Good Bait

42

When they arrived, Jarvis was coming towards the end of what would surely have been a winning break, two reds left on the table and the colours all lined up, nice and potable. He swung a cue in Costello’s direction, but his movement was too slow, his aim adrift, maybe he wouldn’t have sunk the black after all. Costello ducked easily beneath the swing and delivered a sharp kick immediately below the knee. Before Jarvis could hit the floor, three officers had seized hold of him and flung him on to the table, arms and legs akimbo, balls everywhere.

His opponent took the game by default.

Once Jarvis had been hauled away, Costello foolishly took up Ramsden’s challenge and lost the best of five frames in next to no time, Ramsden clearing the table on two occasions without Costello pocketing a single red.

‘One of those games,’ Ramsden said, as he relieved the younger man of much of the contents of his wallet, ‘where luck has bugger all to do with it. Craft, son. Practice. That …’ winking, ‘and a good eye.’

In the interview suite, Jarvis had done his level best to suborn Brendan Cullen as a congenital liar. Why in God’s name would he be giving Cullen a gun? To throw away? Dispose of? What kind of idiot would do that? Cullen, of all people. But images of himself, clear as if in HD, making off after the shooting in Woodford, added to some careful reminders of the factors behind his original arrest — witnesses who had placed himself and Rory Bevan in Walthamstow at the approximate time of the shooting — brought about a change of tack.

Yes, all right, maybe he’d passed along the pistol to Cullen. Maybe. But that night in Woodford, it’d just been about making a few threats, right, showing face. Warn the kid, back off, that was all. Stick the gun in his face and watch him shit himself. But, of course, for Rory fuckin’ Bevan, that wasn’t enough. Mad bastard that he was. Rory, who squeezed the bloody trigger, that was who.

‘You mean, like the time in Walthamstow?’ Costello had asked, mild as you please.

‘Yeah, like that,’ Jarvis said. ‘Just like that.’

Since when, Rory Bevan had been brought in and charged and now the pair of them, Bevan and Jarvis, were busy putting one another in it, passing the blame, talking themselves into the best part of sixteen years and change.

Well, Karen thought, they’d needed a break, deserved one, and, at length, it had come. She eased back the curtains to reveal pavements that were dark and slick from early morning rain. The first strands of light were stretched almost to breaking point across the sky.

She set the kettle to boil, showered, dressed, switched on the radio — more bad news of the economy — and almost immediately switched it off again, opting for music from the stereo instead. Humming along, she made toast and coffee, fixed her make-up, checked her phone. Three messages and half a dozen texts, one from Carla, two from her sister, one from her mum in Jamaica, all of them wanting, deserving, a little of her time.

She made a promise to phone her mother, at least; rinsed cup and plate in the sink and left them to dry, then reached for her coat. Her boots could have done with a lick and a polish, but what the hell.…

A good hour later she was at her desk, checking rotas, signing forms, wondering where her next cup of coffee was coming from, and there was Mike Ramsden, looking for all the world as if he’d spent the night on a park bench, but balancing two cups of coffee, one above the other, a smile crinkling up his face regardlessless.

‘The lottery?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Do tell.’

‘CCTV on the approach roads to Stansted — nothing at the storage units themselves, as we know, so that’s been our best bet. Poor bastards going swivel eyed, hour after hour of sodding tape. Concentrating on vans, seemed the most likely, and you can imagine how many of those there are shuttling in and out. Need checking, each and every one, but it looks like in the end it might’ve paid off. Clocked a Ford van coming off the slip road from the M11 just after four in the morning, heading for the airport, Volvo saloon following, S60 by the look of it, dark green. An hour, give or take, later, the same journey in reverse. Van’s a Transit 360, registration clear as a bell at one point, leased six weeks before from a garage in Milton Keynes.’

‘Leased to? False name, don’t tell me.’

‘Thought at first it was, but no, I don’t think so. D amp; J Foods. Office in Milton Keynes. Dennis Broderick, director. His name on the letterhead.’

‘Good work. And Cormack, he’s up to speed on all this?’

