Текст книги "Good Bait"

Автор книги: John Harvey

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

52

Karen had promised to meet Carla, early evening, nothing fancy, just the two of them, a small celebration.

‘Celebrating what?’ Karen had wanted to know.

‘Wait and see.’

Carla had suggested the American Bar at the newly refurbished Savoy Hotel, but when they arrived, just shy of eight o’clock, there was already a queue for seats and fighting your way to the bar was, Carla suggested, about as easy as getting to one of the lifeboats on the Titanic.

They made their way along the Strand to the lobby bar at One Aldwych, where, although busy, they not only found two recently vacated high-backed armchairs within minutes of arriving, but had a delightfully camp waiter at their side as soon as they were comfortably seated.

Carla ordered champagne cocktails – at?12 a pop, a small saving on the Savoy – and to go with them, a little something, as she put it, yummy to nibble on.

‘So,’ Karen said, leaning forward so as to be heard, ‘what’s the big news? Don’t tell me at last Hollywood’s come calling? You and Brad Pitt? Leonardo? George Clooney, even. Old, maybe, but not too old.’

‘Better than that, darling.’

‘What’s better?’

Carla was laughing. ‘Me in uniform.’

‘What?’

‘Uniform. Like the one you used to wear. Till, like, I get promoted.’

Karen was looking at her gone out. ‘Just let me get this straight. You’re going to be …’

‘Playing you. Yes, that’s right. I mean, not really you. But someone like you. This black policewoman who starts out walking the beat, but then after she helps solve this specially grisly murder she gets made up to detective. Oh, and I get to sing. Just karaoke, but, you know, real songs.’

Karen accepted her cocktail from the waiter, drank most of it down in a single swallow and ordered two more.

‘It’s ITV, their new series. Black and White. At least, that’s what it’s called for now. Might change. Something a bit more sexy.’

‘And this is all – what? – definite? Definitely happening or …’

‘No, it’s definite. This company making it, the real deal, yeah? Shameless, you know? Skins. That’s them. Tons of stuff. BAFTAs and Lord knows what all over the walls.’

‘And how did you …?’

‘Why me, you mean?’

‘Yeah, I suppose so.’

‘This guy, one of the producers, saw me at the National, didn’t he? That Jacobean thing I’ve been touring. Got in touch with my agent. Would I be interested in coming along for a chat sometime. Chat, my black arse! Lunch at the Groucho, thank you very much. Ended up more or less offering me the part before he’d signed for the bill.’

‘More or less.’

‘That was then. Now it’s a done deal. Well …’ She laughed. ‘More or less.’

‘And this part, this role. This black policewoman. How big is it?’

Carla chuckled. ‘Girlfriend, it’s the lead!’

‘Say again? A police series with a black woman in the lead?’

‘Why not?’

‘Come on, Carla, in the States, maybe. What is it? HBO? But here. ITV?’

‘Well, there is this other guy. The whatever, Detective Chief Inspector. He’s white.’

‘And he’s in charge.’

‘Yes. But only in name. And I mean, not really. What they’re going for, you see, is something like the couple in that show that was on the Beeb. Ashes to Ashes?That what it was called?’

‘Ashes to Ashes, great. And you’re what? Keeley Hawes?’

‘I suppose.’

‘But in black face.’

‘Hey! Hey!’

‘Hey what?’

‘Why are you giving me such a hard time?’

Karen shook her head and sighed. ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry, I-’

‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

‘Well, I am …’

‘Pleased for me and well, I guess, pleased ‘cause of what it is. You know, someone – well, someone like you … Oh, you know what I mean.’

‘A positive role model?’

‘Yes.’

‘If that’s what it turns out to be.’

‘At least, give it a chance.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s just …’

‘Just what?’

Karen shrugged.

‘Not a great time, you think, for being a role model for women of colour. Out in the real world, that is.’

‘Something like that, yes.’

The operation to arrest the suspects identified in the killing of Hector Prince had been carried out that morning. Five addresses in the Wood Green area raided, one hundred and fifty front-line officers involved, thirty of them armed, with three teams of firearms officers in reserve. As things had played out, there was considerable local resistance, in the course of which seven officers were injured, one seriously, when a length of stone coping was thrown from the ninth-floor balcony of a block of flats. When the ambulance arrived to provide assistance, it was attacked with bricks and bottles and, in one instance, a home-made firebomb.

Media comparisons were made to the killing of PC Keith Blacklock on the Broadwater Farm Estate back in ’85. The Sun, Mirror, Sky News, all had a field day.

