John Harvey - Good Bait

She left a message, didn’t have to wait too long for him to respond.

‘Karen, long time no see.’

‘A small favour, Tom, that’s all.’

He rang back in a couple of hours. ‘Milescu, everything pretty much above board as far as I can see. Connections with a couple of firms exporting bauxite and aluminium; partners in Russia and Romania. Some export trade seems to be tied up somehow with Italy; exactly how isn’t too clear. Then there’s a quite profitable import business in chemicals linked to the Ukraine.’

‘Nothing chancy?’

‘Not that you could lay a finger on. Ever since the country joined the World Bank in ’92, trade has blossomed — from a very low base admittedly — and Milescu’s just ridden the wave along with it. The fact that he’s clearly got connections close to the heart of government probably hasn’t done him any harm. Contracts put out to tender, he’s going to be near the head of the queue more often than not.’

‘But nothing illegal?’

Brewer laughed. ‘Down to your definition of illegal. But in a way that might be of interest to us, officially, I’d say no, pass.’

‘Thanks, Tom.’

‘Maybe we could meet up for a drink some time? It’s been a while.’

‘Sure, I’d like that. You could bring your wedding photos for me to have a look at.’

He laughed and called her something not very nice.

The next time her mobile went it was Carla, who’d texted her twice already: Ronny Jordan at the Jazz Cafe, she had to be there.

‘Carla, I can’t.’

‘Come on, girl. That guitar. “After Hours”. That sound. Sex on six strings.’

‘You know what? I’d love to, but-’

‘But nothing. No excuses, come on, I’ll see you there. Ten thirty, eleven, that’s when it kicks off. Okay?’

‘I don’t know, Carla, I’ll see. Maybe. But no promises, right?’

Ten thirty, eleven: by then, most nights Karen reckoned to be tucked up in bed with a glass of red and a good book.

She glanced at her own reflection in the darkening window. She didn’t believe she’d just told herself that, but she had. Girl, as Carla would say, you’re getting old. Old before your time. She should make the effort to get down there after all: race home, get changed into something suitably funky and cab it to Camden.

Ronny Jordan: ‘The Jackal’; ‘A Brighter Day’.

Tempting as it was, she knew she’d do no such thing.

Carla was standing in line, the crowd thickening around her; stop-start of traffic at the lights, exhaust fumes dispersing pale grey into the night air. If the temperature dropped much more it would be freezing hard by the time they emerged the far side of midnight.

She hunched up the collar of her padded coat and shuffled a few short paces forward, even though they were not really moving, the queue simply becoming more compressed. Someone’s elbow poked into her back and she turned, the man’s face an apologetic leer.

‘Sorry, darlin’.’

Sorry, darlin’, who spoke like that any more? Outside of EastEnders , that is? The East End itself, mostly Bangladeshi now as far as she could tell, other than a few smart young Metropolitans busily rebranding it with artists’ studios and architect-designed apartments.

‘Seen him before, have you? Ronny? Fuckin’ brilliant.’

His nose pushed, like a chisel, down from the centre of his face, his teeth, when he smiled, were large and yellow — horse’s teeth.

With a quick, dismissive shake of the head, Carla edged forward. This guy was actually hitting on her. Unbelievable!

Unable to move farther, she squeezed herself towards the wall.

As well she did.

In retrospect, she heard the car approaching fast, faster than was safe; the sudden braking, shouts and screams from those positioned near the kerb, and then the shot. A single gunshot. Loud. Close. No backfire. Little doubt what it was.

Someone cannoned against her from behind and, as she turned, stumbling, something splashed, warm, stickily wet, across her face, and the man with the chisel face was suddenly in her arms. Close up, hissing through yellow teeth, before, heavy, he fell away, and Carla, stooping, aware — amidst the shouting, the panic — of three more shots, one echoing into another and then the squeal of brakes, a car door slamming, the engine accelerating fast away.

There was a long moment in which nobody seemed to speak or move, and the dead man — she supposed he was dead — lay at her feet, one arm stretched out, fingers bent back by the wall, as if trying to tunnel to safety.

The side of his head no longer seemed to be there.

Carla shook. Shuddered. Jumped when a hand gently touched her arm.

‘You’re hurt,’ the young woman said, pointing. ‘Your face. It’s bleeding.’

Carla blinked the blood away from her eyes and brought her fingers gingerly to her cheek. She could hear the sirens, police and ambulance, drawing closer. Knew she should use her mobile, contact Karen: as soon as she stopped shaking, she would.

By the time Karen arrived the street was cordoned off from below the crossroads north to the junction with Arlington Road. Uniformed officers, yellow tape, police vehicles in abundance.

The lights over the Jazz Cafe still stood out brightly, but the blue shades had been pulled down low across the windows and the interior was dark. People stood around in twos and threes outside the immediate cordon, stunned, too stunned to go home; talking in an abstracted, desultory way, some of them, to officers with notebooks at the ready. Ronny Jordan had departed long since, the short journey from dressing room to limo, from limo to his hotel.

Karen knew the senior officer on the scene, a detective inspector from Albany Street who’d been pulling a late shift when he’d taken the call. Blue-black raincoat, thinning hair, heavily lidded eyes; hands in pockets, his voice gravelly from too many cigarettes, too little rest.

‘It’s a bastard,’ the DI said.

Two dead, one at the scene, a single bullet to the head; the other, gunned down as he ran, had been shot three times, twice in the chest, once in the neck. He had bled out in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. DOA.

‘A real bastard.’

Karen agreed.

She found Carla sitting in a huddle of clothes in the entrance to the Odeon cinema opposite, leaning back against the wall. One of the attendants had fetched her a cup of sweet tea and tissues to wipe the blood from her face. It still clung here and there to her skin, tendrils of her hair.

The moment Karen approached, she burst into tears.

Karen squeezed her shoulders, gripped both hands hard.

‘I told you, didn’t I?’ Carla said, forcing out a smile. ‘I told you you’d be missing something.’

Karen squatted down beside her. ‘You okay?’

‘What’s it look like?’

‘You weren’t hit?’

‘Just frightened out my fucking wits.’

‘And you didn’t see …?’

‘I didn’t see anything. Just this guy, the one, you know …’

Carla clenched her eyes closed and he was still falling towards her, only slowly now, slowly as if through water, and she was reaching out to catch him, because, automatically, it’s what you do, and, just for a moment, he was there in her arms, safe, then gone.

‘Just the guy who got shot,’ she said, recovering. ‘Nothing else. Not the … the shooter. Is that what you call him? The shooter? Too many of those cop shows, you learn the language, the lingo.’

‘The gunman, maybe,’ Karen said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Either way, I didn’t see him. Not really. Just someone ducking away, back towards the car.’

Karen nodded. Knew she didn’t need to ask Carla about the car itself, there’d be descriptions of that by the dozen, too many, too many of them conflicting. The gunman, the same. The man behind the wheel. Too many witnesses as against too few.