The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [15]
Ruiz once asked him why, but Vorland wouldn’t talk about it. Later, when they got drunk after a Twickenham test match, Vorland said he couldn’t forgive Mandela for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
“It’s not in my nature to exonerate torturers and murderers,” he said.
A few years back Vorland had a heart attack. Thought he was dying. He told Ruiz he saw fireworks exploding above Table Mountain and heard a black gospel choir singing. The crash cart and 300 volts brought him back.
Everyone thought Vorland should have retired but he wanted to come back. After six months recuperating, he was leaner, fitter, no longer drinking. Ten years younger and twice as miserable.
His office is on the fourteenth floor with a view across the rooftops of Whitehall to Westminster Cathedral.
“You want some crap coffee?”
“I’m good.”
They spend the first few minutes talking about rugby, more out of habit than need. Finally Ruiz elaborates on a phone call he made earlier, telling the DS about “a friend” who was robbed after playing the Good Samaritan.
“Why didn’t your friend report this crime?” asks Vorland.
“He thinks his wife might misinterpret what happened.”
“Where did your friend meet this girl?”
“The Coach & Horses in Greek Street.”
Vorland glances down at a yellow legal pad by his elbow. “I did a computer search and came up with five robberies in the past six months, same MO, two perps, one female, one male.”
“Descriptions?”
“The girl is eighteen to twenty-five, Caucasian, five-five, blue eyes, dark hair, cut short, but it could be a wig. She’s also been a blonde and a redhead. The boyfriend is six foot, close cropped hair and a northern accent.”
Vorland taps a fountain pen on the pad. “I also checked out that phone number. The SIM card is registered to a fake address in Wimbledon. Pay-as-you-go. The police won’t track the handset unless your friend reports the crime…” He raises an eyebrow. “Maybe you could convince him…”
Ruiz gives a non-committal shrug. “I’ll have a word.”
Vorland remembers something else.
“You could talk to the CCTV Control Centre at Westminster Council. They’ve got a hundred and sixty cameras in the West End.”
“Big Brother is watching.”
“They do a job.”
“I preferred the cowardly old world to the brave new one.”
Ruiz rises slowly and makes his way downstairs, dropping his visitor’s badge at the security desk. When he steps outside the revolving door he exhales as though he’s been holding his breath this entire time. Sometimes he needs a reminder that retirement was the right decision.
City Watch Security is in Coventry Street, up a narrow stairway from street level without any signage on the door. The reception area is a small windowless room with posters on the wall urging people to be eternally vigilant. The control centre is registered as a charitable trust, funded by Westminster City Council, the Metropolitan Police and private businesses.
The woman in charge, Helen Carlson, has white-grey hair and a head that looks slightly too large for her body, giving her a doll-like quality. Ruiz follows her to a separate building, around the corner in Wardour Street, where they enter a dark sub-basement with industrial bins and a caged lift. Ms. Carlson taps a number into a panel. The door opens. They wait for it to close behind them. Another panel, a different code and a second door opens into a large room where dozens of men and women watch the streets of London on vast screens, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year.
There are images of pedestrians in Oxford Street, couples embracing on a park bench in Leicester Square, a bicycle courier weaving between buses at Piccadilly Circus, a tramp going through bins in Green Park, a delivery van blocking a street in Soho, three teenagers kicking a can outside Euston Station. Snapshots of London, viewed