Good Bait

51

After Weybridge, the car in which Cordon was travelling turned off into the first of a series of narrowing minor roads — not Cornish narrow, he thought, lacking the sharpness of angle, the high stone walls — and they were deep in the Surrey countryside. Every so often, the glimpse of a square church tower, a sign leading to a farm largely unseen, small bands of cattle arranged in a painterly manner along a burgeoning hill. The true heart of England, Kiley had told him, where the money grows. Merchant bankers and rock stars, nice people. It had been made clear that Kiley’s part in the affair was over, the arrangements made, this was for Cordon alone.

The driver, bull-necked, sullen, had snapped shut the sliding glass separating him from the interior, leaving Cordon to the stale smell of air freshener and his own thoughts.

‘He will see you,’ Taras Kosach had said, ‘my brother. It is agreed.’

‘And Letitia?’

‘He will meet with you, Anton. Talk. Set your mind to rest.’

Somehow, Cordon didn’t think that would necessarily be the case.

The car slowed and turned left along a lane overhung with trees that were still short of bud, filtering out the grey of the sky. A quarter of a mile along and then a private road. Woodland to either side. Warning signs, recently repainted: No Access. Private Land. Wire fencing, recently renewed.

A little farther and then a gate of wrought iron set between columns. CCTV cameras focusing down. The driver punched numbers into a metal panel, spoke briefly into the small microphone alongside.

Something nudged at Cordon’s stomach.

Anticipation?

Fear?

After the set-up, the house, to Cordon at least, was something of a disappointment. A mock-Tudor sprawl, all pitched roofs and sharp angles, dark timbering squared across white plaster, mullioned windows. Tiny cameras that swivelled towards him as he stepped from the car.

Three shallow stone steps to the doorway.

Two men approaching, neither of them Anton Kosach. Mid-twenties, unsmiling, the obligatory leather jackets over black turtlenecks, dark trousers worn a size too tight at the crotch.

One of them gestured for him to remove his coat, then raise his arms.

What were they expecting? A wire? Some kind of weapon?

They ran their hands around his waistband, across his back and chest, high along his thighs, between his legs. Threw back his coat.

‘You wait.’

Cordon took several steps back across the gravelled drive and looked up at the main section of the house. No signs of life. No sound, other than a brief chattering of birds across acres of lawn.

Was Letitia actually here?

And Danny?

He looked in vain for any sign of a scooter, an abandoned bicycle, a rubber ball, a toy.

The door opened again and a man came out: Anton Kosach, certainly. Taller than his brother, Taras, but similar features, the same dark eyes. His dark suit was well cut, the jacket unbuttoned, palest of pale blue shirts, no tie, soft, expensive shoes.

‘Mr Cordon …’ Kosach began. ‘Or should it be Inspector?’

‘Mister is fine.’

‘Not police business, what brings you here?’

A shake of the head.

‘Good. Welcome, then.’ He held out his hand.

The accent was only slight, the handshake firm and smooth.

Kosach studied Cordon’s face, then stepped back and offered him a cigarette and, when Cordon refused, lit one for himself. For a moment, soft smoke hung on the air.

‘Please, let us walk.’

The path led away from the house, between groomed shrubs with crocuses and a few late snowdrops lingering in the shade. ‘My brother says you are concerned about Letitia and I am not sure why this should be.’

‘Most times, when a woman has to be dragged back by force after being threatened and frightened half out of her wits, I’d say there’s some cause for concern.’

‘Threatened? Frightened? I don’t think so. And no one was dragged.’

‘Your thugs broke into the house in the middle of the night and beat the shit out of me before hauling Danny and Letitia back to where they didn’t want to be.’

‘Mr Cordon, those thugs, as you call them, are men I trust. And they assured me they used as little force as was necessary to release my wife and son.’

‘Your wife?’

Kosach halted. ‘Of course, what did you think?’

Cordon could only stare back at him, nonplussed.

‘And as for — what did you say? — being where they do not want to be …’ He gestured back towards the house with a sweep of his hand. ‘Why would they not want to be here? Where they belong.’

‘I know what she told me,’ Cordon said.

