Good Bait (DCI Karen Shields #1)(6)
Like so many others, Petru Andronic had come into the country, severed all traces, and, until his body had surfaced on that frozen December morning, virtually disappeared.
4
Cordon turned at the edge of the hill, salt from the night air bright on his tongue, and looked back across the bay. Early January and cold as a witch’s tit. A forecast of more snow. What kind of a happy new year was that?
Beyond the lights of the far town it was just possible to make out St Michael’s Mount, a hump of black against the blackness of the sea. Amongst the huddle of houses to his right, a light flickered and then went out. Collar up, he turned again and continued to climb, cobbled stone beneath his feet, key already in his hand.
He’d bought this place, a converted sail loft in Newlyn, before prices had spiralled out of control. Now all around him were holiday lets and second homes, kids with names like Tristan and Toby and people carriers with customised number plates blocking the winding lanes.
Not that he was quick to judge.
A long room with a kitchen at one end and a bed at the other, lavatory and bathroom partitioned off, it had been somewhere to move into, move on from, part of the plan. Chief inspector in another five or six years, superintendent by the time he was fifty. One of those nice old Georgian places in Penzance, down near Penlee House, that was where he’d seen himself by then, what he’d fancied. Till some bastard pulled away the ladder and, perforce, he’d stayed put.
His own bloody intransigence hadn’t helped.
Passed over, these last few years he’d been stationed in the middle of nowhere cosseting a team of five: two young PCs, wet behind the ears, a sergeant close to his own age, prone to outbursts of gout, and a pair of community support officers who needed all the support they could get. Neighbourhood policing, that’s what it was called. Low-level drug use, common-or-garden domestic disputes and routine drunk and disorderlies; inebriated yahoos with public-school accents down from Oxbridge or London for the surf; a little casual breaking and entering. Other things.
In the past twelve months, there’d been several cases of sheep rustling, but more recently even the sheep were getting thinner, barely meat enough on their bones to warrant all that up and down through the heather. The only reason Cordon hadn’t jacked it in and walked away before his thirty years were up, he hadn’t wanted to give his bosses the satisfaction.
Besides, there wasn’t so very long now to go.
So he reported for duty, clocked in, clocked off, kept Home Office directives piled high in a corner until there were enough for a decent bonfire, happy enough to let the powers that be forget he was there.
At home, he sat with his feet up, reading, listening to music, rationing the Scotch. A mishmash, where the music was concerned: Mingus with Eric Dolphy at Cornell; Bach Partitas for solo violin; some Ellington; some blues; Britten’s String Quartet in C. And the reading? Trollope, his current favourite. The Way We Live Now. There was a man who knew a thing or two.
Opposite the one comfortable chair was a television set with its screen turned to the wall. Occasionally, as if to remind himself of the world beyond his own, he would swivel it round and watch the news. Bankers and captains of failed industries slinking wantonly into the shelter of their offshore accounts with their air-brushed mistresses or surgically reconstructed wives; men whose pensions would bring them more in a year than many of the men Cordon knew would earn in a lifetime. Trollope all over again. We never learned.
Hungry, he took the remaining half of pork pie from the fridge. He was just levering the cap from a bottle of Tribute ale, when the mobile sounded from his coat pocket across the room.
The custody sergeant in Penzance. ‘Woman here, sir. Bit of a state. Half out of her head on drink and I’d not like to say what else. Not making a lot of sense.’
‘My concern?’
‘Asking for you, sir, that’s all. Thought you’d like to know.’
‘She have a name?’
‘Carlin.’
Cordon stopped his breath. ‘Rose? Rose Carlin?’
‘Maxine.’
‘You sure it’s not Rose? Or Letitia. She could be calling herself that.’
‘Maxine, that’s what she says. Maxine.’
Cordon looked at his watch. A quick drive eastwards around the bay. Newlyn to Penzance. His car parked at the bottom of the hill. ‘I’ll be right there.’ Pressing the cap firmly back on to the bottle, he took a healthy bite out of the pie and reached for his coat.
The custody sergeant pushed the paper he was reading aside.
‘Sorry to call you out, sir. Only way to shut her up.’ He nodded in the direction of the cells.
‘She’s under arrest?’
‘There for her own safety. Thought she might sleep it off.’
‘Be suing you, next thing you know, false imprisonment.’
The sergeant made a face. ‘Human bloody Rights Act, like as not succeed.’
The door to the cell was unlocked, the air inside vinegary with disinfectant. Maxine Carlin lay curled in one corner, face to the wall. She turned only slowly when he spoke her name.
One side of her face was pinched tight, the corner of her mouth aslant; a scab above the right eye had been picked away down to the pink skin beneath. He could smell the drink on her from where he stood.
‘You wanted to see me?’