John Harvey - Good Bait

‘Equal, no. He will never agree. Danya is his son.’

‘Equal access and a financial arrangement of some kind, to look after the boy. The exact details can be sorted later.’

Over and over, Taras was shaking his head.

‘I was told you were a reasonable man,’ Kiley said. ‘A good man. Someone who could be trusted to do the right thing.’

Taras flexed the fingers of both hands, the knuckles cracking, one after another. ‘I will speak with him. My brother. Do what I can. I will let you know.’

‘Thank you.’

‘But no promise.’

‘I understand.’

‘What d’you think?’ Cordon had asked Kiley, once the conversation had been relayed.

‘My best guess?’

‘Of course.’

‘My guess would be, sooner or later Anton will come round. Pretend to, at least. Agree to terms, and then, when he’s got them in his sights, renege on the whole thing. Till then, I’d keep a weather eye.’

‘You’re a pal, Jack.’

‘Just wait till you get my bill.’

Cordon took it as a joke; hoped against hope that it was. All too aware that Kiley had already gone the extra mile and beyond. Loyalties stretched close to breaking point, he shouldn’t wonder.

‘As soon as Taras gets back to me,’ Kiley said, ‘I’ll let you know.’

They were still waiting.

In the kitchen, next to Letitia, Cordon was Heston Blumenthal and Nigel Slater rolled into one. ‘Cordon Bleu again, eh?’ Letitia had joked, on her way from bathroom to bedroom through the kitchen. The towel she was holding wrapped around her slipped just a little as she turned away.

Cordon used a fork to turn the sausages in the pan, where they were cooking with onions, a couple of bay leaves and a scattering of fennel. The potatoes were simmering, ready to be mashed with milk and butter. He poured a splash of red wine in with the sausages, another into the gravy that was thickening in a small saucepan to one side.

‘You’d make someone a lovely husband,’ Letitia said, coming back into the room. ‘Anyone ever tell you that?’

‘Not recently.’

She picked up his glass and sampled the wine. Made an approving face and poured some generously into a glass of her own.

‘You could tell Danny dinner’s nearly ready,’ Cordon said. ‘Drag him away from the TV.’

Some forty-five minutes later, plates that had been full were close to empty; even Danny had made short work of two fat sausages and a good dollop of mash soaked in gravy. Only the onions had been pushed to the side of his plate and left.

‘Now tell me there’s apple pie,’ Letitia said.

‘Afraid not.’

‘Anything?’

‘Pears. Cheese.’

‘What kind of cheese?’

‘Goat’s.’

She put two fingers in her mouth and mimed throwing up and, laughing at this, Danny had a coughing fit that reduced him to tears.

Cordon did the washing-up and Letitia, having run a bath for Danny, dried.

Cordon opened a second bottle of wine.

Letitia washed her son’s hair, rinsed it, and rubbed it dry. Kissed him and tucked him up in bed. Read him story after story until his eyelids fluttered closed. Kissed him again, gently, sat watching him a while longer, then tiptoed away, angling the door quietly closed.

She was not going to lose him, no matter what.

There was a sliver of moon in the sky; faint clusters of stars. Close against the open doorway, Letitia shivered and lit a cigarette. Cordon was standing midway between the house and the barn, staring up into the sky. His father had taught him the names of all the constellations and now, though he could trace their patterns with his eyes, Orion aside, he could not have named a single one.

It didn’t matter, he told himself, why should it? But in some way he couldn’t quite explain, not knowing was letting his father down; dishonoured him; what he stood for, what he was.

‘Don’t you have a son somewhere?’ Letitia had said to him the other day. ‘South Africa, somewhere? Australia?’

He hadn’t answered.

Her cigarette sparked now in the darkness.

‘Danny sleeping?’ he asked, turning in her direction.

‘I think so.’

She thought he was going to stop beside her as he drew level, but instead he carried on into the house.

Ramsden had been right about the car used in the Camden shootings, the BMW; it had been found on the upper level of a supermarket car park out at St Albans, burned to a blackened shell. The lab techs had done what they could — cyanoacrylate fuming, VMD — but to no avail. If there was a link back to Valentyn Horak, always assuming Horak and his associates had been responsible, this wasn’t it.

So far, they had had no success in discovering whatever vehicle had ferried the bodies to Stansted, nor where Horak and the others had been tortured prior to being killed. Gordon Dooley, suspected of being behind the crimes, avenging the gunning down of two of his own, was still under careful surveillance and was placing not a foot out of line. The only regular visits he made were to his ageing mother in a care home in Haywards Heath and to the chiropractor dealing with his back, spatial realignment of the spine. The only phone calls to one of his ex-wives, urging a reconsideration of the amount he was currently paying in child support, and to his bookmaker ahead of meetings at Kempton, Haydock and Southwell.

The CCTV operator who’d conveniently phoned in sick on the evening the three bodies were placed inside the airport storage unit, was still adamant that his migraine had been real, no one had got to him, no pressures exerted, no payment made. His bank account showed no unexplained sums as income; a search of the flat where he lived in Harlow had discovered no suitcases crammed with used banknotes on top of the wardrobe or under the bed. Taking up the floorboards yielded only dry rot and a small family of mice.

‘Bastard’s lying through his back teeth,’ Ramsden said and Karen thought he was right. But proving it, like so much else …

The security officer supposedly on patrol that evening had proved an easier nut to crack. Up to a certain point. Sick about it, wasn’t he? Sick to his stomach about what had happened. Never would have imagined it, never in a million years. These two fellers had approached him, he told Ramsden, just a couple of nights before. All we need you to do, they said, turn a blind eye. To what? He didn’t know to what, didn’t ask. Bit of jiggery pokery with one of the containers, he imagined. Something smuggled in. Stuff being knocked off, stripped from the manifest. If he’d thought for a moment it was going to be anything like it was …

‘How much?’ Ramsden had asked. The room a sweat box, despite the outside temperature; low ceilings, space just enough for a metal table and chairs, the only window locked fast, heating turned up deliberately high.

‘How much?’ Ramsden said again.

‘How much what?’

‘How much they drop you?’

‘I told you, nothing.’

‘Listen, you miserable little scrote, don’t fuck me around. How fuckin’ much?’

‘Couple of hundred, that’s all.’

‘And the rest.’

‘No, no, straight up.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yes.’

‘Come cheap, then, don’t you? ’Less you knew them, of course. Make more sense that. Old mates pulling a favour. That how it was?’

‘No. No, I swear.’ Sweat pouring off him like rain.

‘You did know them, though.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘Never seen ’em before. Not till that night. I told you. Never.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘No.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘I told you, my oath.’

‘Your what?’

‘My oath. My word.’

Ramsden grated out a laugh. ‘Your fucking word! Not worth a fiddler’s fart and any self-respecting silk who gets you on the stand’ll have the lies stripped off you so fast you’ll be up there shivering with one hand hanging on to your scrawny balls and the other covering your arse.’ He laughed again, pushed back his chair. ‘You’re going down, you miserable little dipshit, down for a long time, unless you give me something I can use. You understand? We understood?’