Good Bait (DCI Karen Shields #1)(16)

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.’

‘But not together?’

‘No.’

‘And you’re still with the UN?’

‘Unfortunately not. In ’03 they relocated their European offices to Brussels. But Ion was already in school, had made friends, so we decided to stay. Besides, my husband’s business was doing well. As you can see. For a while I was content to sit around, have long lunches with friends. Play tennis. Go to the gym. But it didn’t really suit me at all. Now I’m working with an advice centre for refugees, those from Eastern Europe especially.’

Both heads turned at the sound of a key turning in the front door.

Ion Milescu was slender, almost willowy, his slenderness making him seem taller than he actually was; he had dark hair that fell forward across his forehead, his mother’s blue eyes. He was wearing trainers, blue jeans ripped over one knee, a check shirt beneath a jeans jacket which he shucked off as he entered the room and tossed over the back of a chair.

Bending, he kissed his mother’s raised cheek and glanced across towards where Karen was sitting.

When his mother made the introductions, he nodded briefly and flopped down on one of the settees. Karen waited to see if he would look again in her direction, instead of staring at the floor, the lace that was working its way loose from his shoe.

‘Petru Andronic,’ she said eventually. ‘I believe you knew him?’

‘Who?’

She repeated the name.

‘No. Sorry.’

‘He’s the young man whose body was found on Hampstead Heath just before Christmas. He’d been murdered.’

‘Oh, him.’ A shuffling of feet. ‘Yes, I remember now. But he wasn’t anyone I knew.’

‘You’re sure of that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Because it seems he knew you.’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘On the night of December 20th, 21st, there were three calls made to your mobile by someone we believe to have been him.’

‘Then it must have been a wrong number.’

‘Three times?’

‘Sure. You put the number into your phone, you put it in wrong, each time you try it comes up the same.’

Until then, he’d scarcely looked her in the eye. Perhaps it was a teenage boy thing, Karen thought, perhaps not.

‘The first call was at a quarter to eleven,’ she said, ‘the second roughly forty minutes later, the last at ten minutes past midnight.’

‘If you say so.’

‘On the first occasion you accepted the call. Why would you do that if you didn’t recognise the number?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose I didn’t pay too much attention. You don’t, do you? Not always. You hear the ring tone, you answer.’

‘And have a conversation?’

‘I’ve told you, there wasn’t any conversation. I can’t even remember any of this happening. But if it did, I suppose I just said something about wrong number and that was that. Finish. The end. What does it matter, anyway?’

The merest hint of an accent aside, his English was perfect.

‘Three minutes,’ Karen said.

‘What?’

‘The first call, three minutes and seven seconds. A long time to say sorry, wrong number.’

‘Look, I’ve told you …’ He was on his feet quickly, all signs of his previous lassitude disappeared. ‘All I know about Petru Andronic is what I read in the paper and whatever bits of gossip I’ve heard from friends. Okay? If he called my number like you say, I’ve no idea how or why, and I’ve no recollection of talking to him at all. So …’

Stepping past his mother’s outstretched hand, he stormed out of the room. In the kitchen, the fridge door opened and bottles rattled before it was slammed shut.

Clare Milescu closed her eyes, sighed, looked towards Karen with a rueful smile.

‘Karen, I’m sorry. I’m not sure why he’s like this. Let me talk to him.’

‘Of course.’

The kitchen door opened and closed and after a moment Karen could hear the rise and fall of voices without being able to decipher the words. Then the voices stopped and mother and son returned, Ion with his hands in his jeans pockets, head bowed.

‘Ion,’ his mother said, measuring her words, ‘would like the opportunity to reconsider some of the remarks he’s previously made.’

Clare Milescu made more coffee; her son fetched a bottle of Lucozade Sport from the fridge and, at his mother’s insistence, grudgingly poured it into a glass. One of the windows out on to the balcony had been opened slightly, allowing a residue of breeze and traffic noise into the room.