In a different situation, the spectacle of Mike Ramsden, blood running like a dark zigzag down his face from where a chunk of brick had torn his forehead, seizing the microphone from some hapless young reporter and telling her to stick it up her scrawny arse, might have been one to cherish. As it was, for Ramsden a sore head and a serious reprimand were in order, with Karen, as his senior officer, not exempt from the latter.

And what proliferated were accusations of black mob rule.

No, not a great time.

‘I’m sorry,’ Karen said, ‘and it’s great, you’re right.’ Leaning across, she gave Carla a hug. ‘And I am really pleased for you, okay?’

‘You better be. ’Cause once this show gets rolling, it’s you I’ll be relying on for on-the-spot research. You realise that? In fact, why don’t I see about getting you taken on as some kind of special adviser? You’d be perfect.’

‘Thanks, Carla.’ Karen held up both hands. ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’

‘We’ll see.’

Leaning back, Carla sampled one from a nicely overpriced dish of salted anchovies. Karen looked around for the waiter, refills needed.

‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘if you’re the black in this, who’s the white?’

‘The guy?’

‘Yeah, the guy.’

‘They’re not sure. A lot of names, but nothing yet nailed down.’

‘Names, like who?’

‘Oh, Damian Lewis, that was one. And that guy from The Wire, the cop, you know?’

‘McNulty?’

‘Yeah, him.’

‘The Irish one?’

‘Yes, but he’s not Irish. Well, his mother was, I think. But he’s English. Went to Eton. How much more English can you get?’

‘You’d never know it.’

Carla smiled. ‘Nothing’s what it seems, girlfriend. You should know that by now.’

Karen thought she was probably right. After one more round, the sound around them rising up to the high ceilings and reverberating back down, they decided to call it a night. Go their separate ways.

Her head less than clear and nursing the beginnings of what might be a hangover, halfway towards Holborn station Karen hailed a cab. When she alighted outside her flat some fifteen minutes later, there was a car she didn’t recognise parked a little way down, someone in shadow behind the wheel.

Karen hesitated, thought for a moment about going over, banging on the car window, showing her warrant card, but why bother? Just someone sleeping it off.

Fishing her keys from her bag, she went, without hurrying, up the steps towards the front door. As the key turned in the lock she heard the sound of a car door closing, steps approaching.

‘Thought you were never coming home. Thought I’d be stuck there all night.’

Alex. Alex Williams. Holding what looked suspiciously like a bottle of single malt.

53

‘Auchentoshan.’

‘What?’

‘How you say it, apparently. Aw-ken-tosh-an. At least, that’s what the guy in Oddbins told me.’

‘And he’d know.’

‘Doubt if he’s been north of Luton in his life.’

Karen had fetched two glasses; tumblers, but heavy bottomed enough to be close to the real thing.

There was a standard lamp with a shade in an odd colour of lime green in one corner; a small anglepoise on one of the shelves near the stereo. The curtains were drawn across, shutting out the London night.

With a choice of the one easy chair or a two-seater settee which abutted it at right angles, Alex had taken the chair. A low table sat between, cluttered with several unopened brown envelopes, the previous week’s Highbury and Islington Gazette, a book of short stories by someone with the unlikely name of Maile Meloy, and a letter from Karen’s mother in Jamaica. Karen dumped them all on the floor and set the glasses down in their place.

Alex swivelled the stopper from the bottle, leaned forward and began to pour.

‘I shouldn’t, you know,’ Karen said.

‘On the wagon?’

‘Just the opposite.’

‘Heavy night?’

‘Champagne cocktails at One Aldwych, if you please.’

‘Date? Celebration?’

‘Not a date. My friend, Carla.’

‘That’s the actress, right? I met her once. Some party?’

‘God, that was years ago. How on earth d’you remember?’

Alex smiled. ‘Collect information, store it away, it’s what I do.’ She tapped a finger against her temple, pushed a hand up through her short crop of hair. ‘All here, in the hard drive.’

Karen sat back, glass in hand. ‘You’re lucky. All I’ve got in there is mush.’

‘You say.’

The whisky was bright, not peaty, slightly sweet and went down a dream.

‘So what do you think?’ Alex asked.

‘About what?’

‘This.’ Alex held up her glass.

‘It’s good. Very good.’ She lifted the bottle. ‘Not heard of it before. More of a vodka drinker, I suppose.’

‘It was Roger introduced me to this. Couple of Christmases back.’

‘How is he? Roger?’

‘Fine. Off to Whitby with the kids. Bit of a half-term ritual. Stiff sea breezes and walks along the pier. Thinks it’s character forming.’

