Good Bait (35 page)

It used to be that officers like Ramsden did their thirty years and, much like the soccer players of yesteryear, took over a newsagent's or managed a pub. Now it was security, parading around an Arndale Centre somewhere, taking grief from kids for stopping them skateboarding up and down the aisles, and keeping a weather eye out for professional shoplifters who routinely got away with several thousands' worth of goods a day. Either that or wearing a peaked cap and ersatz uniform behind some gated community stockade.

Poor Mike!

She looked at him with care as she passed the flask for the last time. The lines etched into his face were real, the shadows around his eyes.

‘Got to go,' Karen said, stepping away. ‘Someone tomorrow needs a clear head. Early start.'

‘Drop you anywhere?'

‘No, it's fine.'

Fine for some. Right now, Karen was all but wiped out. As early a night as was still possible and then bed.

Sod's law, her mobile. Not a number she recognised.

Charlie Frost.

‘A few minutes of your time?'

Back at the celebration, Charlie Frost had looked hangdog, even in a life-changing Jackson Pollock tie. Forewarned, his principal target, Anton Kosach, had evaded capture, leaving the country via a private airfield close to the Sussex coast. He was believed to have joined his twin brothers, Parlo and Symon, in Sofia. Or another brother, Bogdah, in the Ukraine. Taras, the only one left in England, was helping with inquiries, as was his wife: both were expected to be released eventually without charge.

On the plus side, SOCA had taken away evidence enough from Kosach's house – computers, portable hard drives, bank statements, address books, diaries – to see him behind bars for thirty years if he were ever foolish enough to set foot in the country again, or try and settle anywhere with whom the UK had a valid treaty of extradition. One way and another, Kosach, Frost had calculated, had been responsible for laundering as much as £1 million sterling a day.

The interior of Charlie Frost's car smelt faintly of polish, a distant waft of pine. There was plastic still covering the rear seats. Not a crumpled crisp packet, a discarded tissue anywhere.

‘You remember I raised the possibility before,' Frost said, ‘some connection between Kosach and Paul Milescu?'

Karen nodded.

‘Nothing yet I'd care to swear to, nothing I'd want repeated beyond the confines of this car, but we may have found a link. Money being filtered through one of Milescu's companies, fetching up first in Luxembourg, then the United Arab Emirates, then Singapore. From there, as of now, we're not too sure, but if it's not into a numbered account, the details of which are tattooed somewhere safe inside Anton Kosach's brain, I'd be surprised.'

He treated Karen to a rare, thin-lipped smile.

‘The thing is this. Details have come to me of a possible relationship between Paul Milescu and Detective Chief Superintendent Burcher. Now were this the case – and I am treading very carefully here, you realise, nothing has been proven – but were that so, then one would want to ask whether any information passed from Superintendent Burcher to Milescu about the operation recently undertaken could have found its way to Kosach in time for him to flee the country. And whether, in exchange for such information, any, em, favours were returned.'

Jesus, Karen thought. She wasn't sure what was expected of her, what she was meant to say.

‘I believe there was an instance,' Frost said, ‘in which the Superintendent attempted to intervene in an investigation you were running on behalf of Milescu's son?'

Karen was stopped in her tracks again. ‘Alex Williams, she told you this?'

‘All I'm asking is for you to accept or deny.'

‘That the Superintendent intervened?'

‘Yes.'

‘That's not the word I'd use.'

‘What then?'

‘He asked that if anything serious came out of the inquiries we were making about Ion Milescu, we let him know.'

‘And did you?'

Karen shook her head. ‘There was nothing. Nothing crucial. Nothing to say.'

‘But you inferred from this, this off-the-record – it was off-the-record …?'

Karen nodded.

‘… from this off-the-record conversation, that Superintendent Burcher and Paul Milescu were close in some way? Friends?'

‘Not necessarily, no.'

‘But, surely, approaching you in that way, unorthodox at the very least?'

‘Yes, I suppose so.'

‘Yes?'

