by James Craig
‘Bloody idiot,’ Carlyle harrumphed. Shoving the last of the Mars Bar into his mouth, he watched his mobile vibrating across the desk. Chewing rapidly, he picked it up.
‘Yeah?’ he said indistinctly.
‘Inspector?’
Carlyle swallowed quickly. ‘Yes, Umar.’ With his free hand, he guiltily scrunched up the empty Mars wrapper and threw it in the direction of a nearby bin, missing by a good foot.
‘I’m at the training ground.’
‘Good. Have you got the goalie?’
‘No.’
Carlyle felt his sugar-rush tail off dramatically. ‘Where is he then?’
‘He’s gone to Middlesbrough,’ said Umar apologetically.
Don’t make me ask, Carlyle thought.
After an extended pause, Umar realized that he owed his boss an explanation. ‘The team had an injury crisis, apparently. Groom is supposed to be on the bench for tonight’s game.’
‘What game?’ Carlyle drew the line at paying attention to anything that didn’t directly involve his own club, Fulham. How could he have gotten involved in such a messed-up series of investigations? Getting to his feet he began pacing between desks like a caged baboon with a mental disorder.
Umar mentioned some minor cup competition.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ the inspector grumbled, ‘a fucking meaningless game in an empty fucking stadium in a pointless fucking competition. And he’s still on the fucking bench. This guy must be really useless.’
‘What should I do?’
‘Are you joking?’ Carlyle shouted at the handset. ‘This is a murder investigation. Go and get the fucker.’
Umar groaned. ‘In Middlesbrough?’
‘Yes, in fucking Middlesbrough,’ Carlyle said maliciously. ‘I hear it’s lovely this time of year.’
‘He’ll be back tomorrow,’ Umar protested. ‘It’ll take me five or six hours to get there.’
‘Just fucking get on with it,’ Carlyle snarled. ‘And, by the way, thanks for the Mars Bar.’
‘What—’
Before his sergeant could complain any further, Carlyle ended the call. Still hungry, he stalked off in search of more food.
On the way back down to the canteen, his phone rang again.
‘Yes?’
‘On the other thing,’ Umar said, clearly irritated at being cut off.
‘What other thing?’
‘The tramp who was kicked to death round the back of the ENO.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Carlyle brusquely. ‘What have you got?’
‘I spoke to Milch. He was cagey about saying too much at this stage, but he thinks it will be difficult to work out which blow actually killed him. We have CCTV pictures showing four hoodies laying into the poor bastard, but it will be hard to prove that one of them landed the fatal blow.’
‘Bloody pathologists,’ Carlyle grunted. ‘Do we have an ID for the stiff yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘For fuck’s sake!’
‘We have uniforms going round the hostels and speaking to the local dossers,’ Umar explained patiently. ‘And I’ve got a couple of CSOs going through Missing Person reports.’
‘Good luck.’
Umar paused for effect. ‘However, what we do have is some DNA.’
‘Do we, indeed?’ Carlyle felt his mood improve.
‘The security pictures show one of the little bastards gobbing at the victim. He missed, leaving us a nice little present on the wall.’
That’s the great thing about scumbags, Carlyle smiled to himself. They tend to be very good at messing up. ‘Have we got a match?’
‘It’s going through the database now,’ Umar replied. ‘We’ll have the results tomorrow.’
‘Excellent,’ said Carlyle cheerily. Reaching the basement, he made an executive decision to treat himself to a mushroom omelette with chips and beans. ‘Something for you to look forward to when you get back from Middlesbrough.’
Silence.
He looked down at the phone. The signal had gone and he had lost the call. ‘Ah well,’ he mumbled to himself, ‘onwards and upwards.’
TWENTY-SIX
Lying on a king-sized bed in the penthouse suite on the fifth floor of the Dukes Hotel in St James’s, Christian Holyrod gazed morosely at Abigail Slater. Also naked, she was standing at the end of the bed, bent over her black leather shoulder bag.