Karen laughed. Carla aside, it was with Alex, she supposed, that she felt most relaxed. Alex herself certainly looked relaxed enough, feet tucked up beneath her, wearing what seemed to be her usual off-duty outfit of blue jeans and a denim shirt, worn out and unbuttoned over a pale lavender vest. Her coat she’d shucked off the minute she came through the door.

In comparison, Karen, still in her glad rags, felt overdressed.

‘I guess,’ Alex said, leaning forward again to top up their glasses, ‘I should have brought something to go with this. Something for ballast. Fancy crisps, at least.’

‘Oh, wait. Wait.’ Karen jumped up, heading for the kitchen, then wished she hadn’t moved quite so fast. ‘I’ve got crisps out here. Sea salt and something or other. Two for one in Tesco. And there’s salami in the fridge. At least, I think there is. And cheese.’

She scurried round, unwrapping, finding plates, ferreting out a jar of olives from where it had got trapped behind the Tabasco and the soy sauce. When she turned, Alex was there, standing in the doorway. Just leaning, leaning sideways against the frame, one foot crossed over the other, hands by her sides.

‘Need some help?’

The light from overhead was catching the red in her hair.

‘No, thanks. It’s okay, I’m fine.’

From nowhere, Karen wanted to touch her hair.

Alex smiled: stayed where she was.

Pearl of her skin.

Karen fumbled a fork and it clattered to the floor.

‘It’s okay,’ Alex said, taking half a pace forward. ‘Leave it where it is.’

Karen caught her breath. And then she was touching her, touching her hair, the crown of her head, the ends where they tapered softly down towards her neck. The corner of her mouth. Then kissing her.

Oh, Christ!

Alex’s hand on her breast.

When Karen woke it was past four. A line of sweat zigzagged, dry and crystalline, from her navel to the hollow of her neck. Beside her, one arm raised up towards her face, Alex slept. Mouth slightly open, a faint whistle of breath.

Karen needed to pee.

As she swung her legs round from the bed, Alex stirred.

‘It’s early,’ Karen said. ‘Go back to sleep.’

But when she returned, Alex was sitting up, pillows propped at her back, smiling sleepily.

‘Get you something?’ Karen asked. ‘Juice? Tea?’

‘Juice would be great. Thanks. And then tea.’

‘Peppermint? Builder’s?’

‘Peppermint.’

Karen brought it all to the bed on a tray and climbed back in.

‘Thank you.’ Dipping her head, Alex kissed her on the shoulder.

‘What for?’

A grin on Alex’s face. ‘The tea, of course. What did you think?’

It felt strange, the two of them, sitting there like that after what had gone before. Strange, Karen thought, but somehow natural. Natural yet strange.

‘You make a habit of this?’ Karen asked.

‘With you? I’d have remembered.’

‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

‘I know. And, no, not exactly.’

‘But you knew, when you came round. Waited.’

‘What I wanted, yes. At least, I thought I did.’ She stroked Karen’s arm. ‘I wasn’t at all sure about you.’

Karen covered her face with her hands.

‘Regrets?’ Alex said.

‘No. Yes. Yes, a million of them, probably. But no. Not really. Not at all.’

‘Come out together after breakfast then, shall we? You know, an announcement. Facebook. Twitter.’

Karen had to look at her carefully to be sure she was joking.

‘Can you imagine …?’

‘All too easily.’

It was still dark outside and would be for a good couple of hours.

‘Roger,’ Karen said. ‘What if …’

‘Roger’s in Whitby, remember?’

‘Yes, but does he …?’

‘Know sometimes I swing the other way?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

Alex smiled. ‘What he doesn’t know, can’t hurt him.’

‘You believe that?’

‘Maybe I have to.’ She lifted her tea. ‘When I’ve finished this, I’ll go. Maybe a quick shower.’

‘Breakfast? There’d be time.’

‘No, it’s fine.’

‘Toast? There’s toast. Could be.’

‘Okay, toast it is.’

Toast with marmalade; with the last few scrapings of Marmite; with raspberry jam. Uncertain in the kitchen, doing her best to ignore the alcohol ache in her head, Karen made coffee as she listened to the throw of water in the shower.

Alex emerged looking fresh, still towelling her hair. Karen pulled back the curtain and they sat at the table in the shallow bay, looking out across the empty street.

‘Burcher,’ Alex said suddenly. ‘Has he ever said anything to you about a Paul Milescu?’

‘You mean Ion’s father? Ion, the friend of the Andronic boy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why d’you ask?’

‘That last meeting. You remember Burcher asked me to stay behind? A private word.’

Karen nodded.

