The Magpie Trap: A Novel (13 page)

‘A bit early? You are
four hours early sir,’ said Burr, finally.

‘I had to see what the
site was like when it was a normal day; if I’d have arrived here at the
expected time then people would have tried just that little bit harder to make
a favourable impression.’

‘So; you want to see
the site?’ Burr led them towards the Security Lodge and they had to pause as he
held two access passes against a reader at the side of the pedestrian
turnstile, a green light indicating that they could proceed. Hunter noted that
a CCTV camera perched above the turnstile had whirred round to capture his
image as he passed through. Oh the wonders of new technology.

‘You need two passes?’
asked Hunter.

‘Well, actually, each
door needs a double-verification so that nobody is ever left alone on site…
it’s a security risk. Here, the card-access points interact with the CCTV
system allowing the camera to monitor each door every time it is used; it’s a
multi-layered security structure.’

‘So how come you have
two passes?’

‘Well, it’s because
they’ve issued me with an extra one so that I could let my new boss in today,’
said Burr, almost too quickly. ‘If you hang on sir, then Mick Stephenson will
be down from the Main Monitoring Centre with your own pass. HR will be
processing your paperwork as we speak.’

Hunter looked at his
new colleague with interest, studying the rotund man’s red face. Was he
embarrassed about something, or was he simply out of breath from the walk?

Hunter had the
policeman’s ingrained habit of memorizing faces. He could scan them as if he
were a computer program; identifying minor defects, distinguishing marks and
committing them to a huge storage bank in his head. He would judge the distance
the eyes were apart, the size and shape of the nose, the trajectory of the
mouth; he had become so adept at this skill that it had become second nature.
Something learned, rehearsed and natural; like riding a bike or driving a car.
Burr’s face was flabby, but not in the way that suggested jollity; he had mean
piggy eyes and huge bushy eyebrows. Gingery stubble erupted angrily from
seemingly every pore. He looked as though he was quick-tempered and aggressive;
in fact, he looked very much like an angry bear.

Eventually, it seemed,
the ursine security guard realised that he could stand around talking by the
gate all day but Hunter wasn’t going to go away. He led the way through to a
sparse, white waiting room, round the back of the Security Lodge. It was
populated only by a number of school-style lockers and a double-screen which
looked like one of the metal detectors they have in airports.

‘When you come through
here, you have to pass through these metal detectors,’ said Burr, gesturing to
the scanner by the doorway. ‘You also have to hand in your mobile phone, or any
other electronic device.’

‘Mobile phone?’ asked
Hunter, staring.

‘Every member of staff
and every visitor willingly hands in his mobile phone. Phones are particularly
frowned upon because they can now be used as data storage tools. A mobile phone
can, in theory, transmit video images from the site to any given computer
across the world; they are a huge security risk.’

           
Hunter
passed over his own brick-like device, noting Burr’s amusement. Then they
passed through another access point and entered the main portion of the
Security Lodge. The room was largely taken up with a huge bank of monitors on
one side, and a huge bullet-proof glass window at the front. The bank of
monitors was flanked by a large potted cactus; the only personal touch in a
space which was all clean lines, shaded in plain greys and blacks. There was a
small sink in the corner, and a cork board populated by Health and Safety
notices, but otherwise the only colour was a large red panic button below the
desk, which communicated directly with the police station. A tidy room is a
tidy mind; no distractions, noted Hunter with some degree of satisfaction.

The thick glass window
gave a warped view of the world; something about the reinforced glass diluted
the shapes and colours in the foreground. It also made the atmosphere of the
Security Lodge seem a bit closed off, remote even, meaning that he wouldn’t be
able smell danger as well as he had been trained.

‘Like a brew, sir?’
asked Burr.

‘That would be very nice,’
replied Hunter. ‘Coffee. Black; no sugar.’

‘Sweet enough already?’
said Burr, grinning. Hunter hated such meaningless platitudes, such rehearsed
non-entity comments. He also despised the liberty which Burr was taking by
using such a tone with him, a new boss whom he had only just met.

           
The
kettle boiled away; the only noise in the room. Hunter pretended to be
interested in the Health and Safety notices. Why did he already seem to be
wrestling with this bear? Must try harder…

           
Finally
Burr handed him a chipped mug of what looked like thick, lumpy gravy, or
perhaps tar. Hunter slowly sipped the scorching coffee, wincing at its
bitterness.

‘Sugar was just one of
a litany of sins which I turned my back on when I left the force; there, the
coffee was so bad that it was virtually undrinkable without a lump or two,’ he
said.

‘Sometimes you need to
have the sweet things to help you get through the day.’

‘No,’ said Hunter
carefully, as though weighing up how much to tell his new colleague. ‘I had a
false alarm with the old ticker. Like the drink and cigarettes, sugar had to
go. The doctor told me that I had to not just cut-back on such luxuries, but
completely purge myself. My very own permanent Lent.’

‘Sorry to hear that
sir; no drink? That must be tough.’

‘Had to be done,’ said
Hunter, fiddling nervously with his tie. ‘It was a major lifestyle change; for
weeks after, I was at a loose end and had trouble sleeping; hours seemed to
drag remorselessly. Without the usual escape route of the pub every night, I found
myself staring blankly at the television screen night after night.’

‘That’s what most of
the nation do anyway,’ said Burr, resolutely not looking at Hunter. It seemed
that Burr had been prickled by that familiar unease that Hunter
recognised
in most people that he told about his new
tea-total lifestyle. Deep down he knew Burr would want to know
why
. Was it religious reasons or
alcoholism; illness or some character flaw? Whatever it was, the decision not
to drink automatically implied that there was something wrong somewhere within
the other person. On the other hand, it seemed that Hunter had developed the
recovering alcoholic’s characteristic of having to tell people that he didn’t
drink within minutes of meeting them.

