Nobody's Hero (Inspector Carlyle)

by James Craig

  Elma slipped on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and leaned across the desk. ‘So, Mr Lawyer, to what do I owe this three hundred and fifty pounds an hour pleasure? Why are you here?’

  Positioning himself directly beneath a poster of a white cloud in a blue sky bearing the legend He is watching over you, Federici smiled. ‘We need to talk about Taimur . . . and also about Jerome Mears.’

  ‘Jerome?’ Elma frowned. ‘What about him? Isn’t he safely back in the Bible Belt by now – with all the true believers? Home territory, where all the easy money is.’

  ‘He’s back in Texas. But he’s not happy.’

  ‘Awww.’ Sitting back in her chair, Elma wiped a fake tear from her eye. ‘And why would that be? Were the hookers in King’s Cross not to his liking?’

  ‘His complaint is rather more specific than that. I got an email from him last night. He’s threatening to sue you.’

  ‘Sue me?’ Elma spluttered, bouncing up and down on her chair. ‘Sue me for what?’

  Sitting forward on the sofa, Federici placed his hands on his knees. ‘He is claiming breach of contract.’

  Taking off her glasses, Elma chucked them onto the desk. ‘For Christ’s sake, Mikey,’ she complained, pinching the bridge of her nose, ‘I paid the smug bastard, didn’t I?’

  Federici held up his hands in supplication. ‘Yes, yes, you did. But he is claiming that you failed to deliver the agreed audience for his sermon to the Miracle and Healing Conference.’

  Don’t I know it, Elma thought.

  Federici pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket, unfolded it and squinted at his scribbled notes. ‘Mears says that both in terms of numbers and quality, the turnout was, quote-unquote, “substantially below the level which had been agreed, in order to allow for the Mears Ministry to participate”.’

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  Federici looked up from his notes. ‘It means that performing to a handful of folk in a hotel in North London could be deemed to be damaging to the Ministry brand.’

  ‘I thought that we had hundreds there,’ Elma objected, somewhat optimistically.

  ‘The Reverend Mears claims that he counted no more than eighty-seven what he calls “bona fide participants”. He also claims that the lack of a decent crowd seriously undermined sales of the pay-per-view event on his website.’

  Elma felt that her head was about to explode. ‘What pay-per-view event?’

  Federici shrugged. ‘Apparently, he decided to charge people in the States to watch his sermon from King’s Cross, both live and on a catch-up basis.’

  ‘Hell!’ Elma thundered. ‘But it was my conference.’

  ‘There was nothing to stop him doing that,’ Federici told her. ‘It simply wasn’t covered in the contract.’

  Elma’s eyes narrowed. ‘Wasn’t the contract your responsibility?’

  Federici smiled. Elma was right, this had been an oversight on his part but, having anticipated the question, he smoothly delivered his pat answer. ‘Yes, of course. But it was a standard agreement that allowed both sides to exploit new media rights as they saw fit.’

  So that crook Jerome was going to diddle me out of my share of the revenues, Elma thought sourly. And now that his plan has backfired, he wants to sue me. She shot the lawyer one of her famous fire and brimstone looks. ‘Tell him to go fuck himself.’

  Federici raised an eyebrow. ‘I could do that.’

  ‘But?’ Elma slumped back into her chair.

  ‘But,’ Federici repeated, ‘if I do that, the danger is that he’ll go to a friendly judge in some hick town in Texas and get some kind of preliminary judgement to start a legal process that could tie you up for years. Worse than that, depending on what the judge decides, you could face arrest and possible incarceration the next time you go to the United States.’

  Arrest and possible incarceration. Elma thought about that for a moment. There were three trips to the US booked into her diary before the end of the year, starting with a guest slot at the San Diego Hispanic Rebirth Festival in a little over a week’s time. If she had to cancel any or all of the trips it would be a disaster for her attempts to crack the American market. And without America, she might as well close down the Salvation Centre right now. London just wasn’t big enough on its own. There was no way she was going to keep slogging round the budget hotels of the capital for the rest of her career. No way. It was America or bust for her.

