Good Bait

by John Harvey

  He was running, keeping low, close alongside one of the lines of parked cars, when the first officer appeared suddenly ahead of him, just three car lengths away, arms spread, blocking his path.

  No time to change direction, Richards decided to go through him, straight-arming him in the chest, following up with his shoulder, the officer — young, Asian — grabbing hold of Richards by the back of his jacket, the momentum sending them both sprawling across the pavement, stumbling up by way of some garden railings, a privet hedge, the officer with his arm now around Richards’ neck and squeezing hard, Richards choking, reaching into his pocket for the Walther and swinging it round into the policeman’s face — once, twice — hard enough to open the skin above the cheek, below the eye, the grip loosening but not failing; one more blow with the pistol against the side of the head behind the ear and the officer’s legs gave beneath him, his fingers closing nonetheless on Richards’ collar and dragging him down, the pair of them on their knees — all of this happening in moments, seconds, sounds of pursuit ever closer, gaining — ‘Leggo, you stupid fuck!’ — no let-up in the officer’s grip, Richards pressed the muzzle of the gun against his shoulder and fired.

  Shock lancing across the policeman’s eyes.

  Richards scrambling to his feet and running.

  Ahead, a police vehicle swerved broadside across the road, cannoned against two parked cars and swung to a halt, doors opening, armed officers in helmets, full protective clothing, jumping out, the wheels still spinning.

  The first of them dropped into a firing position at the pavement’s edge, shouted a warning.

  Headlong towards him, Richards raised his weapon, pointing.

  The marksman called a second warning, then dropped him with a single shot to the chest that seemed — surely an illusion? — to lift him off the ground, legs bicycling in the air, before he dropped down, seconds from dying if not already dead, blood beginning to trickle slowly from beneath the body, filigreeing its way along the cracks between the paving stones and down towards the gutter.

  It was to Mike Ramsden’s great disappointment that his own involvement was less dramatic. Having pulled strings in order to nab his target, Mad Mike Carter, he was disappointed to find Carter in shorts and singlet, sitting cross-legged on the mat in the basement he’d adapted into a home gymnasium, sweaty and smiling after the first half-hour of his regular early-morning workout.

  ‘Didn’t have to come through the front door like a fuckin’ train, you know? Could’ve rung the fuckin’ bell.’ Rising, he threw the towel from round his neck towards Ramsden. ‘Here. Put in a bit of time, why don’t you? Looks like you could fuckin’ use it.’

  He was still laughing as, arms pulled sharply back, the cuffs were snapped shut behind him.

  Alerted by the phone call, Gordon Dooley made his getaway minutes before the police arrived; avoiding a roadblock by driving across two suburban gardens, scattering shrubs and rose bushes like some profligate guerrilla gardener, before accelerating over the centre of a roundabout and away, leaving two pursuing vehicles in his wake. One of the police helicopters picked him out, fifteen minutes later, his distinctive Porsche Cayenne SUV heading east along the M26 at upwards of one hundred miles an hour.

  Time, just, to close the motorway at exit 4 and channel him south along the A228 towards Leybourne and West Malling, where, this time, the roadblock was more comprehensive, helicopter hovering low now overhead.

  No fool, Dooley slowed, stopped, stepped carefully from the car, hands raised, and began to walk towards a phalanx of armed officers. Following instructions, he lay face down in the centre of the road, arms stretched wide, legs apart.

  Almost a full sweep.

  Almost.

  When the SOCA officers, supported by others from SO 19 and the Major Crime Investigation team of the local Surrey force, arrived at Anton Kosach’s residence, the bird, as the saying goes, had flown.

  All that awaited Charlie Frost and his team, alone in that sprawl of a house and grounds, were Letitia and her son; Danya still in his bed, surrounded by stuffed animals and posters of animated superheroes, Letitia in a white towelling dressing gown, sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen with a cup of lemon and ginger tea.

