Good Bait (30 page)

There was panic now, bright and darting, in his eyes. The kind you see in rats, Ramsden thought, trapped up against the wire.

Slowly, he leaned in, not enough to frighten, just enough to reassure. ‘What we need to talk about, Stuart, is how you got yourself mixed up in all this. See if there isn't something we can do. Some way round this, don't leave you in the dock along with everyone else. Culpable homicide, Stuart, three times over. Life inside. You don't want that.' Reaching across, Ramsden patted his hand. ‘Okay, Stuart? Okay? Let's see what we can do.'

‘This is all on tape?' Karen said. ‘Transcribed?'

Ramsden grinned his crooked grin. ‘Even as we speak.'

They were in her office, evening, late, but no one was going home. Sandwiches, half-eaten; coffees, growing cold. Through the blur of half-glass, other officers moved around as if underwater, sat hunched over their desks, computers, accessed this list and that, pressed keys, made calls.

‘He's named everyone?'

‘Everyone in the car, the van. Everyone involved.'

‘Jesus.'

‘Les Arthurs, Kevin Martin, Jason Richards riding with Dyer in the Volvo, Dougie Freeman and Mike Carter up ahead in the van.'

‘Just Kevin Martin?'

‘Yes.'

‘Not Terry?'

Ramsden shook his head.

‘Shame,' Karen said.

‘Yes. No Dooley, either. Too careful to get his hands dirty, this kind of business. Just a name, where Dyer's concerned. Barely that.'

‘Who was it, then, set him up?'

‘Arthurs, apparently. Told him there was going to be some serious payback for what had happened to his cousin, Jamie. Give them a good working over, that's what Dyer reckoned. What went on out at Wing, he didn't know about. Not till after.'

‘Even though he was there?'

‘Sent him off for pizza, didn't they? His story. Twenty-mile round trip in search of fifteen-inch pepperoni pizzas. Maybe when this is over he'll get a job with Domino's.'

‘You believe all that? Believe him or d'you think he's just stringing us along?'

Ramsden shrugged. ‘I'd say, bit of both. But right now, it suits us to take what he's saying as gospel. Long as it keeps him talking. And, besides, what he's given us so far, Carter and Arthurs doing most of the heavy stuff, fits in pretty well with what we might have guessed. Nasty bastards, both of them. Sooner they're off the streets the better.'

Karen nodded. ‘I've had one conversation with Burcher already. Due another one tomorrow.'

‘No plans for lifting Arthurs and the others till then?'

Karen shook her head. ‘Watching brief only. Till we're told otherwise. My guess, they'll want to wait till they're sure everything's in place, make one fell swoop.'

‘Just so long as they don't hold off too long, let ‘em slip away. And make sure they remember who got ‘em this far. Don't let the bastards grab all the glory.'

A rueful smile came to Karen's face. ‘Trust me on that one, Mike. Trust me.'

48

This time the meeting was in a hotel close to the Westway, a conference room on the eleventh floor. Corporate anonymity. Silent through triple-glazed windows, three lanes of slow-moving traffic eased their way, ghost like, towards the city centre; drivers, whey faced, bored, listening absently to the radio, smoking, illegally using their mobile phones. On the table, jugs of water, glasses, a selection of sweet biscuits, notepads and pens bearing the hotel's crest and name. At intervals the air conditioner cut in above the radiators' low hum.

Sterile enough, Karen thought, should it be necessary, to perform an operation.

Burcher.

Cormack.

Alex Williams.

Charlie Frost.

Karen had made her report first, bringing them up to speed on her team's progress: the links between Dennis Broderick and Gordon Dooley; the evidence that placed Valentyn Horak and two others on their way to Stansted inside the van Broderick had leased at Dooley's request; Stuart Dyer at the wheel of the second vehicle – Dyer who placed five of Dooley's known associates at the place where Horak and two others were tortured and probably killed.

‘No chance he's going to recant?' Cormack asked. ‘This witness?'

‘Always a chance,' Karen said. ‘What I'd be more concerned about is someone getting to him. Persuading him to change his mind or shutting him up for good.'

