by James Craig
She nodded, and this time he let her go.
‘What if someone asks about the cash?’ she queried shakily, straightening her blouse.
Blitz shook his head. ‘They won’t.’
‘But if they do?’ she persisted.
‘Just send them to me,’ Blitz sighed. ‘I’ll explain it was a pay-off for a story that never happened. If you stay out of London, no one will care,’ he added. ‘I don’t want to hear that you’re round and about here ever again.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Kelly said huffily. Getting to her feet, she took her jacket from the back of the chair. ‘I’m going. Who needs London anyway? They have footballers in Manchester, you know.’
As she bent over to pick up her bag, Blitz eyed her rear, displayed to good effect in a pair of Moschino jeans. He fingered the room-card key in his pocket.
‘Hey, Kelly.’
Hoisting the bag over her shoulder, she straightened up. ‘What?’ she scowled.
‘I suppose a quick blow job is out of the question?’
THIRTY
Alison Roche glanced at her watch. She was a third of the way through her session with Wolf, and the psychiatrist had yet to say a single word. That was fine by her but, after more than fifteen minutes of silence, she was beginning to worry that something might be wrong with the doctor. ‘Just your bloody luck,’ she mumbled to herself. ‘They send you to see a shrink and he starts losing his own bloody marbles!’
‘Huh?’ Wolf brought his gaze down from the ceiling as if he was recognizing her presence in his office for the first time. Today he was wearing a shapeless grey Nike sweatshirt. His hair had been cut short, making him look about ten years older, and his blue eyes seemed paler than Roche remembered. His wedding band lay on the desk, next to Roche’s file. ‘I’m sorry . . . Sergeant,’ he said softly. ‘I missed that.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Roche replied, ‘it was nothing.’ Shifting her position in the armchair, she looked around the room; as far as she could tell, it was still littered with the same family photos and books. The only change was that the framed poster for The Wild Bunch had been removed and replaced by one for Alien.
‘You’ve changed the poster.’ Roche pointed at the wall.
‘Yes,’ Wolf nodded.
Roche waited for him to say something else, anything else, but he lapsed back into silence. This is beginning to creep me out, she thought. ‘Shall we get started?’
Wolf frowned.
‘With the session.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Wolf opened the notebook on his desk and chose a pencil from the selection that was held in a mug that bore the legend Keep Calm and Carry On. After scribbling something on the pad he looked up and gave Roche a weak smile. ‘Now,’ he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper, ‘where shall we start?’
‘Fucking hell, Carlyle, you never could sing, could you?’ Sitting on a bench in Soho Square, Inspector Julie Crisp laughed indulgently. All he had to do was hum the first few bars of the chorus and she knew who it was. Julie had never really liked The Clash – she was more into Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure – and Carlyle had put her off them for life. His tuneless singing still made her smile, though.
She wondered why he had rung her out of the blue earlier and insisted they meet immediately. Thinking it through in her head, she realized that it must be more than ten years since they last worked together – on Operation Monkey, targeting heroin dealers operating out of Chinatown. Since then, she couldn’t recall them ever having spoken. That was Carlyle, though; you only ever heard from him when he wanted something.
Abruptly ending his rendition of the chorus of ‘Julie’s Been Working for the Drugs Squad’, Carlyle shrugged apologetically. ‘Can’t be good at everything, can I?’
‘Mm,’ Crisp said doubtfully, ‘and I don’t really work for the Drugs Squad these days, either.’
‘No?’ Carlyle’s heart sank. ‘Last I heard, you were working on that case in Stoke Newington.’
‘The Turkish gangs? That had to be at least five years ago.’
‘Christ! I suppose so.’
‘I just got burned out,’ Crisp explained. ‘You know what it’s like, especially with SOCA on your shoulder. Politics, bureaucracy . . . you wind up forgetting that you’re a copper.’
Carlyle nodded. The boys in the Serious Organized Crime Agency were indeed hard work. He made the most sympathetic-sounding noise he could manage. Crisp might not be the best person to receive Dom’s tip-off about the Docklands drugs, but she would have to do; there was no way he was going through formal channels on this one and there was no time to try and hand-pick anyone else.
