by James Craig
A waiter reappeared with the drinks. Blitz let him clear the table. ‘I can sort this out for you,’ was all he said.
‘That’s very kind of you.’
The waiter left.
‘With the one condition . . .’
Here we go, Carlyle thought, downing his coffee in three quick gulps.
‘That my client is properly looked after.’
This is not some fucking contract negotiation, Carlyle objected silently. He placed his demitasse on the saucer and looked Blitz squarely in the eye. ‘Did he do it?’
Blitz didn’t blink. ‘No,’ he said evenly, ‘of course not.’
‘There’s no problem then. Tart battered by nobody. End of story.’
Blitz sighed. ‘You don’t know, do you?’
Obviously not. ‘What are we talking about?’ Carlyle asked, trying to sound nonchalant. ‘Known unknowns or unknown unknowns?’
‘Fucking coppers.’ Blitz tutted. ‘The dead girl – don’t you realize who she is?’
‘Was.’
‘Whatever,’ Blitz snorted. ‘Don’t you know who she was?’
TWENTY-THREE
Sitting in the back of a black cab, Carlyle looked morosely at the line of traffic crawling up Tottenham Court Road. The taxi meter had already ticked up to £8.60 while covering a distance that he could easily have walked in less than two minutes. The taxi driver, happily listening to the usual procession of morons on a TalkSport radio call-in show, whistled to himself, secure in the knowledge that he was on for a bumper fare.
Carlyle shifted somewhat uncomfortably in his seat. His best guess was that he had something in the region of £3.50 on his person. Presumably Clifford Blitz, who’d already coughed up for their snack in the Light Bar, would be solvent enough to pay. After all, the inspector thought, he can always write it off against his tax bill.
Blitz ended a phone call and opened the window on his side of the cab a couple of inches.
‘Where are we going?’ Carlyle asked.
‘A safe house,’ Blitz said. He pulled a Romeo y Julieta Churchill out of the inside pocket of his jacket and stuck it in his mouth.
The driver eyed him warily in the mirror and pushed the button on the intercom. ‘Sorry, sir, no smoking in the cab.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Blitz told him. ‘I won’t light it until I get out.’
‘Why do you have a safe house?’ Carlyle asked.
‘It’s a place that I use to stash clients in when they’re in trouble. Everyone thinks they’re off in rehab in the countryside or have done a runner to the Seychelles, or wherever, when in reality they’re here, hiding right under the noses of the newspapers.’ He gave Carlyle a stern look. ‘This is all confidential.’
The cab edged forwards another ten yards.
The meter now read £10.20.
Carlyle gazed aimlessly out of the window. ‘Of course.’
‘You should really be wearing a blindfold.’
‘We have a deal. I keep my deals.’
Blitz clamped the cigar more firmly between his teeth. ‘We’ll see.’
‘Yes, we will,’ Carlyle replied. ‘My view is that you give someone the benefit of the doubt to start with. If people don’t live up to their word, that’s it.’
Blitz grunted something that could have been agreement or disdain.
‘You let me speak to Gavin Swann and—’
‘He won’t be arrested,’ Blitz interjected.
Carlyle nodded. ‘Nor will he be taken back to the station for further questioning. The conversation will not be a formal interview, nor will it go into the official police report at this time.’
Unclamping his jaw, Blitz pulled out the cigar and waved it at Carlyle. ‘And you won’t say anything to the papers!’
‘I don’t deal with journalists,’ Carlyle said firmly.
‘Yeah, right,’ said Blitz, with feeling, as he stuck the Romeo y Julieta back between his teeth.
‘I will carefully pursue the various lines of enquiry that need to be checked out, and when—’
‘If.’
Carlyle smiled. ‘If I need to speak to Mr Swann a second time, I will come through you.’
‘Good.’
Finally, the traffic eased and they accelerated across the Euston Road, heading towards Camden.
‘Thank God for that,’ Blitz sighed. ‘It should take about ten minutes from here.’
Carlyle felt his phone go off. No number was displayed but he had a sixth sense that it was Simpson and slipped the phone back into his jacket.
‘Hiding from the boss?’ Blitz grinned.
Carlyle shook his head. ‘How long have you known Swann?’
