The Circus ic-4

by James Craig

  ‘And then,’ Joe continued, ‘the inspector here managed to get into another pissing contest with him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that.’ Carlyle turned back to Hall. ‘Miller was involved in the death of a young man. It was something that was never investigated properly.’

  A bemused look passed across Hall’s face. ‘Why not?’

  Once again, Carlyle shrugged.

  ‘These things happen,’ Joe repeated.

  ‘The thing now,’ said the inspector, ‘is that we will have to move very carefully on the Duncan Brown thing. Ironically, it probably helps that we are supposed to be focusing on Mosman.’

  ‘So what do you want to do?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Dunno.’ Pushing back his chair, Carlyle got to his feet. ‘Maybe I’ll go and talk to Simpson.’

  ‘Hey, hey.’ Joe motioned for him to sit back down. ‘We haven’t finished yet.’

  ‘No?’ Reluctantly, the inspector did as he was told.

  ‘No,’ Joe said firmly. ‘We still have to talk about Hannah Gillespie.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The young girl who went missing from the Peabody Estate,’ Hall reminded him.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. She’s not turned up, then?’

  ‘No.’ Hall glanced at Joe.

  ‘There’s good news and there’s bad news.’ The sergeant gestured to Hall. ‘You tell him.’

  ‘I went to Hannah’s school,’ Hall explained. ‘It seems like she’s a bright kid, quite mature but a bit restless. She’s done things like this before, but always turned up again after a few days.’

  ‘Shouldn’t her parents have mentioned this?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Joe reflected, ‘they don’t have her on as short a leash as they liked to imply.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Hall said, ‘our best guess still is that she’s out and about somewhere, having fun.’

  ‘Best guess isn’t good enough,’ Carlyle snapped. ‘We need more than that.’

  Hall lowered her voice slightly. ‘Well, we know that Hannah’s been checking her voicemails on her mobile phone. She listened to her new messages as recently as two hours ago.’

  Frowning, Carlyle looked at Joe. To intercept someone’s phone messages required a warrant. That could normally take several days.

  ‘We’re using our initiative,’ Joe said. ‘Don’t ask.’

  ‘Okay. I won’t. So if she’s listening to her messages, she must know people are looking for her. But she still can’t be arsed to even phone home? I thought that you said she was bright?’

  Hall shrugged. ‘Maybe she’s worried about the reception she’ll get when she returns.’

  Kids. At least his own daughter, Alice, wouldn’t do anything like that — he hoped. ‘So, what’s the bad news?’

  ‘Two words,’ said Joe. ‘Francis Clegg.’

  The inspector gave him a look that said Who he?

  ‘According to one of Hannah’s schoolfriends,’ Joe explained, ‘Mr Clegg is her boyfriend.’

  ‘How reliable is this friend?’

  ‘Melanie Henderson seems a nice girl,’ Hall interjected. ‘Keen to help.’

  ‘Nice girls,’ Carlyle sighed. ‘They’re always the worst.’

  ‘She says she’s seen them together a couple of times.’

  ‘Mr Clegg,’ announced Joe, ‘is thirty-two.’

  ‘Ah.’ As both a copper and a parent, the inspector didn’t much like where this was going.

  ‘With two previous convictions for sex with underage girls, and he also beat one of them up quite badly.’

  ‘That’s just fucking great,’ Carlyle groaned. ‘How long have we known about this?’

  ‘A couple of hours,’ Joe replied.

  ‘So why haven’t we found this bastard yet?’

  TWENTY-THREE

  After silently counting to a hundred, Carole Simpson reopened her eyes. Sadly, the troublesome inspector was still sitting in her office. ‘I thought that I specifically asked you to focus on the Mosman case?’

  ‘I am focusing on the Mosman case.’

  ‘John. .’

  ‘I’m multi-tasking,’ Carlyle said, conscious that the words sounded too much like an excuse, ‘just trying to be more efficient.’ It went against all his instincts to keep his boss in the loop, and he was already regretting making such a quick return to the Commander’s office in Paddington Green. ‘That’s what we’re all meant to do these days, isn’t it? That’s what the Cochrane Review is all about, if I understand it correctly.’

  ‘Mm.’ They both knew that Carlyle didn’t give a hoot about the government’s report into what a twenty-first-century police force might look like. ‘I suppose I should be grateful to at least receive a briefing.’

