Silvermeadow Read Free Page B

signal of some kind that the robbers recognised. The man holding Pauline went very still, then smiled down at the manager, withdrew the muzzle of his pistol from Pauline’s bleeding mouth, bent down, held it six inches from Fairbairn’s upturned face and pulled the trigger.
    The three men then calmly walked away, locking the front door behind them. Because of the masks, the other staff weren’t able to identify the gunmen, but Pauline had had a clear view of their faces at the moment they had pushed in through the front door. She gave a particularly vivid description of the man who had held her, his wild unblinking grey eyes, the smooth pink skin on his left temple and cheek where it looked as if he had been burned, the belligerent thrust of his mouth. And she described his voice, a hoarse voice, naturally soft but made to sound big by straining his throat, like vegetables forced through a grater.
    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