John Harvey - Good Bait

Cordon angled his chair round away from the table and looked at her carefully. ‘What do you want? Longer term, I mean.’

Letitia took a breath. ‘I just want to go back and be getting on with my life. Our lives. Danny and me. I don’t know where. Not yet. But one thing’s certain, Anton, no way am I going back to live with him, that’s over. And he’s got to accept it. If he wants to see Danny on some kind of regular basis, that’s fine. If he wants to take him places, weekends, holidays, that’s fine, too. But Danny’s living with me.’

As if on cue, her son’s voice came from the garden, ‘Mum!’

‘A normal life,’ Letitia said. ‘Is that too much to ask?’

Cordon shook his head. It shouldn’t be, but maybe, in this instance, it was. And for Letitia, what was normal anyway?

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Your friend Kiley,’ she said, ‘you think he’d do that? Talk to Taras? Some kind of go-between?’

‘I don’t know. We’ve asked a lot of him already.’

‘But he might.’

Cordon nodded. ‘He might.’

Letitia’s face broke into a rare smile, a grin almost, carried away on her own idea. ‘Good-looking, is he? Fit?’ She winked. ‘I’d make it worth his while.’

‘Mum!’

‘Coming!’

She reached out towards Cordon’s shoulder as she passed, her fingers brushing the bare skin of his neck; just a touch, but it sent a shock through him as if he’d been grazed by electric wire.

Not so long ago, it would have been a smoke-filled room. Silk Cut, Benson’s King Size, the occasional small cigar. The air acrid and blue. Not a black face, not a woman in sight. Now it was pristine, anonymous, the lingering scent of air freshener and cheap polish. The faint hum of central heating. A table, centrally placed, and seven chairs, three occupied. Burcher stood by the window, looking out through the double glazing.

They were on the eleventh floor, a view south and west across London, far beyond the Imperial War Museum and the Elephant, out towards the old Battersea Power Station and the television mast at Crystal Palace, topping out at over two hundred metres.

Karen they kept waiting outside, a small room across the corridor, coffee, bland and undrinkable, in a plastic cup. A week-old copy of the Standard to read. She had chosen black, a black trouser suit neatly cut, straight-legged, angled lapels; a cream shirt, buttoned to the neck. Boots with a low heel. Little make-up, save around the eyes; no ornamentation, no rings. Hair pushed up and back and held in place.

‘Want me to come and hold your hand?’ Ramsden had asked.

‘As if.’

So far, only one of the three men whose bodies had been found at Stansted had been positively identified. Valentyn Horak, a Ukrainian last arrested eighteen months previously, accused of involvement in drug smuggling and prostitution; several weeks before the trial, all charges had been dropped when the CPS judged there was insufficient evidence to secure a conviction.

Though neither of the other two victims yet had names, all the evidence — tattoos, dental work, physical appearance — suggested that they too were from the Ukraine or somewhere similar, in the country illegally.

Karen had been unable, as yet, to erase the memory; scrub the lingering smell from her skin.

A civilian with a slight stammer invited her to join the Detective Chief Superintendent and the others, held the door open, then disappeared whence she had come — all of this without once looking Karen in the eye.

Three heads turned towards her as she entered; Burcher’s did not.

Warren Cormack, of course, she knew. Same suit, different tie. A suggestion of a smile as she entered, he stood and offered his hand.

Seated directly across from him was a man she didn’t recognise. Mid-forties? A little older? Hair neatly trimmed, almost an old-fashioned straight back and sides. His suit jacket, a thin pinstripe, he’d removed and hung carefully from the back of the chair alongside, shirtsleeves rolled neatly back at the cuff. There was a small cut above his top lip as if he’d been uncautious shaving. Cardboard cut-out eyes.

Then there was Alex Williams. Alexandria. Tailored jacket. Square hands. A face that was handsome rather than pretty. Hair cut short, like a boy’s. Had she not known her to be happily married and living with a husband — who was something in the media — and their three children in a large terraced house in Herne Hill, Karen might have mistaken her as gay.

When they’d first met, Alex had been seconded to Homicide and Serious Crime; no bullshit, no backing down, a fast learner — Karen had liked her. Admired her, even. Now, two promotions, four years later, she was back in the Specialist Intelligence Service, SIS, and the darling of the Met’s PR department — equal opportunity works, motherhood and a career both attainable, here was the living proof. It helped that her husband worked, most of the time, from home; that they could afford a succession of nannies and au pairs.

‘Karen, good to see you again.’ Her handshake was swift and firm.

Leaving his post at the window, Burcher moved to the chair at the table’s head.

‘Getting to be something of a habit, Detective Chief Inspector, turning up bodies like that.’

‘Homicide, sir. Goes with the territory.’

Alex Williams stifled a laugh.

Burcher tensed but let it pass.

‘Purpose of this meeting, bring you up to speed. Alex, you know. Warren, too, I believe. And this …’ a quick nod of the head, ‘is Charles Frost from SOCA.’

‘Charlie,’ Frost said, helpfully.

‘Charlie’s keeping something of a watching brief.’

Like buggery, Karen thought. She’d had dealings with SOCA before. Double-dealings. It still rankled badly. With barely a nod in Frost’s direction, she took a seat alongside Cormack, across from the others. Mixed doubles.

‘Warren,’ said Burcher from the umpire’s chair. ‘Valentyn Horak, for Karen’s sake, why don’t you give us a little background?’

Cormack opened the folder in front of him, a quick glance as if to refresh his memory, then let it fall closed. ‘All right. Some of this, Karen, you’ll be familiar with, in principle anyway, the incursion of various crime organisations from the other side of what used to be the Iron Curtain. One good sniff at the joys of the free market and they take to it like ducks to water. Drugs, at first. That’s the big thing, still is, in a way. But with the fall in value of cocaine, for example, there’s been a move towards consolidation. Groups from the Ukraine, Albania, lesser players such as Moldova. Coming together for the common good. Theirs not ours. And with a certain sharing of resources, they’ve begun to diversify. People trafficking, that’s where a lot of the money is now. Migrant labour. Prostitution.

‘This last couple of years they’ve specialised more and more in the trafficking of young people. Fourteen to seventeen. Technically, children. Some of them get pushed out on to the streets selling cigarettes, counterfeit DVDs and the like; some work fifteen, sixteen hours a day in dodgy pizza parlours; others are forced into brothels. Brothels, massage parlours, whatever you call them. That’s where the serious money’s made.’

He leaned forward, hitting his stride.

‘One underage girl — or boy — can earn two fifty, three hundred pounds a day. Minimum. Just do the maths. You could be talking six, seven thousand a month, easy. From just one kid. Close on eighty thousand a year. Two, three years till they’re used up, over the hill. Kick them out on to the streets and start again.

‘This last eighteen months I’ve been leading a Project Team looking into the London end of this, liaising with SOCA at a national level. And with SIS, through Alex here. Getting hold of evidence, solid evidence, finding people willing to go on record, stand up in court, it’s not easy. You know, I think, what happened with Horak previously. We thought we had him and then we didn’t. We get so far and then the ground tends to slide out from under us. These last few months, though, have been interesting.’