Good Bait (31 page)

‘Sit,' he said.

They sat.

‘You want wine?'

‘Sure,' Kiley said, ‘why not?'

Without any apparent signal, a waiter appeared with a bottle and two fresh glasses. The wine was dark and thick, like plum brandy.

Taras was somewhere in his forties, Cordon thought, a darkish complexion, darkened further by several days' stubble, dark eyes; nicotine stains on his fingers, but the nails smoothed into even ovals, manicured. Some kind of balm or cologne that cut through the lingering smell of food from the kitchen.

He was looking at the markings round Cordon's eye, the residue of swelling.

‘I think, perhaps, you are lucky guy.'

‘You'll understand,' Cordon said, ‘if I don't see it in quite the same way.'

Taras shrugged. ‘What you did, it was very foolish.'

‘Story of my life,' Cordon said, amiably.

‘Story?'

‘You wanted to see us,' Kiley said.

Taras lit another cigarette. When he tilted back his head to release the smoke, there was a scar line, thin like a razor cut, across his neck.

‘A message from my brother. For you, especially.' His eyes on Cordon. ‘What's done, is done. He holds no …' he searched for the word, ‘no malice. You understand?'

Cordon said nothing.

‘You understand?' Taras said again. ‘Is finished.'

He drank some wine.

‘And Letitia?' Cordon said.

‘What of her?'

‘Exactly.'

‘She is with her family. None of your concern.'

‘You say.'

‘Yes, I say.'

‘I think,' Kiley said, ‘we would like to be sure of that, that Letitia is okay.'

‘And the boy,' Cordon put in.

Taras waved a well-groomed hand. ‘Is no longer your business.'

Kiley started to say something, but Cordon cut him off. ‘You listen.' He jabbed two fingers towards Taras' chest. ‘I'm the one decides what's my business. Not you or your brother or anyone else. Understood?'

A small nod from Taras, a retreat.

‘Last I knew of Letitia and Danny,' Cordon said, ‘they were being taken by men who were dangerous and almost certainly armed, and I doubt would have any scruples about using as much force as they thought was necessary or they could get away with.'

Taras opened his mouth as if about to protest, but Cordon paid no heed.

‘You tell me Letitia's back in the bosom of her family, well, I want proof. Proof that she and the boy are okay and not being held against their will. Then you can say it's no longer my business. And not until.'

He eased away, hands gripping the table edge.

Steadying himself, Taras drew deeply on his cigarette and set it carefully down; picked up his lighter and rolled it across his fingers.

‘And if this does not happen as you wish?'

Cordon leaned forward again, his voice lowered to little more than a hiss. ‘Then I'll move heaven and earth to make your brother's life an absolute misery. Pull in every police contact, every favour I can. Dig into every nasty little corner I can find. By the time I've finished he'll wish he'd never clapped eyes on Letitia, never heard my name.'

Taras lifted his glass and swirled the contents around the sides before he drank. ‘You are in no position, I think, to make threats.'

‘Try me.' Cordon held his gaze.

Something inside Taras' head switched gear. As if he had been prepared for this. Plan B.

‘I will talk to my brother. Tell him your concerns. I'm sure there will be a way to do as you wish. Put your mind at rest.'

A smile leaked from his face.

Pushing back his chair, Kiley stood, Cordon following suit. Behind them, a waiter hovered near the door.

‘Forty-eight hours,' Taras said. ‘No more.' Then looked away, as if dismissing them from his mind.

Back on the street, Kiley nodded left. ‘Let's walk.'

A short way along, they crossed against the traffic and cut away from the main road into a street of tall, Victorian houses, plane trees, skips, aspirations.

‘All that guff about moving heaven and earth,' Kiley said. ‘Where'd that come from?'

‘God knows.'

‘I thought for one minute you were going to deck him.'

‘I was.'

‘What happened?'

‘My good nature got the better of me. That and my natural discretion.'

Kiley laughed. ‘Natural bollocks!' he said.

‘That, too.'

