‘I don’t remember.’
‘Try.’
Broderick gave a theatrical sigh, assumed the face of the sorely put-upon. ‘Far as I recall, we had one van in for long-term repairs, another had broken down somewhere the day before. Hitchin, Hertford, Hatfield, one of those.’
‘And that’s why you leased the van?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not because Gordon Dooley asked you?’
‘Dooley? What the hell’s Dooley got to do with this?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’
‘You sure that’s not why he phoned you three days running, up to and including the day the van was hired?’
‘I doubt Gordon’s phoned me three days running his whole life.’
‘Our records show otherwise.’
‘I trust,’ the solicitor said, ‘you haven’t been accessing my client’s phone records without a warrant?’
Karen smiled.
‘Or hacking into his mobile phone?’
‘Who d’you think we are?’ Ramsden grinned. ‘
‘What I suggest,’ Karen said, ‘Dooley phoned you three days before you went out to Milton Keynes, wanting you to get hold of a van in such a way there would be no clear link back to himself. Could be you needed a little persuading.’
‘Bullshit,’ Broderick said. ‘Never happened. Absolute bloody fantasy.’
‘Conjecture,’ said his solicitor. ‘Fishing expedition, pure and simple. Only this time, no bait.’ He tapped Broderick on the shoulder. ‘We’re leaving.’
‘I’d like to put on record,’ Karen said, ‘our thanks to Mr Broderick for so wholeheartedly helping us with our inquiries.’
She managed to hold her smile till he’d left the room.
46
The Centre Hospitalier de Guingamp was on the rue de l’Armor, one of the principal roads winding north from the town centre. Kiley had spent enough time in hospitals to recognise the antiseptic smell, the mixture of frayed hope and resignation on patients’ faces, the hushed purposiveness of staff as they busied this way and that. He could remember the forced cheerfulness of the surgeon after the second, failed, operation on his leg.
Cordon was in a side room at the end of the ward, a window looking out on to a phalanx of tall firs, their branches bright from the recent rain.
A drip had recently been detached, the stand still close alongside the bed. Bandages around the head, traversing the corner of one swollen eye, stitches threading their way across bruised skin.
The rest of his face was bloodless, pale.
In the way that people in hospital frequently did, he looked to have aged ten years at least.
‘Took your fucking time,’ Cordon said.
‘Few things to arrange. Came when I could.’
‘Good of you to bother.’
‘Call I got, made out you were at death’s door. ‘Stead of a few bumps and bruises. Couple of cracked ribs. Might not’ve hurried if I’d known.’
‘Bastards must’ve put the boot in when I was out.’
‘Lucky it was nothing worse.’
Cordon knew it to be true: he could have lost an eye; he could have been dead.
‘Want to tell me what happened?’ Kiley moved a book, sat on the side of the bed.
‘What’s to tell? Whoever it was got somehow into the house, a window at the back somewhere, I don’t know. Suckered me. Left me unconscious. When I came round, Letitia and Danny had gone. Car disabled, something with the carburetter, I don’t know, tyres fucked. After God knows how long I managed to crawl as far as the lane, rouse the old man. Must have passed out again after that. Woke up here. Tubes sticking out of me like some bloody porcupine. Someone from the local gendarmerie waiting at the end of the bed.’
‘How much d’you get away with telling them?’
‘Between my French and his English, not a great deal. Attempted burglary, that’s what I said. Woke and caught them in the act, got this for my troubles. Too dark, too quick to be able to give a description. Left it at that.’
‘You didn’t mention Letitia? The boy?’
Cordon shook his head.
‘How about Kosach? Anton?’
He shook his head again. Not a good idea. Winced at the pain.
‘Down to him though, you reckon?’
‘Difficult to see what else.’
‘And you think that’s where they are now? With him?’
‘Good bet, I’d say.’
‘He can’t just keep them prisoner.’
‘He can try.’
A nurse stepped into the space, hovered, went away. The low hum from the central heating continued, unabated. Outside, the rain had started up again, buffeting the windows.
‘When this happened,’ Kiley said, ‘there was no warning?’
‘No.’
‘I’m surprised they got the drop on you, all the same.’
‘Preoccupied,’ Cordon said. ‘A little preoccupied.’
Kiley read the look in Cordon’s good eye. Made the universal sign. ‘Thought it wasn’t like that between you?’
‘It’s not.’
‘What was this then? A one-off? Pair of you got carried away? Or just a little something to alleviate the boredom?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Not to me. But it might make it tougher for her with Anton, if he knows she’s been screwing around.’
‘I wouldn’t exactly call it that. Besides, he knows she’s no angel. And Danny’s what he wants, not Letitia.’
‘In that case, why not just take the boy?’
‘Would have been difficult, bringing him out of France, back into the country on his own. All that much easier if Letitia agrees to play along.’
‘She’d do that?’
‘Pragmatic, that’s Letitia. Besides, I can’t see she’d’ve had a lot of choice.’
Kiley walked across to the window and looked out. The sky, shadings of deep purple and the occasional yellowish streak, was a similar colour to the skin round Cordon’s left eye.
‘You know,’ Kiley said, ‘I came to Brittany once when I was a kid. First time ever in France. Cycling holiday with the school. Some kind of exchange. First night a bunch of us shook off the teachers, went into town. First one cafe, then the next. One after another, pointing at the bottles behind the bar. Spending what little bit of money we
