Good Bait

As the street broadened into a T-junction, he quickened his pace, crossing into a narrow gi

Below, he could see the patchwork of boats stretched out across the stones below, the beach where he had sat earlier, staring at the sea. The rain less insistent now, little more than mist.

Gulls wheeling above his head, riding the wind — for a moment he could have been back in Newlyn — he continued to climb until the top of the steps was reached and the land levelled out, a crown of bushes ahead and a well-worn track posted to Hastings Country Park and the Saxon Shore Way. For a moment he thought Carlin had slipped from sight, but there he was, hood up, following a grass path away to the left; less hurried now, slowed perhaps by the climb, the realisation he was nearly home.

The path dropped down towards the rear gardens of some thirties houses, conservatories stuck to their backsides like carbuncles; a narrow gi

Cordon waited to see where Carlin was headed; watched as, at the gate to number seventeen, he fumbled out his keys. Dark curtains were partly drawn across the windows of the downstairs bay. In the garden, a gnome, three foot high, wore a black beret at a rakish angle on its head, dark glasses covering half its face, a Ban the Bomb symbol painted in psychedelic colours on its chest. A few desultory snowdrops gathered in a cluster beside the gravelled path.

Cordon waited until the front door had opened and closed.

The gate squeaked a little at his touch.

No bell, he knocked.

Carlin opened up with a flourish, prepared to repel some unwanted vendor of overpriced homeware or charity beggar lobbying on behalf of a home for blind donkeys.

The sight of Cordon knocked him back, but not for long.

‘Decided to catch a later train?’

‘Something like that.’

‘It’s not about the book? Changed your mind? Because if it is, we open again tomorrow at ten. Fifty per cent of the cover price if you return it within six days. Twenty-five thereafter.’

‘It’s not the book.’

Carlin nodded, gave a little tug at his wisp of beard. ‘She’s not here, you know.’

‘So you say.’

Carlin held his gaze, then stepped back inside, leaving the door wide open. Cordon followed him, clicking it closed at his back.

There were posters from various rock concerts framed on the walls; photographs of singers and musicians Cordon mostly failed to recognise. In a gilt frame above the empty fireplace was a self-portrait of Peter Blake holding a copy of Elvis Monthly. Not the original.

Books were everywhere: in piles on the floor, haphazard on the table, wedged along the window ledges, seated on chairs. A collection of poems by Frank O’Hara, the cover a mass of sharply angled reds and blues; Beats, Bohemians and Intellectualsby Jim Burns. A ginger cat with a large head and a bushy tail sniffed at Cordon disinterestedly and padded away.

‘Tea or coffee?’

‘Either. Whichever’s easiest.’

It turned out to be tea. Wagon Wheels in the kind of wooden biscuit barrel he remembered from his gran’s sideboard.

‘Didn’t know you could get these any more,’ Cordon said, helping himself.

‘Relaunched in 2002. Any smaller, mind, they’d bloody disappear.’

It was true: two bites and gone.

‘You can search the place if you like,’ Carlin said. ‘For Letitia. If you don’t believe me.’

Cordon said nothing; waited. Drank some tea.

‘After her mum and I split up,’ Carlin said eventually, ‘I didn’t really see her for years. Oh, at first I tried, you know, going back down — I was in Bristol then, working in this music shop, guitars mostly. But Maxine was out of her head half the time and there were always other blokes around. We were still married, officially anyway, not that it mattered to her, not one bloody scrap. Then, when she had the first of the boys, and moved in with his dad, some druggy living in a squat in Penzance, things turned nasty and I kept away. Wasn’t as if Rose — that’s what she was then, Rose — wasn’t as if she paid much heed if I was around or not. Least, that was how it seemed.’

He looked at Cordon for some sign of understanding. Men together, something of the kind.

‘Didn’t see her for years after that. Not from when she was four or five up till she was near thirteen. I was in Brighton, then. My first little shop. Down the Lanes.’

He lifted his cup, but didn’t drink.

‘Run away from home, hadn’t she? Got my address from some card or other, birthday, something of the sort. Stayed for a couple of days till I put her on the bus back home. Turned up regular after that — not often, but regular. Every eighteen month or so, couple of years. Whenever things got too rough at home, out of hand. Whenever she reckoned as how she couldn’t cope. Letitia, by now. Using God knows what. Track marks on her arms. Did what I could to talk her out of it, but it weren’t no good. Small miracle she saw twenty-one, but she did.’

He drank his tea then; sat back and crossed his legs at the ankles, searching Cordon’s face. ‘What kind of a friend exactly? You never said.’

‘We crossed paths a few times.’

What was he going to say? She used to walk my dog?

‘Line of duty?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘This, though, not official?’

‘Not official.’

‘Personal, then?’

‘Her mum …’

‘Maxine.’

‘Maxine asked me, see if I could find her. After she never showed here. She was worried.’

‘About Letitia?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not before time.’

Cordon spread his hands, palms up.

‘And now that you’ve not found her?’

‘The card. The Lakes. Seems as if she’s probably okay.’

‘I didn’t fake it, you know.’

‘The old postcard trick.’

‘Here, I’ll show you. Take a look at the postmark.’

‘I did.’

‘Still you came round here.’

‘Mistrustful bastards, police. Case of having to be. Goes with the job.’

Carlin gestured towards the door. ‘Sure you don’t want to look around? In case I’ve got her stashed away upstairs after all?’

‘It’s okay.’ Cordon set down his cup, got to his feet. ‘Curiosity satisfied. But if you do hear from her, you will let me know? Ask her to call me, at least.’

‘Okay, no problem.’

‘Maybe I’ll see you at the funeral?’

‘Maxine’s?’

‘There’ll be an inquest, of course. Bound to be. But the way everything’s pointing, accidental death, straightforward enough. Shouldn’t be long before the body’s released for burial.’

‘I’m not sure,’ Carlin said. ‘Maxine and I, we said our goodbyes a long time back.’

‘Fair enough.’ Cordon moved towards the door. ‘Thanks for the tea.’

On the walk back into town he ran over what Carlin had told him, what he’d learned. The date Wagon Wheels were reintroduced aside, maybe not a great deal. He’d pass on the details of Maxine’s funeral to Carlin just in case, time and place. They might even find their way on to Letitia, now they were sort of back in touch.

The next London train was due in thirty minutes and he bought a newspaper to while away the time. More troops promised for Afghanistan. Failing bank to pay New Year bonuses in excess of fifteen million after all. Four-year study shows that children of families with only one parent living at home are less likely to go on to university. How many hours, how many thousands, Cordon wondered, did it take for them to come up with that?

He found a window seat on the train without difficulty, leaned back and opened his book but failed to read more than a few lines. No fault of the author’s. Letitia happily working at a hotel in the Lake District, welcoming guests, supervising, perhaps, the change of bedlinen, the servicing of rooms, arranging taxis to the station, excursions to Beatrix Potter’s house or William Wordsworth’s grave — what was wrong with that picture?