by James Craig
‘No, no, of course not.’ He knew better than to get into an argument with his wife on the subject of Third World countries.
‘You must have plenty of leave you can take.’
‘Mm.’
‘Come on, you never use it all up.’
‘It’s not as easy as that, as you well know. Maybe I could come for the second week. Let me talk to Simpson.’
‘Okay.’ Turning away from him, Helen signalled the end of the conversation. Within a few moments, she was snoring gently. Lying in the darkness, Carlyle stared at the ceiling, coming to terms with the impending trip.
TWENTY-SEVEN
A bored-looking Paul Groom sat behind a desk in the interview room, flanked by two men in suits. Both of the suits, dwarfed by the young goalkeeper, looked old and shrunken. Carlyle recognized the one on his left, an ambulance-chasing lawyer called Kenneth Moynahan, but the other, he had never seen before. Better dressed than either Groom or Moynahan, the third man ignored the inspector’s entrance as he tapped away ostentatiously on his iPad.
Carlyle nodded at Moynahan and glared at Groom, who made a half-hearted attempt to hold his eye, giving up almost immediately.
‘Who are you?’ Carlyle asked the man with the iPad.
The man finished what he was typing and put the tablet down on the desk. He then offered the inspector a limp hand. ‘Wayne Devine, pleased to meet you.’
Ignoring the man’s hand, Carlyle glanced at Moynahan but the lawyer’s expression was giving nothing away.
‘And what are you doing here, Mr Devine?’
Devine grinned as if that should be obvious. ‘I’m Mr Groom’s agent.’
Moynahan began doodling frantically on a notepad on the desk in front of him. He looked as if he was trying hard not to smile.
Getting ready to work himself up into a state of aggravated annoyance, Carlyle planted his hands on his hips. ‘Excuse me?’
Slipping a business card across the table, Devine sat back in his chair. Looking Carlyle up and down, he decided that he would have to take things slowly with the stupid plod. ‘I represent—’
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ Whoever gave the agent access to the interview room was gonna be in big trouble, once Carlyle got hold of them. He glanced down at the card. At the top, in bold red lettering, it bore the legend DF&K Associates.
Unable to keep the smirk from his face any longer, Moynahan ducked under the desk, on the pretence of getting something from his case. Groom was still staring into space, giving no indication that he was following the conversation at all.
‘Mr . . .’ Carlyle stole another quick look at the card: ‘Devine.’ He gestured around the interview room. ‘In here, Mr Groom is Mr Moynahan’s client. We are here in relation to a very serious investigation.’
The agent sighed. ‘I am well aware of the situation, Inspector. What you have to understand is—’
‘What you have to understand,’ Carlyle hissed, leaning across the table and jabbing an angry index finger in front of the agent’s face, ‘is that if you don’t get your arse out of this fucking room right now, I will have you charged with both accessory to murder and obstruction of justice.’
‘But—’
‘You have precisely thirty seconds to get out of this room and out of this building.’
Devine looked past his client towards Moynahan.
‘I think,’ said the lawyer quietly, ‘the inspector has made his position quite clear.’
‘Very well,’ said Devine evenly. Getting to his feet, he addressed Groom directly. ‘Remember, Paul, just sit tight. Say nothing until I get back to you.’ Nodding at Moynahan, he picked up his iPad and stalked out.
‘What the fuck are you playing at?’ Carlyle asked the lawyer as the door closed and the agent disappeared down the corridor.
Moynahan was neither apologetic nor insightful. ‘Nothing to do with me.’
Rubbing his neck, Carlyle wondered quite where they should go from here. His dilemma was solved by the appearance of Umar with a large mug of steaming tea in his hand. Putting the mug on the table, he pulled up a chair and sat down next to the inspector. Unshaven, with dark rings under his eyes, his dishevelled appearance immediately made Carlyle feel better.
‘Tough night?’
Umar nodded as he sucked up some of the tea from his mug. ‘I got two hours’ sleep.’ He waved his mug in the direction of Groom. ‘You could at least have played at home, couldn’t you?’
For the first time, the vaguest flicker of an expression crossed Groom’s face.