  ‘How much does he want?’ she asked resignedly.

  ‘Another ten thousand, sterling.’

  ‘Wha-at?’ Elma squawked. ‘Is he on crack?’

  Probably, Federici thought. ‘Reading between the lines,’ he explained, ‘the balance of the original fee was stolen from Jerome’s London hotel room before he went back home. It looks like his insurance company doesn’t want to pay up and he’s trying to recoup his losses by gouging you.’

  Elma eyed her lawyer carefully. ‘And how do you know all this?’

  The man gave a modest shrug. ‘I have my sources.’

  ‘Can we afford it?’

  ‘The ten k? Just about. It doesn’t leave you with much left over, though.’

  ‘Cashflow’s a bitch.’

  ‘Haven’t you got that new CD coming out?’

  ‘Not for a couple of months,’ Elma sighed, ‘and these things don’t sell much these days.’ Closing her eyes, she began humming a tune he didn’t recognize.

  ‘I suppose not.’ Federici let his client ponder her options a little longer. ‘Do you want me to pay him off?’

  ‘Lemme think on it.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll play for time.’

  ‘Good,’ Elma mumbled. Torn between pragmatism and poverty, her indecision was final. After a couple of moments, she opened her eyes. ‘Are we done?’

  ‘We still have to talk about Taimur.’

  ‘Not any more.’ Elma gave Federici a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘That boy’s a totally lost cause. There’s nothing more I can do for him right now. He’ll have to find his own salvation. We have to focus on the important stuff – like how to generate some more cash.’

  The smiling blonde pulled her hair away from her face to give a better view of her ample chest. ‘I like Army guys,’ she purred, ‘but firemen too.’

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Pushing the chair away from his desk, Umar looked up at his boss like a naughty schoolboy. ‘Just a bit of surfing.’

  From a nearby desk, WPC Sonia Mason observed them both coolly. ‘He’s not on sexyuniforms.com again, is he?’

  ‘Just having a look,’ Umar admitted sheepishly.

  Carlyle squinted at the girl in the small video in the top corner of the screen. ‘But she’s not wearing a uniform.’

  ‘No,’ Umar explained. ‘She’s a normal member of the public.’

  Carlyle grinned. ‘Normal member of the public’ wasn’t the kind of phrase he came across too often at the station.

  ‘She wants to go out with someone in a uniform,’ the sergeant said.

  ‘Ah,’ said Carlyle, none the wiser.

  ‘Most of them want soldiers,’ Mason chipped in, ‘not coppers. But Umar lives in hope.’

  ‘So, it’s a dating site?’

  Umar hit a button on his keyboard and the video containing the blonde disappeared. ‘Isn’t that what I said? It’s a dating site for punters who want to go out with people who wear uniforms. Some people like that kind of thing.’

  Gang of Four’s ‘I Love a Man in a Uniform’ started playing in Carlyle’s head. He hadn’t heard the song in years, perhaps decades. Whatever happened to the Gang of Four? He pointed at the computer screen. ‘Why are you looking at this?’

  ‘No reason.’

  ‘He’s still trying to pull,’ Mason laughed. ‘Playing away.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ Umar protested. ‘I was only having a look.’

  ‘It’s quite common among men whose wives have just had kids,’ Mason observed. ‘Not getting the a
ttention at home and feeling a bit sorry for themselves.’

  Carlyle gave Umar a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. ‘God help you if Christina finds out.’

  ‘I’m only looking,’ the sergeant repeated, sounding rather more irritated.

  Carlyle looked sceptical. ‘Good luck with that line of defence.’ A thought popped into his head. ‘Anyway, shouldn’t the IT department block this kind of stuff?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Mason cheerily. ‘We need access to the whole worldwide web to do our job properly. It’s essential that we know what all the nasty people are up to, as well as the needy.’

  ‘Lucky us.’ Carlyle pulled up a chair next to his sergeant and lowered his voice. ‘Anyway, about tonight . . .’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks for agreeing to do the babysitting.’

  ‘Happy to do it,’ Carlyle lied.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It’s no problem. Helen’s really up for it. But . . . er, how long do you think you’ll be?’