‘All right, yes.'

Karen took a breath. How she had got herself in the position of seeming to defend Burcher, she didn't understand.

‘Am I to take it, then,' she asked, ‘that the Detective Chief Superintendent is under investigation?'

Frost smiled. A second time in almost as many minutes, something of a record. ‘It's more than possible a few more questions may be asked; unofficially, I imagine, at first. Some perusal of bank statements, financial affairs, something of that accord. A little later, if necessary, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act could be invoked. But all this, in the future if at all.'

Karen knew her place in this. Were she to say anything to Burcher – to warn him, but why should she? – if she were to say anything to anyone it would eventually be known. Her card marked. Accomplice at worst. Untrustworthy, certainly. Any further promotion denied.

‘Is that it, then?' she asked.

‘Certainly,' Frost replied. ‘For now. And thank you, Detective Chief Inspector, for your time.'

57

‘Good Bait'. Dexter Gordon on tenor saxophone, stooping and slurping through the tune like a man sidestepping mud; the piano, distant behind him, sounding the notes like someone in a school hall more used to accompanying morning assembly, the morning hymn.

Cordon drank coffee as he listened, polished his shoes.

After two more days in London, when Jack Kiley's hospitality was stretched almost to breaking point, he felt, by his lugubrious presence, Cordon had returned to Cornwall and the confines of his sail loft, the expanse of views across the bay. Returned to his post, his job, the small team of neighbourhood officers greeting him as if he'd barely been away.

‘Nice trip?'

‘Safari, was it? See the world?'

Cordon had seen the world, all right. Part of it, blinkers removed.

After a week of doing precious little but check back through the files, reading over what he'd missed, he was summoned first to Penzance, then to the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Commander in Truro. Polished buttons, gold braid. The Commander, not Cordon.

‘Bit of a cowboy, all of a sudden, that's what I hear.'

Cordon said nothing, read the commendations framed behind the Commander's desk.

‘Letter here from someone called Frost, Serious Organised Crime Agency, gist of it seems to be you've been planting your size twelves where they're not wanted, messing around with the big boys, organised crime. Suggests some kind of review, tighten the reins, a watching eye.'

‘Yes, sir.'

What else was he supposed to say?

‘What was it then, going off like that? Some kind of midlife crisis? Most people go out and buy a flash car they can't afford, have an affair, a bit over the side. That what it was? A woman? Some woman involved?'

A slow shake of the head, knowing, resigned.

‘Christ, Cordon, I always had you down as someone, push came to bloody shove, could be relied upon. Bit of a barrack-room lawyer once in a while, but basically sensible. Know your own limitations.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘You realise I could have your guts for garters over this. Disciplined and suspended and, most likely, cashiered out without as much as a farewell note?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Any good reason I shouldn't?'

‘No, sir. Not really.'

‘You stupid bastard!'

‘Yes, sir.'

The Commander gave Frost's letter a second, cursory, glance. ‘How many years have you got in now?'

‘Twenty-five, sir.'

‘Pension in five more.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Want to throw that all away?'

‘No, sir.'

‘Good. Out of your system then, is it? Back down to earth?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Take one more liberty, make one more false move, and I'll have you hanging off the fucking yardarm, understood?'

It was understood.

Ten minutes more, a few niceties, a final final warning, and he was back out on the street. Tregolls Road. Time enough, before heading back, to nip down to Lemon Quay and look through the jazz section at HMV.

A woman. That what it was? Some woman involved
.

The Commander hadn't needed to tell him, he'd been a bloody fool about that too.

Three days later, a card came from his son. Australia. A picture of what was it? A koala? He could at least have managed a landmark somewhere, a view of the Harbour Bridge, was that too much to ask?

Dad, just a quick card. All settled here now. An effort, but worth
it. You should come out some time, visit. Before it's too late
.

Yrs, Simon
.

Too late? Too late for whom? Or what?

And all – who was the all? And settled? Settled where? His son's life remained largely a mystery, one he gave little or no sign of wishing Cordon to solve.