‘We can cotton-wool him, surely,' Alex Williams said. ‘Protective custody.'

‘Not something we've been conspicuously good at recently,' Cormack chipped in.

‘We won't lose him,' Burcher said. ‘Lessons learned.'

‘The sooner, then, maybe,' Karen said, ‘we pick up Arthurs and the rest, the better.'

‘Let's not lose sight, though, of the bigger picture,' Burcher said. ‘What we still don't have, as far as I can see, is anything watertight that ties Dooley in to all this – Broderick's assertion, aside, that it was Dooley talked him into leasing the van in the first place.'

‘Must count for something,' Karen said.

‘Not a bloody lot.'

She flashed him a look.

‘There has been one other development,' Cormack put in swiftly, ‘might prove useful. By dint of promising to revise his immigration status, we've persuaded one of the Chinese workers picked up at one of the raided cannabis farms to start cooperating, remembering a few faces. So far we've come up with Mike Carter, wielding a machete. And Carter's links back to Gordon Dooley are, I think, pretty well documented.'

‘It's something,' Burcher said. ‘Still not enough.'

‘I don't know,' Alex Williams said. ‘Maybe Karen's right. Lift Arthurs, Carter and the others now. If they think there's mileage to be gained from shopping Dooley, that might just give us what we need. It could even panic Dooley himself into some kind of false move. Leave himself open.'

‘From our point of view there's one big risk in going in too soon,' Charlie Frost said, speaking for the first time. ‘SOCA's main interest here, as you know, is at the money-laundering end of things. And as you also, I think, know, one of our principal targets, Anton Kosach, has – or, rather, had – links with Valentyn Horak which were starting to become more clearly defined at the time of Horak's unfortunate demise. Quite large amounts which were being paid into one of Kosach's subsidiaries, from where it would be moved around offshore, washed through a couple of shell companies and thence …'

A smile came to Karen's face: she liked the thence.

‘… and thence to a numbered but otherwise anonymous account in the Caymans—'

‘Or Jersey,' Alex Williams suggested.

‘Or Jersey. Either way, there's some clear evidence that Dooley, after successfully moving in on Horak's operations, has been in contact through intermediaries with Kosach, in order to move the extra money he's been accumulating out of the country.'

Capitalism, Karen thought, such a wonderful thing.

‘Some evidence,' Frost concluded, ‘but not quite enough.'

‘How much longer do you need?' Burcher asked.

‘How much can I have?'

‘I don't know.' Burcher threw up his hands. ‘Warren? What do you think?'

‘Well, everything we know suggests Kosach's a major player. And not just money laundering. His hands are dirtier than that. People trafficking. Prostitution. It would be great to bring him down. But I can see there's a risk. Delay too long and we could lose everything. The whole shooting match.'

Burcher massaged his scalp. Thought. Waited. Thought some more.

‘All right, the way I suggest we proceed is this. Karen, your team, with some assistance, keep Dooley's thugs under surveillance. Warren, you look to Dooley himself. This to give Charlie as reasonable a time to get the evidence as he needs – and no use SOCA being timid about this, Charlie, we're talking days not fucking weeks – and the minute it seems as if Dooley or anyone else we've got tabs on shows signs of panic and starts to run, we bring the whole lot in at a gallop. No exceptions.'

He looked round the table.

‘All agreed?'

They were agreed.

Karen was hoping to catch Alex Williams on the way out, but Burcher made his own claim. ‘Alex, a few minutes of your time?'

The door closed behind them and Karen walked on to where Cormack and Charlie Frost were waiting, midway along the corridor, for the lift.

49

Cordon's left eye still looked as if he'd walked into a door just a few days before; either that or said the wrong thing to the wrong man in the wrong bar. More than enough of those around, as the previous night's drinking with Kiley had proved. That great barn of a place on the corner where they showed the Gaelic football amongst them. Cordon had lost his footing at one point, his balance still not being what it was, banged his sore ribs against the end of the bar and let out a shout louder than the one that had gone up when Mayo scored the winning goal in the last minutes against Sligo at Quigabar.

