Good Bait (28 page)

‘It's getting cold, let's go inside.'

Once there she kept her distance, refilled her glass and took it into the other room; switched on the TV and sat, half-watching, chatting inconsequentially as if nothing had happened. When, an hour or so later, she said goodnight, her fingers brushed his neck as they had once before and left him wondering what, if anything, that meant.

Listening, through the lowered television sound, he heard her enter the bathroom, then leave, and then the closing of her bedroom door. Minutes later, he switched off the TV, went back into the kitchen and saw to the dishes, made sure the doors were locked and secure.

A half-inch of light showed under the door of Letitia's room.

In the near-darkness, Cordon held his breath, then turned away, crossing to his own room, his own bed. And lay there, still listening, half-expecting her to come to him.

Three nights later, without hint or warning, she did. Her first touch breaking him from sleep.

‘What …?'

There was light enough through the shutters to see the smile forming on her face, the outline of her breasts beneath the T-shirt that she wore, the dark patch between her legs.

‘Letitia, you …'

‘Yes?'

‘You can't …'

‘Oh, Cordon, why don't you just shut up?'

Leaning down she kissed him hard, her hand reaching for him through the sheet.

He gasped at her touch and, as he arched his back, she dipped her head and took one nipple, then the other, in her mouth, licking, teasing them tight, taking them between her teeth and biting gently, then enough to hurt.

Slowly, she ran her tongue along his chest and up into the hollows of his neck, the corners of his mouth, his eyes, his mouth again, and then, suddenly, hutching up her legs, she slid down, taking him inside her, deep inside, deep – ‘Oh, Christ!' – Cordon shouting out, head back, mouth wide, eyes screwed tight as she pressed down on him again until her hips ground against his and he thrust back, shouting, shouting her name, her voice rising against his – ‘Come on, Cordon, for fuck's sake! Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck!' – Cordon grasping her hair, wet and slippery now with sweat, and then, with a wrench, rolling her over until he was above her, bearing down, wanting to bury himself inside her, hard, hard as he could, wanting to hurt her, yes, hurt her, hear her scream. ‘You fucker! You fucker! You fuck!'

Later he would think that beneath everything he heard the door, the sudden forward step, sensed the sweep of an arm and began to turn, but it was all lost inside Letitia's scream, whether of orgasm or what she'd just seen over his shoulder he'd never know, and then something metallic slammed hard against his head, then again full in the face, not once, but twice, and all he knew was a lance of searing pain, then nothing at all.

45

They arrested Dennis Broderick at Heathrow: Broderick intent on catching a few rays at Sharm El Sheikh, ten days booked at the five-star Savoy Hotel on White Knight Beach, garden-view room at a special bargain price, all meals included. He was helping himself to an extra portion of hors d'oeuvres in the business-class lounge when Karen approached him, Ramsden at her shoulder, other officers at the doors – Warren Cormack back at headquarters, happy to leave the fieldwork to others and concentrate on the search for the missing Volvo.

When Karen put a hand on his forearm Broderick jerked back, spilling sour cherry sauce down the front of his lightweight linen suit, worn in anticipation of the Egyptian sun.

‘Dennis, whatever is it?'

Emphatically not Mrs Broderick, his companion was somewhere in her early thirties, peddling twenty-five. All those hours on the sunbed and a painful full Brazilian bikini wax about to go to waste.

The downward turn to her mouth was severe.

Ramsden cupped a hand beneath her elbow and ushered her to where a female officer was waiting.

Broderick did his best to stare Karen down, then, when that failed, began blustering: mistaken identity, false arrest. Only at the mention of his being marched out of there in handcuffs did he fall quiet.

‘I'm not saying another word,' he said, ‘till I've contacted my lawyer.'

‘Good idea,' Karen replied pleasantly and stood aside while two of the officers led him away.

Forensics had found quite copious traces of blood belonging to bothValentyn Horak and one of his henchmen in the building on Wing aerodrome. Checking out the Ford Transit, which was found, stripped of its number plates, at the rear of the D & J Foods storage area off the Al, proved more difficult. The assumption was that heavy plastic had been used as an inner liner, covering walls and floor, and set carefully in place before the bodies were transported; after which the interior was carefully washed out after the load was delivered. Not just washed, scrubbed within an inch of its life.