  When asked about her husband’s whereabouts, she shrugged. ‘How the fuck should I know? Maybe he went out for a pint of milk.’

  It was all Frost, normally the most self-contained of men, could do to stop himself slapping her round the face.

  56

  The operation, as a whole, was deemed a success. Was paraded as such to the press, the media generally.

  Five arrested in dawn raids across London and the South-East. Charges ranging from drug dealing to murder.

  Criminal gangs behind a vast drug and money laundering network with illegal profits estimated at?100 million smashed in a series of carefully coordinated raids.

  ?100 million, it had a nice ring to it.

  People remembered.

  Burcher, the public face of policing on this occasion, stood before the cameras and talked of assiduously accumulated intelligence, meticulous planning, acts of individual bravery.

  ‘This operation has laid bare, once and for all, the link between drugs and violence which lies at the very heart of the Class A drug industry in this country.’

  Drugs and violence. Reminders were provided of what had happened in Camden, at Stansted. Photographs, video. Viewers may find some of these images disturbing.

  ‘The unfortunate shooting by a police marksman of an armed member of the gang, who had previously shot and wounded a police officer and was seeking to evade arrest, has been referred, as a matter of course, to the Police Complaints Authority. The wounded officer is happily expected to make a full recovery.’

  Karen left the official piss-up early, found Ramsden in the adjacent car park, leaning against somebody’s Toyota Land Cruiser, kids’ car seats in the back, enjoying a cigarette.

  ‘Not yours, I assume?’

  ‘Joking, right? Know what these fuckers cost?’

  ‘Fifty thousand?’

  ‘And the rest.’

  A smile crossed Karen’s face.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ She had been remembering, back when she was seven or eight, Bible class. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods.

  ‘So,’ Ramsden said, ‘celebrations over?’

  ‘Just getting started.’

  ‘Not inclined to join in?’

  ‘No. You?’

  Ramsden scowled. ‘Chance to get bevvied up, shag someone else’s wife. Quick poke up against the wall. Who needs it?’

  Not me, Karen thought.

  ‘Getting old, Mike,’ she said.

  ‘Too bloody right. Pension, five years off. Can’t bloody wait.’

  ‘Go on. They’ll have to drag you out, kicking and screaming.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it.’

  He lit a fresh cigarette from the butt end of the other. Offered the pack to Karen, who shook her head. There was a silver flask in his inside pocket. Brandy. They passed it between them, ignoring the occasional bursts of music and laughter that sallied out from the main building.

  It used to be that officers like Ramsden did their thirty years and, much like the soccer players of yesteryear, took over a newsagent’s or managed a pub. Now it was security, parading around an Arndale Centre somewhere, taking grief from kids for stopping them skateboarding up and down the aisles, and keeping a weather eye out for professional shoplifters who routinely got away with several thousands’ worth of goods a day. Either that or wearing a peaked cap and ersatz uniform behind some gated community stockade.

  Poor Mike!

  She looked at him with care as she passed the flask for the last time. The lines etched into his face were real, the shadows around his eyes.

  ‘Got to go,’ Karen said, stepping away. ‘Someone tomorrow needs a clear head. Early start.’

  ‘Drop you anywhere?’

 
‘No, it’s fine.’

  Fine for some. Right now, Karen was all but wiped out. As early a night as was still possible and then bed.

  Sod’s law, her mobile. Not a number she recognised.

  Charlie Frost.

  ‘A few minutes of your time?’

  Back at the celebration, Charlie Frost had looked hangdog, even in a life-changing Jackson Pollock tie. Forewarned, his principal target, Anton Kosach, had evaded capture, leaving the country via a private airfield close to the Sussex coast. He was believed to have joined his twin brothers, Parlo and Symon, in Sofia. Or another brother, Bogdah, in the Ukraine. Taras, the only one left in England, was helping with inquiries, as was his wife: both were expected to be released eventually without charge.

