Good Bait

by John Harvey

  Cordon dumped his bag, glad to be rid of the weight, and looked around.

  ‘So where is it?’

  ‘Where’s what?’

  ‘The couch. You said I could sleep on the couch.’

  ‘Figure of speech.’

  Cordon looked at the floor, thin rugs across bare boards.

  ‘It’s okay, you can have my bed. Just a couple of nights you said, right?’

  ‘And you?’

  Kiley inclined his head. ‘Just round the corner. Stay with a friend.’

  ‘She have a name?’

  ‘Jane.’

  ‘Nice. Straightforward.’

  ‘You want coffee?’

  ‘Why not?’

  While Kiley was in the kitchen, Cordon looked along the higgledy-piggledy rows of books and CDs. Names he knew; names he failed to recognise. Junot Diaz. K. C. Constantine. Gerry Mulligan. Ronnie Lane.

  Mulligan he knew.

  He was checking the playlist when Kiley came back in. Track three: ‘Good Bait’.

  ‘Don’t you ever keep these things in order?’

  ‘What for? Most of them I pick up downstairs. Lets me sort through sometimes if he has to pop out, needs someone in the shop. Good half of them I’ve never even played.’

  ‘Or read.’

  ‘Or read.’

  The coffee was strong and slightly bitter. Good. They sat in facing chairs, angled slightly away. ‘So,’ Kiley said, ‘tell me.’

  When he was through listening, he leaned back, legs crossed above the ankles, hands locked behind his head.

  ‘Let me get this right. The younger one, the daughter, she drops from sight, no letter, no phone call, nothing so special about that, happens all the time. But mum gets worried — mums do. Comes up to look for her, ends up under a train.’ Kiley shook his head. ‘Just about every damn time I go to catch the Northern Line, severe delays due to a person under a train at Finchley Central, a person under a train at High Barnet — somewhere.’

  ‘Finsbury Park.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘She went under a train at Finsbury Park.’

  ‘It used to be an incident. That’s what they’d say. The announcement over the loudspeaker. An incident at wherever. Of course, you knew, you guessed. Then, a year or so ago, there was a change of policy. Call a spade a spade, suicide a suicide. Maybe they thought it would stiffen a few backs, put people off. Jumpers. Done the opposite, seems to me.’

  Cordon nodded. ‘I just want to be sure.’

  ‘If she jumped or fell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Or was she pushed?’

  ‘That, too.’

  ‘You’ve got reasons for thinking that might be the case? Pushed?’

  ‘Not really. No.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. It’s a feeling; a feeling in your gut. Won’t go away.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I read it. Read it in the book.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘A hundred books. This feeling deep inside, something he just couldn’t shake.’

  ‘Doesn’t ever happen to you?’

  ‘Course it does. I take Rennies, Milk of Magnesia. It goes away.’

  Cordon said nothing, stared.

  Kiley leaned forward a little in his chair. ‘It happened here just a few weeks back. Someone under the train. Tufnell Park. Police cars coming from every direction. Ambulances. Emergency Response Unit there within minutes. Station sealed off, roads closed. Bloke piloting this hospital helicopter, bright red, brings it down smack in the middle of the crossroads. Major operation, every time. Drilled, rehearsed. Report prepared for the coroner. Detailed investigation. Pushed, jumped or fell, I think they’d know. I think they could tell.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to someone, that’s all. Someone involved. Look at the CCTV.’

  ‘Put your mind at rest.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Then you can go on and find the girl.’

  Cordon released a breath. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Regular white knight.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘You said it.’ Kiley sat back and looked at Cordon for a long minute. ‘You’re doing this why?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Not to me.’

  Cordon shrugged.

  ‘What’s her name again?’

  ‘Letitia.’

  Kiley grinned. ‘Nothing straightforward there.’ Then, ‘Might be someone I can speak to, friend of a friend. Open up a few doors.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Kiley wandered off to make more coffee; Cordon went back to the CDs, made his choice, Gerry Mulligan’s baritone sax taking ‘Good Bait’ at a gentle lope.

  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?’r />
  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?’

  13

  Not expecting overmuch, Cordon sought out Letitia’s last known London address, culled from the scrap of paper Maxine had thrust into his hand. A brief walk from where she had met her death.

  Rain fell, almost invisibly, from a sky of palest grey. Paving stones slick and slippery beneath his feet.

  The house was midway along a residential street, all of them double fronted, once grand, now shabby, down at heel. Both upper floors of the number he was seeking had been burned out. And not too long since. Woodwork blackened, trails of sooted smoke residue clinging plume-like to the brick. Up close, you could still catch the faint smell of burned wood on the air.

  A matter of days, then, he thought. Round about the time of Maxine Carlin’s death or just after.

  On the raised first floor the windows had been temporarily boarded over; those in the basement partially covered by old sheeting. Bins at the front overflowed with rubbish; several charred mattresses and a broken bed frame leaned precariously against the wall. A sign had been partially removed from the glass above the front door, the faintest outline of letters still advertising some earlier existence: Bentinct Hotel. Rooms. B amp;B.

  A while since it had been that, Cordon ventured.

  A double line of bell pushes was attached to the side wall, faded name cards alongside, all blank. Cordon set his hand against the front door, prised up the flap to the letter-box and peered through.

  ‘Done a bunk, mate. Scarpered and good fuckin’ riddance. Set fire to the place before they left an’ all. Someone hadn’t nipped in quick with the alarm, whole soddin’ street’d’ve burned down.’

  Cordon had spotted the man earlier — ex-boxer, ex-wrestler, scar tissue around the eyes, muscle gone to seed — his dog off the leash ahead of him, in and out of gardens, cocking its leg, rummaging in bins.

  ‘It was serious, then?’

  ‘Serious enough. Half a dozen engines round here, more, middle of the bleedi
n’ night, how serious d’you want?’

  ‘This was when?’

  ‘Last week, just.’

  ‘How about casualties? Anybody trapped inside?’

  The man leaned a shade closer. ‘That’s the thing. Right up till that happens there’s people in and out all the time. Blokes, all of ‘em. Regular knocking shop, that’s what it was.’

  ‘A brothel, you mean?’

  ‘Call it what you like. Never see the same face twice. Then this happens, fire brigade, police all arrive, ‘side from cockroaches and the like, the place is empty. Someone after the insurance, either that or clearin’ out ahead of gettin’ their collars felt. Mind you, don’t take many blow jobs to get most coppers lookin’ the other way.’

  ‘The people who lived here? Whoever was running the place, you’ve no idea what happened to them? Where they went?’

  ‘Why’s that then? What’s it to you?’ At the hint of aggression in the man’s voice, the dog growled and snapped and the man cursed it softly and aimed a kick at its ribs.

  ‘Just looking for someone. A friend. Might have worked here a while back. Letitia Carlin. Early thirties, most probably reddish hair. Could’ve been calling herself Rose.’

  ‘Could’ve been callin’ herself Mary bloody Magdalene for all I know. Kept ’emselves to ’emselves.’

  ‘You don’t recall seeing anyone like her then?’

  ‘Wastin’ your time, mate, sorry.’ With a hunch of the shoulders, he turned away.

  Cordon stood back and watched him go. The rain continued to fall in a steady drizzle as he walked, damp seeping steadily into his shoulders and along his back.

  ‘So what now?’ Kiley said.

  They were sitting in the Tufnell Park flat, the sounds of Mose Allison’s piano and Southern-inflected voice barely covering the stop-start of homeward-bound traffic as it made its cautious way towards Muswell Hill, Finchley Central and points north.