Cordon scrutinised the postmark, blurred by the rain and disappearing off the edge. Melbourne, is that what it said? He hadn't known there was a plan to move. A new job, is that what it was? And how should he have known? Another card, perhaps? Some letter that had not been received.

Cordon propped the card up against one of the speakers.

Tried to imagine himself hunkered down on a flight more than halfway across the world and failed.

Work to be done, meanwhile. The theft of a camera from a Japanese tourist at Land's End. A sighting, near St Just, of a thirty-eight-year-old man wanted in connection with a recall to prison. Theft of lobster pots at Portheras Cove.

He was only half listening that evening, a brief summary of the news. A police operation in London and the South-East involving the Serious and Organised Crime Agency and units from the Metropolitan Police. Angling the television screen round from the wall, he found Channel 4, Jon Snow. Some library footage of officers in full gear, flashing lights, speeding vans. A sudden edit, change of scene. ‘And here,' Snow's voice, ‘is the private airfield within sight of the Channel, from which this man, Anton Kosach, wanted for questioning in relation to charges of money laundering on a vast scale, is said to have, literally, taken flight and disappeared.'

The image of Kosach on the screen was clear, unmistakable.

Cordon's first instinct, phone Letitia.

What for? Why? What would he say?

The only number he had, an old mobile. Out of commission when he tried it. No longer operational.

Kosach gone, so what? Done a bunk, leaving, presumably, Letitia and the boy. Nothing on the news to say otherwise. After fully fifteen minutes of telling himself there was little point, he rang Kiley.

‘Jack, I don't suppose you've been watching the news?'

Kiley met him off the Paddington train.

‘Thought I'd bloody seen the last of you.'

Cordon gave a helpless shrug.

‘Never mind pissing off the few good contacts in the force I've got left, wheedling out answers to your bloody questions.'

‘Okay, Jack. I'm sorry, okay?'

Kiley shook his head.

‘So,' Cordon said, ‘what do we know?'

‘Best I can tell, she was taken in for questioning. Kept overnight. What did she know about Kosach? Possible whereabouts, contacts, numbers, anything that might help trace where he'd gone. Disclaimed all knowledge, apparently, same with questions about his business, how he made his money. Didn't know a thing. Spending the stuff, that was all she'd been interested in. That and bringing up his son.'

‘She's not been arrested?'

‘Not up to yet. Volunteered what information she could.'

‘In a pig's eye.'

‘And the rest.'

They were sitting high up above the station concourse, looking down on the apparently directionless maze of people below.

‘You'll go and see her?' Kiley said.

‘I will?'

‘You've not come all this bloody way to talk to me.'

The train went from Waterloo. Taxi from there cost an arm and a leg. ‘Right bloody commotion out here the other night,' the driver said. ‘You'd've thought it the beginning of World War Three.'

Danny ran across the lawn to meet him and this time no one called him back.

Cordon tousled his hair, lifted him up and swung him round, set him back easily down when he screamed with delight.

‘Well,' Letitia said, from the doorway, ‘after the Lord Mayor's Show and no fucking mistake.'

He followed her indoors, Danny alongside him, chattering nineteen to the dozen: the police raid on the house, the most exciting thing in his young life.

They sat, slightly awkwardly, across from one another, Danny still talking, tugging at Cordon's arm until his mother told him to run along, just for a couple of minutes, give them some peace.

‘So, to what do we owe the honour?'

He hesitated, just for a moment, lost for words.

‘I was worried about you.'

It sounded pathetic. It was.

‘No need. Not now. Look …' She gestured around the oversized room, the fading, expensive furnishings. ‘Sitting pretty.'

‘You can't stay here.'

‘Why not?'

‘I don't know. I just thought …'

‘Thought what?'

‘Now he's not here, you could go. Leave. You and Danny, there's nothing stopping you. Go anywhere.'

She was laughing. ‘Anywhere? Down to Cornwall with you, start a new life? That what you're thinking?'