‘And with three kids . . . well, frankly, it’s hard to know which way is up most of the time.’
‘Three kids?’ The Crisp he remembered had been a bit of a party girl, famous when they worked together in Bethnal Green in the late 1990s for always having a selection of condoms in her pocket. Looking at her now, the impression was more middle-aged cop than yummy mummy. Then again, the children would explain the dark rings under her eyes and the tired expression on her face.
‘Yeah.’ She gave an embarrassed smile. ‘Eight, six and eighteen months.’
Christ, Carlyle thought, I hope you didn’t marry a copper. ‘Anyway,’ he said, moving on before she could pull out any pictures, ‘what I wanted to talk to you about is . . .’
You’re a bloody mug, you are, WPC Heather Wilson said to herself. Trying to ignore the taste of the disgusting tea that she had been given, she gazed out of the window of the homeless men’s hostel in Limehouse and across the Thames. It was her day off and Heather should have been enjoying a trip to Westfield with her mum. She thought about the lovely French Connection dress she’d had her eye on for ages and sighed. She should never have let that cute new sergeant sweettalk her into schlepping round some of the scummiest hostels in London, trying to find someone who knew that dead tramp, even if he had intimated that he might take her on a date. The more Heather thought about it, the less sure she was that he had actually promised to do so. She felt a knot of frustration in her stomach; he was very cute.
‘I’ve met this guy . . .’
Startled, Wilson turned around, knocking her tea all over the table. She jumped up quickly before it ended up on her jeans.
‘Sorry,’ said the young woman who had appeared behind her, ‘that was my fault. Give me a minute; I’ll get some tissues.’ Before Heather could reply, the woman scuttled off in the direction she had come from. It was only when she had disappeared into the toilets that the WPC realized what she had said.
‘Are you sure you don’t want another cup of tea?’ Susie McCarthy asked as she cleared up the mess that Heather Wilson had made with the last one.
‘No,’ said Heather, shuddering inwardly. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Checking that the chair was dry, she sat back down. ‘You were saying – about the picture?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Piling the damp tissue-paper on the far side of the table, Susie tapped on the photograph of Adrian Gasparino’s lifeless face with the index finger of her right hand. Wilson noticed that the nail had been bitten all the way down to the quick. ‘He was here. Didn’t stay for long; just upped and left one day.’ She looked a bit sad. ‘We were sitting here having a conversation, just like now, and he suddenly got his bag and left. Not that uncommon, really. Was he the guy killed near Trafalgar Square?’
‘Yes.’
‘I read about it in the papers. What a shame. Some people are horrible.’
‘Yes, they are.’
‘Really horrible.’
You’re supposed to be a social worker, Heather thought grimly, get used to it. However, she smiled sympathetically. ‘Do you have his details?’
Susie waved at a young man walking past. ‘Yeah. We’ll have the information he gave us when he arrived.’ Pushing the chair back, she got to her feet. ‘It’ll be in the office. I’ll go and get you a copy.’
‘Thank you,’ Wilson said politely. Pulling her
mobile from the pocket of her jacket, she began searching for Umar’s number. ‘Dinner’s on you,’ she smiled to herself, ‘and it’s gonna be expensive.’ Her smile broadened as she realized that she knew exactly the dress for the occasion.
THIRTY-ONE
Standing ramrod straight, the old fella waiting by the door to the Uzmanov Suite reminded the inspector of his neighbour in Covent Garden, Harry Ripley. Wearing a dark navy blazer and a white shirt, he had what Carlyle presumed was the official club tie pulled firmly up to his throat in a half-Windsor knot. The inspector nodded at him pleasantly as he headed inside.
But the doorman stepped nimbly into his path. ‘I’m sorry, sir, you cannot go in.’
‘What?’ Carlyle said irritably. He noticed the man had a name-tag on his lapel: Edward Hopkins.
‘I’m afraid you have not followed the dress code.’ Wrinkling his nose, Hopkins gestured at the inspector’s dishevelled appearance. ‘A jacket and tie are required – and jeans are strictly not allowed.’
