Good Bait (6 page)

Karen picked up the phone. ‘Tim, a minute?'

He was wearing a loose-fitting casual jacket over a muddy green V-necked T-shirt, slim-line black trousers and blue-black suede shoes with a rubber sole.

Karen allowed herself a smile. Elvis and the Beatles in one.

‘Fancy a break from arms and ammo?'

‘Please.'

She brought him up to speed.

‘As far as we know, these were the last people he spoke to before he was killed. Just in case they know one another, I want them seen as close to the same time as possible. Less chance of either of them contacting the other. Concocting stories. Okay?'

Costello nodded.

‘I thought you could take the girl.'

Which meant Costello heading south across the river to a large comprehensive in Catford. Alien territory though he didn't intend it to show.

Behind a fascia of bare, stunted trees and tall railings, its main buildings a fortress of darkening brutalist concrete, the school, Costello thought, had all the welcoming aura of a Soviet labour camp from the last century. Even the first fractures of grey sky, a timid leavening of blue, didn't do a lot to help.

The youth who met Costello at the gate was chirpy enough, however, if a little disappointed not to find an officer in uniform.

‘You sure you're police?'

‘Sure.'

‘You don't look like no police.'

Costello was quietly pleased.

‘So what?' the youth asked. ‘You here to nick someone, or is gonna be another of them lectures on drugs and gangs and knives an' keepin' off cheap cider?'

The deputy head, uncertain whether to shake Costello's hand or not, settled for some vague arm flapping and a sideways nod of the head and ushered him along to what looked to have formerly been an office, but was now a depository for some outmoded filing equipment and a convocation of broken chairs.

‘You'll be able to talk quietly in here.'

He left the door ajar and reappeared a few minutes later with the sixteen-year-old Lesley Tabor at his side.

‘All right, Lesley …'

The door closed.

Costello smiled.

‘Lesley, I'm Detective Sergeant Costello. Tim.'

No reply. Slouch shouldered, mousy haired, a school uniform of white blouse, navy jumper, navy skirt, grey tights, the girl stared determinedly at the scuffed tops of her shoes.

‘Lesley?'

Her face angled up an inch.

‘You're not in any trouble, you realise that, don't you? This is not about anything you might have done. Okay?'

Another inch, a first sight of pale eyes.

‘I just need to ask a few questions, that's all. A few quick questions, then I'm out of here. Never to be seen again.' He lowered his face, swiftly, towards hers. ‘Think you'll miss me? When I'm gone?'

She looked at him then. Miss him? What was he on?

He winked, face creasing into a grin.

‘What say we get out of here? Go for a walk in the palatial grounds? Take in some of that winter sun?'

‘We can't …'

‘Come on …' Reaching past her for the door. ‘What are they going to do? Arrest us?'

There were indeed a few vestiges of sun, just visible above the turrets of a tower block to the east. Sweet papers and food wrappings from break were scattered here and there on the ground around their feet where they slowly walked. Faces, curious, appeared at windows and then were called rapidly away, back to the pleasures of citizenship or ICT, considerations of the opposite angle to the hypotenuse or the importance of the slave trade to the rise of capitalism.

‘What are you missing?' Costello asked.

She didn't immediately seem to understand.

‘What lesson?'

‘Oh, history.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘S'all right, it's boring.'

History, how could it be? Wars, alliances, betrayals, dates, the movements of great powers, Costello had loved it.

‘What's your favourite then?'

‘Um?'

‘Subject? Lesson?'

‘Dunno. English, maybe.'

She was frowning, squinting up her eyes. Last night's eye shadow not renewed, not properly washed away. They had reached the railings alongside the gate and turned.

‘Tell me about Petru,' Costello said.

She stopped. ‘Who?'

‘Petru. Your boyfriend. Petru Andronic.'

‘He's not my boyfriend.' A quick flush of embarrassment or anger.

‘You do know what happened to him?'

‘Course.'

She looked at the ground, looked away; wanted to be anywhere but where she was.

‘I'm sorry,' Costello said. ‘For what did happen.'