  Yes, he thought, so you should. ‘Things are moving quickly on all fronts,’ he said briskly. ‘I might therefore need a bit of assistance on one or more of them.’

  ‘What you mean,’ Simpson grinned knowingly, ‘is that you’re going to need me to save you when you jump into the shit.’

  At least she didn’t say ‘again’. Carlyle gave his protector and benefactor a grateful smile. ‘Precisely.’

  The humour vanished from Simpson’s face even faster than it had appeared. ‘It goes without saying that I’ll want you to give Trevor Miller a wide berth.’

  ‘I’m not interested in Miller,’ Carlyle replied primly.

  ‘John,’ Simpson scolded, ‘you are a terrible liar; truly terrible. I am warning you now: leave that man alone. If you don’t, all it will do is create more trouble — for both of us.’

  Carlyle slumped in his chair. ‘You know me, anything for a quiet life.’

  ‘As if. Look, do I really need to spell it out for you? Miller is close to Simon Shelbourne, who is Sir Chester’s media strategist.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Shelbourne used to work for Sonia Claesens, the head of the Zenger Corporation. Apparently, they are still close.’

  The inspector gave her a blank stare.

  ‘Do I need to draw you a bloody map?’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ he said obtusely.

  Gritting her teeth, Simpson continued, ‘All they want to do now is find a way of closing down the hacking inquiry.’

  ‘But,’ Carlyle frowned, feigning confusion, ‘it was Miller’s boss — the Prime Minister, no less — who set it up.’

  ‘Yes,’ Simpson said heavily. ‘And they set it up so that they could be seen to be doing something.’

  ‘How jolly cynical of you,’ he joshed, adopting a mock-posh accent.

  ‘That is rather rich coming from the self-proclaimed “most cynical man in the world”.’

  ‘Me?’ Carlyle raised his hands in surrender. ‘Never.’

  Simpson gave him a nasty look. ‘Do you want me to proceed or not?’

  Lowering his arms, the inspector said graciously, ‘Go on.’

  Simpson sighed. ‘No one realized that this thing would just keep growing. And an election is not so far away. The independent police investigation, Operation Redhead, was supposed to have been and gone by now. Instead, it could drag on for ages.’

  ‘Surely that’s okay,’ Carlyle said, ‘if they can kick it into the long grass.’

  ‘Maybe. They would much rather kill it though. And Sir Chester is increasingly worried about how it might all play out. In fact, he’s as nervous as hell.’

  Carlyle looked at her carefully. ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘You’re not the only one with sources, John.’

  ‘So, what do you want me to do?’

  Simpson started counting off with her fingers. ‘Number one, wrap up the Mosman case asap. That’s still the priority. Do what you have to do; and if you want to go after the mother, that’s fine.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Number two, keep the Brown thing nice and focused. If I had more bodies I’d give it to someone else, but I don’t. These bloody budget cuts are killing us.’

  ‘Twenty-first-century policing.’

  �
�Don’t I know it.’

  You could always get out from behind that desk, Carlyle thought. The top brass are always moaning while they sit about on their arses. He mumbled something that he hoped sounded vaguely sympathetic.

  ‘So that means you’re still on Brown,’ Simpson repeated, ‘but it doesn’t mean I want to see you wading into the phone-hacking mess and creating even more problems for everyone. The Met is under enough scrutiny as it is.’ He made to say something but she held up a restraining hand. ‘The last thing we need is the usual John Carlyle bull in a china shop routine. Just focus on the precise question of who stabbed that journalist and dumped his body in the back of a rubbish truck.’

  ‘Understood,’ Carlyle nodded. ‘The blinkers are on.’

  ‘Good. Keep them on. Focus is important in an investigation. Now, is there anything else?’

  ‘What about Hannah Gillespie?’

  The Commander gave him an exasperated look. ‘Who?’

  ‘Hannah Gillespie is the schoolgirl who has gone missing.’ He quickly filled her in on the details.

  ‘Do we think she’s okay?’

  ‘She’s still checking her phone messages.’ The inspector immediately regretted letting slip the fact that they had been tapping the girl’s phone but, happily, Simpson either didn’t pick up on the point or she let it pass.