  On the plus side, SOCA had taken away evidence enough from Kosach’s house — computers, portable hard drives, bank statements, address books, diaries — to see him behind bars for thirty years if he were ever foolish enough to set foot in the country again, or try and settle anywhere with whom the UK had a valid treaty of extradition. One way and another, Kosach, Frost had calculated, had been responsible for laundering as much as?1 million sterling a day.

  The interior of Charlie Frost’s car smelt faintly of polish, a distant waft of pine. There was plastic still covering the rear seats. Not a crumpled crisp packet, a discarded tissue anywhere.

  ‘You remember I raised the possibility before,’ Frost said, ‘some connection between Kosach and Paul Milescu?’

  Karen nodded.

  ‘Nothing yet I’d care to swear to, nothing I’d want repeated beyond the confines of this car, but we may have found a link. Money being filtered through one of Milescu’s companies, fetching up first in Luxembourg, then the United Arab Emirates, then Singapore. From there, as of now, we’re not too sure, but if it’s not into a numbered account, the details of which are tattooed somewhere safe inside Anton Kosach’s brain, I’d be surprised.’

  He treated Karen to a rare, thin-lipped smile.

  ‘The thing is this. Details have come to me of a possible relationship between Paul Milescu and Detective Chief Superintendent Burcher. Now were this the case — and I am treading very carefully here, you realise, nothing has been proven — but were that so, then one would want to ask whether any information passed from Superintendent Burcher to Milescu about the operation recently undertaken could have found its way to Kosach in time for him to flee the country. And whether, in exchange for such information, any, em, favours were returned.’

  Jesus, Karen thought. She wasn’t sure what was expected of her, what she was meant to say.

  ‘I believe there was an instance,’ Frost said, ‘in which the Superintendent attempted to intervene in an investigation you were running on behalf of Milescu’s son?’

  Karen was stopped in her tracks again. ‘Alex Williams, she told you this?’

  ‘All I’m asking is for you to accept or deny.’

  ‘That the Superintendent intervened?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s not the word I’d use.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘He asked that if anything serious came out of the inquiries we were making about Ion Milescu, we let him know.’

  ‘And did you?’

  Karen shook her head. ‘There was nothing. Nothing crucial. Nothing to say.’

  ‘But you inferred from this, this off-the-record — it was off-the-record …?’

  Karen nodded.

  ‘… from this off-the-record conversation, that Superintendent Burcher and Paul Milescu were close in some way? Friends?’

  ‘Not necessarily, no.’

  ‘But, surely, approaching you in that way, unorthodox at the very least?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘All right, yes.’

  Karen took a breath. How she had got herself in the position of seeming to defend Burcher, she didn’t understand.

  ‘Am I to take it, then,’ she asked, ‘that the Detective Chief Superintendent is under investigation?’

  Frost smiled. A second time in almost as many minutes, something of a record. ‘It’s more than possible a few more questions may be asked; unofficially, I imagine, at first. Some perusal of bank statements, financial affairs, something of that accord. A little later, if necessary, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act could be invoked. But all this, in the future if at all.’

  Karen knew her place in this. Were she to say anything to Burcher — to warn him, but why should she? — if she were to say anything to anyone it would eventually be known. Her card marked. Accomplice at worst. Untrustworthy, certainly. Any further promotion denied.

  ‘Is that it, then?’ she asked.

  ‘Certainly,’ Frost replied. ‘For now. And thank you, Detective Chief Inspector, for your time.’

  57

  ‘Good Bait’. Dexter Gordon on tenor saxophone, stooping and slurping through the tune like a man sidestepping mud; the piano, distant behind him, sounding the notes like someone in a school hall more used to accompanying morning assembly, the morning hymn.

  Cordon drank coffee as he listened, polished his shoes.

  After two more days in London, when Jack Kiley’s hospitality was stretched almost to breaking point, he felt, by his lugubrious presence, Cordon had returned to Cornwall and the confines of his sail loft, the expanse of views across the bay. Returned to his post, his job, the small team of neighbourhood officers greeting him as if he’d barely been away.

