Back home, Cordon slapped some music on the stereo, splashed whisky into a glass.
He jacked up the volume, stared out across rooftops to the bay.
Eric Dolphy in Champaign, Illinois, March 1953. ‘Something Sweet, Something Tender’.
Who did he think he was trying to kid?
26
One of these mornings, Karen thought, she’d step outside and not feel the bite of frost on her face and know winter was finally over. But not yet. She tightened the scarf at her neck and fastened the last button on her coat. Her breath curled like pale smoke on the air.
Carla had returned to her own flat and would be back at the National that evening, treading the boards. ‘The show,’ as she’d said, ‘had best go bloody on. And I do mean bloody. More bodies per minute with these Jacobeans than Camden can come up with in a year.’
Karen had expressed her concern.
‘Best thing for me,’ Carla had assured her. ‘After this week there’s a break and then we’re off on tour. Milton Keynes, Woking and points west. Bringing Middleton to the masses.’
But when Karen had clasped her arms round her in a farewell hug, she had felt Carla’s body shake and read the residue of fear in her eyes. She wished there was more she could do for her, more to help, but didn’t know what it was. Maybe, in time, the impact of what had happened would lessen, though she would never fully forget. Maybe, Karen thought, Carla would find a way to use it in her work.
She was crossing the street when her mobile rang. Tim Costello. Reports of a drug-related shooting in Camberwell had come in, a seventeen-year-old youth with known drug connections found in the early hours of the morning with gunshot wounds to his legs and back.
‘Some link with Walthamstow, that’s what you’re thinking?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘On your bike, then, sunshine.’ Karen felt herself grinning. She’d been wanting to say that for ages. ‘Get yourself down there. And don’t let anyone bully you around.’
She snapped the connection closed.
Mike Ramsden was waiting in her office, cigarette smoke acrid on his breath, skin loose and baggy around his eyes. Karen found herself wondering, not for the first time, where he’d slept, his bed or someone else’s, a couch, the floor.
‘You okay?’
‘Been better.’
‘Want to talk about it?’
‘What? You’re my mother now?’
‘Suit yourself.’ She slid into the chair behind her desk. ‘Terry Martin, how’d it go?’
‘Difficult to find a more innocent man. Shocked at what had happened over at Camden, what he’d seen on the news. Specially when he saw one of the blokes killed was someone he knew. Used to, anyway. Aaron Johnson. Hadn’t seen him in a twelvemonth, maybe more. Not as much as clapped eyes on him. Bit of a falling-out. No idea what he was into these days. Something a bit iffy, he’d not be too surprised, but he’d no idea what.’
‘And Parsons? He knew Jamie Parsons?’
‘Just a name, he reckons. Heard it a few times, bandied around. Wouldn’t know him if he bumped into him on the street. Not that he’ll be doing that any time soon.’
‘You believed him?’
‘Like I believe water flows uphill, yes, I believed him. Not the same as having proof.’
‘And we still haven’t been able to shake his alibi for the Andronic murder?’
‘Not so far.’
Karen sighed; shuffled some papers across her desk. ‘The car. Camden. Better news there?’
‘Some. Stolen from outside a house in Totteridge twenty-four hours earlier. Right off the drive.’
‘Reported?’
Ramsden nodded. ‘Some bigwig with a firm of financial consultants in the City. Bonafides checked down to the colour of his socks.’
‘Not turned up since?’
‘No, but it will. Dumped somewhere. Likely torched.’ Ramsden shook his head. ‘Bloody waste. Nice motor like that. Next to brand new.’
‘And Tottenham? Hector Prince?’
‘Still waiting on Trident.’
Karen held a breath; released it slowly. ‘Okay, press on. We’ll talk again later.’
‘I don’t doubt.’
Karen switched on her computer. Time for a quick rattle through her emails before checking her in-tray, getting some shape into the day.
Tim Costello was back by mid-afternoon. First signs were the weapon used was a 9mm pistol, most likely a Glock. Pretty much the weapon of choice. Forensics would be checking the ammo against that used in Walthamstow and the chance it might have come from the same batch that had originated in Deptford, the pistol also.
‘Okay, Tim,’ Karen said. ‘Let me know how things develop.’
She’d seen the victim’s naked body in the morgue, the Walthamstow murder, skinny arms popped with needle marks, lesions on his skin. His face, parchment white, the face of a boy, a young man never growing old. Another victim, she thought, of the same lack of opportunity and education as Hector Prince. A different colour, but the same skewed culture.
For a moment, she closed her eyes, as if in prayer.
But praying, as she knew, no longer got it done.
Perhaps it never had.
The phone rang and she answered it. Listened, making brief notes as she did so. Dialled another number, internal, passed the information on, setting another line of inquiry in motion. It was what you did. Kept going through the procedures, fingers crossed, hoping sooner or later something would fall into your lap.
Karen shook her head. You did what was possible. Conscientiously. Avoiding error. And at the end of the day you went home. Never leaving it all quite behind.
As if you could.
27
Cape Cornwall was where Cordon sometimes went when he wanted to be alone and think; also to remember. And marvel. The extremity of the ocean that tipped out at that point against the rock. He zipped up his heavy jacket and started to climb; stood, finally, at the summit, facing out, oblivious to the wind, the cold.
He had come here first with his father, racing him to the top and then, breathless, pointing out beyond the lighthouse to the waves, the possibility of seals, pods of dolphins, basking sharks. His father focusing the binoculars, patient, waiting. The young Cordon anxious, eager to be up and moving, scrambling down the monument then round, faster and faster each time.
‘For God’s sake, sit still for a moment. Go on, it won’t hurt you, sit.’
