‘Let’s move on.’ I beckoned Carradine away from the stuffed trio, though I was aware that my sympathy for the bears had brought us closer together. ‘It’s a pity about the bears, but they seem to be well cared for. Now, which of these escalators did my father take?’
‘He didn’t take an escalator, Mr Pearson.’
‘Sergeant Falconer said he was going up to the third floor. He bought his tobacco from a shop …’
‘Dunhill’s. But not that morning. He took the staircase to the exhibition area.’
A mezzanine deck jutted over the concourse between the ground and first floors, reached by a staircase with white rails. There was an observation platform where shoppers could rest and look down on the crowds below. A section of the mezzanine was a public gallery, hung with dioramas of new housing estates and science parks.
‘We donate the space to local businesses,’ Carradine explained. ‘It’s part of our public education programme.’
‘Enlightened of you.’ I waited for Carradine to inhale deeply. ‘Now, where was my father shot?’
Without speaking, Carradine pointed to the observation platform. He had begun to sweat copiously, and buttoned his jacket, trying to hide the damp stain under his tie. He watched me stiffly when I climbed the dozen steps to the platform, then turned and fixed his gaze on the giant bears.
I stood on the platform, almost expecting to see my father’s blood staining the metal floor. He had spent his last moments resting against the rail, tired by his walk to the Metro-Centre. The fire-control hatch was little more than twenty feet away, and I tried to imagine a bullet passing through my head. Following its possible track, I noticed a shallow groove in the railing. The staircase had been repainted, but I placed my index finger in the groove, taking the last pulse of my father’s life, a final contact with a man I never knew.
‘Mr Pearson – everything all right?’ Carradine was relieved that the tour was over, an ordeal he had clearly never anticipated. ‘If we go to my office …’
‘I’m fine. You’ve earned yourself a stiff drink. First, though, I need to take a look at the fire-control point.’
‘Mr Pearson? That’s not a good idea. You might find it …’
I held his elbow and turned him to face the bears. A technician was working on the instrument panel inside the plinth, and the mother bear gave a skittish twitch, as if ducking another bullet. I said: ‘I need to see the whole picture. My father died in your store, Tom. You owe it to me and the bears.’
We stood in the narrow chamber behind the fire hose, the high-pressure pump and gas cylinders next to us. The hose would project a stream of foam at the pedestrian decks and smother any burning debris that fell from the roof. Leaning through the open hatch, I could see the observation platform, the mezzanine deck and the entire concourse.
‘Good. Tell me, Tom, how did Christie get in here?’
Carradine straightened his tortured body. The sweat from his hands left damp prints on the metal wall. ‘The fire crews have key cards. Christie must have stolen one from their locker room.’
‘It’s a miracle he made it here.’ We had emerged from a maze of service corridors, tunnels and freight elevators. ‘It’s not easy to find. Did Christie have a friend on the inside?’
‘Unthinkable, Mr Pearson.’ Carradine stared at me, shocked by the thought. ‘Christie is very devious. He was always hanging around.’
‘All the same, no one actually saw him fire the weapon. How did he smuggle it in here?’
‘Sergeant Falconer told me he hid it behind the gas cylinders.’
‘Sergeant Falconer? For someone so uptight she gets around …’
‘Two women leaving the staff toilet saw Christie run to the emergency exit. Several people recognized him in the car park.’
‘They all knew him?’
‘He’s a local troublemaker, a very nasty type.’
‘That’s the problem.’ I moved the foam gun in its gimbals, training the brass barrel on the bears. ‘All that screaming and panic – anyone running away would look like an assassin. Especially the local misfit.’
‘He’s guilty, Mr Pearson.’ Carradine nodded vigorously, his confidence returning. ‘They’ll convict him.’
I gazed down at the mezzanine, wondering what had drawn my father to a property developer’s pitch. Beyond the exhibition space, separated by chromium rails and a security gate, was a small television studio. There was a hospitality area of black leather sofas, and a circle of cameras and lighting arrays grouped around a commentator’s desk and the guest banquettes.
‘Consumer affairs programme,’ Carradine explained. ‘It’s very popular. Customers come on, talk about their shopping experiences. The Metro-Centre has its own cable channel. In the evenings we have higher ratings than BBC2.’
‘People go home and watch programmes about shopping?’
‘More than shopping, Mr Pearson. Health and lifestyle issues, sports, current affairs, key local concerns like asylum seekers …’
A monitor in the control room had come on, and a familiar face appeared, with the same deep tan and sympathetic smile that I had seen on the giant screens at the football stadium.
* * *
The face followed us around the dome, its sunbed charm glowing from the television screen in Carradine’s office, a windowless space deep in the dome’s administration area. As I sipped a double espresso, glad to sink my nose in its reassuring vapour, Carradine sorted through the photographs he had pulled from his filing cabinet.
He and his assistants had spent endless hours editing out any bloodstains or panic-filled faces. The surveillance-camera stills he passed to me showed a retreat as calm and heroic as Dunkirk, younger customers helping the elderly, uniformed staff guiding children towards their grateful parents. Spilled shopping bags, scattered groceries, a screaming three-year-old with a blood-smeared face were all cropped and consigned to that vast amnesia that the consumer world reserved for the past. At the sales counter, the human race’s greatest confrontation with existence, there were no yesterdays, no history to be relived, only an intense transactional present.
I dropped the photos on Carradine’s desk and turned to the television screen where the suntanned presenter was interviewing housewives about their experiences with a new reusable cat litter. I guessed that the recorded clip would not be appearing on air.
‘I’ve seen him before,’ I told Carradine. ‘Years ago. EastEnders, The Bill. He tended to play paedophiles and widowers who’d murdered their wives … it’s that faint shiftiness.’
‘David Cruise.’ At the sound of the name Carradine straightened his shoulders. ‘He runs the Metro-Centre cable channel. He’s very popular, our customers like him.’
‘I bet. He fronted