She was still avoiding his eyes.

‘Had you known him for long?'

‘I didn't. Not really.' Her voice quiet, quieter. ‘Know him, I mean.'

He waited. Knew she'd either talk or walk away.

‘Look, he wasn't my boyfriend, right? I only met him, like, a couple of times. It wasn't, wasn't like that, it …'

She faltered back into silence.

‘What was it like then?Your relationship?'

‘There wasn't a relationship.'

‘Lesley, we need to know.'

‘Why?'

‘Because we're trying to find out what happened. Who did that to him. I thought you'd want to help us.'

‘I can't.'

‘Anything, anything you might tell us, it could help. Even if you don't see how.'

‘But I told you …'

‘He wasn't your boyfriend, yes, I know.'

‘So?'

‘So what was he?'

‘Oh, God …' Swinging away.

‘Lesley, he phoned you, three times, the night he was killed.'

She started to walk, angling back towards the school, and he walked with her.

‘Why did he call so many times?'

‘Because he wanted to talk to her, that's why.'

‘Her? Who's her?'

She stopped again, faced him. ‘I can't tell you.'

‘Just let me try to understand. He wanted to talk to somebody else, really wanted to talk to them, it was important – so why not call them, why call you?'

‘Because it was how …' She bit down on an already jagged nail. ‘He wasn't allowed to call her, right? Not any more. Not without … He'd call me first and I'd text her and then she'd call him. That was how it worked.'

Why? Costello asked himself and slipped the question to one side.

‘That night, then, that's what you did? His girl? Sent a text?'

‘Yes.'

‘And did she contact him?'

‘No. That's why he kept on. Where is she? Where is she? Tell her she's got to ring me.'

‘And after the last time? The last time he called?'

‘I don't know. I don't think so, no.'

‘Do you know why? Had they fallen out? What?'

A ragged breath. ‘She was scared, wasn't she?'

‘Of him?'

‘No, not of him.'

‘Then who?'

‘Her father, of course. Her sodding father.'

Muffled, inside the main building a bell was ringing; the rising distant sound of voices, people moving.

‘Lesley …'

‘What?'

‘Sooner or later, you're going to have to tell me her name. You know that, don't you?'

9

While Tim Costello was making himself familiar with the Borough of Lewisham, Karen's destination was more upmarket: Kensington within spitting distance of Harrods, a small block of purpose-built flats away from the main road. The exterior was outfaced in off-white stone, curved windows with square panes that brought to Karen's mind the deck of a ship, a liner, the kind that cruised people with too much money and time around the world's oceans. Her uncle would talk of watching them come past the long sand spit of the Palisadoes and into Kingston harbour, all those white faces crowded along the rail, eager for the sanitised taste of another culture, the quick whiff of ganja and a frisson of danger.

The name Milescu was clear beside the entryphone.

Karen identified herself and was buzzed through.

Clare Milescu met her as she stepped out of the lift with a firm handshake and a ready, open smile. Close to fifty, Karen thought, and not disguising it, little need: trim, neat, and next to Karen herself, almost petite; short dark hair well cut, laced with grey. She was wearing a dark skirt and pale lavender blouse, black tights, red shoes. Her only accessory, watch aside, a wedding ring.

‘Please,' she said. ‘Please come in.'

The door to the flat was open behind her.

There were photographs, black-and-white, arranged along both sides of the hall: family portraits, Karen thought, formal, informal, children in their best Sunday clothes, a picnic, an elderly man in a hospital bed.

The room they went into was like something from a magazine Karen might have thumbed through at the hairdresser's. Low settees in muted colours at right angles to one another; blonde wood, glass and chrome; a lamp like an oversized pebble on the parquet floor. More photographs, mounted and framed. The paintwork the palest of violets, barely a colour at all. Someone with money and a certain taste.

A large window led out on to a balcony busy with plants that had survived, somehow, the winter frosts. A wide mirror reflected pale winter light back into the room.

‘So, Detective Chief Inspector, is that what I call you?'

