Good Bait

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 co

‘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 ma

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.