  ‘We’ll just have to hope that she turns up.’

  ‘The parents aren’t very happy.’

  ‘Well, they wouldn’t be, would they?’ Simpson snapped.

  ‘My sergeant spoke to them just as I was coming over here. He says they’re talking about going to the press.’

  ‘Christ, that’s all we need.’ Simpson drummed her fingers on the table. ‘What are they like?’

  ‘The parents?’ Carlyle shrugged. ‘Dunno. Haven’t met them. Joe’s been handling it all.’

  ‘Well, you’d better bloody well pay them a visit, then.’

  ‘But you told me to prioritize Mosman,’ he protested.

  Simpson’s eyes narrowed. ‘Just as well you’re so good at multi-tasking then, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’ Hoist by his own petard, Carlyle got to his feet. ‘I’ll add it to the list.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘Are you sure this is the place?’ The inspector strode out on to the balcony of the Soho flat and let the chill evening air wash over him.

  ‘Yeah.’ Joe Szyszkowski held up a stack of envelopes that he’d picked up off the floor. ‘They’re all addressed to Francis Clegg.’

  ‘Well, he’s not here now.’ Leaning over the railing, the inspector gazed at the newly refurbished Marshall Street Baths across the road. They were barely a one-minute walk from Oxford Circus. The 2,000 square foot loft-style apartment with three bedrooms and direct lift access to an underground car park had to be worth several million. ‘The bloke’s obviously doing well.’

  Clearly thinking the same thing, Joe gave a rueful shrug.

  ‘Go and have a word with the concierge and see what he can tell us. We need to find this guy.’

  ‘Will do.’ As Joe headed for the door, the chirp of a mobile sounded in his pocket. He lifted it to his ear. ‘Hello?. . Yeah.’ He turned to face the inspector. ‘No, when do you need it by?. . Okay, I’ll see what I can do. . Yeah, I’ve got your number.’

  ‘News?’ Carlyle looked at him expectantly.

  ‘That was Bernie Gilmore.’

  Carlyle’s heart sank. Gilmore was a freelance journalist who chased down crime and political stories for a range of different newspapers and websites. You never wanted to get a call from him; invariably it meant he was on to something that was best kept under wraps. He eyed his sergeant suspiciously. ‘How did he get hold of your number?’

  ‘He’s got everyone’s number,’ said Joe wearily. ‘I’m only surprised that he didn’t call you first.’

  Right on cue, Carlyle’s official, MPS-issue Nokia began vibrating in the breast pocket of his jacket. Scooping it out, he squinted at the screen: BG. Hitting the reject button, he let it fall back into his pocket. Looking up, he saw Joe eyeing him inquisitively. ‘Just the missus,’ the inspector smiled. ‘What did Mr Gilmore want?’

  Joe let his gaze drop to his shoes. ‘He’s on to the Hannah Gillespie story.’

  ‘Fuck!’ Carlyle stomped his foot in frustration. ‘How the hell did he manage to get that?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Joe replied, ‘but he’s spoken to the parents. They gave him my name.’

  ‘And?’ Carlyle demanded, sensing there was more.

  ‘And he’s also got Clegg’s name.’

  ‘You are fucking kidding me!’ The inspector’s face turned an unpleasant shade of red until, for a moment, it looked like his head might actually explode.

  ‘And he’s even got this address.’ Fearing that his boss was about to rush over and throttle him, Joe took a couple of precautionary steps backwards. ‘I know,’ he said, holding up both hands. ‘I know, I know, I know. Someone’s blabbed. But we are where we are. He’s going to be here in ten minutes. What do you want me to tell him?’

  After a succession of deep inhalations, Carlyle’s face slowly began to return to something approaching its normal colour. ‘Just go and speak to the bloody concierge. I’ll deal with Bernie myself.’

  Carlyle intercepted the journalist at the front door of Clegg’s apartment building. Bernard Wynstanley Gilmore was a bear of a man: six foot two and twenty stone, he had a shock of black hair and an unkempt beard flecked with grey. His Depeche Mode Sounds of the Universe sweatshirt was covered in stains of an indeterminate nature, and his jeans were torn at both knees.

  ‘How’s it going, Bernie?’

  ‘Inspector.’ The journalist greeted him, wheezing as if he’d just climbed ten flights of stairs. ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Carlyle smiled.

