Then We Die

by James Craig

  ‘They’re both bankers, apparently.’

  Not exactly a character reference, Carlyle thought. ‘And the kid himself?’ he asked, finally getting to the nitty-gritty. ‘What are his vices? Does he do drugs?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Helen said. ‘No one has said definitively not, but there’s no particular reason to suppose so.’ She placed her mug back on the side of the bath again and stood up, gesturing for Carlyle to hand her a towel, which he did. ‘Anyway, it’s nothing serious. It never is at their age. The best thing we can do is just let her get on with it.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Carlyle unhappily.

  Wrapping the towel around her chest, Helen carefully stepped out of the bath. ‘Anyway, did you speak to your dad about their divorce?’

  ‘Yes,’ Carlyle replied. He didn’t want to admit that the pair of them had sat and watched the whole of a totally meaningless football game, during which time they had spent barely a minute discussing the issue. As far as Carlyle was concerned, that had been more than enough. He had no interest in quizzing his father about some inappropriate shag that had happened decades ago. And, judging from his mumbled and indecipherable replies, it was clear that Alexander wasn’t up for baring his soul either. ‘He basically just reiterated what my mother had said. Clearly, she’s driving the whole process, and I suspect he feels powerless to do much about it.’ He leaned back against the cistern and folded his arms, feeling pleased at the comprehensive emptiness of his answer.

  Helen gave him a dissatisfied look. ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you.’

  ‘Nothing,’ Carlyle said ruefully. ‘What can I do about it? The whole thing is a bit strange, but they have to sort it out themselves. They’re grown-ups, after all. It’s like you said about Alice and her young boyfriend, all we can do is let them get on with it.’

  ‘You’re simply abrogating your responsibility.’

  ‘What responsibility?’ Carlyle raised his eyes to the ceiling.

  Ignoring the question, she opened the bathroom door and headed for bed.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  He was awake after the first couple of slaps, making the bucket of freezing water hurled in his face seem rather gratuitous.

  ‘Wake up!’ a voice insisted.

  Shaking his head, Ryan Goya slowly opened his eyes and looked up at the faces peering down at him. Either he was seeing double or this was a twin of the monster who had smacked him into the middle of next week as he had tried to flee through the garden of number 17 Peel Street. Ryan was so disconcerted by the sight that it took him a few moments to take in the rest of his surroundings. Sitting tied to a chair, in the middle of an empty room with only one door and no windows, it was the plastic sheeting covering the floor that sent a jolt of fear through his bowels. Taking a deep breath, he now focused his attention on the third man. Tall, dapper and white, he was considerably older than the other two and clearly the boss.

  ‘They’re coming for me,’ Goya said defiantly.

  Sol Abramyan smiled. ‘Even if they are still looking for you,’ he said, ‘which I doubt, they have no idea where you are. I could have moved thousands of miles . . . or we could be back where we started. You could still be in the middle of London, or you could be in,’ he waved an arm above his head, ‘in Grozny, for all you know.’

  ‘I wasn’t out for that long,’ reflected Goya, thinking out loud.

  ‘How do you know?’ Sol shrugged. ‘It could have been hours, or it could have been days.’

  Goya tried to manufacture a sneer. ‘Everyone is tracked. No one is left behind.’

  Abramyan looked at his two companions, who gave no indication of following the conversation. ‘Hold onto that thought,’ he said casually. ‘It’s all you’ve got.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Me?’ Sol looked shocked by the question. ‘Me? I don’t want anything – other than to be left in peace to get on with my business.’ He looked at Goya. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’

  ‘No idea,’ Goya lied.

  ‘I am a friend of Israel.’

  Goya rolled his tongue round inside his mouth, trying to accumulate some spit. ‘You are selling guns to the Palestinians!’

  ‘Come on, soldier boy!’ Sol shouted angrily. ‘Get with the programme! They buy crap, shoot the odd round at your soldiers, then you have an excuse to mash them into the ground for the millionth time. Everyone’s happy.’ He shook his head in frustration at the stupidity of the man in front of him. Stepping closer, he bent down to stare into Goya’s face. ‘Then you come along . . .’

  ‘So – what do you want?’