No prints, nary a one.

Painstaking work with Luminol did, however, finally reveal several minute traces of blood between the flange and panelling on the rear door. Sufficient to obtain a match: proof positive Horak's body had been in the van.

It was agreed that Karen would begin questioning Broderick, Ramsden in attendance; Cormack would be watching via a video link in an adjoining room and able to speak to Karen through a small attachment, newsreader style, behind her ear.

Broderick's lawyer was sandy haired, spectacled, off-the-peg suit, leather briefcase stuffed to the gills; the mints on his breath not quite strong enough to disguise the garlic in whatever he'd recently been eating.

The air in the room stale, yesterday's air, the temperature a notch or two too high.

Broderick fidgeted with the lapels at the front of his suit jacket; stopped; started again. A quick look towards Karen, then down at the table. Scratches, pencil marks, daubs of Biro, veins of sweat that had sunk into the grain.

‘Tell us,' Karen said, ‘about the van.'

‘Van?'

‘Ford Transit 350, diamond white, manual transmission. Registered, June 2007. Mileage, 51,302. Leased from Webster Garage and Autohire in Milton Keynes on behalf of D & J Foods. That van. Paperwork in your name. See?'

She swivelled a photocopy of the agreement round on the desk, counted a slow three, swivelled it back.

‘Your signature, agreed?'

‘Seems to be, yes.'

‘Seems?'

‘All right, yes. So what?'

‘You personally leased this van?'

‘Yes.'

‘For what purpose?'

For a moment, he blanked.

‘Simple question, why, when you did, did you lease the van?'

‘My client,' the solicitor said, intervening, ‘runs a successful and expanding business which trades across the South-East of the country and up into East Anglia. As such, additions to the delivery fleet are a quite normal part of its operations.'

‘Absolutely,' Karen said. ‘Very nicely put. But our interest is in one particular vehicle. The uses to which it might have been put.'

‘Uses?' Broderick said. ‘Uses? You've just been told. Meeting orders, making deliveries, what do you think?You want to see the manifests, I can show you. Two hundred and fifty precooked meals to a primary school in Spalding. More of the same to a group of nursing homes in Saffron Walden. Vacuum-packed sausages and salamis to Londis stores right across Essex, from Chelmsford to the Thames fucking Estuary.'

Patches of bright colour stood out on his cheeks.

‘And these?' Karen said, sliding the photographs from their folder. ‘You delivered these?'

Broderick looked, caught his breath, looked again.

‘Oh, Christ!' he said softly, and angled his head away.

The solicitor leaned forward, then forward again, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing in four glossy 10 x 8s.

‘The bodies of three men,' Karen said. ‘Systematically tortured, mutilated, finally killed. Murdered. Then transported in that van, your van, to a storage unit at Stansted airport. That's the delivery we're interested in.'

All trace of colour had gone from Broderick's face.

‘I'd like a break.'

‘Later.'

‘Now. Please.'

‘My client,' the solicitor said, ‘has just undergone a considerable shock—'

‘I'm sorry, we need to continue.'

‘Then I insist that my protest be documented–'

‘Five minutes,' Cormack said in Karen's ear. ‘Five minutes, ten. No harm.'

‘Very well,' Karen said. ‘A short break, agreed.'

She didn't like it, but she knew Cormack was right: the last thing they wanted, whatever Broderick might say rendered inadmissible by accusations of shock tactics, statements obtained under duress.

When Broderick sat across from her again, some ten minutes later, he seemed calmer, a degree more composed.

‘Have you any idea,' Karen asked, ‘how your van–?'

‘Not my van.'

‘Your firm's van, could have been used in the way I've described?'

‘If it was.'

‘It was.'

He looked as if he were about to argue the point, but, after a quick head shake from his solicitor, changed his mind. ‘None at all.'

‘After it was leased, the van was kept where?'

