John Harvey - Good Bait

‘The world,’ Costello said, ‘according to the British National Party.’

‘Laugh, you smug bastard,’ Martin said. ‘Go ahead. One day you’ll be laughing on the other side of your cocky little face.’

‘Maybe that’s what it was,’ Karen said, reclaiming the conversation. ‘With Andronic. The chance to teach him his place, teach him a lesson. Only it went too far — you’d been drinking after all — got out of hand. Next thing you know …’

Martin rocked his chair back then forward. ‘No, you had the least bit of evidence put me near where it happened, you’d have had me in cuffs the minute I stepped off that plane. But you’ve got sod all and you’re fishing. That’s what this is. Only the line’s broke, and, any case, you wanna hook me you best get yourself some better fuckin’ bait — so I’m leaving. You want to stop me, arrest me. If not, I’m gone.’

And with neither Karen nor Costello making any attempt to stop him, he walked out the door.

‘What d’you reckon then?’ Ramsden said. ‘Martin?’

‘Do I fancy him for it?’ Karen said.

‘Yeah.’

‘I’d like to. Like to, but I don’t know.’

They were standing at the side door of a pub Ramsden favoured in the bowels of Camden. A fine view of the waste bins and a few parked cars. Ramsden, as he sometimes did, smoking one of his small tightly rolled cigars. Their breath visible on the night air.

It had been an Irish pub when Irish was more in vogue, plastic shamrocks in the window, a greenwood bodhran hanging down above the bar; this last year or so, evenings and weekends, it had been taken over by Goths and heavy metallers; Black Sabbath and Metallica on the jukebox and whip-thin girls with faces powdered white and lipstick the colour of dried blood. Other coppers never set foot there, unless it was a raid. The bitter wasn’t bad, either.

‘Trouble is,’ Karen said, ‘there’s not a scrap of forensics puts him even close. No murder weapon, no prints, no CCTV. Nothing.’

‘Gut feeling?’

‘My gut feeling, he could have. He’s capable of it, I’m sure. Reason enough in his mind, too, tanked up especially.’

‘So what you gonna do? You and sonny boy?’

‘Sonny boy’s all right. Just needs a little perspective, that’s all. Realise he doesn’t have to be grandstanding all the time.’

‘I’m sure in your guiding hands …’ A lascivious grin on his face, Ramsden was cheerfully miming masturbation when the door opened sharply and a sandy-haired man took half a step out on to the low porch, stopped, looked from Ramsden to Karen and back again, then winked merrily at Ramsden and withdrew.

‘Thinks there’s something going on,’ Ramsden said. ‘You and me. Didn’t want to spoil my chances.’

‘Yes?’ Karen laughed. ‘What chance is that?’

Ramsden took a healthy sip from his glass.

‘So, Martin, what’s your plan?’

‘Sonny boy, as you call him, is going back to the landlord at the Four Hands, dredge up some more names, try to get a sharper line on how long that night Martin was in the pub. Then we’re checking taxi firms, minicab drivers, anyone who might have had Martin as a fare. And that includes the driver he alleges took him home in the early hours.’

‘Could have been a mate, a friend.’

‘I know. I can get some of the team talking to his known associates, see if there’s anything there.’

Ramsden’s look was dubious. ‘Lot of manpower, lot of hours.’

‘Better suggestion?’

‘Bring him in. Make him sweat. Then see what he’s got to say. Let me have a word with him.’

Karen smiled. ‘Is that the bit where you swipe him round the back of the head with a good old-fashioned telephone directory?’

‘Does the trick. Used to.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

Ramsden swallowed down the last of his beer. ‘Want another?’

‘Maybe. Just the one. But now you’ve finished that vile little cigar, can we at least go back inside?’

They found a table far enough from the jukebox to make conversation possible. Hector Prince, Ramsden said, was still lording it over the fact that he’d walked away from police custody scot-free, bragging about it, apparently, how there was nothing they could do to touch him.

‘Riding for a fall?’ Karen wondered.

‘Could be.’

‘How about that accusation of Martin’s?’ Ramsden asked. ‘The Andronic youth might have been dealing?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Gives you another possible motivation. If he’d been siphoning some off, short changing, someone might have been out to teach him a lesson.’

‘Some lesson.’

‘Sets an example.’

‘There’s nothing else linking Andronic to drugs. I think that was just Martin blowing off hot air.’

‘Even so,’ Ramsden winced as a particularly loud riff from Iron Maiden made the room shake and rattled the glasses on the table. ‘Could do worse than taking a look at that pal of his again, the one he called that evening. Milescu? Check him out on Facebook, sites like that. Build up a bit more background, can’t do any harm.’ He winked. ‘Wouldn’t like to see you cutting off your options too soon, getting tunnel vision.’

‘What are you? My manager, all of a sudden?’

Ramsden leaned back, smiling with his eyes. ‘Feels that way sometimes.’

Karen smiled back. ‘You know what?’

‘What?’

‘Bollocks!’

Karen was still wearing the vestiges of a smile when she exited the Tube. Whereas working with Tim Costello was interesting, almost fun, watching him showing off a little, seeing how far he could go, with Ramsden everything was easy, like slipping into a familiar pattern, easing on an old pair of worn gloves. What was that song? ‘An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down’. Ramsden was like that. Old and dependable. If distinctly ragged round the edges.

Taking the turning off St Paul’s Road into Highbury Grove, wind pulling at her coat and hair, the first inklings of rain, she noticed the car idling ahead of her, ignorant of the traffic. A Volvo, dark blue, shading into black. As she drew close, it pulled away, then slowed. She logged the number in her head, prepared to cross the street, take defensive action, if necessary run.

When she came alongside the vehicle, it slid forward in tandem, the rear window slipping soundlessly down.

‘Karen.’

It was Burcher. Detective Chief Superintendent Anthony Burcher. She hadn’t known they were on first-name terms.

The rear nearside door opened.

‘Get in.’

The car slid off into traffic, commuters on their way back through Seven Sisters, Stroud Green, Stamford Hill, Edmonton. Farther out there were real fields, paddocks, small orchards, golf courses where you could play a full eighteen holes without having to cross a motorway.

It was close in the back of the car, the heater notched up a few degrees too high; the sweetness of peppermints on Burcher’s breath.

‘Just passing, sir?’

‘Something of the kind.’

In front, the driver swallowed a chuckle, remembering he wasn’t there. See no evil, speak no evil.

‘The Hampstead business, Andronic, something of a breakthrough?’

She told him about the Martins, Terry and Sasha, father and daughter. Her suspicions, unproven.

‘And this Milescu boy, he involved? Seriously, I mean?’

No real reason to think so, sir. No more than peripherally. But I suppose it’s possible.’

‘His father, he was expressing some concern.’

‘To you, sir?’

‘Friends, shall we say, one or two, high places.’

‘I doubt he has reasons to worry.’

‘Good to know. Though of course, if there were anything, anything serious, you might just run it by me.’