  ‘What do I want?’ Sol snorted. ‘Coming from the man who tried to kill me . . .’

  ‘I didn’t try to—’

  ‘From the man who would have shot me in my own home?’ Sol thundered. ‘From the man who tried to destroy my business?’ He went red in the face, and Goya wondered if he might not be a little insane. ‘I should want you dead. I do want you dead.’ He paused, searching for the fear that Goya was fighting to keep from his expression. ‘But,’ he said, calming down, ‘I am a businessman, above all. And a good businessman knows never to take things too personally, not even a bullet in the head.’

  He is crazy, Goya decided.

  ‘So,’ Sol continued, ‘if I can trade you, I will trade you. And if not, then you die.’ He signalled to his bodyguards, who trooped out of the room. As he followed them, he stopped in the doorway. Turning round, he scratched his head. ‘So, my friend, what you have to ask yourself now is “Does my life have any value?” Good luck in coming up with an answer to that one.’ Switching out the light, he left Goya alone with his thoughts.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Lying naked on a queen-size divan in the master bedroom of his Sloane Square duplex apartment, Rollo Kasabian wiped some of the Krug Rosé from his chin and let out a contented sigh. Holding the champagne flute in one hand, he lay back and scratched his more than ample belly. Somewhere below the curve of his gut, he felt his member stirring. Grunting with the effort, he leaned forward and gave it a gentle tug. He glanced over at the two young lads providing the world’s worst floor-show at the far end of the bed. Both were stripped to the waist, but neither of them were showing any enthusiasm for following Rollo’s order to ‘fuck and suck with abandon’.

  That’s the problem with today’s young people, Rollo thought, as he swigged down the last of the Krug. The notion of taking pride in your work is now just an alien concept.

  Placing the glass on the bedside table, he forced himself up onto his knees and began pumping harder.

  The rent boys eyed him blankly.

  ‘Get on with it!’ Rollo hissed, feeling the first beads of sweat forming on his brow. ‘I’ve paid my money. Daddy is ready for the show!’

  Finally one of them unbuttoned his jeans and, after some searching, pulled out a penis even limper than Rollo’s. His mate began massaging it cautiously with one hand, without showing any desire to put it in his mouth.

  Struggling to get hard but unwilling to give up, Rollo turned his attention to the porn video currently running on the 42-inch plasma screen fixed to the far wall. The sound was down, and it was hard to distinguish all the various body parts but, miraculously, it seemed to have the desired effect. As his member belatedly sprang into life, Rollo’s priorities switched from avoiding a false start to avoiding a premature finish. He wondered if he shouldn’t just get one of the boys to suck him off and have done with it. He now regretted not insisting that they brush their teeth and gargle with mouthwash beforehand but, for once, he could let his standards slip.

  Lost in thought about such practicalities, Rollo barely heard the sound of the doorbell. He was more conscious of the second long, more insistent ring. A third blast followed it in quick succession. Disentangling themselves, the boys looked at each other and then at the bedroom door, hope of an early escape flowering in their breasts.

 
Saved by the bell, indeed.

  ‘Go away!’ Rollo croaked as he realized that his crucial moment had passed. With his rapidly softening member still clasped in his hand, he stalked over to the open window and stuck his head outside. On the street below were two seedy-looking men whom he didn’t recognize. One of them stepped back up to the door and gave the bell another ring for good measure. Pushing his gut up against the windowframe, Rollo stuck his head out as far as possible. ‘Fuck off!’ he screamed, shivering in the cold. ‘If you don’t leave immediately, I will call the police.’

  The two men looked at each other and laughed. Then the one who had been ringing the bell moved out onto the road where Rollo could see him, waving a badge above his head. ‘My colleague and I are the police, Mr Kasabian,’ he shouted up, with more than a hint of malice. ‘So I suggest that you come down and open the door right now.’

  After sending the rent boys packing, Sam Hooper told Rollo Kasabian to go and get dressed. Sitting down on the sofa, he then sent his sergeant to go and make some tea. Looking around, he was surprised to note that Rollo’s living room had the nondescript, uncluttered look of a service flat, with no sign of the Shanghai-brothel chic that he had been expecting. The fat old queen clearly did not spend much time on interior decoration.