‘Gavin? Donkey’s years. I first saw him playing on Hackney Marshes when he was eight. The little bugger was brilliant – scored six goals in a single game. It was obvious he was going to be a top player.’
Carlyle knew a well-rehearsed spiel when he heard one but he nodded amiably.
‘I signed him on the spot,’ Blitz continued. ‘Since then, I’ve been taken to court three times, been banned by those numpties at the Football Association twice, and fined a total of a million and a half quid.’
‘Blimey!’ said Carlyle, turning up the fake empathy as high as it would go.
‘I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been sent bullets through the post,’ Blitz said smugly. ‘One time I was actually shot at but, through it all, I’ve still held on to my client.’
‘You must have made a mint.’
‘I’ve done all right,’ Blitz reflected. ‘I remember one meeting at a hotel at Heathrow. There was a Gola holdall with two million quid inside. It was sitting on the bed, next to a piece of paper and a pen. The bit of paper had just been torn from a lined notebook. On it was three lines of handwritten scrawl. It was supposed to be a contract with me signing over Gavin to this other agent, a twat called Marcus Angelides. Angelides was clearly scared shitless. I don’t know what he thought I would do to him. He was there with two Belgian cage fighters as muscle. He nodded at the bit of paper and said, “Sign it, take your money and fuck off”.’ He shook his head, smiling at the memory. ‘It was all in the papers.’
Knowing better than to spoil the moment, Carlyle waited. Reaching Camden tube, the cab took a left, heading towards Regent’s Park.
The meter now read £25.
‘So I looked him in the eye,’ said Blitz, as they turned into Gloucester Avenue, ‘and said “Marcus, you know I’m not going to sign that; don’t be so fucking stupid.” I knew that Gavin was going to be worth a hell of a lot more than that over the next ten years. I accepted that I might have to take a shoeing there and then but it would be worth it – as long as they didn’t actually kill me.’ Leaning forward, he rapped a knuckle on the glass window behind the driver’s head. ‘Anywhere here’s good – thanks, mate.’
Carlyle watched relieved as Blitz took out his wallet and removed a pair of crisp £20 notes to pay the fare.
‘How did you know that they wouldn’t kill you?’ he asked as the driver pulled up at the kerb.
‘I didn’t,’ Blitz shrugged. ‘But I had to take a punt, didn’t I? In the end, I didn’t even get thumped.’
‘So those weren’t the guys who shot at you, then,’ Carlyle asked, amused.
‘Nah. That was someone else. This time round, with the cash in the bag, it was just a lot of swearing and posturing. But that’s what you have to expect in this game.’ The driver stopped the meter at £27.80 and slid open the glass partition. Blitz slipped through the cash. ‘Thanks mate,’ he said cheerily. ‘Keep the change but give me a couple of blank receipts.’
‘I thought she was just some slapper.’ Slumped in a chair at the kitchen table, Gavin Swann looked down into his mug of tea. He was wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt with the legend BENCH emblazoned across the chest in white lettering. On his chin was a couple of days’ stubble, but he looked alert and relaxed. ‘Kelly brought her.’
Carlyle noticed the sl
ightest grimace from Blitz. ‘Kelly?’
‘Kelly Kellaway,’ Swann explained, oblivious to his agent’s annoyance. ‘I’d hooked up with her a few times before she brought Sandy.’
‘I’ll give you her number,’ Blitz said, keen to move the conversation on. He was leaning against the sink, a tumbler of Grey Goose vodka in his hand, his half-smoked Romeo y Julieta smouldering in an ashtray nearby. Carlyle turned his attention back to Swann.
‘So you didn’t know that Sandy Carroll was the daughter of Dino Mottram?
Swann shook his head.
‘She was Dino’s step-daughter,’ Blitz corrected him. ‘From his first marriage. He gets through them at a steady rate. The last one was number three, I think. I hear he’s on the lookout for number four.’
Good luck, Commander Simpson, Carlyle thought. Increasingly, he was struggling to understand why his boss was going out with the old rogue. Then again, her track record with men was uniformly bad, so why not?
‘Dino is a great guy,’ Blitz said, ‘but why he feels he has to marry every bird that he ever shags is beyond me.’
