by James Craig
Balancing the tray on his knees, Carlyle peeked inside the bag and felt his mouth begin to water. Maybe he could manage a nibble after all.
‘We’re big boys,’ Dom continued. ‘We can live with the decisions we make. We have to live with them. Above all else, we owe it to our families.’
Amen to that. Carlyle stuck his hand inside the bag and pulled out an iced ring as Gideon opened the car door and slid into the passenger seat.
‘All good?’ Dom asked.
Gideon nodded. ‘Just one thing.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve got jam all over your chin.’
FORTY-SEVEN
‘Where have you been?’ Umar asked.
Hiding behind his plastic cup, Carlyle mumbled something about the flu.
‘Simpson’s looking for you.’ The sergeant grinned.
‘She’s always looking for me.’
‘She’s very . . .’
‘. . . pissed off?’
‘No, not at all.’
‘Eh? Why not?’ Carlyle was stumped.
Umar’s grin grew wider. ‘She’s very pleased that we’ve wrapped up the Gasparino case.’
Carlyle took a mouthful of orange juice while he slowly recalled the basic points of the Gasparino case. It seemed a long time ago now. Everything that had happened before he stepped on El Nino seemed an extremely long time ago. How the hell did that get solved when he was away? ‘We did?’
‘Yes,’ Umar folded his arms and sat back in his chair triumphantly. ‘We – I in other words – tracked down Clive Martin’s granddaughter and got her to confess and give up all her mates within two hours.’
Carlyle frowned. ‘It was a girl who attacked him?’
‘Yeah, nasty little character. She was proud of being the ringleader of her little gang. Clive is really cut up about it. More so than her parents, it seems to me.’
Clive? Carlyle thought. So, he’s Clive now, is he? ‘Why did they do it?’
‘God!’ Umar snorted. ‘You don’t think there’s anything as straightforward as a rational explanation, do you?’
‘I suppose not,’ Carlyle sighed. ‘Anyway, well done.’ A cheeky thought popped into his head. ‘Have you taken that WPC to Nobu yet? The one who got us,’ he corrected himself, ‘the one who got you the ID?’
‘Not yet.’ Umar looked around nervously. ‘She’s stalking me.’
‘She seems like a nice girl,’ said Carlyle, amused. ‘You never know . . .’
‘The thing is,’ putting his hands on his knees, Umar leaned forward and lowered his voice, ‘I’ve started going out with someone else.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah.’ He hesitated before coughing up a name. ‘Christina O’Brien.’
Carlyle looked at him blankly.
‘The girl from Everton’s.’ Umar lowered his voice even more, so it was barely more than a whisper. ‘The one who twatted PC Lea.’
After a moment of stunned silence, Carlyle burst out laughing. ‘You’re kidding!’
Umar shook his head.
The inspector gave his sergeant a nudge on the arm. ‘You lucky bastard!’
FORTY-EIGHT
Typing in the PIN number for his credit card, Carlyle felt almost physically ill. Printing off the receipt, Denzil Taleb looked at him with sympathetic glee.
‘What time is your flight tomorrow?’
‘Eight p.m.,’ Carlyle replied. ‘I need to be at the airport by six, so I will need to be on the tube about half four.’
‘That should give you plenty of time,’ the optician agreed. ‘I’ll make sure that your new glasses are ready by two at the latest.’ He handed Carlyle the receipt. Three hundred and fifty-eight fucking pounds. ‘Thanks.’ Stuffing it in his pocket, he turned and headed for the door.
Out in the street, he paused, unsure where he wanted to head next. When his mobile went off, he answered it immediately.
‘Carlyle.’
‘John, it’s Maria March.’
He smiled. ‘And how is Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs today?’
‘Fine,’ said Maria briskly, suggesting that she didn’t have time for small talk. ‘I just thought you’d want to hear about Gavin Swann.’
Gavin Swann. It was another name – like Adrian Gasparino – that almost seemed to belong to a past life. All the righteous anger that he’d felt about both men – one probable perpetrator, one definite victim – had evaporated over the last few days, lost at sea. ‘What about him?’