They stared out of the
window in silence. Hunter’s mood was hardly improved by his sight of a lone
magpie, perched on top of the corrugated iron roof of a nearby cabin, a
monochrome harbinger of doom. Hunter was very superstitious about single
magpies and would have saluted it if he wasn’t so sure that Burr was watching
his each and every move. Finally the tension was eased by a knock at the
window. A lanky bearded man beamed at them through the glass.

‘Ah; Stephenson’s
here,’ said Burr.

Hunter immediately
thought
student
. The man looked as
though he’d never worn a suit before; the one he was wearing may well have been
borrowed. It was ill-fitting and discoloured. But at least he’d made some kind
of token effort to impress his new boss.

           
Burr
walked Stephenson through the metal detectors and into the Security Lodge and
made the introductions.

‘This is Mr. Hunter;
the new Head of Security; Mr. Hunter, this is Mick Stephenson. Mick runs the
Main Monitoring Centre.’

‘Pleased to meet you,
Mick,’ said Hunter, grasping the bearded man’s clammy hand. ‘I believe that you
have all of my paperwork and my access pass for me?’

‘Umm… sir, HR released
your pass yesterday. It was supposed to be here in the Security Lodge,’ said
Stephenson, staring at the floor.

‘What do you know of
this, Burr?’ asked Hunter.

‘Well, it’s not here,
is it? Bloody HR – they’re always making cock-ups like this. They blame this
new system they have up there in their ivory tower.’

‘So access passes
regularly go missing?’ asked Hunter, incredulous.

‘Oh yeah,’ said Burr,
making a dismissive gesture with his hammy hand. ‘Not a problem if the cameras
monitor all the entry points anyway.’

‘I think that I will
have a look into this; the impression I got was that this place was being run
like a very tight ship.’

‘There’s a few teething
problems with the integration of all of the new security systems,’ admitted
Stephenson. ‘And then there’s always the people-problem. You can put in all of
the control measures in the world, but there’s no accounting for what people
will forget, or how many mistakes they make.’

‘Spoken like a true
computer geek,’ sneered Burr.

‘No; I’d like to know
more. Mick; why don’t you take me on this tour of the site? Burr can stay here
and man the Security Lodge.’

Burr’s face turned
several shades deeper red and his bushy eyebrows twitched in anger. You could
quite easily describe him as being like a bear with a sore head; in fact, you
could even drop the word ‘like’. Burr
was
a bear with a sore head. Hunter, meanwhile, was a shark. Cold, dark eyes
stared impassively at Burr, as though daring him to question his authority. In
this particular duel, shark won out over bear, and Burr eventually flopped,
defeated into the swivel chair.

‘Thanks for the
coffee,’ said Hunter, as a parting shot.

Stephenson led Hunter out of the Security Lodge
and headed straight for the panopticon. On the way, they passed through a
series of four access control points which as well as monitoring the movements
of the site visitor, also ensured that they followed proscribed routes through,
avoiding any sensitive areas. As they approached the panopticon, Hunter
realised that it cast a shadow over virtually the whole site. It inspired an
atmosphere of being watched which was almost more effective than the
proliferation of CCTV cameras.

‘The Main Monitoring
Centre is the entire top floor,’ said Stephenson. ‘It’s like being in an air
traffic control tower.’

‘The panopticon is a
part of the structure of many prisons, isn’t it?’ said Hunter.

‘Yes, sir; I read up on
that when I started working here. They put the panopticon in the centre of a
circle of cells and that way, every man in every cell is made to feel as though
their every move is being watched.’

‘How many staff do you
have up there?’

‘In the day-time, we
generally have a staff of six people. I generally cover the night shift though,
when we only have a skeleton staff on site. Since
Edison
’s Printers have invested in new technologies such as the Precisioner
printer, fewer staff are needed on site in order to facilitate the actual
printing of money. There’s not much to watch!’

They approached the
large stone building which represented the central point of the site, and Jim
realized that he’d hardly seen any other people on site at all. There was an
eerie quietness everywhere, not the hustle and bustle of a working print-works
he’d been expecting. Where was everyone?

‘So; tell me a little
bit more about the Main Monitoring Centre and how it all works.’

‘The
MMC
staff are employed to survey all of the
surveillance feeds from the cameras on site. As there are so many cameras, we
can’t
scrutinise
them all at once.
Instead, we can select the camera views which warrant special attention by
analyzing the data produced in a
computerised
log which monitored activity at each of the doors on site, and the
alarms systems which protected each particular building.’

Stephenson talked as
though he was a tour guide, or as though he was trying to justify his
existence.

‘You rely on this
technology quite a lot then,’ observed Jim.

‘It’s the most
effective way of managing the site. The manpower required to perform the same
function would simply be too expensive. The log records any tampering, any
unauthorized access or any faults on the communication lines in each of the
buildings. The staff can then manually select a particular camera and actually
manipulate its movements in order to check the area – it’s almost as good as
actually being there.’

But you are not actually there,
Hunter reflected. He would, obviously, have
preferred to rely on technology a little less. He would have liked his staff to
actually be able to physically check out any problems themselves.
  

           
They
entered the ground floor of the old mill building and walked across a vast
stone floor. Hunter waited as Stephenson called the lift to take them up to the
MMC
. He was struck by the vast differences he’d
observed in the
behaviour
of his two
colleagues. Mick Stephenson was clearly one of the new breed of security staff,
whose training owed as much to IT as it did to any background in the armed
forces or police. In fact, the more Hunter spoke with Stephenson, the more he
was impressed by the man’s knowledge.