‘And you got beat.’ Umar added gratuitously.
The goalie shrugged. ‘Shit happens.’
It speaks, thought Carlyle.
‘Shall we get started?’ Moynahan asked.
‘My sergeant will conduct the interview.’ Carlyle said, standing up. He grinned at Groom. ‘Feel free to confess, given that we know you did it. Save everyone a lot of time.’
Without waiting for any response, he headed back upstairs.
Back at his desk, Carlyle decided he needed a break from the station. Grabbing his jacket, he headed back downstairs and nipped across Agar Street, heading towards the piazza. Outside the Box Café on Henrietta Street, he caught the eye of Myron Sabo and signalled that he wanted a green tea. Remaining on the pavement, he pulled out his private pay-as-you-go Nokia from one pocket, and Clifford Blitz’s business card from another. With some difficulty, he laboriously typed in Clifford Blitz’s number and hit Call.
To his surprise, Gavin Swann’s agent picked up almost before he had time to lift the handset to his ear.
‘Blitz.’
‘It’s John Carlyle from—’
‘Inspector,’ said Blitz, all business, ‘how are things going with Mr Groom?’
‘The investigation is proceeding,’ Carlyle said stiffly, ‘but that’s not why I’m ringing.’
‘Let me guess,’ Blitz sighed, ‘you would like some tickets for a game and—’
‘No, no,’ Carlyle interrupted. ‘I wanted to ask you about something you said when we last spoke.’
‘Hold on.’
Down the line, Carlyle could hear Blitz bark a series of instructions to a hapless minion. Among the words that were clearly distinguishable were ‘Laurent Perrier’ and ‘blow’. Overlooking that, the inspector waited patiently for the agent to come back on the line.
‘Fire away.’
‘When we were talking last time,’ Carlyle said cautiously, ‘you said that you had received bullets in the post.’
‘Yeah,’ Blitz replied. ‘It’s happened a few times, always the same carry-on: some lame-brain with the imagination of a pea wants to threaten you. Thinks that all they have to do is pop a little something in the post.’ He paused to shout a few more instructions to his assistant before coming back on the line. ‘Why do you ask? Is someone trying to put the frighteners on you?’ He let out a loud gaffaw.
‘No, no,’ Carlyle lied, thinking about the three cartridges in the still-unopened envelope that was locked in a drawer in his desk. ‘It’s just something that’s come up in another investigation; nothing to do with Gavin Swann.’
‘Oh.’ If Blitz was curious, he kept it well hidden. ‘I gotta go, Inspector. All I can say is that you don’t have to worry about the kind of people who do this sort of thing. In my experience, it’s always bullshit. They never have the balls to follow through.’
‘No?’ Carlyle asked, wanting to be convinced.
‘It’s strictly for tosspots whose balls haven’t dropped. Real criminals don’t make threats,’ Blitz sniggered, ‘as I’m sure you know.’
‘Yes,’ said Carlyle, not sure that he knew at all.
‘Put it this way,’ Blitz said. ‘If it was me, and I was really pissed off, I wouldn’t send you a bullet, I’d blow your fucking head off.’
‘About Mr Swann,’ Carlyle started, but Blitz had already hung up. Through the window, Myron held up a mug, to show Carlyle that his drink was ready. Nodding
, the inspector gestured for him to put it on the table next to where he was standing. Staying outside, he called another number.
Silver answered on the third ring. ‘I was wondering when you were going to get in touch. What’s happening?’
‘Nothing good.’ Carlyle quickly brought him up to speed with a brief run-through of selected recent events.
When he finished, there was a pause.
Finally, Dom spoke. ‘No lecture this time?’
‘No.’
‘Good, because I’m getting more than enough of that at home.’
Carlyle kept his mouth clamped firmly shut.
‘Where are you now?’
‘The piazza.’
‘Okay.’ Dom gave him the address of a bar in Soho. ‘Meet me there in fifteen minutes.’
‘Make it half an hour.’ Ending the call, the inspector went into the café, nabbing a copy of the Metro that one of the other customers had left behind. Unfolding the paper, he turned, as was his wont, to the back page, which was dominated by a picture of Gavin Swann hobbling out of a game after being injured. The story was based around a quote from his manager saying that he hoped to have his star striker back playing within the next couple of weeks.