‘He’s been shot.’
‘Oh?’ Carlyle’s first thought was that Maria sounded very matter-of-fact about it. Then again, in his experience, tax inspectors tended to sound very matter-of-fact about most things.
‘He’s not dead,’ Maria explained. ‘One of my colleagues was just turning up to interview him as the ambulance arrived.’
Carlyle’s mind turned to Wayne Devine and Marcus Angelides. ‘I suppose the media will have the story already. It’s bound to be a total shit storm.’
‘The attackers shot Mr Swann in the leg,’ Maria continued, apparently uninterested in the business of the fourth estate. ‘I don’t know whether that will stop him from playing football in the future . . .’
‘It should certainly give him more time to help you with your enquiries,’ Carlyle quipped.
‘We’ll see,’ Maria chuckled. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to go. I just thought I’d let you know.’
‘Thanks.’ Ending the call, Carlyle dropped the phone into his pocket and decided to head for home.
Back at the flat, he filled a small backpack with some clothes and threw in his passport, travel documents and a copy of the latest Elvis Cole and Joe Pike paperback. He’d been looking forward to reading it for some time, knowing it would be a rollercoaster ride towards an insanely satisfying climax where the two buddies would ruthlessly take out the bad guys using enough weapons to equip a small army.
If only real life was like that.
Closing up the bag, he dropped it in the hall by the front door and headed into the kitchen to make a cup of green tea. The kettle had just boiled when the landline started ringing. He padded into the lounge to pick it up.
‘Hello.’
‘It’s me.’ Clear as a bell, Helen’s voice came down the line, causing a flutter in his chest.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Fine. It’s been quite gruelling and a real eye-opener, especially for Alice, but it was certainly worth coming. How are you?’
‘Fine.’ Images of the farmhouse in Belle-Île-en-Mer flashed through his brain. It took him a moment to suppress them. ‘How is Alice? Can I speak to her?’
‘She’s doing great. She’s just having a shower at the moment. I just wanted to say hi, and check you are okay for the flight tomorrow.’
‘I am. I’ve just finished packing. I’ll send you a text before I get on the plane.’
‘Good. We’re looking forward to seeing you.’
‘Me too. I’m really quite up for it.’
‘How are things in London?’
‘All quiet. Nothing much to report.’ The conversation about Harry Ripley could wait till they got back or, at least, until he had worked out what he was going to say about the poor old bugger.
‘Okay,’ Helen sighed. She sounded tired but happy. ‘We’ll see you in a couple of days.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Lots of love.’
‘You too. Give Alice a kiss for me.’
‘Will do. Bye.’
Putting down the phone, he looked around the room, as if realizing for the first time how empty it was without them. With a sigh, he started back to the kitchen when the phone rang again. Assuming it was Alice, he grabbed the handset.
‘Hiya, sweetheart!’
‘Hiya to you too,’ Umar laughed, ‘sweetheart.’
Carlyle cursed under his breath. ‘Sorry, I thought it was my daughter. What is it?’
‘I’m waiting for you in a car downstairs. We’ve gotta get going.’
‘Fucking hell, what now?’ Carlyle asked grumpily.
‘Trust me. You’re gonna love this. Hurry up.’
FORTY-NINE
Shielding his eyes against the floodlights, Carlyle watched as Evan Milch strode towards the centre circle, with a couple of forensics technicians in tow. It was bizarre to be standing in the middle of one of London’s largest sports stadia, surrounded by empty stands on all sides. Turning to Umar standing beside him, he asked: ‘How did we hear about this so quickly?’
‘I was at the station,’ Umar explained, ‘when a call came in for you from a guy called Bas-something.’
‘Baseer Yazdani, the wire journalist at Honeymann?’
‘Yeah. He gave me the basics. He said you had a deal.’
Carlyle said nothing as he watched Milch approach the plastic sheeting that covered the centre of the pitch.
‘I should be selling bloody tickets to this,’ the pathologist grumbled. ‘Everyone wants a look.’ Reaching down, he lifted up a corner of the sheet.
