Good Bait (DCI Karen Shields #1)(5)

‘Before that?’

‘Iraq, i’n it?’

‘How long have you been living here? This house?’ Karen asked.

‘I dunno. Ages. Long time. A year? More’n that. ’Fore my birthday. Yeah, more than a year, got to be.’

‘And there’s been no one else living here during that time? No one staying with you? A lodger?’

The boy shook his head. Behind him, the baby cried, just once, and was shushed.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Course I’m sure.’

Karen showed him the photograph. ‘You ever seen this person before?’

‘No.’

‘Please look at it carefully.’

‘I did.’

‘So look again,’ Ramsden said.

The boy scowled and murmured something beneath his breath, then, with exaggerated deliberation, did as he was asked.

Nothing.

Karen thanked him for his help.

They tried the other houses in the street. Three people thought they might recognise the face, without being a hundred per cent certain; one man – slow to the door with the aid of a stick, lived there the best part of forty years – deliberated carefully and then said he’d seen him for sure. ‘Last year, hangin’ round, that house over there. All them plants in the window. That’s the one.’

They’d tried there already: no reply. The other end of the street from the address they’d been given, but numbers can become confused, misread, misheard. There were plants clearly visible between slatted wooden blinds, luxuriant, shiny and green. The blinds themselves were white and expensive, the kind Karen had enquired about getting for her flat, then baulked at the cost. There was a small painting visible on the wall – painting, Karen thought, not poster; a standard lamp left softly burning.

‘Raising the tone of the neighbourhood single-handed,’ Ramsden observed.

They walked back to the main road, sat in a café and ate borek with feta cheese and spinach, shortbread dusted with powdered sugar, drank strong sweet coffee. Fortified, they took the photograph from door to door, shop to shop. Blank faces, suspicious looks: some eager to be helpful, some not. Andronic? Andronic? A lot of shaking heads. You tried Turnpike Lane, maybe? Finally, they went back to the house with the plants.

This time there was a cat on the window ledge, ginger and white, waiting to be let in. When Ramsden reached out a hand to stroke it, it arched its back and hissed.

‘Not very friendly, I’m afraid. Still hasn’t really settled in.’

He was white, thirties, rimless glasses; neat, short hair. Tan chinos, grey T-shirt, grey sweater in a different shade. The cat slipped past him into the warm interior as, with some care, he looked at their ID.

‘Adrian Osborne.’ He held out a hand. ‘No sense catching your death out here, why don’t you come inside?’

He and his partner had bought the place a little over six months ago, summer; kept their flat in Stoke Newington while the bulk of the work was done; downstairs rooms knocked through, new kitchen, shower. Like to put in a big window at the back eventually, more light, but you can’t do everything. Not at once. People before, they’d been renting. Not long. Less than a year. Andronic? No, I don’t think so. Can’t remember exactly what it was, to be honest. But a family. Quite a few of them, I believe. Four or five at least, couple of younger girls, teenage son. Football posters on the walls. Only met them a couple of times. The father, when we first looked round. Scarcely said a word. After that, it was the estate agent, mainly. Going round with the builder, you know?

Osborne leaned forward, looked again at the photograph. ‘I wish I could be more definite, I really do. I mean, he could have been one of the boys, the boys I saw, but, to be honest, I didn’t pay them a lot of attention. It wasn’t as if we were introduced or anything.’ He slid the photo back along the table. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Perhaps you’ve got a forwarding address?’ Karen said.

‘Asked for one, several times. Thought they’d leave one when they went, but no.’ He shrugged. ‘You could try the guy we bought from. He’s the one, rented it to them originally. I’ve got his details, phone number, email. He should have something.’

The cat lifted a paw and looked at Ramsden balefully as they left the room.

The letting agency was just along the Broadway from Shopping City, slush splaying round their feet, splashing up the backs of their legs as they walked. The office was on the second floor, a faint smell of incense mixed with hair oil. The vendor was Asian, Pakistani. Music playing, vaguely classical, guitars. A quick shake of hands, lingering on Karen’s just a fraction too long. Manicured nails. Parma violets on his breath. A forwarding address, of course. Mile End, somewhere. A few swift manoeuvres with the mouse, wireless controlled, and there it was on the screen. Mile End, indeed.

‘If you’re ever looking for property,’ the agent said. ‘Investment …’

Out on the street, Karen breathed in cold air.

‘Fancy a drink?’ Ramsden said.

‘Bit early, isn’t it?’

‘Early or late. Depends.’

They found a small pub away from the High Road, a few old men wishing their lives away over slow-drawn pints of best. While Ramsden got in the drinks, Karen called in on her mobile, sent a request, the address in Mile End, get through to the local station, send somebody round. They were well into their second round, Ramsden’s conversation beginning to veer off into the now familiar fear and loathing, when the call came back: the address as given didn’t exist.