‘So, you worked out how it could be done,’ Kathy prompted. She no longer really cared how they’d done it, but knew she must try to keep him talking to her.
Jackson, reading her notes, didn’t reply at first. Then he said, ‘How much do you know about Bruno Verdi?’
‘Know, or suspect? I suspect that he murdered his niece, Kerri Vlasich, and before that two other girls, maybe more.’
‘Hmm.’ Jackson returned his attention to the notebook, turning the pages slowly.
‘Do you know?’ she prompted.
‘Some time ago we had a bit of a problem with a girl called Norma Jean. You know about her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yeah. Vagrancy, thieving, soliciting, dealing, shooting up in the toilets. Not unique by any means, but more persistent than most. Nobody seemed prepared to deal with her.
‘Well, one day I was down the gym with Bruno and Speedy and we were talking about Norma Jean. Bruno was complaining about how we weren’t solving the problem, and how it was beginning to affect business. I said I’d love to get rid of the girl, if anyone could tell me how, and Bruno said, if I really meant that, he could take care of it. When I asked what he meant, he looked kind of sly, you know, and said he could arrange to have her taken to Birmingham.’
‘Birmingham?’
‘He said he knew of a refuge there. Once there, he was sure Norma Jean wouldn’t want to come back. I said that sounded good to me. He said the only problem was that she wasn’t likely to go voluntarily. So it was a matter of finding some way to persuade her, for her own good of course, and ours. He said he could arrange this, if security would turn a blind eye, and if necessary cover up for him afterwards.’
‘You agreed to this?’ Kathy said, incredulous.
‘I didn’t know about his earlier history with the ice-cream van then, and he seemed genuinely concerned for the girl, wanting to help her start again. Honestly, Kathy, I thought he was doing us all a big favour.’
‘What changed your mind?’
‘Few months ago I had a run-in with Speedy. I’d caught him before taking drugs, or under the influence, but I’d always given him the benefit of the doubt. I knew he was on pain-killers, and I thought that was what was making him groggy. But this time I caught him red-handed with speed, and I said he was out. So then he told me a few home truths about what was going on in this place, things I didn’t know about.
‘He told me that after our conversation in the gym, Verdi had asked him if there was anywhere at Silvermeadow where he could keep Norma Jean for a few days, to frighten her, so she’d know not to come back. They’d looked at the building plans together, and found this room at the back of the plenum that wasn’t used, because it was practically inaccessible. So Verdi did some work on it, fixing it up with a solid door and moving in furniture, and Speedy removed it from the computer plans of the building. Part of the deal was that Speedy wanted a CCTV camera installed, so he could watch what went on in the room from his control console.
‘So he was able to tell me exactly what Verdi did to the girl. I’m not sure she knew too much about it-she was doped with some stuff Speedy was experimenting with. Then after three or four days, Verdi “took her to Birmingham”. That was the phrase he used for dumping her in the compactor. And the problem was, I was implicated in it. They could say I’d put them up to it, encouraged them from the beginning. And not just in that one case, either. Some time after Norma Jean we had a similar problem with another difficult kid, a foreign girl, and I said to Verdi, sort of joking, that I wished she’d sod off to Birmingham too, and he smirked and tapped his nose and said he’d see about it.’
He paused, and Kathy saw that the pages of the notebook he held in his fingers were trembling.
‘Speedy knew Verdi was killing the girls?’
‘Yeah. He’d seen him do it on camera, and he had the evidence on tape.’ He glanced back over his shoulder at a holdall at the side of the room.
‘You got the tapes from Speedy’s house,’ Kathy said. ‘You murdered Speedy and Wiff.’
‘Greg did it,’ Jackson said softly. ‘It had to be done. They were in the way, and we needed to get you lot to leave Silvermeadow.’
Kathy tried to take in the implications of this. Her head was buzzing and sore, the noise from the TV and radio distracting. ‘And Kerri? Did Verdi kill her too?’
Jackson didn’t answer. He looked away, then North’s voice called from the other end of the room, ‘News,’ and Jackson got to his feet and went over to the TV.
While they were occupied, Kathy tried to explore what she could of her surroundings. She couldn’t reach the suitcase or other things at the top end of the bed, nor could she get anywhere near Orr. The bed frame was surprisingly heavy, and gave a loud creak when she tried to move it. She hesitated, tried again, but could only shift it with difficulty, an inch or so at a time. She felt under the mattress and sleeping bag, hoping for something she might use as a weapon, or to prise open the handcuffs, but without success.
After ten minutes Jackson returned, carrying two glasses of red wine. ‘Nothing on the news,’ he said, handing one glass to her.
‘Doesn’t he mind sharing?’ she asked, nodding at North, engrossed now in some soccer.
‘His taste runs more to the chemical than the grape,’ Jackson muttered.
Kathy sipped at the wine. It burned her split lip and the taste reminded her of her evening drinking with Brock. The thought filled her with a sense of loss and despair. He wasn’t coming to rescue her. No one was. Jackson was right: this was a truly stupid way to spend Christmas Eve. She didn’t want to listen to more of his story, yet she knew she must keep him talking.
‘So this was the room,’ she said.
‘Eh?’
‘That Verdi used.’
‘Oh, yes. When Speedy explained it all to me, I went and had it out with Verdi. I told him I didn’t want to know about Birmingham, or what he’d done with the kids. As far as I was concerned he’d taken them to a refuge, and that was that. I told him the basement room was off limits now, the locks changed, and there were to be no more disappearances.’
‘How did he take it?’
‘The way he takes most things, with that big operatic smile that means nothing.’
‘When was this?’
‘Maybe three or four months ago.’
Long before Kerri disappeared then. Kathy had the feeling she didn’t want to hear about Kerri.
‘It was some time before I put the basement room together with the perfect robbery. The problem with the Canadian hold-up Bo had described wasn’t the heist itself, but the getaway. There isn’t going to be much time between robbing a security truck and having the alarm raised, and when the robbery takes place in an out-of-town shopping centre there aren’t any surrounding city streets to get lost in. There’s great access to the motorway, but it’s covered with cameras.
‘But suppose the robbers could disappear into the centre itself-the last place people would think of looking for them. I thought it was a neat idea. I looked closely at the way Armacorp did their collections, and I reckoned I could see how it could be done, using that hidden room.’
‘But how did North get down here after the robbery? Not through the security centre door into the plenum.’
‘Same way the kid Wiff got in and out of the plenum, through the drop ducts. There’s one in each of the stairways. North climbed down the last one with the uniforms and cash, and I replaced the grille after him and spent a couple of hours locked in a toilet cubicle, out of the way.’
Harry Jackson drained his glass and glanced at his watch. Kathy didn’t want him to leave, certainly not until she had found some way to hold North at bay.
‘But why on earth involve a madman like North, Harry?’ she said.
‘Because I’d never have done it otherwise. I had a plan all right, and I was beginning to feel desperate enough to dream about the money, but I was no hold-up merchant.
I’d never done anything like that before. In my heart I didn’t believe I could do it. It was only when I recognised him in the mall that day that I thought, for the first time, that I might actually go through with it.’