‘It’s Milescu he was asking about. Were we investigating him? If so, at what level? What reason? Did we think there was any link with Kosach? Anton Kosach. Anyone else we’d been discussing?’

‘He give a reason?’

‘Not really. Name had cropped up, something vague like that.’

‘That’s interesting,’ Karen said, leaning forward. ‘Quite early on in all this, way back before Camden or Stansted, when it was just an investigation into the Andronic murder, I’d been out to talk to Ion Milescu and Burcher came looking for me – no two ways about it – stopped me on the way home. Quizzed me about the boy’s involvement. Claimed his father had been making waves, calling in favours. Friends in high places, that’s what he said. After that, I did a little checking, spoke to Tom Brewer in Economic and Specialist Crime. Worst he could come up with, Milescu had maybe sailed close to the wind a few times, but no more no less than anyone else.’

Alex took a quick glance at her watch. ‘Well, Burcher, Milescu, something’s going on somewhere.’ She took a last swig of coffee and got to her feet.

‘That morning in December. When you were called out to the ponds, early. How long did it take Burcher to arrive?’

Karen thought, shrugged. ‘No time at all. In the area that night, he said, staying with friends.’

‘Paul Milescu’s address,’ Alex said. ‘New End Square, Hampstead. Might be nothing to it, but maybe the friends in high places include Burcher himself.’

54

Cordon’s first instinct after seeing Letitia had been to retreat back down to Cornwall and put as much distance between them as he could. Finito. An end to it, as he’d said. Case closed. Except there had never been a case, not in any orthodox sense of the word. And who was he to investigate it if there were?

A woman whose life had ended beneath a train – by accident or design he still didn’t know and likely never would. Another who had disappeared. Except not really, other than by her own choice. Put herself in harm’s way. And here he had come, clumsy, slow witted, shielding his eyes when they should have been open. Floundering without jurisdiction; without direction. Whatever he had allowed himself – driven himself – to be drawn into involving Letitia was something he had never properly understood. Some private battle between herself and her husband, if that’s what he truly was, in which he’d been little more than a pawn.

What, after all, had he done? Achieved? Beyond rescuing someone who, in the end, only wanted to be found?

Still he didn’t go.

Sat morosely around Jack Kiley’s flat, talking very little or not at all. Spent a few long, slow afternoons in sad boozers in the back streets of Kentish Town, awash with self-pity and bad beer.

‘Come on,’ Kiley said, one early evening as the light was fading. ‘I’ve got just the thing.’

They took the overground from Gospel Oak to Leyton Midland Road and joined the crowd on its way along the high street to the floodlights of Brisbane Road. Orient versus Dagenham and Redbridge, a local derby of a kind. Raucous shouts and laughter. Stalls selling burgers, sausage and bacon rolls: the sweet scent of frying onions rising up into the evening mist.

They took their seats high in the main stand just as the teams were announced, prior to running out on to the pitch. Years since Kiley had stood in the tunnel waiting, nights like this, his stomach still knotted with the anticipation, sweat, cold, seeping into the palms of his hands.

Then, there they were, the crowd on its feet, both sets of supporters chanting, applauding; the players jumping, stretching, easing tight muscles, moving into position, eager for the whistle that would break the tension.

At least, Kiley could watch now without kicking every ball, feeling every tackle, rising up to meet every cross with his head. Alongside him, Cordon was being drawn more and more into the action, putting in his share of oohing and aahing as the play moved swiftly from end to end, shots missed, shots saved, the referee coming in for the usual amount of stick, offsides wrongly signalled, penalties not given.

At half-time it was one apiece, the home team shading it but not by much. Still level then, and not through want of trying, less than quarter of an hour to go.

‘They’ll do it,’ Kiley said, ‘you see if they don’t.’

On the eighty-seventh minute, Charlie Daniels ran on to a punt upfield, turned the defender and raced towards the line; swung his foot and sent the ball hard and low across the face of goal and the striker, diving forward, headed it past the sprawling goalie into the net.

Pandemonium.

Game over.

They were waiting for them when they returned. Two men parked back along the road, between the burned-out supermarket and the school. The man from SOCA in his insurance-agent threads who’d quizzed Kiley before, together with a second, burly in leather jacket and jeans, his minder perhaps, in case things got out of hand.

‘Not a coincidence,’ Kiley said, ‘meeting again like this.’

‘Afraid not.’

‘And I suppose you’ll want to talk inside?’

‘If that’s acceptable to you.’

Acceptable, Kiley thought, would be if they went their merry way; if he had never let Cordon talk him into getting involved.

