‘Particular.’
‘For once, no one’s telling me anything. I had a meeting with Warren scheduled for yesterday and he cancelled. Charlie’s busy ferreting around, doing whatever it is Charlie does.’ She laughed, a warm sound down the line. ‘If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was the boys playing with boys’ toys, keeping all the fun to themselves.’
‘Surely not.’
Alex laughed again. ‘First thing I do hear, I’ll let you know.’
That was that.
Stooping, Karen scooped up water in her hand, and, ice cold, it ran back between her fingers, torn a little, sideways, by the wind.
Time to move on.
As she straightened, something snagged her attention: amongst those busily walking either way along the path, a young woman standing quite still on the rise beyond the pond’s end. As if watching, looking on. Hooded jacket zipped close about her face.
Just a moment more and then she turned and, merging with the others, began to walk away.
Karen started after her, stopped.
Her mobile claiming her attention.
Again.
Ramsden.
Again.
Officers from Operation Trident, with whom he’d been liaising, were poised to make arrests the following day in connection with Hector Prince’s murder.
‘You’re going along?’ Karen asked.
‘Just for the ride.’
Little, Karen knew, he liked better than the pre-dawn raid, the battering ram, the chase upstairs, the outflung boot, the fist of steel. The stuff that small boys’ and middle-aged detectives’ dreams are made of.
‘Mike,’ she said. ‘Keep your head down, okay?’
He called her a rude name in reply.
Karen bunched her empty coffee cup in her hand and, dropping it in the nearest bin, made her way back towards the car.
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:
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.’