What is this, Carlyle wondered, the Royal Opera House or a bloody football ground? Sighing loudly, he pulled his warrant card from the pocket of his coat. ‘Police.’
Hopkins gave the ID the briefest of glances. ‘I’m sorry, sir. Rules are rules.’
Gritting his teeth, Carlyle told himself to take a deep breath and wait for the temptation to arrest the annoying old bugger to subside. Apart from anything else, it wasn’t worth the paperwork. Be calm, he told himself. ‘Mr Hopkins,’ he said quietly, ‘I am here on official business – not so I can eat your prawn sandwiches and watch your shitty football team get beaten.’
Standing his ground, Hopkins bristled but did not rise to the bait.
‘You are obstructing me in the conduct of my duties,’ Carlyle told him.
‘There are rules,’ Hopkins smiled widely as he nodded a couple of properly attired gentlemen into the room, ‘and everyone else here has complied with them.’
Fuck the paperwork, Carlyle thought, I’m gonna arrest you anyway. ‘This is your last fucking chance,’ he hissed.
Hopkins’s smile grew wider. ‘Swearing is also not allowed.’
‘Right, sunshine.’ As Carlyle reached for his handcuffs, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
‘John, what are you doing here?’ Flustered, he turned to see Commander Carole Simpson standing behind him. She was wearing a quilted duvet coat that reached down almost to her ankles, with a club crest over the right breast.
‘Nice coat,’ he complimented her, happy to be able to ignore the doorman.
‘It gets very cold sitting watching,’ she explained, ‘especially for these night games. I can’t believe that Dino forces me to come along. The least he can do is make sure I’m warm.’
‘I was after a word with him,’ Carlyle told her, ‘but Jobsworth here wouldn’t let me in.’
‘Dress code,’ Hopkins said stiffly.
‘Don’t worry, Mr Hopkins,’ Simpson laughed. ‘The inspector lowers the tone wherever he goes.’ ‘But . . .’ the doorman complained.
‘You can make an exception just this once,’ Simpson said politely but firmly. ‘I will take full responsibility.’ Signalling that the conversation was at an end, she took Carlyle by the arm and ushered him past the fuming doorman.
‘What a dick!’
‘Edward is a bit of a stickler for standards. He’s been here more than thirty years. You just have to get used to it.’
Let it go, Carlyle told himself. ‘Thank you,’ he said gracelessly.
Steering him towards the bar, Simpson chuckled. ‘How else am I going to get my most troublesome inspector to talk to me?’
‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you,’ Carlyle protested.
‘Yeah, right.’ Catching the eye of the girl behind the bar, Simpson ordered a large glass of Chardonnay. Carlyle wistfully eyed the bottles of spirits lined up at the back. Nestling in the middle was his favourite tipple, Jameson’s. A nice whiskey would hit the spot right now but with his boss standing beside him, it made sense to abstain. With a heavy sigh, he asked for an orange juice.
Simpson lifted the glass to her lips. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I don’t recall seeing any reports on your progress.’
Carlyle took his glass from the bartender. ‘Umar Sligo . . . he’s taking his time to get up to speed. I will have a word.’
Simpson looked at him doubtfully. So,’ she asked, ‘what progress are you making?’
Carlyle scanned the room.
‘Don’t worry,’ Simpson chided him. ‘Dino will be here soon, Inspector, and you’ll be able to pursue whatever agenda you’ve got going. In the meantime, I would appreciate a catch-up.’
‘Of course.’ Without articulating his suspicions, Carlyle explained where they were with the Sandy Carroll case and then gave the Commander an update on the second killing – the ‘tramp’, now known as a former soldier called Adrian Gasparino.
Well aware that she only ever got part of the story from Carlyle, Simpson nodded politely. If she was either happy or unhappy with his reported progress, she didn’t let it show. Finishing her wine, she handed the empty glass back to the girl behind the bar and asked for a refill. ‘You know that you shouldn’t be covering both of these cases at once.’
Carlyle found himself distracted by a pair of pretty blondes who were laughing and joking with a couple of much older men. ‘One is almost sorted.’
‘Almost?’ Simpson queried. ‘You have a confession?’
‘It’s sorted,’ Carlyle said stiffly.