Carlyle and Umar quickly stepped forward to see with their own eyes that the rumours were most emphatically true. Lying on his back along the halfway line, Christian Holyrod gazed vacantly up at them with his lifeless eyes; all the politician’s cunning gone from his face. However, it was not his face that caught Carlyle’s attention. Naked from the waist down, the dead Mayor still retained a massive erection.
‘It looks like he rather overdid it with the Viagra,’ Milch smirked.
Carlyle gave a harsh, unsympathetic laugh. ‘He died with his hard-on.’
‘Will it wear off?’ Umar enquired.
‘Eventually.’
‘Surely,’ said Carlyle, ‘that wasn’t the cause of death?’
‘No, no,’ Milch replied. ‘The excitement of sexual congress was too much for the poor chap. He had a massive heart attack. Dead before he hit the turf.’
‘An extreme case of coitus interruptus,’ Umar reflected.
‘Indeed.’ Milch let the sheet fall from his hand.
‘Where’s the girlfriend?’ Carlyle asked.
‘I think they took Ms Slater to the boardroom for a cup of tea – and some gentle questioning,’ Milch replied.
‘Apparently,’ said Umar, the glee clear in his voice, ‘she paid one of the ground staff five grand to switch on the lights.’ He nodded in the direction of the corpse. ‘She set it up as a special treat for Holyrod. They found her screaming her head off, wearing nothing but a replica jersey and a strap-on dildo.’
‘Outstanding effort. Truly outstanding!’ Carlyle knew that he was grinning idiotically – like a kid who’d just managed to lay his hands on his first ever porn mag – but he did not care one jot. ‘Abigail Slater, what a woman! Out-fucking-standing.’ Starting back towards the main stand, he pulled out his mobile and called Baseer. Waiting patiently for it to go to voicemail, he left a simple message: ‘It is, my friend, the story of your dreams. Fill your boots.’
Ending the call, he pulled up Simpson’s number. She answered on the third ring.
‘You’ve heard about what’s happened, I presume?’ Carlyle asked, by way of greeting.
‘Dino’s in a foul mood,’ she said, by way of reply. ‘He’s stomping around – I’ve never seen anything like it.’ Her voice was cautious, low; a tone that he’d never heard before.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine, John.’ Simpson audibly bristled at the suggestion that she might not be able to handle her boyfriend’s moods. ‘Just a bit surprised at Dino’s lack of grace under pressure.’
‘I’m surprised that Holyrod was that important to his operation,’ Carlyle mused. ‘After all, he’d only just joined the Board.’
‘Holyrod?’ Simpson spluttered. ‘Dino couldn’t give a fig about that self-important buffoon. It’s his bloody love-child Gavin Swann that he’s exercised about. The people who shot him in the leg knew what they were doing. It looks like his career could be over.’
‘Shame.’ Signalling to Umar and Milch that he was leaving, Carlyle began walking off the pitch.
‘Dino reckons that Mr Swann’s premature retirement could end up costing him the best part of a hundred million,’ Simpson added, in a tone that suggested she cared as little about it as the inspector did himself.
‘Who’s investigating the Swann shooting?’
Simpson mentioned the name of a Detective Chief Inspector who they both knew was completely useless.
‘I’d offer to help,’ Carlyle said sincerely, ‘but I’m off tomorrow.’ Reaching the tunnel, he headed for an illuminated Exit sign.
‘Of course, of course,’ Simpson said, not particularly interested in his holiday plans either. ‘I hope you have a good time,’ she offered half-heartedly. ‘Come and see me when you get back.’
Ending the call, Carlyle pushed open a gate marked NO RE-ENTRY. Outside the ground, he counted a dozen or so police officers standing around, clearly unsure about what they should be doing. For some reason, two fire engines had turned up. A large group of journalists and TV crews were swarming around an ambulance that had just arrived at the kerb, shouting questions that no one would ever answer.
Feeling a gentle rain on his face, Carlyle lowered his head. ‘This bitch of a life,’ he mumbled to himself. ‘This fucking bitch of a life.’ Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, he thrust his hands deep into his pockets, moving away from the crowd at a brisk pace.