‘Never heard of him. Who is he?’ asked Swann.
‘Dino is the bloke who owns the football club you play for,’ Blitz told him gently.
‘The old bloke?’
‘Yeah.’
Swann frowned. ‘I thought that Ricky owned the club.’
Blitz sighed. ‘He’s the Chief Executive.’
Carlyle drummed his fingers on the table. ‘Getting back to the matter in hand . . .’
‘It was Paul,’ Swann bleated.
Carlyle looked at Blitz. ‘Who’s Paul?’
‘Paul Groom. He’s a reserve goalkeeper – third or fourth choice. Played in the first team just the once, for a grand total of ten minutes. Been out on loan at Gillingham earlier this season.’
Poor bastard, Carlyle thought.
Finishing his vodka, Blitz stepped over to the fridge to retrieve the bottle. ‘Not a client of mine, in case you’re wondering.’
Carlyle looked at Swann. ‘What was he doing in your hotel room?’
Swann gave the question some thought. ‘Sometimes,’ he said finally, ‘we hang out together.’
Carlyle grinned. ‘And you like to share the ladies?’
Swann shrugged, as if he didn’t understand the point that the inspector was trying to make.
‘You shouldn’t read anything into it,’ Blitz said. ‘Team-mates like to hang out together. Groupies get handed round. It happens all the time.’
‘Groupies?’ Carlyle frowned. ‘I thought she was a hooker.’
Swann gave the impression of serious thought. ‘She wasn’t on the game.’
‘She just put herself about,’ Blitz explained. ‘They tend to call them “sport fuckers” these days.’
Charming. ‘But she took money?’ Carlyle asked.
Swann thought about it some more. ‘Yeah, well, she would have done, I suppose.’
‘You suppose?’
Swann looked at the inspector earnestly. ‘Well, we didn’t get that far, did we?’
The cretin was beginning to wear him out. Carlyle took a deep breath. ‘Why do you even have to pay for it, anyway?’
‘Kids today,’ Blitz laughed. ‘They’re not like us, Inspector. They’re all watching porn on the internet by the time they’re five and fucking around by thirteen.’
Carlyle thought of Alice and shuddered.
‘It’s a completely different game from when we were kids. None of this sticking your hand down a girl’s bra and maybe up her skirt if you were really lucky. Now it’s all gang bangs and aping the shit they see online. If you don’t scream the place down, you’re not doing it right. So a girl you’ve just met lets you have sex with her and you hand over a bit of cash at the end of it, so what? It’s the same for all of them, not just celebs like Gavin.’
‘We are all prostitutes,’ Carlyle mused.
Swann looked at him blankly.
‘The Sex Pistols.’ The inspector could hear ‘Anarchy in the UK’ filling his head.
Swann made a face.
‘Sid Vicious . . . Johnny Rotten?’ Carlyle tried.
Still no sign of any recognition.
‘John Lydon.’
‘Who?’
Jesus Christ! The kid was a black hole of stupidity.
‘You’re wasting your time,’ Blitz chuckled.
‘Looks like it,’ Carlyle sighed. He said to Swann: ‘What kind of music do you listen to?’
‘Dunno,’ Swann mumbled, before reeling off three or four names that Carlyle had never heard of.
Now it was the inspector’s turn to look blank.
‘You need to get some of your younger colleagues to fill you in on the ways of the modern world, I think,’ said Blitz.
‘We’re not just talking about changes in musical tastes here,’ Carlyle replied.
‘That’s what I just said,’ Blitz smiled. ‘You’ve got to realize that there’s no stigma attached to anything.’
Carlyle shot him a look. ‘Even murder?’
‘Okay.’ Blitz held up a hand. ‘There’s no stigma attached to almost anything. Short of something like murder, there’s not much that can’t be squared away when you’re earning millions.’
That’s why you’re so fucking scared of this, Carlyle thought. It’s one of the few things that could derail the gravy train. ‘I suppose not,’ he said ruefully. ‘Okay, moving on, what happened when Sandy Carroll was in the room? How come she got killed?’