Simpson took possession of a new glass of Chardonnay. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Dino wants the whole thing dealt with quickly and cleanly.’
‘Cleanly?’
‘He’s very upset.’
Carlyle gazed morosely into his orange juice. ‘I’m sure he is.’
‘Excuse me, sir.’
Carlyle looked round to see Edward Hopkins standing at his shoulder.
‘I brought this for you to wear,’ the doorman said, thrusting a grubby green tartan tie towards the inspector. MacLeod tartan, Carlyle guessed. He looked at the thing in horror, his disgust deepening when he realized it was a fake with an elastic neckband that you slipped over your head.
Simpson quickly lifted her wine glass to her mouth to hide a giggle.
‘As you can see,’ said Carlyle, tugging at the fabric of his Fred Perry polo, ‘I’m not wearing a proper shirt.’
‘You can still wear it,’ Hopkins insisted, trying to pull the elastic over the inspector’s head.
Simpson made a noise as if she were choking on her drink. She was laughing so hard there were tears in her eyes.
Carlyle pushed the doorman roughly away. ‘If you don’t fuck off – right now,’ he murmured, ‘I will have you arrested and in a cell before kick-off.’
Hesitating, the elderly doorman weighed up his options. After a brief moment, he threw the tie at Carlyle in one final act of defiance before stalking off. Letting the thing fall to the floor, Carlyle kicked it under a nearby table.
Struggling to regain her composure, Simpson dabbed at her eyes with the napkin. ‘Oh, John . . .’
‘How could I wear that?’ he huffed. ‘It’s not my clan colours.’
‘I think we’ll have to take another look at your anger-management training.’
‘What do you mean?’ he said irritably. ‘I’m still seeing that bloody shrink.’
‘Dr Wolf.’
‘Yes, indeed.’ Giving up on the wretched orange juice, he placed his glass back on the bar. ‘In fact, I’m due to be seeing him again next week.’
‘Doesn’t seem to be doing much good,’ Simpson observed, still laughing.
‘I’m sure it’s doing the doctor the power of good,’ Carlyle shot back. ‘He’s seeing so many bloody coppers that he must be raking it in from the Met.’ Looking up, he saw Dino Mottram enter the room and head towards them. Mottram had Christian Holyrod in tow. Arm-in-arm with the Mayor was Abigail Slater who, to Carlyle’s amazement, wa
s wearing a replica team shirt under her very expensive-looking brown leather jacket.
Simpson’s expression darkened at the sight of Slater.
‘Nice ensemble,’ Carlyle quipped.
‘Dino told me that Holyrod likes to shag her while she’s wearing the shirt.’
I can see where he’s coming from, Carlyle thought. He straightened his face. ‘Doesn’t seem the type, does he?’
Simpson lowered her voice as the trio approached. ‘That’s the thing,’ she said. ‘What people get up to behind closed doors never ceases to amaze me.’
‘Prurience is a wonderful thing,’ Carlyle grinned. ‘He’s certainly not shy about prancing around town with his fancy woman. Doesn’t he ever go out anywhere with his wife?’
‘From what I hear, she’s too busy shagging her Close Protection Officer,’ Simpson replied. ‘By all accounts, SO1 has put the smile back on her face after quite a considerable drought.’
Carlyle blew out a breath. ‘Those guys really are on a roll.’ Scotland Yard’s Protection Command had been embroiled in a series of high-profile cases where officers had been found to be ‘identifying’ too closely with the principals that they were detailed to guard. ‘Who is the officer?’
Simpson mentioned a name that meant nothing to Carlyle.
‘He’s got quite a reputation,’ the Commander smirked, ‘amongst those in the know. As big as a baby’s arm, apparently.’
Carlyle coughed uncomfortably. ‘Naughty boy.’
‘It happens,’ Simpson shrugged. ‘He has to hope it doesn’t get in the papers or he’ll be reassigned to traffic duty in somewhere like Middlesbrough.’ Putting down her wine glass, she stepped forward and kissed Dino on the cheek.
After kissing her back, Mottram nodded at Carlyle. ‘It would help if you tried not to annoy the staff,’ he said, by way of introduction.