50

The sky seemed to lower itself, shroud like, over Karen as she walked. The car she'd squeezed into a space in the parking area alongside East Heath Road and from there she'd made her way down towards South End Green, the forbidding grey of the Royal Free hospital rising directly ahead. She bought coffee in a takeout cup and crossed back on to the Heath, taking the path that led towards the mixed bathing pond, where, at the tail end of the previous year, she had seen Petru Andronic's young face staring blankly back at her through the ice.

Today, there was no ice, though the wind that sliced across the surface was keen enough to make Karen shiver and pull her scarf closer round her neck, the temperature no more than four or five degrees above freezing.

Behind her, a dog barked loudly, suddenly, and a small child cried in its buggy as its mother, or, more likely, the au pair, hurried it on past.

Karen tore a hole in the lid of the cup and held it in both hands as she drank.

The wind sent the water scurrying towards her in iron-grey waves, splashing up close to where she stood. Soon, the surrounding bushes and trees would be in bud and despite the ripples that had flowed out following his death, they were not much closer to solving Andronic's murder than they had been in those first few days.

Whether it was somehow linked to the mayhem that had followed, or a consequence of his relationship with Terry Martin's daughter, Sasha, was still not clear. Only Karen's instincts leaned her this way rather than that, and still without a shred of proof.

Follow your gut, Mike Ramsden would tell her. Follow your gut.

Much good had it done.

Her reflection gazed back at her, dark and uncertain at the water's edge. What had happened here was still as slippery, as opaque as it had ever been, and other things were only slowly falling into place. A watching brief over the Stansted murders meant a watching brief. SOCA were still following leads, backtracking accounts over borders and across continents; careful work undertaken with the aid of the Internet, the computer, the cautious and less than legal hacking of mobile phones.

Frustrated by the lack of apparent action, she had called Cormack that morning and been able to raise nothing but his voicemail; left messages for Charlie Frost that went unanswered. She had considered calling Burcher direct, then thought better of it. Called Alex Williams instead.

‘Alex, any idea what's going on?'

‘In general, or in particular?'

‘Particular.'

‘For once, no one's telling me anything. I had a meeting with Warren scheduled for yesterday and he cancelled. Charlie's busy ferreting around, doing whatever it is Charlie does.' She laughed, a warm sound down the line. ‘If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was the boys playing with boys' toys, keeping all the fun to themselves.'

‘Surely not.'

Alex laughed again. ‘First thing I do hear, I'll let you know.'

That was that.

Stooping, Karen scooped up water in her hand, and, ice cold, it ran back between her fingers, torn a little, sideways, by the wind.

Time to move on.

As she straightened, something snagged her attention: amongst those busily walking either way along the path, a young woman standing quite still on the rise beyond the pond's end. As if watching, looking on. Hooded jacket zipped close about her face.

Just a moment more and then she turned and, merging with the others, began to walk away.

Karen started after her, stopped.

Her mobile claiming her attention.

Again.

Ramsden.

Again.

Officers from Operation Trident, with whom he'd been liaising, were poised to make arrests the following day in connection with Hector Prince's murder.

‘You're going along?' Karen asked.

‘Just for the ride.'

Little, Karen knew, he liked better than the pre-dawn raid, the battering ram, the chase upstairs, the outflung boot, the fist of steel. The stuff that small boys' and middle-aged detectives' dreams are made of.

‘Mike,' she said. ‘Keep your head down, okay?'

He called her a rude name in reply.

Karen bunched her empty coffee cup in her hand and, dropping it in the nearest bin, made her way back towards the car.

51

After Weybridge, the car in which Cordon was travelling turned off into the first of a series of narrowing minor roads – not Cornish narrow, he thought, lacking the sharpness of angle, the high stone walls – and they were deep in the Surrey countryside. Every so often, the glimpse of a square church tower, a sign leading to a farm largely unseen, small bands of cattle arranged in a painterly manner along a burgeoning hill. The true heart of England, Kiley had told him, where the money grows. Merchant bankers and rock stars, nice people. It had been made clear that Kiley's part in the affair was over, the arrangements made, this was for Cordon alone.