As Swann raised his gaze, his eyebrows knitted together, giving him a rather constipated look. ‘Paul wanted to have sex with the girl. She didn’t want to and he went mad, kicking her and hitting her.’
How very convenient. ‘Why didn’t you stop him?’ Carlyle asked evenly.
Swann looked over to his agent. Refilling his glass, Blitz gave him the slightest of nods.
‘I tried,’ Swann continued, ‘but he elbowed me in the face and I fell down.’
Now Carlyle went for a slightly doubtful look. The boy’s face did not have a mark on it.
‘He’s a big lad,’ Swann explained. ‘Anyway, as I got up, he caught her smack in the face with a right hook and she just kinda . . . collapsed.’
‘Why did you run away?’
‘He called me,’ said Blitz, putting the vodka back in the fridge, ‘and I told him to come here.’
Carlyle gazed out of the kitchen window at a garden that had to be at least seventy-five feet long. In Primrose bloody Hill! God knows how many millions this place must have cost. He watched Blitz tuck away another slug of booze. ‘Leaving the scene of a crime is a serious offence.’
‘We have a deal,’ Blitz said firmly.
‘We do,’ Carlyle conceded, ‘so we’ll park that. What I need to know is: where can I find Mr Groom?’
TWENTY-FOUR
Ambling back towards Camden Town tube station, Carlyle stopped in front of an estate agent’s office while he sent Umar an email, asking him to track down Ms Kellaway. After hitting Send, he lingered in front of the window, scanning the properties on view and eventually caught sight of one that looked similar to Blitz’s place.
‘Six point five million.’ Carlyle let out a low whistle. ‘Fuck me sideways.’ His phone went off. Lost in a sea of envy, he answered it without thinking.
‘Carlyle.’
‘Where the hell have you been, Inspector?’
Simpson sounded extremely pissed off. It always amused him when she was like this and he had to make an effort not to laugh.
‘I . . .’
‘And why haven’t you been answering your phone?’
‘Well . . .’ struggling to get his story straight, he thought about ending the call.
‘I had to do your press conference on my own.’
Oops.
‘With no idea what I was supposed to be saying.’
Carlyle remembered the days when Simpson, still climbing up the greasy pole, loved nothing better than
a good presser. Back in the day, when she was one of the pushiest bastards around, she couldn’t wait to get her face on the telly. ‘Did you get a good turnout?’
‘What?’
‘Nothing, nothing.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Look, things are moving on quickly. We should talk face-to-face but there are a couple of things I need to do first.’
‘For fuck’s sake, John.’
Carlyle pulled the phone from his ear in shock. Simpson was usually sparing in her use of the f-word; he really must be pushing his luck. Returning the phone to his ear, he tried for what he hoped was a conciliatory voice. ‘We may be able to make an arrest.’
There was a pause on the line. ‘Get on with it then,’ she said impatiently, ‘and then come straight to my office.’
‘Of course.’ Ending the call, he pulled up his sergeant’s number.
Umar answered on the third ring.
‘Simpson’s on the warpath,’ he sniggered.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ Carlyle said sharply, giving him the address. ‘That’s the training ground for Swann’s club. Take a couple of uniforms. Go and pick up a guy called Paul Groom. Gavin Swann says he killed that hooker in the Garden Hotel.’
‘Gavin Swann?’ Umar cackled. ‘This is getting tasty!’
‘Bring him back to Charing Cross. I’ll be there in a couple of hours.’
‘Hold on, hold on, give me that address again.’
Sighing, Carlyle repeated the details.
‘Okay. Got it. On my way.’
‘Keep me posted.’ Ending the call, the inspector spent another couple of minutes looking in the estate agent’s window for a property that he could conceivably afford. Finding nothing, he shrugged and continued on his way to the underground.
With no intention of going to see Simpson, Carlyle sat on a Northern Line train as it trundled south and wondered just what he was going to do next. Getting out at Leicester Square, his dilemma was solved by a call from Dominic Silver.
‘We need to chat.’
Standing on the Charing Cross Road, Carlyle glared at an Italian tourist who walked into him while reading his A–Z. ‘Okay.’
‘Are you busy?’
‘Yes,’ Carlyle lied, ‘but I can always make time for you.’ He told Dom where he was.