  ‘Nice trip?’

  ‘Safari, was it? See the world?’

  Cordon had seen the world, all right. Part of it, blinkers removed.

  After a week of doing precious little but check back through the files, reading over what he’d missed, he was summoned first to Penzance, then to the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Commander in Truro. Polished buttons, gold braid. The Commander, not Cordon.

  ‘Bit of a cowboy, all of a sudden, that’s what I hear.’

  Cordon said nothing, read the commendations framed behind the Commander’s desk.

  ‘Letter here from someone called Frost, Serious Organised Crime Agency, gist of it seems to be you’ve been planting your size twelves where they’re not wanted, messing around with the big boys, organised crime. Suggests some kind of review, tighten the reins, a watching eye.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  What else was he supposed to say?

  ‘What was it then, going off like that? Some kind of midlife crisis? Most people go out and buy a flash car they can’t afford, have an affair, a bit over the side. That what it was? A woman? Some woman involved?’

  A slow shake of the head, knowing, resigned.

  ‘Christ, Cordon, I always had you down as someone, push came to bloody shove, could be relied upon. Bit of a barrack-room lawyer once in a while, but basically sensible. Know your own limitations.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You realise I could have your guts for garters over this. Disciplined and suspended and, most likely, cashiered out without as much as a farewell note?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Any good reason I shouldn’t?’

  ‘No, sir. Not really.’

  ‘You stupid bastard!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The Commander gave Frost’s letter a second, cursory, glance. ‘How many years have you got in now?’

  ‘Twenty-five, sir.’

  ‘Pension in five more.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Want to throw that all away?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Good. Out of your system then, is it? Back down to earth?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Take one more liberty, make one more false move, and I’ll have you hanging off the fucking yardarm, understood?’

  It was understood.

  Ten minutes more, a few niceties, a final final warning, and he was back out on the street. Tregolls Road. Time enough, before heading back, to nip down to Lemon Quay and look thr
ough the jazz section at HMV.

  A woman. That what it was? Some woman involved.

  The Commander hadn’t needed to tell him, he’d been a bloody fool about that too.

  Three days later, a card came from his son. Australia. A picture of what was it? A koala? He could at least have managed a landmark somewhere, a view of the Harbour Bridge, was that too much to ask?

  Dad, just a quick card. All settled here now. An effort, but worth it. You should come out some time, visit. Before it’s too late.

  Yrs, Simon.

  Too late? Too late for whom? Or what?

  And all — who was the all? And settled? Settled where? His son’s life remained largely a mystery, one he gave little or no sign of wishing Cordon to solve.

  Cordon scrutinised the postmark, blurred by the rain and disappearing off the edge. Melbourne, is that what it said? He hadn’t known there was a plan to move. A new job, is that what it was? And how should he have known? Another card, perhaps? Some letter that had not been received.

  Cordon propped the card up against one of the speakers.

  Tried to imagine himself hunkered down on a flight more than halfway across the world and failed.

  Work to be done, meanwhile. The theft of a camera from a Japanese tourist at Land’s End. A sighting, near St Just, of a thirty-eight-year-old man wanted in connection with a recall to prison. Theft of lobster pots at Portheras Cove.

  He was only half listening that evening, a brief summary of the news. A police operation in London and the South-East involving the Serious and Organised Crime Agency and units from the Metropolitan Police. Angling the television screen round from the wall, he found Channel 4, Jon Snow. Some library footage of officers in full gear, flashing lights, speeding vans. A sudden edit, change of scene. ‘And here,’ Snow’s voice, ‘is the private airfield within sight of the Channel, from which this man, Anton Kosach, wanted for questioning in relation to charges of money laundering on a vast scale, is said to have, literally, taken flight and disappeared.’

  The image of Kosach on the screen was clear, unmistakable.