‘Karen.'

‘Then, Clare.' The smile was more genuine this time, less professional. ‘Please, sit down. I've made some coffee.'

‘I don't want to take too much of your time.'

‘Time, for the moment, is the one thing I have plenty of. And besides, Ion isn't here yet.'

‘I thought you said …'

‘He would be here, I know.' A quick glance towards her wrist. ‘He stayed with his father last night. But don't worry, he knows you're expecting him.' Another smile. ‘For a teenage boy, he's quite reliable.'

Adding that she wouldn't be a moment, she left the room.

Swivelling round, Karen looked towards the photographs on the rear wall. Some, again, in black-and-white, but most in colour. More recent. Young men in T-shirts, some with tattoos, posing; older men in suits, dark haired, stubble, what she thought of as Eastern European faces. A few were staring at the camera, as if on request; others caught unawares, halfturning, as if angry, at the soft click of the camera.

‘They're all Ion's,' Clare Milescu said, tray in hand, returning. ‘A project he's been working on.
My Country Across Borders
. He's in his first year at the London College of Communication. A degree course in Photography.'

‘They're good,' Karen said. ‘Accomplished. Not that I'd really know.'

‘His father gave him a camera for his twelfth birthday, a really good digital SLR. For the first couple of years after that he almost never let it out of his hands.'

‘You and Ion's father …?'

‘Ah.' She eased a small cup of espresso in Karen's direction. ‘There's milk if you wish.'

‘No, this is fine.'

‘When you phoned,' businesslike now, ‘you said you wanted to talk to Ion about some calls to his mobile.'

‘Yes, that's right.'

‘They're important, then?'

‘An investigation that's ongoing …'

‘But important?'

‘Yes.'

‘Otherwise, I mean, a detective chief inspector – I hardly think …'

‘You know what?' Karen leaned forward, a change of tone, more friendly, taking the other woman into her confidence. ‘One thing about rank, being in charge, all the good bits go to somebody else. And all you get, most of the time – excuse the expression – is everyone else's shit.'

Clare Milescu put up a hand and laughed. ‘I know exactly what you mean.'

‘So, once in a while, instead of detailing a job like this to somebody else, I'll do it myself.' She glanced towards one of the windows. ‘Sometimes it pays off. Nice day, what passes for sunshine. Beautiful flat …' She held up her cup. ‘Good coffee. What could be better?'

Clare Milescu smiled.

‘I was wondering,' Karen said. ‘Your name. Milescu.'

‘My husband's.'

‘But you're English?'

‘Born and bred.'

‘Then how come …?'

‘You really want to know?'

‘Just interested. Other people's lives.' A small, self-deprecating laugh. ‘You always think – you look around, see somewhere like this – you always think, I don't know, how …'

The older woman laughed. ‘How did they get so lucky?'

‘Something like that.'

‘And since, for once, you're away from your desk …'

‘Exactly.'

‘Very well. But it was chance, I'm afraid. Nothing worked out in advance, not part of some grand plan.' Clare Milescu stirred a tiny amount of sugar into her cup, so little you could almost count the granules. ‘I went out to Moldova with the United Nations Development Programme in '92, not so long after it gained recognition as an independent country. I'd started working for them soon after leaving university. In Moldova we were working with the new government to help improve standards of living – socially, as well as economically. Engage in a dialogue with key government figures, that was our directive. Where my husband, where Paul was concerned I took that perhaps a little too literally.'

Something was alive, a memory, in her eyes.

‘He was working for the Ministry of Justice in Chisnau. We began a relationship – it was difficult, he was already married – all the usual – what would you say? – all the usual shit that comes with people's lives. I mean, we weren't that old, but we weren't children.

‘Anyway …' A sip of espresso. ‘We sorted it all out and thank heaven we did because by that time I was pregnant with Ion. We knew enough, both of us – and I feel guilty just saying this – but we felt that, if we were able, we could offer our child a better life here in the UK. So, I got a job at the UN's office in London, my husband had business connections.' She leaned back. ‘Here we still are.'