‘The boy should be back in training on Monday,’ the manager said, ‘and we’ll take it from there. Obviously, he will have to work on his match fitness levels but he’s been living like a monk since the injury and I know that he’s in great shape. I want to get Gavin back on the pitch as soon as possible, certainly before the end of the month.’
A horrible thought popped into Carlyle’s head: Swann’s return should be just in time for the game against Fulham. That was the last thing that his struggling team needed. Maybe I should arrest the little sod, he thought, put his recovery back a bit. After all, we can do with all the help we can get.
For a moment, he gave the idea some serious consideration. Then his eye caught the teaser at the bottom of the story: KEEPER QUESTIONED OVER HOTEL DEATH, P. 6.
It was beyond a miracle that Swann’s name had, so far, been kept away from the case. Whether you loathed them or detested them, British journalists were normally relentless in their pursuit of stories like this. Tabloid hacks in particular had shown time and time again that they were far better at tracking down both people and information than the police themselves. And the inspector had absolutely no doubt whatsoever that every paper on the news-stand would have been called by someone at Charing Cross wanting to sell them some gossip about Swann’s alleged involvement.
The only explanation Carlyle could come up with was that Clifford Blitz was one hell of an operator. Doubtless, he was trading favours and making threats like they were going out of fashion to protect Swann, helped by the fact that an army of £1,000-an-hour lawyers would be trying to bludgeon every hack in town into submission. The inspector felt a grudging admiration for Blitz; very few people were able to play this kind of game with any measure of success. It was almost impossible to beat the press at their own game.
Flicking through the paper, he came to the story on page six just as Myron appeared at the next table and began clearing it away. He was staring at the inspector.
‘What?’ Carlyle snapped.
‘You’ve got glasses.’ Myron wiped his hands on a tea towel with a picture of Buckingham Palace on it that was hanging over his shoulder. ‘Makes you look . . . different.’ Without waiting for a reply, he retreated behind the counter to take payment from a customer waiting by the till.
Shit, Carlyle thought, I don’t even remember that I’m wearing the bloody things now. Surely a sign that I’m getting more decrepit in both mind and body. A pang of self-pity was quickly replaced by the realization that there was sod all he could do about it.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Zatoichi was situated at the northern end of Beak Street. As he walked in, a creature in a black vest with orange hair scowled at him from behind the bar. On balance, Carlyle decided that it was probably female.
With a sigh, she gestured across the empty room. ‘We’re closed.’ To his plebeian ear, the accent sounded South African, or maybe Australian.
He took another couple of steps towards the bar. ‘I’m here to see Mr Silver.’
If mention of the boss’s name had any effect, it didn’t show. ‘Are you the cop?’
Carlyle felt anger flare in his chest. For fuck’s sake, Dominic, why not tell everyone who I am? He nodded.
The girl gestured to a set of stairs at the end of the bar. ‘He’s in the office, second floor.’
Jogging up the stairs, Carlyle found himself seriously winded by the time he reached the blue door marked PRIVATE: STAFF ONLY. As he walked into the room, Dominic Silver looked up from behind his desk and grinned.
‘Nice specs,’ he noted, pushing his own, rimless frames further up his nose. He was wearing an ancient Kurt Cobain T-shirt, which made him look like a fifty-year-old student.
‘I know, I know,’ said Carlyle grumpily. ‘They make me look “different”.’
‘They make you look old.’
Gesturing over his shoulder, Carlyle quickly changed the subject. ‘Where did you get Lisbeth Salander?’ he asked, giving a name-check to Stieg Larsson’s anti-heroine.
‘Michela?’ Dom laughed. ‘She might be borderline autistic, but I don’t think she’s very good with computers or guns.’
