauline’s instructions.
‘A bit older-like all of us, eh, Pauline?’ Brock said. ‘And wearing glasses now. Suntanned?’
‘Yes, I think so. But I couldn’t see the scar. At least, I don’t remember it.’
‘It was the left side of his face you saw?’
‘Yes.’
‘But apart from that, you’re pretty certain?’
‘I heard the voice, Mr Brock.’
‘Yes. What about the child?’
‘I hardly saw her. I just had an impression of a little girl. I can’t remember how she looked.’
PC Sangster said, ‘I took statements from three of the other shop assistants, sir. One of them had served the man. He wanted to know if they had a particular kind of stuffed animal toy, a badger.’
Brock looked sharply at her, wondering if this was some kind of joke. Brock the badger. She blushed and consulted her notebook.
‘Yes. He wanted a big badger for the little girl. She was about three or four, blonde curls, wearing a red coat. He was wearing a black bomber jacket and jeans, white trainers.’
‘Did they have a badger?’ Brock asked.
‘No. He’d apparently been there before, because he said he’d seen one there, and the assistant said it’d been sold, but they were getting more in next week.’
‘I don’t suppose he left a name?’
‘No, nothing. He just asked about the badger and then they walked out of the shop, the little girl holding his hand.’
Later, after Pauline had been taken home with advice to get a doctor’s note to stay off work for at least two weeks, they played part of the video tape taken by the security camera in Cuddles, from which they had identified the man and child Pauline had seen. Brock sat forward, peering at the screen as they replayed the sequence, then he got to his feet and began pacing up and down the cramped room.
‘What do you reckon, Brock?’ Bren asked.
‘Looks very like him, doesn’t it? Same build, way of holding himself. And she was very sure about the voice.’
He stopped and turned to PC Sangster. ‘We appreciate your help, Miriam. Did Bren speak to you about keeping this to yourself?’
‘Yes, sir. I did report to my inspector, Inspector Rickets, and he was the one who notified the Yard. Other than that I haven’t spoken to anyone.’
‘Good. If it was him, we don’t want a hint to get out that he’s been spotted. Don’t want to frighten him off.’
‘I understand, sir.’
Brock picked up the computer simulation again. It was him, no question. North had returned. They were being given one more chance to put him away. Why had he come back? And for how long?
As Miriam Sangster turned to leave, Brock asked suddenly, ‘Is this Silvermeadow on your regular beat?’
‘Oh no, sir. We don’t patrol there. It’s private property, and they have their own security. I was following up another inquiry, a missing girl.’ She hesitated, but he seemed to want to know more, so she went on. ‘She lives close by here, and hasn’t been seen since Monday at school. Her mother reported her missing on Wednesday. The girl had a part-time job at Silvermeadow, and I was just checking with her employer there. It was an accident, really, that I was there at that time.’
‘Ah. Lucky for us then.’
At the door she stood back to let two men come in, uniformed and with rank. One announced himself as the divisional commander, Chief Superintendent Forbes, and introduced the other as Inspector Rickets.
Brock thought he remembered the name Forbes, but the face meant nothing: fleshy, large ears, with hair growing on the cheekbones. They shook hands formally.
‘They call you Brock, don’t they?’
Brock nodded. He had no idea what they called Forbes, apart from sir.
The chief superintendent looked ill at ease, Brock thought, as if he wasn’t used to being in rooms like this. It was one of those spaces belonging to no one, windowless, soulless, a dozen chairs around four tables pushed together, all bottom-of-the-range office furniture, a few cigarette burns along the edges. Forbes’s smart leather document case looked as out of place as he did.
‘We did meet at Bramshill six or seven years ago, a senior officer management course. You gave a paper on streamlining case management. Quite inspiring.’
Brock didn’t remember. Had he really spoken on a subject like that? Inspiringly?
A sudden violent burst of noise echoed through the building, like a jackhammer being applied to a concrete frame.
Forbes pulled a face, gritting his teeth. ‘They’re doing some repair work downstairs,’ he said loudly to make himself heard. ‘It’s been going on all morning.’
Brock wondered if he was making the point that he had been there all morning, at his desk, on the weekend.
They waited for the noise to stop, then Forbes continued. ‘Inspector Rickets tells me we may have Gregory North on our patch.’
‘It seems possible, sir. We know the principal witness, and she’s reliable, I think.’
‘I see. At Silvermeadow, I understand. Well, half the population of London goes through Silvermeadow at this time of the year, I suppose. So you’ll be wanting to mount an operation there? Shop to shop enquiries, posters, leaflets, information desk…?’
‘Well, no,’ Brock said. ‘The opposite, really. We’d heard rumours that North might have returned, but so far this is the only sighting. It seems that the man at Silvermeadow had visited that shop before, and may do so again, so the last thing we want to do is frighten him off. There’s also the question of the safety of the witness. So I would like this whole business treated in the utmost confidence. I’ve impressed that on PC Sangster. We’d be grateful if you’d leave it entirely with us.’
Forbes looked disappointed.
‘If it’s a matter of credit…’ Brock began, but Forbes dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand.
‘No, no. Tell me, do you think it possible that North is planning something at Silvermeadow?’
‘It’s possible I suppose. We have no indication as yet.’
‘But it is possible. You see, I wondered if some cooperative arrangement between us, a sharing of resources, might not be appropriate.’
‘To be honest, sir, the fewer of your officers seen at Silvermeadow over the next few weeks the better.’
‘Ah, but I’m afraid that may not be practicable, Brock.’ Forbes leant forward across the table. ‘We have our own investigations to pursue, and one of them seems very likely to be focusing on Silvermeadow.’
Brock wondered where this was leading. There was something very calculated about Forbes’s manner, an experienced committee man negotiating his way into a position of relative advantage. What it had to do with catching villains he wasn’t sure.