The driver, bull-necked, sullen, had snapped shut the sliding glass separating him from the interior, leaving Cordon to the stale smell of air freshener and his own thoughts.

‘He will see you,' Taras Kosach had said, ‘my brother. It is agreed.'

‘And Letitia?'

‘He will meet with you, Anton. Talk. Set your mind to rest.'

Somehow, Cordon didn't think that would necessarily be the case.

The car slowed and turned left along a lane overhung with trees that were still short of bud, filtering out the grey of the sky. A quarter of a mile along and then a private road. Woodland to either side. Warning signs, recently repainted:
No Access. Private Land
. Wire fencing, recently renewed.

A little farther and then a gate of wrought iron set between columns. CCTV cameras focusing down. The driver punched numbers into a metal panel, spoke briefly into the small microphone alongside.

Something nudged at Cordon's stomach.

Anticipation?

Fear?

After the set-up, the house, to Cordon at least, was something of a disappointment. A mock-Tudor sprawl, all pitched roofs and sharp angles, dark timbering squared across white plaster, mullioned windows. Tiny cameras that swivelled towards him as he stepped from the car.

Three shallow stone steps to the doorway.

Two men approaching, neither of them Anton Kosach. Mid-twenties, unsmiling, the obligatory leather jackets over black turtlenecks, dark trousers worn a size too tight at the crotch.

One of them gestured for him to remove his coat, then raise his arms.

What were they expecting? A wire? Some kind of weapon?

They ran their hands around his waistband, across his back and chest, high along his thighs, between his legs. Threw back his coat.

‘You wait.'

Cordon took several steps back across the gravelled drive and looked up at the main section of the house. No signs of life. No sound, other than a brief chattering of birds across acres of lawn.

Was Letitia actually here?

And Danny?

He looked in vain for any sign of a scooter, an abandoned bicycle, a rubber ball, a toy.

The door opened again and a man came out: Anton Kosach, certainly. Taller than his brother, Taras, but similar features, the same dark eyes. His dark suit was well cut, the jacket unbuttoned, palest of pale blue shirts, no tie, soft, expensive shoes.

‘Mr Cordon …' Kosach began. ‘Or should it be Inspector?'

‘Mister is fine.'

‘Not police business, what brings you here?'

A shake of the head.

‘Good. Welcome, then.' He held out his hand.

The accent was only slight, the handshake firm and smooth.

Kosach studied Cordon's face, then stepped back and offered him a cigarette and, when Cordon refused, lit one for himself. For a moment, soft smoke hung on the air.

‘Please, let us walk.'

The path led away from the house, between groomed shrubs with crocuses and a few late snowdrops lingering in the shade. ‘My brother says you are concerned about Letitia and I am not sure why this should be.'

‘Most times, when a woman has to be dragged back by force after being threatened and frightened half out of her wits, I'd say there's some cause for concern.'

‘Threatened? Frightened? I don't think so. And no one was dragged.'

‘Your thugs broke into the house in the middle of the night and beat the shit out of me before hauling Danny and Letitia back to where they didn't want to be.'

‘Mr Cordon, those thugs, as you call them, are men I trust. And they assured me they used as little force as was necessary to release my wife and son.'

‘Your wife?'

Kosach halted. ‘Of course, what did you think?'

Cordon could only stare back at him, nonplussed.

‘And as for – what did you say? – being where they do not want to be …' He gestured back towards the house with a sweep of his hand. ‘Why would they not want to be here? Where they belong.'

‘I know what she told me,' Cordon said.

‘You heard, my friend, what you wanted to hear.'

When the path divided, they went towards a small stand of silver birch, a robin puffing out its chest on one of the branches until they came closer and it flew away.

‘It is true,' Kosach said. ‘Letitia and I, there was an argument, a … misunderstanding, I think you would say. She is headstrong. If you know her at all, you will know this. Things were said.' He shook his head. ‘All that is forgotten. You have, I think, this saying, forget and forgive.'