‘You don’t do customer service then?’ Parking himself in the low leather chair in front of the desk, Carlyle looked round the office. The bar, in various incarnations, had been part of Dom’s portfolio of businesses for many years now and the inspector had been here several times before. The room had, however, been redecorated since his last visit, in a bright, minimalist style. To Carlyle’s untrained eye, the furniture looked like it came from IKEA but he knew that it was more likely to have been purchased at some top-end West End retailer like Heal’s or the Avram store. To his left, a large window gave a view down Regent Street towards Piccadilly Circus; on the opposite wall, above a tattered brown leather sofa, hung a massive screen print of The Island, one of Stephen Walter’s series of idiosyncratic maps of London, full of humour and autobiographical detail. Carlyle wasn’t a great one for art, but he knew that he could find infinite pleasure exploring Walter’s work, in the unlikely event that he could ever afford to put one on his wall. He searched unsuccessfully for Charing Cross, somewhere in the centre of the dense forest of detail. This was one time when his spectacles wouldn’t help; the piece could only be properly viewed with the aid of the large Silverline magnifying glass sitting on the corner of Dom’s desk.
‘The customers love her,’ said Dom, bringing Carlyle back to more mundane matters. ‘Michela’s a great girl. You work in here, you have to be a bit robust, otherwise you wouldn’t last a single shift. Michela’s been here almost two years now.’ Both of them knew that was the best part of a lifetime in the transitory world of Soho. He gestured at an empty plastic drinks container on his desk. ‘Want a juice?’
Carlyle felt vaguely tempted. ‘What is it today?’
‘It’s an Organic Eggnog Super Smoothie.’
Carlyle made a face.
‘It’s from the juice bar next door,’ Silver told him. ‘It really is good stuff. I can get Michela to nip round and get you one.’
‘It’s okay.’ Carlyle held up a hand. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Okay.’ Sitting forward in his chair, Dom started drumming his fingers on the table. For a moment, Carlyle wondered if he might be partaking of his own product.
Then: ‘The matter in hand.’
‘Yes?’ Carlyle replied.
Dom stopped drumming as quickly as he had started. ‘I’ve got a plan,’ he said, picking up a Mont Blanc fountain pen from the desk.
Oh, have you? Let’s hear it then.
Silver unscrewed the cap and scribbled something down on the A5 pad on the desk in front of him. Tearing off the top sheet, he waved it in front of Carlyle, like a doctor bestowing a prescription.
Carlyle leaned over and accepted the offering. Sitting back down, he looked at the address Dom had given him. ‘Docklands?’
Dom nodded. ‘It’s a small office block. Get your people to check it out; top floor.’
‘My people?’
‘Someone you can trust.’
‘That narrows it down,’ Carlyle snorted.
Dom put the cap back on the pen and tossed it onto the table. ‘Someone who is reliable; who cannot be directly connected to you by an outsider.’
‘Mm.’
‘No one from Charing Cross.’
‘Okay.’ Carlyle started going through a list of possible colleagues in his head. ‘What will they find when they get there?’
‘The place is currently being squatted by a bunch of students complaining about “locals” being priced out of the neighbourhood.’
‘Great.’ Carlyle could already imagine the pitched battle when the police went in.
Dom smiled weakly. ‘Free security. What they don’t know is that in the ceiling there is stashed some 40 kilos of coke. Not great stuff, but reasonably pure.’
‘Not yours, presumably.’
Dom sat back in his chair and brought his hands together, the tips of his fingers touching as he adopted a pose of earnest contemplation. ‘It’s supposed to be a joint venture but ultimately, the stuff belongs to the Samurai.’
‘Your business partner.’
‘My soon-to-be ex-business partner.’ Dom held up his hands in surrender. ‘I have already admitted my mistake in getting into bed with Tuco Martinez, so I think it is time we should all move on.’
Carlyle nodded graciously.
‘If Tuco loses this load,’ Dom continued, ‘it will seriously bugger up his operations. Throw in his problems with his moronic son and I think he’ll have to abandon his plans to expand in the UK.’
‘You think?’ Carlyle had intended to raise the issue of the three bullets in the envelope that had been handed to Alice, but now he decided to leave it. If they could run Tuco out of town, it would be problem solved.
Dom thought about it for a moment. ‘Yeah. Alain Costello will get sent down for a good stretch but will probably get transferred back to a French prison fairly quickly . . .’