  ‘Not long,’ Umar shrugged. ‘A couple of hours, max. It’s the first time we’ve gone out on our own since Ella was born. Christina’s looking forward to it but she’ll get too stressed if we leave the baby for too long.’

  ‘Okay. Good.’ Getting to his feet, the inspector began heading towards the stairs. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘You still remember how to change a nappy?’ Umar called after him.

  ‘Naturally,’ Carlyle muttered, hurrying away.

  TWENTY-THREE

  At the front desk, there was a message for him. Chris Brennan, the oleaginous lawyer, had called again and was insisting that they spoke again as soon as possible. Why don’t you just sod off? the inspector thought sourly. He was sick of people telling him what to do. Carlyle knew well enough that dealing with authority – real or imagined – had never been one of his strong points. Indeed, he had long clung to the belief that the man who had many the masters had none. The problem was that the masters, like buses, tended to all turn up at once – usually after long absences – to put that theory to the test. Well, Brennan was not one of his bosses. He simply had no authority to swan into the station and demand that the police hand over Brian Winters’ bag.

  That was not to say that Brennan’s lumbering attempt to recover his ex-colleague’s effects had not piqued Carlyle’s interest. After giving the strictest instructions that the lawyer was not to be allowed anywhere near his presence, the inspector headed downstairs in search of the mysterious briefcase.

  Located between the canteen and the media room, the evidence room at Charing Cross was, in fact, no more than an outsized broom cupboard. After punching in the security code on the entry pad, Carlyle pulled open the door and stepped inside. Switching on the overhead strip light, he stood in the middle of two lines of shelving, four rows high and about two feet deep, lined up against each wall. There was just enough room to walk between the shelves, as long as there was only one person in the room at a time. The place had the air of a lost luggage deposit. The shelves contained items that had been lost, or pinched from tourists, in and around Covent Garden – cameras, watches, mobile phones and the like. Few, if any, were ever returned to their original owners; after a few months, anything with a residual value would be scooped up and sent to Mile End, to be auctioned off for the benefit of the Police Benevolent Society.

  The briefcase was where he had left it, in the middle row on the left, sitting between a battered laptop and a pair of Nike trainers, which were still in their box. Grabbing the handles, Carlyle signed the case out in the evidence log and made his way back upstairs. After a quick detour into the canteen to pick up a sandwich and a Coke, he grabbed an empty interview room on the first floor. Placing the bag on the table, he sat down and ate mechanically before turning his attention to the bag, pressing the catch on the lock and giving it a gentle push. Happily, it sprang open without any protest. ‘Not locked – very good.’ Carlyle peered inside. The case was divided into three compartments. The ones at the front and the back were stuffed with papers. The inspector carefully removed them, setting them on the table in two separate stacks. The middle compartment was zipped shut. Opening it up, he stuck in a hand, pulling out a passport, a wallet and a pile of credit-card receipts.

  ‘Very good,’ he repeated.

  Predictably enough, the passport was made out to Brian Winters. Carlyle looked at the picture of a silver-haired guy. According to the details in the book, he had been born in 1953. The document itself had been issued in London less than a year ago but already the pages contained visas for Nigeria, Israel, Russia and Brazil, as well as the United States. Clearly, its owner spent a lot of time on the road. And equally clearly, he had not been expecting to keel over so suddenly on Waterloo Bridge. Pulling out his phone, the inspector scrolled through his contact list until he found WPC Mason’s number upstairs.

  She picked up on the second ring. ‘Mason here.’ Her chirpiness made him smile.

  ‘It’s Carlyle. Is Umar still gawping at that website?’

  ‘Nah,’ she laughed, ‘he’s gone out. On bike ride-duty.’

  ‘He’s on a bike?’ Carlyle frowned. He had never known Umar to do anything remotely athletic – apart from flirting – in all the time they had worked together.

  ‘No, no,’ Mason giggled, ‘he’s not riding a bike. He’s signed up to cover the naked bike-ride protest. Him and half the station.’

  ‘Figures,’ Carlyle grunted.

