Good Bait

12

Cordon sat in a room that was squat and square, old copies of British Transport Police press releases on the walls. Whatever mode of transport Londoners choose, a team of dedicated officers will be there to reassure them and tackle crime: the Chief Operating Officer of London Underground. Cordon felt reassured. The air in the room was stale. Somewhere on the other side of the door were banks of screens, computers retrieving and storing images from every part of the network.

When he’d woken that morning in the unfamiliar surroundings of Jack Kiley’s flat, it had been some moments before he realised where he was, remembered exactly why he was there. Instead of the anguished cry of seagulls, the slow acceleration of buses away from the traffic lights on Fortess Road, JCBs from the nearby Murphy’s yard rumbling their way to work.

‘Help yourself,’ Kiley had said. ‘Whatever you can find.’ Shown him where he kept the coffee, the tea. If you stood in the centre of the kitchen, you could touch all four walls without having to move your feet.

They’d sat up late the night before, after a meal at the Blue Moon cafe along the street. Won ton soup, drunken noodles. Thai beer. Kiley talking about an investigation, tracking down a soldier from the Queen’s Royal Lancers who’d gone AWOL rather than rejoin his regiment and return to Iraq. This a few years back, but preying still on his mind.

Kiley had got involved, unwillingly, through someone he’d befriended some time before; spoken to the soldier’s mother, distraught, patted her hand, made promises he couldn’t hope to keep.

There were children, kiddies, a wife who’d moved them away to another town and filed for divorce. A soldier from the Queen’s Royal Lancers with a rifle and ammunition; a man who’d seen things, likely done things most people would blank from their imagination.

He took them, wife and children, the youngest only three. Kiley’s face tight, remembering. When they eventually found them, they were camped out in woodland, police helicopter circling overhead. What he’d intended had been unclear, even, Kiley suspected, to himself; his wife frightened he would kill them, the children and herself, anything rather than lose them. Saying it between sobs, over and over.

It was himself he killed in the end, a single bullet to the head. Professional. The children crying, screaming.

‘Something like that,’ Kiley began, ‘you never …’ then stopped and ordered another beer instead.

Back at the flat, they watched the news. Two more dead from roadside bombs in Afghanistan. More snow forecast for the south-east, temperatures dropping. Senior Scotland Yard officer to come up on trial: conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

‘This woman,’ Cordon said. ‘Jane. Serious?’

‘Schoolteacher. Local primary.’

‘Serious, then.’

Kiley poured them both another shot of whisky. Some of the good stuff, Springbank, cask strength, twelve year old, present from a grateful client. Mose Allison in the background, ‘Everybody Cryin’ Mercy’, one of Kiley’s favourites. Cordon had made him play the Mulligan beforehand: a tune he couldn’t prise from his mind.

‘You ever read those stupid instant interviews in the paper?’ Kiley asked. ‘Q amp; A with some celeb. “Ever said ‘I Love You’ and not meant it?’”

‘That’s what it’s like? With Jane?’

Kiley shrugged. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Price of a bed,’ Cordon said.

The music stopped. Neither man moved. Shrill laughter from the street outside.

‘The girl you’re looking for …’

‘Letitia.’

‘Yes. You ever …?’

‘It’s not like that,’ Cordon said quickly. A little too quickly.

Kiley shook his head. ‘One way or another, it always is.’

Cordon didn’t argue.

Tossing back the rest of his glass, Kiley got, with surprising agility, to his feet. ‘The morning, then.’

‘Yes. Yes, sure.’

Cordon watched him walk across the room, only the slightest limp, the smallest sign of the injury that had ended his footballing career.

The door to the room where Cordon was waiting opened and a man came in, sallow faced, slouch shouldered, the beginnings of a belly, too many hours behind a desk.

‘Trevor Cordon?’

‘Yes.’ Rising.

‘Bob Rowe.’

They shook hands.

‘Maxine Carlin, you’re a relative?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Jack said related.’

‘Close. You could say we were close.’

Rowe continued to look at him, uncertain.

