Good Bait

50

The sky seemed to lower itself, shroud like, over Karen as she walked. The car she’d squeezed into a space in the parking area alongside East Heath Road and from there she’d made her way down towards South End Green, the forbidding grey of the Royal Free hospital rising directly ahead. She bought coffee in a takeout cup and crossed back on to the Heath, taking the path that led towards the mixed bathing pond, where, at the tail end of the previous year, she had seen Petru Andronic’s young face staring blankly back at her through the ice.

Today, there was no ice, though the wind that sliced across the surface was keen enough to make Karen shiver and pull her scarf closer round her neck, the temperature no more than four or five degrees above freezing.

Behind her, a dog barked loudly, suddenly, and a small child cried in its buggy as its mother, or, more likely, the au pair, hurried it on past.

Karen tore a hole in the lid of the cup and held it in both hands as she drank.

The wind sent the water scurrying towards her in iron-grey waves, splashing up close to where she stood. Soon, the surrounding bushes and trees would be in bud and despite the ripples that had flowed out following his death, they were not much closer to solving Andronic’s murder than they had been in those first few days.

Whether it was somehow linked to the mayhem that had followed, or a consequence of his relationship with Terry Martin’s daughter, Sasha, was still not clear. Only Karen’s instincts leaned her this way rather than that, and still without a shred of proof.

Follow your gut, Mike Ramsden would tell her. Follow your gut.

Much good had it done.

Her reflection gazed back at her, dark and uncertain at the water’s edge. What had happened here was still as slippery, as opaque as it had ever been, and other things were only slowly falling into place. A watching brief over the Stansted murders meant a watching brief. SOCA were still following leads, backtracking accounts over borders and across continents; careful work undertaken with the aid of the Internet, the computer, the cautious and less than legal hacking of mobile phones.

Frustrated by the lack of apparent action, she had called Cormack that morning and been able to raise nothing but his voicemail; left messages for Charlie Frost that went unanswered. She had considered calling Burcher direct, then thought better of it. Called Alex Williams instead.

‘Alex, any idea what’s going on?’

‘In general, or in particular?’

‘Particular.’

‘For once, no one’s telling me anything. I had a meeting with Warren scheduled for yesterday and he cancelled. Charlie’s busy ferreting around, doing whatever it is Charlie does.’ She laughed, a warm sound down the line. ‘If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was the boys playing with boys’ toys, keeping all the fun to themselves.’

‘Surely not.’

Alex laughed again. ‘First thing I do hear, I’ll let you know.’

That was that.

Stooping, Karen scooped up water in her hand, and, ice cold, it ran back between her fingers, torn a little, sideways, by the wind.

Time to move on.

As she straightened, something snagged her attention: amongst those busily walking either way along the path, a young woman standing quite still on the rise beyond the pond’s end. As if watching, looking on. Hooded jacket zipped close about her face.

Just a moment more and then she turned and, merging with the others, began to walk away.

Karen started after her, stopped.

Her mobile claiming her attention.

Again.

Ramsden.

Again.

Officers from Operation Trident, with whom he’d been liaising, were poised to make arrests the following day in connection with Hector Prince’s murder.

‘You’re going along?’ Karen asked.

‘Just for the ride.’

Little, Karen knew, he liked better than the pre-dawn raid, the battering ram, the chase upstairs, the outflung boot, the fist of steel. The stuff that small boys’ and middle-aged detectives’ dreams are made of.

‘Mike,’ she said. ‘Keep your head down, okay?’

He called her a rude name in reply.

Karen bunched her empty coffee cup in her hand and, dropping it in the nearest bin, made her way back towards the car.