Good Bait (DCI Karen Shields #1)(92)

‘You stupid bastard!’

‘Yes, sir.’

The Commander gave Frost’s letter a second, cursory, glance. ‘How many years have you got in now?’

‘Twenty-five, sir.’

‘Pension in five more.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Want to throw that all away?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Good. Out of your system then, is it? Back down to earth?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Take one more liberty, make one more false move, and I’ll have you hanging off the f*cking yardarm, understood?’

It was understood.

Ten minutes more, a few niceties, a final final warning, and he was back out on the street. Tregolls Road. Time enough, before heading back, to nip down to Lemon Quay and look through the jazz section at HMV.

A woman. That what it was? Some woman involved.

The Commander hadn’t needed to tell him, he’d been a bloody fool about that too.

Three days later, a card came from his son. Australia. A picture of what was it? A koala? He could at least have managed a landmark somewhere, a view of the Harbour Bridge, was that too much to ask?

Dad, just a quick card. All settled here now. An effort, but worth it. You should come out some time, visit. Before it’s too late.

Yrs, Simon.

Too late? Too late for whom? Or what?

And all – who was the all? And settled? Settled where? His son’s life remained largely a mystery, one he gave little or no sign of wishing Cordon to solve.

Cordon scrutinised the postmark, blurred by the rain and disappearing off the edge. Melbourne, is that what it said? He hadn’t known there was a plan to move. A new job, is that what it was? And how should he have known? Another card, perhaps? Some letter that had not been received.

Cordon propped the card up against one of the speakers.

Tried to imagine himself hunkered down on a flight more than halfway across the world and failed.

Work to be done, meanwhile. The theft of a camera from a Japanese tourist at Land’s End. A sighting, near St Just, of a thirty-eight-year-old man wanted in connection with a recall to prison. Theft of lobster pots at Portheras Cove.

He was only half listening that evening, a brief summary of the news. A police operation in London and the South-East involving the Serious and Organised Crime Agency and units from the Metropolitan Police. Angling the television screen round from the wall, he found Channel 4, Jon Snow. Some library footage of officers in full gear, flashing lights, speeding vans. A sudden edit, change of scene. ‘And here,’ Snow’s voice, ‘is the private airfield within sight of the Channel, from which this man, Anton Kosach, wanted for questioning in relation to charges of money laundering on a vast scale, is said to have, literally, taken flight and disappeared.’

The image of Kosach on the screen was clear, unmistakable.

Cordon’s first instinct, phone Letitia.

What for? Why? What would he say?

The only number he had, an old mobile. Out of commission when he tried it. No longer operational.

Kosach gone, so what? Done a bunk, leaving, presumably, Letitia and the boy. Nothing on the news to say otherwise. After fully fifteen minutes of telling himself there was little point, he rang Kiley.

‘Jack, I don’t suppose you’ve been watching the news?’

Kiley met him off the Paddington train.

‘Thought I’d bloody seen the last of you.’

Cordon gave a helpless shrug.

‘Never mind pissing off the few good contacts in the force I’ve got left, wheedling out answers to your bloody questions.’

‘Okay, Jack. I’m sorry, okay?’

Kiley shook his head.

‘So,’ Cordon said, ‘what do we know?’

‘Best I can tell, she was taken in for questioning. Kept overnight. What did she know about Kosach? Possible whereabouts, contacts, numbers, anything that might help trace where he’d gone. Disclaimed all knowledge, apparently, same with questions about his business, how he made his money. Didn’t know a thing. Spending the stuff, that was all she’d been interested in. That and bringing up his son.’

‘She’s not been arrested?’

‘Not up to yet. Volunteered what information she could.’

‘In a pig’s eye.’

‘And the rest.’

They were sitting high up above the station concourse, looking down on the apparently directionless maze of people below.

‘You’ll go and see her?’ Kiley said.

‘I will?’

‘You’ve not come all this bloody way to talk to me.’

The train went from Waterloo. Taxi from there cost an arm and a leg. ‘Right bloody commotion out here the other night,’ the driver said. ‘You’d’ve thought it the beginning of World War Three.’

Danny ran across the lawn to meet him and this time no one called him back.

Cordon tousled his hair, lifted him up and swung him round, set him back easily down when he screamed with delight.

‘Well,’ Letitia said, from the doorway, ‘after the Lord Mayor’s Show and no f*cking mistake.’

He followed her indoors, Danny alongside him, chattering nineteen to the dozen: the police raid on the house, the most exciting thing in his young life.

They sat, slightly awkwardly, across from one another, Danny still talking, tugging at Cordon’s arm until his mother told him to run along, just for a couple of minutes, give them some peace.