  ‘Why not?’ Gilmore raised an eyebrow. ‘Is it a crime scene?’

  ‘No.’ At least not yet anyway. Carlyle gestured down the road, towards Ganton Street. ‘Let’s go to the Shaston Arms.’

  ‘Mm.’ Gilmore thought about that for a moment, patting his belly as he did so. ‘D’ya think they’ll have Tyrell’s crisps?’

  ‘I’m sure they do,’ Carlyle said, leading the way.

  Bernie Gilmore looked genuinely hurt. ‘They didn’t have any Tyrell’s.’

  ‘Ah well.’ Never a connoisseur, the inspector smiled as sympathetically as he could. As far as he was concerned, one bag of crisps was pretty much the same as another. It wasn’t as if the pub didn’t have any kind of crisps, so surely the hack could make do.

  Gilmore ripped open a bag of Thai Sweet Chicken and another of Sizzling King Prawn and laid them on the table. ‘Help yourself.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Carlyle took a sip of his Jameson’s and waited while the journalist sampled the different flavours. Listening to the happy buzz of the conversations around them, he considered how he should play this meeting.

  After washing the crisps down with a couple of gulps of Greene King IPA, Gilmore placed his pint glass on the table and happily wiped some crumbs from his beard. ‘Ahh!!’

  ‘Good?’ Carlyle finished his whiskey. He should have asked for a double. Already he felt like another.

  ‘I think I prefer the Sweet Chicken,’ Gilmore said solemnly. ‘Anyway, what’s the story?’

  ‘That remains to be seen.’

  Gilmore lifted the glass back to his mouth. ‘Hardly.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘As you well know, Inspector, these days, wait and see is never an option.’ Gilmore paused to demolish the rest of his beer. ‘If you’re going to ask me to just sit on this, there’s no chance. Pretty girl, a top student, goes missing in the middle of the big city? It seems very surprising that the police haven’t gone public on it already. Meanwhile, the parents, as you would expect, are worried sick. So, what are you waiting for?’

  What do you know about the parents’ worries? As far as Carlyle knew, Gilmore didn’t have a
ny kids. Even if he did, it was a fair bet he never got to see them. Being an in-your-face, muckraking journalist was a 24/7 gig; it did not sit easily with family responsibilities. ‘We don’t actually know that the girl is in danger.’ He kept his voice low, his tone even. ‘So far, this is just a missing person inquiry.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Gilmore raised an eyebrow. ‘Interesting. The Missing Persons Bureau hasn’t heard of her.’

  ‘Okay,’ Carlyle grimaced. ‘Maybe — and this is not for quotation — we’re a bit behind on the paperwork.’

  Folding his arms, Gilmore sat back in his seat. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m not interested in giving you a hard time.’

  Carlyle shook his head disbelievingly. ‘No?’

  ‘No, really, I’m not. But the point is, I’ve got more than enough material to go with this story. I’ve spoken to the parents, and to the best friend. By all accounts, Hannah was a smart kid.’

  ‘Is,’ Carlyle corrected him, hoping that he was right.

  ‘Very smart,’ Bernie continued, ignoring the interruption. ‘Her parents were already dreaming of a scholarship at Stanford. That’s an American university.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Carlyle snapped. ‘Silicon Valley and all that.’

  ‘You can hardly blame them,’ Bernie mused, ‘what with tuition fees here going through the roof. Who’d want to scrape together nine grand a year to send their kid to some shitty polytechnic that no one’s ever heard of?’

  ‘Do they still have polys?’ Carlyle asked.

  Bernie thought about that for a moment. ‘Maybe they changed their names,’ he offered finally. ‘Still, no match for the Ivy League, though.’

  ‘No,’ Carlyle agreed.

  ‘So the boyfriend was obviously a bit of a fly in the ointment when it came to the grand plan.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Teenage hormones,’ Bernie shrugged. ‘They’re a killer.’

  A thought struck Carlyle. ‘Did you tell the parents about Clegg?’

  ‘You really are off the pace on this one, aren’t you?’ Gilmore shot him a pitying look.

  Fuck, the inspector thought, as he realized that he would have to talk to Mr and Mrs Gillespie asap. That was something else to look forward to.