  ‘They should be coming down the Strand right about now. He can’t be that far away. D’ya want me to find him for you?’

  ‘It’s okay. But there is something else.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can you speak to the Waterloo station and get their report on the guy who dropped down dead on Waterloo Bridge the other night? His name was Brian Winters.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Also, check whether he’s ever been in any trouble with us before. And, if you’ve got time, do a quick online search and see what you can find out about him, generally speaking.’

  ‘No problem. What am I looking for?’

  ‘Nothing in particular,’ Carlyle mumbled. ‘Just see if anything interesting pops up.’

  ‘Okay, I’m on it.’

  Ending the call, he rang Susan Phillips. After three rings, her voicemail kicked in and he left a short message, asking her to call him back. Then, after finishing the last of his snack, he wiped his fingers on a paper napkin and began sifting through Winters’ papers.

  After several minutes of aimless searching, he was interrupted by the sound of his phone buzzing across the desk. It was Susan Phillips.

  ‘Hi. Thanks for calling me back. I just wanted to check about the guy on Waterloo Bridge.’

  ‘Just done him,’ Phillips replied cheerily. ‘Interesting character.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Well, you don’t normally find sixty-something men with traces of cocaine in their system, at least not in London.’

  Carlyle sat back in his chair. ‘I thought he died of a heart attack?’

  ‘He did. Not a bad way to go, if you ask me. Bam. He didn’t know anything about it.’

  ‘Brought on by the coke?’

  ‘That wasn’t clear but I rather doubt it. Just general wear and tear. Could have been brought on by the stress of the rush hour.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘It’s not that uncommon. What we found was evidence of long-term drug use, rather than of any massive recent binge. He certainly didn’t OD. The guy was a lawyer as I understand it.’

  ‘Apparently so.’

  ‘So, presumably, it was just a recreational habit he’d developed over the years. Nothing that exciting.’

  ‘Hm. Have your findings gone over to Waterloo?’

  ‘Not yet. But they’ve had the basics, like you. I’ll probably get a written report to them sometime tomorrow.’

  ‘Will they do anything with it?’

  ‘Nah, you know the score. Natural causes. It’s gonna be case closed
as soon as my findings reach their inbox.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Carlyle mused, knowing that, in their position, he would do exactly the same. ‘Thanks again for calling me back.’

  ‘No problem. Any time.’ The pathologist ended the call. Tossing the phone onto the desk, Carlyle contemplated the papers spread out in front of him. Phillips was right – it all seemed very straightforward. Winters’ property should quickly be returned to his next of kin, who could then hand the relevant bits back to his employers. One thought, however, kept nagging at him: if Winters’ death was so routine, why was that little shit Chris Brennan getting so agitated about the contents of his briefcase?

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Wearing nothing but a cycling crash helmet and a pair of aviator shades, Melissa Graham pedalled slowly down the Strand, heading towards Trafalgar Square. Trying to keep her gaze firmly on the patch of tarmac two feet beyond her front wheel, she hoped that none of the gawkers standing on the pavement could see how deeply she was blushing.

  All around her, people were laughing and joking. Every so often, someone would break into an impromptu, invariably tuneless, song. After more than an hour on the road, however, the collective determination to have fun felt increasingly oppressive. Her shoulders were starting to burn under the London sun and, all in all, Melissa felt thoroughly miserable. Not for the first time that afternoon, she cursed her boyfriend for talking her into getting naked and riding through the middle of bloody London at about three miles an hour for the amusement of all and sundry. Her friend Laura, who was supposed to be riding alongside her, had pulled out at the last minute, claiming bad PMT. Laura, Melissa thought ruefully, was no mug. She instinctively knew when something was just too uncool for words.

  The rider in front of her got out of the saddle, giving Melissa a perfect view of his hairy arsehole. Grimacing, she looked away. What the hell had she been thinking? All the talk of making a protest – about what, by the way? – was a load of old nonsense. The whole thing, she realized sadly, was just a chance for a group of pervy men to talk a bunch of stupid girls into taking their kit off.

  Stupid girls, just like her.