‘You heard, my friend, what you wanted to hear.’

When the path divided, they went towards a small stand of silver birch, a robin puffing out its chest on one of the branches until they came closer and it flew away.

‘It is true,’ Kosach said. ‘Letitia and I, there was an argument, a … misunderstanding, I think you would say. She is headstrong. If you know her at all, you will know this. Things were said.’ He shook his head. ‘All that is forgotten. You have, I think, this saying, forget and forgive.’

‘I want to see her,’ Cordon said.

‘I am afraid that is not possible.’

‘Hear her say in her own words this is where she really wants to be.’

Kosach looked at him through narrowed eyes and laughed. ‘Of course. All this time I thought you were some kind of father to her, you look after her, protect, you are policeman, after all, but no, you are in love with her yourself-’

‘The hell I am!’

‘You are in love with her and that is why you think she cannot be happy with someone else.’ He smiled. ‘Believe me, my friend, I understand.’

‘Yeah? Well, understand this, no way am I your fucking friend.’

‘And now you are angry and upset.’

More than anything else, Cordon wanted to punch him in the mouth, shut out the supercilious, patronising crap, the accent that came and went. With an effort, he kept his hands to his sides.

The path circled back towards the house.

Neither man spoke again until they had arrived back at the main door.

‘I want to see her,’ Cordon said again.

‘And I have told you-’

‘She’s here?’

A pause. ‘Yes, she is here.’

‘Then let me speak to her. If she says the same as you, without duress, then that’s an end to it.’

‘An end?’

‘Yes.’

Kosach studied him again, staring at his face. ‘You are a man of your word?’

‘As much as any man.’

‘Very well. Wait here.’

Kosach went briskly inside and the two men who had searched Cordon reappeared and stood, arms folded, on the steps to either side of the door. The help living up to the stereotype, at least.

Five minutes shaded into ten.

Cordon shifted his balance from one foot to the other, flexing the muscles in his calves. A small jet of pain nagging, intermittently, at the base of his left leg, the foot. Achilles heel?

Kosach reappeared at the door.

‘Please. Come inside.’

Letitia stood in the curve of a stairway that swept up from an expanse of tiled floor. Pale, little make-up, some shadowing around the eyes, a bruising of colour across her mouth. Her hair had been dyed a darkish brown and held her face in a tight frame. No smile; no more than a hint of recognition in her eyes. Cordon wondered if she were ill, or merely very, very tired. The clothes she wore, drab shades of grey.

‘Letitia?’

Barely a movement at the sound of her name, his voice.

‘Your friend, Letitia, he has a question to ask. He wants to know if you’re happy here. Are you happy, Letitia?’

‘Of course.’

‘And is anyone keeping you here against your will?’

She looked puzzled, as if the question made little sense.

‘Do you want to stay here?’ Cordon asked.

A flicker of the eyes.

‘Because if you don’t …’ moving towards her, towards the foot of the stairs, ‘if you don’t you could leave with me, now. You understand what I’m saying?You could go, you and Danny, now.’

As if at the sound of his name, the boy appeared on the landing above, and, seeing Cordon, called his name and started to run towards him, two, three steps at a time, until his father’s warning shout of ‘Danya!’ stopped him, teetering, in his tracks.

‘Letitia?’ Cordon said again, but her head was turned towards Kosach, not to him, the look that passed between them then impossible to read.

‘Danya,’ Kosach said, ‘go to your mother. Now.’

Cautiously, the boy retreated up the stairs and clung hold of his mother’s skirt, one of her arms around his shoulders, tight, the other gripping the balustrade, wedding ring in plain sight.

‘If it’s what you want, Letitia,’ Kosach said, stepping quickly to the door, throwing it open, ‘you can go.’

Other than tightening her grasp of Danny’s shoulders, she didn’t move.

Still at the door, Kosach shifted his gaze towards Cordon. ‘An end to it, I think that’s what you said.’

The anger that still simmered inside Cordon was cauterised by disillusion, disappointment, lack of understanding.

His shoulders sagged.

‘The driver will take you back,’ Kosach said. ‘I do not expect to see you again.’