  ‘So, how can I help you?’ Rollo had reappeared in the doorway wearing a leopardprint kimono loosely tied at the waist. He had a glazed look in his eyes that suggested he was under the influence of something more than just alcohol. Casually scratching his groin, he let out a small fart. ‘Oops!’ he grinned, taking a step further into the room.

  If it wasn’t for the fact that Hooper had already been exposed to a full view of the naked Kasabian form, the inspector might very easily have lost his lunch at this point. Instead, he accepted the tea that the sergeant had just brought him from the kitchen. The fancy blue and white china mug had a gold band running round both the top and the bottom. Hooper turned it carefully in his hand until he found a legend in small script: The Blue Drawing Room, Buckingham Palace. He looked up at Kasabian, who had at least stopped caressing himself. ‘Nice crockery, Rollo,’ he smiled.

  Stifling a yawn, Rollo couldn’t be bothered to muster a reply.

  Hooper turned back to the sergeant, a permanently suspicious bloke from Bolton called Lawrie Kunesburg: ‘One sugar?’

  Kunesburg blinked and nodded twice, but said nothing.

  ‘Thanks.’ Eyeing Kasabian carefully, Hooper blew gently on the tea. He took a sip and grimaced. It was truly disgusting. ‘Nice tea,’ he said through gritted teeth, placing the mug on the coffee table next to the small transparent plastic packet, about the size of a matchbox, which was half-full of white power. Letting Rollo take notice of the packet, he sat back on the sofa and clasped his hands above his head.

  ‘Mr Kasabian,’ he said finally, ‘do you know why we are here?’

  Rollo moved his gaze slowly from the item on the table back to the inspector. ‘That’s not mine,’ he protested feebly.

  ‘That’s what they all say,’ Hooper grinned. ‘Sergeant, if you could step outside for a moment, please.’

  Kunesburg took his cue and headed past Kasabian, stepping out and closing the door behind him. Pulling his kimono closer, Rollo flopped into a nearby armchair. ‘Are you arresting me?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Hooper sat forward and pulled a small, unsealed envelope from his jacket pocket. Turning it upside down, he tipped the contents onto the table.

  Kasabian used an index finger to count the twelve identical packets of cocaine laid out in front of him. Then he counted them again, and looked up at Hooper. ‘You bastard!’ he hissed, going red in the face. ‘You total . . . bastard!’

  ‘Calm down, Rollo,’ Hooper said evenly.

  ‘Calm down?’ the fashion designer squawked. ‘Calm down? When here you are – Mr Bent Policeman – trying to do me up like a . . . like a kipper!’

  Hooper jumped to his feet, jabbing an angry finger at the quivering blob in front of him. ‘First,’ he said forcefully, ‘I am not “bent”. Second, I am your new best friend.’

  Kasabian pulled his feet up onto his chair, but said nothing.

  ‘I am the only one who can help you here, Rollo,’ Hooper continued quietly.

  ‘I don’t need any help!’

  Hooper laughed. ‘It’s time to get real. One of your models was caught trafficking a large amount of Class-A drugs.’

  ‘She wasn’t my model.’

  Hooper ignored the interjection. ‘Charlotte Gondomar subsequently committed suicide.’

  ‘I know.’ Rollo buried his head in a cushion to stifle a sob. ‘But how was that my fault?’

  Hooper went in for the kill. ‘How many more of your girls are dealing drugs, Rollo? And who is organizing them?’

  Lifting his head, Kasabian grasped the pillow to his chest, and then threw it to the floor. ‘I don’t even take drugs,’ he mumbled, ‘apart from the odd line now and again.’ He smiled weakly. ‘My vices lie in other directions, as you saw.’

  Hooper counted off the points on his fingers. ‘You admit to being a regular user. You have employees who are chronic users, and some who are also dealers. You have a business which offers a classic front for laundering illegitimate profits. And,’ he nodded to the powder on the table, ‘you have more than enough here to classify as possession with intent to supply.’

  ‘And you – the very person stitching me up – are my friend?’ Rollo asked incredulously.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Hooper smiled. ‘I am the man who is going to get you out of this mess.’

