Michael Robotham - Lost

“Oh dear, I don't know. I didn't look that closely. There were other people on the platform. They must have seen her.”

“We looked for them. Nobody came forward.”

“Oh dear.”

A teacup rattles against a saucer. Rachel's hands are shaking. “Do you have grandchildren, Mrs. Bird?”

“Oh, yes, dear. Six of them.”

“How old are they?”

“They're aged between eight and eighteen.”

“And the girl you saw on the platform, she was about the same age as your youngest grandchild is now?”

“Yes.”

“Did she seem frightened?”

“Lost. She seemed lost.”

Rachel's eyes are fixed with an almost ecstatic intensity.

“I'm sorry I can't remember any more. It's so long ago.” Mrs. Bird glances at her hands. “It did look like her but when the police arrested that chap . . . well . . . I thought I must have been mistaken. When you get old your eyes play tricks. I'm very sorry for your loss. Another cup of tea?”

Back in the car Rachel is full of questions, most of which I can't answer. There were dozens of reported sightings of Mickey in the weeks after she disappeared. Without any independent corroboration and given that Mrs. Bird wasn't wearing her glasses, I couldn't rely on her account.

“There must have been cameras at the station,” says Rachel.

“The footage is useless. We couldn't even tell if it was a child.”

Rachel is adamant. “I want to see it.”

“Good. That's where we're going now.”

The headquarters of London Underground is on Broadway, around the corner from New Scotland Yard. The Area Commander of the Transport Police, Chief Superintendent Paul Magee, is an old friend. I've known him for thirty years. Back in those days the IRA kept him awake at night. Now it's a different type of terrorist.

His face is thin and shaved. He looks almost youthful, despite his gray hair, which seems whiter every time I see him. Soon he'll pass for blond.

“You look like shit, Vince.”

“People keep telling me that.”

“I hear you're getting divorced again. What happened?”

“I forgot to put sugar in her tea.”

He laughs. Paul is married to a girl he met in grammar school. Shirley is a real keeper, who thinks I'm a bad influence but still made me godfather to her eldest boy.

We're sitting in Paul's office, which has a view over Wellington Barracks. He can watch the “new guard” march out every morning along Birdcage Walk to Buckingham Palace. Rachel is hanging back, waiting for an introduction. He doesn't recognize her name. I tell him we need to see a CCTV tape from three years ago.

“We don't keep them that long.”

“This one you kept. I asked you to.”

He suddenly puts two and two together and glances back at Rachel. Without another word, he takes us out of his office and down the corridor, tapping security codes into consoles and leading us deeper into the building.

Eventually, we're sitting in a small room, waiting for a video player to rewind a tape. Rachel watches motionless, even her breathing seems suspended. Grainy black-and-white images appear on the screen. They show a figure near the bottom of the escalators at Leicester Square Underground. Assuming it's a girl, she is wearing a dark blue tracksuit and carrying something in her arms. It might be a beach towel. It could be anything.

There were twelve security cameras at the station, each mounted above platforms and escalators. The angles were wrong because they didn't pick up faces. No amount of computer enhancement could make someone look up into the lens.

She pauses at the bottom of the escalator, as though momentarily unsure of where to go. Mrs. Bird comes into view and then Mr. Bird a few moments later, planting his walker and shuffling behind her. Mrs. Bird can be seen saying something to the girl, who turns away, disappearing through an arch onto the southbound platform.

The time and date are displayed in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen: 22:14, July 24, Wednesday evening.

A second camera on the platform picked up the girl again, but from much farther away. She appeared to be alone. A plump, dark-haired woman dressed in a nurse's uniform walked past her.

“So what do you think?” I ask Rachel.

She doesn't answer. I turn to face her and see tears welling up in her eyes. She blinks and they fall.

“Are you sure?”

She nods, still silent.

“But she could be seven or seventeen. You can't even see her face.”

“It's her. I know my daughter. I know how she walks and holds her head.”

Nine times out of ten I would not believe it was anything more than a mother's desperate desire to believe her daughter is alive. That's why I didn't show Rachel the tape three years ago. It risked derailing the entire investigation, sending dozens of officers off on a tangent and diverting public attention instead of focusing it.

Now I believe Rachel. I know there isn't a judge or a jury in the land who would accept beyond doubt that Mickey is the person on the tape but that doesn't matter. The person who knows her best is sure. On Wednesday, July 24—two days after she disappeared—Mickey was still alive.

The only other person in Joe's waiting room is a middle-aged man in a cheap suit that bunches at his shoulders when he folds his arms. He picks at his teeth with a matchstick and watches me take a seat.

“The secretary went to get coffee,” he says. “The Professor has a patient.”

I nod and notice him watching me. Finally, he asks, “Do we know each other?”

“I don't think so. Are you a copper?”

“Yeah. DS Roger Casey. They call me the Dodger.” He moves a few seats closer and thrusts out his hand, at the same time eyeing up Rachel.

“So where are you working, Roger?”

“Vice out of Holborn.”

He's sitting close, feeling a sense of camaraderie. I should probably remember his face but a lot of guys his age have left the service in the past ten years.

“You heard this one,” he asks. “How many coppers does it take to throw a man down the stairs?”

“I don't know. How many?”

“None. He fell.”

Roger laughs and I offer him a chiseled smile. He lifts an eyebrow and goes quiet.

The Professor's secretary arrives back, carrying takeout coffee and a brown paper bag stained by a pastry. She looks barely out of school and blinks through wire-frame glasses as though she should have known we were coming.

“I'm DI Ruiz. Could you tell the Professor we're here?”

She sighs, “Join the queue.”

At that moment the inner door opens and a young woman emerges with red-rimmed eyes.

Joe is behind her.

“So I'll see you next week, Christine. Remember, it's not immodest to wear culottes and it doesn't make you less feminine.”

She nods and keeps her eyes down. Everyone in the room does the same apart from Roger who starts giggling. The poor woman flees down the corridor.

Joe gives him an angry stare and is about to say something when he sees me sitting with Rachel. “Come inside, you two.”

“The Detective Sergeant was here first,” I suggest.

Joe shakes his head and sighs. “Oh dear . . . and you were doing so well, Roger.” He turns to his secretary. “For future reference, Philippa, DI Ruiz is a real police officer. Not everyone who comes in here claiming to be a detective is a fantasist.”

Philippa's cheeks redden and Rachel starts to giggle.

“I'm sorry about Roger,” says Joe, as we're ushered into his office. “He pretends to be a police officer and tricks prostitutes into giving him free sex.”

“Does it work?”

“Apparently.”

“He's a freak!”

Joe looks at me awkwardly. “Well, he's part of our team.”