Good Bait (DCI Karen Shields #1)(91)
He treated Karen to a rare, thin-lipped smile.
‘The thing is this. Details have come to me of a possible relationship between Paul Milescu and Detective Chief Superintendent Burcher. Now were this the case – and I am treading very carefully here, you realise, nothing has been proven – but were that so, then one would want to ask whether any information passed from Superintendent Burcher to Milescu about the operation recently undertaken could have found its way to Kosach in time for him to flee the country. And whether, in exchange for such information, any, em, favours were returned.’
Jesus, Karen thought. She wasn’t sure what was expected of her, what she was meant to say.
‘I believe there was an instance,’ Frost said, ‘in which the Superintendent attempted to intervene in an investigation you were running on behalf of Milescu’s son?’
Karen was stopped in her tracks again. ‘Alex Williams, she told you this?’
‘All I’m asking is for you to accept or deny.’
‘That the Superintendent intervened?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s not the word I’d use.’
‘What then?’
‘He asked that if anything serious came out of the inquiries we were making about Ion Milescu, we let him know.’
‘And did you?’
Karen shook her head. ‘There was nothing. Nothing crucial. Nothing to say.’
‘But you inferred from this, this off-the-record – it was off-the-record …?’
Karen nodded.
‘… from this off-the-record conversation, that Superintendent Burcher and Paul Milescu were close in some way? Friends?’
‘Not necessarily, no.’
‘But, surely, approaching you in that way, unorthodox at the very least?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Yes?’
‘All right, yes.’
Karen took a breath. How she had got herself in the position of seeming to defend Burcher, she didn’t understand.
‘Am I to take it, then,’ she asked, ‘that the Detective Chief Superintendent is under investigation?’
Frost smiled. A second time in almost as many minutes, something of a record. ‘It’s more than possible a few more questions may be asked; unofficially, I imagine, at first. Some perusal of bank statements, financial affairs, something of that accord. A little later, if necessary, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act could be invoked. But all this, in the future if at all.’
Karen knew her place in this. Were she to say anything to Burcher – to warn him, but why should she? – if she were to say anything to anyone it would eventually be known. Her card marked. Accomplice at worst. Untrustworthy, certainly. Any further promotion denied.
‘Is that it, then?’ she asked.
‘Certainly,’ Frost replied. ‘For now. And thank you, Detective Chief Inspector, for your time.’
57
‘Good Bait’. Dexter Gordon on tenor saxophone, stooping and slurping through the tune like a man sidestepping mud; the piano, distant behind him, sounding the notes like someone in a school hall more used to accompanying morning assembly, the morning hymn.
Cordon drank coffee as he listened, polished his shoes.
After two more days in London, when Jack Kiley’s hospitality was stretched almost to breaking point, he felt, by his lugubrious presence, Cordon had returned to Cornwall and the confines of his sail loft, the expanse of views across the bay. Returned to his post, his job, the small team of neighbourhood officers greeting him as if he’d barely been away.
‘Nice trip?’
‘Safari, was it? See the world?’
Cordon had seen the world, all right. Part of it, blinkers removed.
After a week of doing precious little but check back through the files, reading over what he’d missed, he was summoned first to Penzance, then to the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Commander in Truro. Polished buttons, gold braid. The Commander, not Cordon.
‘Bit of a cowboy, all of a sudden, that’s what I hear.’
Cordon said nothing, read the commendations framed behind the Commander’s desk.
‘Letter here from someone called Frost, Serious Organised Crime Agency, gist of it seems to be you’ve been planting your size twelves where they’re not wanted, messing around with the big boys, organised crime. Suggests some kind of review, tighten the reins, a watching eye.’
‘Yes, sir.’
What else was he supposed to say?
‘What was it then, going off like that? Some kind of midlife crisis? Most people go out and buy a flash car they can’t afford, have an affair, a bit over the side. That what it was? A woman? Some woman involved?’
A slow shake of the head, knowing, resigned.
‘Christ, Cordon, I always had you down as someone, push came to bloody shove, could be relied upon. Bit of a barrack-room lawyer once in a while, but basically sensible. Know your own limitations.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You realise I could have your guts for garters over this. Disciplined and suspended and, most likely, cashiered out without as much as a farewell note?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Any good reason I shouldn’t?’
‘No, sir. Not really.’