  Rollo sat up in his chair. He shifted as if to give his groin another scratch but quickly thought better of it and clasped his hands on his belly instead. Gazing at Hooper, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘And just how are you going to do that?’

  THIRTY

  Sitting in a meeting room on the top floor of Holborn police station, Carlyle gazed out, looking north past Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, in the direction of Coram’s Fields. Lost in thoughts of nothing, he watched a succession of grey-tinged clouds scud across the sharp blue sky.

  ‘Hey!’ Sitting on the other side of the desk, Alison Roche looked up from her BlackBerry. ‘We’ve just had an email about Simpson.’

  Carlyle turned his gaze from the view.

  ‘Her husband has died.’

  Joshua Hunt. Cancer of the colon. This was news that had been coming for a while but Carlyle still felt a sick sensation percolating in his gut. Hunt had been a good five years younger than he was. Sitting back in his chair, Carlyle closed his eyes and offered a silent prayer that shit like that would never happen to him. When he opened them again, Roche had returned to playing with her PDA. ‘What does it say about Simpson?’ he asked. ‘Is she taking compassionate leave?’

  ‘I don’t think it said.’ Roche scrolled down through the email to double-check. ‘No, nothing. Just that he died at two thirty-seven this morning in a hospice in Sussex. Details of the funeral will be announced in due course.’

  Another one I won’t be going to, Carlyle reflected, with more than a smidgen of relief. His thoughts turned to Anita Szyszkowski, and the inspector wondered if now was the time to reach out and try to repair that broken relationship. The idea brought him up short and he let out a small laugh. Who was he trying to kid? He wouldn’t know where to begin. He didn’t even know if he wanted to begin. Probably the best he could do for Joe’s widow and kids was to leave them well alone and let them move on. Uncle John most definitely he was not, and never would be.

  Roche looked up from her BlackBerry. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Carlyle said, slightly embarrassed to have been caught contemplating such thoughts. Turning away from her gaze, he went back to staring at the clouds.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting!’ Susan Phillips swept into the room in a cloud of citrus perfume. Taking a seat at one end of the desk, she dropped a slender file of papers on the surface. ‘It took me a while to get
cleaned up.’ She smiled, knowing all about the squeamishness which prevented him from visiting her in the lab unless it was absolutely necessary. ‘I had a customer on the slab downstairs – had to get in up to my elbows.’

  ‘Nice,’ Carlyle grimaced.

  Roche, not wishing to play gooseberry to the two oldies in the room, tried to get right down to it. ‘So,’ she said with a faux cheeriness that did nothing to hide her impatience, ‘you think we’ve identified our skeleton?’

  Carlyle understood why Roche sounded a bit miffed. After all, identification of the skeleton had been her job. As far as he knew, she hadn’t made much progress. But, given that it was really only of historical interest, he struggled to see why she should care. He smiled at Phillips. ‘Branching out into detective work?’

  ‘It was really quite random,’ the pathologist replied modestly. ‘My partner is something of an amateur historian. He’s done a lot of research into the Special Operations Executive, Winston Churchill’s sabotage unit in World War Two.’ She pointed out of the window, waving her index finger vaguely in the direction of the BT Tower, rising to the north-west. ‘The SOE were based over there, in Baker Street.’

  ‘Known as the Baker Street Irregulars,’ Carlyle put in. He had read a bit of modern history himself and liked to think that he knew a little about World War Two. Now that Phillips had given him the opportunity, he wasn’t going to pass up a chance to show off.

  Roche gave him a tight smile that said Get on with it.

  Carlyle smiled back sweetly. ‘The nickname came from Sherlock Holmes’s fictional group of boy spies employed “to go everywhere, see everything and overhear everyone”.’

  ‘So?’ Roche interjected, obviously not wanting to play along.

  ‘They had lots of names,’ Carlyle continued, now deliberately winding her up, ‘such as Churchill’s Secret Army – the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Their job was simple: to set Europe ablaze.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Phillips said, ‘Nick, my boyfriend, knew about three SOE guys who went missing just down the road from here in December 1940, in the middle of the Blitz. Only two of the bodies were ever found. I managed to dig out the pathology reports at the time – and guess what? They were shot with a Walther P38.’