Jane had been with them early on, but, in deference to what was to come, had made her excuses and left them to it. A shame, Cordon had thought. A nice girl, though she'd not have thanked him for calling her that; a pleasant woman, attractive, intelligent, both feet firmly on the ground.

What was it, he wondered, that had stopped him getting hooked up with someone like that, instead of the flotsam that, since the implosion of his marriage, had formed the basis of what he might have jokingly called his love life. Primary schoolteachers of the West Country, where had they all been when he needed them? Busy, Cordon assumed, filling in assessment forms, looking the other way.

Of course, the job hadn't helped. By and large – and there were exceptions – it was a certain cast of woman who was attracted to the idea of going out with a policeman. And, from his experience, your average primary schoolteacher was not amongst them.

He wondered how Kiley did it. Downplaying, somehow, both his past years in the Met and his present role as a private eye in favour of what? A few old footballing scars and tales of his glory days with Stevenage Borough and Charlton Athletic?

Face it, he was jealous.

The nearest he'd got to what might be termed a relationship with a normal woman lacking criminal tendencies or connections had been his marriage to Judith and look what had happened there. A year or so of low-level lust and largely unfulfilled expectations, then the slow disintegration into brittle silences, betrayal and mutual recrimination. Result: a cold divorce, years of winnowing distance, and a son who, as far as he could tell, held them both in more or less complete contempt for the way they'd fucked up their lives and done their level best to do the same to his.

All with or without Philip Larkin's blessing.

And if his future lay with the Letitias of this world, God help him.

And them.

Letitia, he wondered where she was now. What had happened? If, as he assumed, those who had taken her had returned her whence she had fled, what forgiveness, if any, might she have found in Anton Kosach's arms? What forms of retribution might have been taken?

And Danny? Danya?

The bright smile on the boy's hopeful face snagged for a moment on his memory and, best as he could, he brushed it away.

Don't make him too fond …

Yes, well, like a lot of things, easier said than done.

He checked his watch. Already twenty past one. Back by twelve, Kiley had said, twelve thirty latest. A meeting with the local solicitor he sometimes did investigative work for which must have gone on longer than intended. Been parlayed into lunch, perhaps.

A flurry of voices drew Cordon to the window. Kids from the local comprehensive pushing and shoving, blocking the pavement, oblivious to anyone other than themselves. Small knots of them, standing smoking, eating from fast-food containers. One couple pressed up against the window of Sainsbury's Local, kissing, tonguing, his hand inside her top and no one caring.

Fifteen, sixteen – in Cordon's life, a long time ago. More than the sum of years.

He crossed to the stereo, pressed play and jacked up the volume. Amongst the last batch of CDs Kiley had filched from the charity shop below was a Nina Simone. ‘You'll want to take a look at this,' Kiley had said. ‘Collecting versions of “Good Bait”, aren't you?' At first, he'd thought he was having a laugh, taking the piss, but there it was, ‘Good Bait', just Simone's piano, one hand at first, slowly fingering out the tune, as if uncertain, then, after a while, the left hand coming in, and no vocal, no vocal at all. Bit of a sacrilege, probably, Cordon reckoned, but on the whole that was how he preferred her.

After close on a couple of minutes, bass and drums swing in and from there things become more emphatic, more outgoing. The last couple of chords were ringing out as Kiley came through the door, takeout coffees from the corner café balanced neatly in one hand.

‘Just time to drink these down, then we're out of here. Message from Kosach's brother on my mobile. He's agreed to meet.'

‘You or me?'

‘Both. Here in London. Some Ukrainian restaurant on the Cali.'

‘Where?'

‘Caledonian Road. Between King's Cross and the arse end of Holloway.'

The place they were looking for was on a strip of betting shops and second-hand furniture stores, launderettes and dodgy cafés. There was a
Closed
sign on the door, but not for them. The interior was dark, just a single light showing. Whatever lunchtime rush there'd been had long since disappeared. Taras Kosach sat at a table by the side wall, a glass of wine in front of him, smoking. No one was about to tell him how many by-laws he was breaking.

As Kiley and Cordon approached, he stubbed out the cigarette and, half-rising, offered Kiley his hand. Cordon he glanced at, nothing more.