‘Daughter aside,’ Cordon said, ‘there’s really no one else.’

‘And the daughter?’

Cordon shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

Another moment’s hesitation. ‘Okay, you’d best come through.’

A bank of screens dominated one wall; individual screens at intervals along long rows, staff intent, heads inclined, some images changing — another camera, another angle — others remaining focused on seemingly empty tunnels, empty walls.

Rowe indicated an empty chair and Cordon slid it across.

‘Till we started using this new system,’ Rowe said, ‘storing all the imagery that comes through just wasn’t possible. Fifty, sixty per cent at best. And retrieving what you did have, that wasn’t so easy, either. Things would get lost. But now …’ He clicked once, twice, a third time and, less than a hundred per cent sharp, an image flicked into place. ‘Okay. Finsbury Park station, Piccadilly Line, West Platform, 9.31 in the morning. Tail end of the rush hour. Still busy, as you can see.’

Cordon leaned forward.

‘There she is now, your Maxine, just coming on to the platform, looking round.’

Cordon saw a figure that could indeed be her, three-quarter-length coat, scarf; the face, when she turned, darkened by shadow.

‘Here now, you see, another camera. She’s looking across the track, probably checking her destination. And then she starts to walk away.’

A dozen steps and she was lost to sight, a small surge of passengers moving in behind her, blocking her from view.

‘And this,’ Rowe said, as the angle changed, ‘is where we pick her up again. More or less on her own for what? Twenty, thirty seconds, before other people come into view, result of an announcement, most likely, asking customers to use the full length of the platform. Several people there now, you see, quite close …’

Cordon sees a young couple, both smartly dressed, partly facing: the woman has long, shoulder-length hair that in the picture is bleached almost white; the man bends his head towards her, says something close to her ear that makes her smile. A businessman behind them, middle-aged, striped suit, tie, briefcase, folded newspaper. Financial Times. Cliche. Another man, younger, headphones, laptop under one arm. Several others towards the edges of the frame, moving forward as the train approaches, crowding in, virtually impossible to distinguish one from another.

‘Let me see her face,’ Cordon said.

The image stops, reverses, zooms in, then freezes. The face is pinched, eyes small, dark, uncertain, and Cordon thinks of something trapped, cornered.

‘Move it on, just a fraction.’

For a moment, hardly more, Maxine seems to be looking directly into the camera, head raised, mouth opening as if to speak … Then, as if in slow motion, she turns away, towards the track, the train; a movement, blurred, down across the frame as she falls and she’s gone.

A dark space where she had been standing.

The camera shows a bustle of movement in the wake of her going, the white blur of faces, a mouth opening in a shout or scream, someone pointing. The young woman has buried her face against her partner’s chest and he appears to be stroking her long hair.

‘That’s it?’

‘That’s it.’

Cordon sat back with a slow release of breath. ‘See it again?’

Nothing changed.

In all of three viewings, nothing changed. At the end of each, Maxine Carlin was still dead under the train.

Cordon’s shoulders ached.

‘I looked at the report before you came,’ Rowe said, swivelling in his chair as the screen went blank. ‘Read through the witness statements, fifteen of them. People who were on the platform that morning, when the incident occurred. All of those you’ve just seen. Most, anyway. One or two we couldn’t trace. Some of them claim to have noticed her before it happened. Not many, but a few. Standing worryingly close to the platform edge, one said. Nervous, said another, as if she wasn’t sure where she was going. If this was her train. One thing they all agreed on, those who were close enough to see: the moment before the train arrived she either jumped or fell.’

‘No suggestion that she was pushed?’

‘None.’

‘Not even accidentally? Passengers eager to get on the train. Find space. End of the rush hour, like you said.’

Rowe shook his head. ‘If you’re looking for some other explanation, something to hang on to, maybe there’s an outside chance. But after what you’ve just seen, the evidence as it stands …’ On his feet, he offered a hand. ‘I’m sorry.’

Cordon nodded. ‘Thanks for your time.’

Rowe led him through towards the outer corridor, the stairs. ‘Tell Jack he owes me one, okay?’