He could sense the big man watching Cordon on the stairs, as if he might be about to make a break for it, take to his heels.

‘Charlie Frost,’ the man from SOCA said, once they were in the room. His companion remained unnamed.

There were enough chairs, just, for them all to sit. Kiley’s hospitality began and ended there.

‘When we spoke before about your interest in Anton Kosach,’ Frost said, addressing Kiley, ‘what you told me, not to put too fine a point on it, was a pack of lies.’

‘I wouldn’t exactly say lies.’

‘A name you’d come up with while looking into something else, I think you said? No more than that.’

‘Things moved on.’

‘So it appears.’

Bending, Frost reached into the briefcase he’d been carrying; perhaps, Kiley thought, he was about to sell them insurance after all. What he took out was an iPad, which he switched on, opened a file, and swivelled in their direction.

‘There. You might take a look at these.’

The first image was of Taras Kosach, entering the Ukrainian restaurant on the Caledonian Road; then Kiley and Cordon arriving, leaving, Cordon with an upward glance towards a camera he had no idea was there.

Next, Taras with another man, later that same day – date and time at the foot of the screen – the pair of them standing outside, smoking. Taras and his brother, Anton.

Then a piece of video: an empty lane, restrained sunlight. Several seconds without movement till a dark saloon comes into view, travelling towards the camera, going past, a face at the rear passenger window in dark outline.

Freeze-frame.

Zoom in.

Cordon staring out.

‘You recognise,’ Frost said, ‘where you are? The occasion?’

Cordon nodded, said nothing.

A number of images then, taken with a telescopic lens in fairly quick succession. Cordon moving between the car and the house; Kosach’s minions in their black turtlenecks, waiting to greet him. Search him. The front door opening. Anton Kosach, the pale blue of his shirt bleached almost white. Then nothing.

‘It’s been difficult,’ Frost said, ‘for us to gain as much access as we might have liked. Without alerting the target, propelling him, possibly, into flight.’ A discreet cough into the back of the hand. ‘But, to be crystal clear, that is you, Mr Cordon, paying Mr Kosach a visit? There’s no room for doubt?’

‘Evidently not.’

‘Then in what capacity, may I ask?’

No reply.

‘I ask, because, as far as I am aware, the remit of the Devon and Cornwall constabulary does not stretch quite this far.’

Supercilious bastard, Kiley thought.

What Cordon was thinking didn’t show, not even in his eyes.

‘Mr Cordon …?’

‘I was visiting a friend.’ Cordon’s voice flat and ungiving.

‘Anton Kosach, he’s a friend? Is that what you’re saying? Anton …’

He told them. With the dull precision of someone making a report to a superior, which, in a way, was what this was. Letitia. Her mother. Danya. The apparent break she’d made with Kosach and his efforts to get her to return. He said nothing of the work Letitia had carried out on Kosach’s behalf, in his employ – the brothel, the halfway house – other things he might only have guessed at.

Frost listened with interest, rarely taking his eyes from Cordon’s face. His companion was more distracted, bored even, as if none of this really mattered; wanting to be away.

Kiley stood, stretched; made an offer of tea or coffee, a little late in the day.

‘The investigation into Kosach’s affairs,’ Frost said, ‘it’s near to reaching tipping point, I suppose that’s fair to say, and any new contacts we’ve been monitoring closely.’ A nod towards the iPad. ‘As you can see. And we were a little intrigued at the nature of whatever relationship it was you had. But after the usual checks …’ He smiled. ‘No conspicuous spending, no unexplained large payments into either of your accounts …’

Cordon blinked; Kiley bristled, but held his tongue.

‘… the explanation you’ve given doesn’t diverge too far from what we know. Indeed, adds a little grace note here and there, and I thank you, Mr Cordon, for that. But one thing I would urge you both, where Anton Kosach is concerned, you don’t go near, don’t try to communicate with him in any way.’

He was on his feet, minder at his side. ‘Apple cart. Upset. You know how it goes.’ He turned back at the door. ‘The game tonight, who won?’

‘Orient,’ Kiley said. ‘The odd goal.’

Frost nodded. ‘Always been something of a Spurs fan myself.’

Figures, Kiley thought.

From the window he watched them get into their car and drive away.

‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ Cordon said. ‘Dragging you into all this.’

Bit late for that, Kiley thought. He fetched two beers from the fridge. ‘Leaving it alone, walking away, you going to be all right with that?’

Cordon popped the can. ‘Case of having to, wouldn’t you say?’

He saw Letitia, holding her son tight on the stairs; face betraying little or no emotion, giving nothing away.