‘Thought you’d like to do the honours.’

Smiling her thanks, Karen punched in Warren Cormack’s number.

A little over twenty-four hours later, prompt as before, Cormack got back to her with positive news. As well as Broderick’s office in Milton Keynes, there was another in Luton, plus storage facilities in a small industrial park off the Al close to Bedford and, until six months previously, on a disused airfield at Wing, close to the Bucks-Beds border.

‘Bit of help from the local force, we’ve been checking those out. Nothing at Bedford, not so far, but a patrol car from County Division went out to the airfield first thing. Not immediately clear which of the buildings Broderick might’ve rented, so they looked around. Found, maybe, more than they bargained for. One of the older buildings, disused for quite a while by the look of it. Blood all over the place inside. A lot of blood. Not new but no doubting what it was. Burned clothing. And more. Hooks and chains where somebody might have been tied.’

Karen could feel the adrenalin beginning to race. ‘They’ve got the place secured?’

‘Tight as a nut. Their words.’

‘And where is it exactly? Wing, you said?’

‘M1 north. A5, then west. An hour’s drive, give or take. I’ll meet you there.’

The airfield had been the home of No. 26 Operational Training Unit for RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War, and then was used as a gateway for large numbers of returning servicemen during the late spring and early summer of ’45. After the war it squandered into disuse, weeds growing up through the cracks that spidered across its two runways; Nissen huts and hangars falling into disrepair. Now, partly reclaimed as farmland, it was also the home to a small number of light industrial units along the edge closest to the road, though a few of the old buildings still remained.

It was in one of these that the local officers had made their find.

Cormack was waiting when Karen arrived, smart in a blue-black overcoat, unbuttoned, grey cashmere scarf. And not alone. Scene of Crime officers in attendance, others from the project team Cormack was heading.

‘It’s this way,’ he said, and Karen fell into step beside him, others following.

When they reached the outbuilding, Cormack pushed open the high-arched wooden door and stepped back, letting Karen enter first. She took three paces and then stopped, allowing her eyes to become accustomed to the levels of light.

Chains slowly sharpened into focus, hanging from hooks attached to beams above, and switching her, in her mind’s eye, back to the container shed at Stansted, the butchered bodies, the smell of butchered flesh. Chains that would have held men fast while others did their work. Slow, careful work essayed with relish and not a little skill.

Karen fancied she could scent the blood rising still from where it had congealed, near black, impasto like, close to where she stood. Something rustled amongst the mouldering debris in the farthest corner and scuttled away.

‘Seen enough?’ Cormack said, moving quietly alongside her.

‘Yes.’ She could taste it in her throat, like bile, thick enough to choke.

‘We ought to move back. Let Forensics get started.’

They stood outside under an opaque sky, not speaking, not yet. Cormack kicking gently at a tuft of grass that had squeezed up between the slabs of concrete, small concentrated prods with the end of his toe. Karen brought her hand to her mouth and shivered, little to do with the wind that scythed across from the perimeter, the eastern edge of the field.

Cormack reached into his pocket for his cigarettes, offered one to Karen, who shook her head, then accepted.

‘I’ve given up,’ Karen said, as Cormack, cupping a hand round his lighter, flicked it to life.

‘Me, too.’

The soft grey of their smoke dissipated upwards and was lost.

‘Until Forensics have got a match from the blood,’ Cormack said, ‘there’s no way to be sure. It could be animal blood even, not human.’

‘A little black-market butchery on the sly?’

‘Not impossible.’

‘This was the place Broderick used for storage till recently?’

‘This and one of the newer buildings, down by the road.’ Cormack swivelled slowly round. ‘Quiet, the immediate area pretty deserted. At night, especially. Not what you’d call a busy road.’

‘And Stansted — that’s how far?’

‘Seventy-eight point four-two miles. Estimated time of journey, one hour, twenty-seven minutes.’ Cormack grinned. ‘The wonders of modern technology.’

‘You’ve spoken to him? Broderick?’

‘Not yet. But he’s got a house just outside Cublington, just a few miles west of here. Why don’t we go and see if he’s home?’