The Book of Souls (Inspector McLean #2)(23)
Deep in thought, it took a moment for McLean to register that he’d seen something through the glass doors of John Lewis. He couldn’t quite say what, but whatever it was, it stopped him in mid-stride, forcing muttered curses from the other pedestrians as they had to adapt to a sudden rock in their stream. He took a step back, peering through the glass at the shoppers inside, the staff in their uniforms, the mind-boggling variety of Christmas decorations and assorted seasonal tat.
And then he saw him; three-quarters turned away. Wearing a jeans and leather bomber jacket combination that was atypical for the man. But otherwise unmistakable.
‘Anderson!’
McLean pushed his way through the crowd, not caring who he knocked aside. The shop doors were slow, motorised rotating panes of glass that stopped whenever one of the mindless crowd bumped too close. And in his rush to get inside, they were all mindless now. He wasted long seconds shuffling impatiently, trying to peer over heads and into the shop, desperate not to lose his quarry. Finally the wheel opened, spilling people out into the warmth. McLean pushed past them, ignoring the scowls and half-muttered comments, hurrying to the stand where he had seen Anderson.
‘Can I help you with anything, sir? Only we’re closing in ten minutes.’ McLean looked around to see a young shop assistant giving him an uncertain smile.
‘Actually I’m looking for someone. An old man, about so high.’ He raised his hand somewhere between the top of the assistant’s head and his chin. ‘Wearing jeans and a brown leather jacket. Grey hair, but not much of it.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I really couldn’t say. We’re very busy, and it’s been like that all evening.’
‘What about CCTV?’ McLean scanned the upper reaches of the atrium and saw several, all pointed at the revolving doors.
‘I’m not sure it would be appropriate—’
‘I’m a police officer.’ McLean dug out his warrant card and noticed an immediate change in the young woman. Her eyes flicked nervously away from him and towards the tills.
‘I’ll just get the departmental manager,’ she said, and fled.
‘There. Stop there. Can you zoom in?’
McLean sat in the darkened viewing room somewhere in the depths of the department store and peered at the slightly fuzzy images on a bank of flickering screens. It was a far more sophisticated set-up than the makeshift viewing room back at the station, but not a patch on the city’s Central Monitoring Facility, where the surveillance culture really started. The security manager stifled a yawn as he fiddled with buttons, focusing the image down to just one man. The picture deteriorated to a series of flesh-coloured blobs, but even then McLean could tell.
‘No, sorry. That’s not him. Go back a bit will you.’
‘Is this going to take a lot longer, sir?’ the manager asked. ‘Only I was due to clock off an hour ago.’
McLean looked at his watch. Half-past ten and they’d scarcely made a dent in the available footage. The shop seemed to be awash with cameras, all of them showing an endless bustle of desperate shoppers just slightly out of focus. It was a mammoth task, and the rational part of his brain was already telling him he was being an idiot. It wasn’t Anderson, just someone who happened to look a bit like him. Perhaps he was just over-reacting because of the burial. And the dead girl.
‘You’re right. Sorry.’ McLean rubbed at his aching eyes. He needed to do something, but perhaps staring at a flickering screen for yet more hours wasn’t it. ‘Look, is there any way I could get a copy of this evening’s footage? Just a couple of hours leading up to closing?’ Or a few minutes. He’d already seen his own hurried entry into the building immortalised on tape or hard disk or whatever it was they used these days.
‘I’m not sure. I’d have thought so, but I’ll have to run it past the senior manager. Did you want it now?’ The security manager gave him a look of such utter desperation that McLean had to relent.
‘No, you’re all right.’ He fished in his jacket for a card, handed it over. ‘It’s not that urgent, but if I could get it in the next couple of days.’
The security manager took the card like it was a winning lottery ticket. ‘Aye, well, I’ll see what I can do.’
18
McLean thumbed the number as he stepped out of the staff door into the cold night air. He should probably have programmed it into the phone’s memory, but it was imprinted in his brain just fine. What he needed now was a drink anyway, not a half hour fight with some irritating but essential technology.
‘Hello?’ Female voice at the end of the line. Rachel. Damn, he’d been hoping not to have to talk to her.
‘Hi Rae, Tony here. How’s things?’
‘Oh, you know, same old. Got some samples through for the bridesmaids dresses, and I need to finalise the menu. The band’s mucking us about, too. I don’t suppose you could, oh I don’t know, give them a parking ticket or something?’
McLean laughed. ‘Rae, the wedding’s not for another six months.’
‘Six months is nothing, Tony. It’ll be gone like that. I have to have it planned.’
‘You’ll be fine. And anyway, I thought Phil was going to spirit you off to Vegas, get you hitched by an Elvis impersonator.’