‘The Bedford depot.'

‘Off the Al?'

‘The Al, right.'

‘Not at Wing?'

‘No.'

‘You do have a storage unit there?'

‘Not any more.'

‘So the van …'

‘The van would have been based at Bedford, as I said.'

‘And how many people would have had access to it there? Yourself aside.'

‘Four? Five? Possibly more.'

‘How many more?'

‘I don't know. I can't say for sure.'

‘Run a tight ship,' Ramsden observed.

‘The keys to all the vans are kept in the office,' Broderick said. ‘Other than at night, they're not locked away.'

‘So anyone could come along, just borrow one of your vehicles?'

‘In theory, yes.'

‘In practice?'

‘In practice there's a daily schedule, someone there in the office, logging them in and out.'

‘Twenty-four hours?'

‘Um?'

‘Logging them out, twenty-four hours a day?'

‘Obviously not.'

‘You don't keep a check on mileage?'

‘If one of the vehicles was getting a lot of extra use it would be noticed, yes, but otherwise, no.'

‘And do they get used?' Ramsden asked. ‘Your employees, personal use. Outside normal hours. That happens? Running the kids to the football, stuff like that?'

‘Sometimes, yes.'

‘Use them sometimes yourself?'

‘Once in a while.'

‘Recently?'

‘Not recently.'

‘You sound very certain.'

‘I am.'

‘How can you be so sure?'

‘I know, because apart from shifting it round the yard a couple of times, since we took delivery of that van, I doubt I've been behind the wheel.'

‘Well, somebody was.'

‘Yes, well. That's sort of your problem then, isn't it? Not mine. So if there's nothing else …'

He glanced at his solicitor, who gave a small nod.

‘I do think,' the solicitor said, ‘my client has helped you all he can.'

Broderick started to rise, push back his chair.

‘Ask him about Gordon Dooley,' Cormack said in Karen's ear.

‘Gordon Dooley,' Karen said. ‘He's a friend of yours?'

‘Gordon?' Broderick hesitated, sat back down. ‘Yes, why?'

‘A good friend?'

‘Ye-es.'

‘Close.'

‘Not exactly, no.'

‘But you've known him a long time?' Karen asked.

‘Since we were kids.'

‘At school together.'

‘That's right.'

‘Since when you've kept in touch.'

‘Pretty much.'

‘And this friendship, how would you define it?'

‘I'm not sure what you mean.'

‘Social or what?' Ramsden asked. ‘Drink down the pub, dinner a few times a year with the wives. Birthdays, stuff like that?'

‘Yes. Yes, that's right.'

‘And business?'

‘What business?'

‘That's what we're asking you.'

‘No, not really.'

‘Joint ventures?'

Broderick shook his head.

‘Not what we've heard.'

‘Heard? Who from?'

‘Your wife, for one.'

‘That bitch! All she knows is the price of Botox and which delivery boy's worth a quick fuck.'

‘That's as maybe.' Karen said. ‘But according to her, you and Gordon Dooley had a business relationship in the past. Probably not the kind could be traced back through Companies House.'

‘Fuck off,' Broderick said, but without conviction.

‘You know, of course, what your friend Dooley's business is these days?'

Broderick affected to give it some thought. ‘Some kind of buying and selling? Scrap, he was into that for a while, I know. Stripping out old houses and flogging the proceeds.' He shrugged. ‘That kind of thing, I suppose.'

‘Drugs,' Karen said.

‘Do what?'

‘Cannabis, amphetamines, heroin, cocaine. Take your pick. About as many outlets across the country as you've got for your whatever it is, chorizo and corned beef.'

‘I wouldn't know. Didn't know.'

‘You disapprove?'

‘His business is his business.'

‘No matter what?'

‘Look,' Broderick aimed a finger, ‘Gordon's breaking the law, and I'm not saying he is, your affair, not mine.'

‘We're in danger of losing it,' Cormack said. ‘Get back to the van.'

‘Why you?' Karen said.

‘What?'

‘Surely you've got people working for you who can do jobs like that? Why did you personally go and lease the van?'