Holyrod’s eyes narrowed. Her arse is getting fatter, he thought. That wasn’t necessarily a deal-breaker but, in the Mayor’s book, it was always better to err well on the skinny side of voluptuous. His wife could pile on the pounds; he expected considerably more restraint from his mistress. Taking a mouthful of whisky, his thoughts turned to his new PA in City Hall. Clara Hay, the third of his three assistants, had joined the Holyrod express a few months earlier. Twenty-four, she had a Double First in something or other from Cambridge and, rather annoyingly, a television presenter boyfriend who fronted something totally unwatchable on the BBC. Clara was slim, blonde – and smoking hot. Holyrod had a vision of her shimmying through the office in her slit leather mini-skirt and smiled happily.
‘Are you checking out my arse?’ Abigail said archly as she approached the bed.
‘Have you been going to your personal trainer?’ he asked before he could think better of it.
She gave him a quizzical look. ‘Not for a while. Been too busy. Why?’
‘Er, I just thought I might give her a go myself.’
They both appreciated the feebleness of the lie. The woman who organized Slater’s training sessions only took on female clients. To Holyrod’s relief, however, Abigail let it slide. Then he noticed the over-sized albino carrot in her hand. All evidence of life down below disappeared. He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach as he drained the last of the scotch from his glass. ‘What the hell is that?’ he asked.
‘It was a present from a grateful client, Christina O’Brien.’
The Mayor gave her a blank look.
‘One of Clive Martin’s girls,’ Slater explained. ‘Works at Everton’s. She was the one who assaulted the policeman during the raid there. Clive agreed to drop his claim, by the way.’
‘Which he would have lost anyway,’ Holyrod pointed out, refilling his glass almost to the brim.
‘If I agreed to sleep with him.’
‘What?’ Holyrod squawked, spilling some of his drink onto the carpet.
‘The dirty old goat wanted a shag,’ Abigail snorted. ‘Of course, I told him to get stuffed. We agreed on a compromise. I promised to get the charges dropped against Christina so that she could get back to work. Apparently she is Everton’s biggest earner by some margin.’
Christina O’Brien . . . Holyrod remembered the footage from the police raid that hadn’t made it onto his website and his reluctant penis began to stiffen just a little. Make a note of the name, he told himself. Everton’s might be worth a visit once he had stood down as Mayor. ‘How did you manage that?’
Leaning across the bed, Slater kissed him on the forehead. ‘That’s on a need to know basis, and you, Mr Mayor, do not need to know.’
Holyrod pushed himself up on his elbows, wondering whether he might order them a little something from room service. He wasn’t sure he could summon up the energy to go to a restaurant and, anyway, the menu at Dukes was really quite good. The grilled sardines on sourdough toast was one of his favourites. He was about to reach for the phone, when he saw that Abigail was fumbling with the albino carrot again. The thing seemed to have some kind of belt attached to one end. Concentrating, she pulled it around her waist and adjusted the straps.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked nervously.
Ignoring him, she removed a small tub of Vaseline from her bag. Twisting off the lid, she began smearing it along the length of her new appendage.
‘Abigail!’
‘Roll over,’ she commanded gruffly. ‘Let’s try something new . . .’
‘Where’s your mother?’
Alice
gave her father a peck on the cheek. ‘She’s got a planning meeting tonight for the Liberia trip.’
‘Okay.’ Carlyle had forgotten all about Liberia. ‘What do you think about it?’
‘I think it’s a great idea,’ Alice said cheerily. As she stepped back, he realized she was still wearing his Clash T-shirt. Hopefully, it had been washed in the interim. ‘Mum says you might come too.’
‘We’ll see how work is shaping up,’ Carlyle said warily. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘Yeah. I was just about to start my homework.’
‘What is it?’
‘Maths and French.’ Two of her better subjects.
Carlyle nodded. ‘Good.’
‘It shouldn’t take long.’
‘Okay, I’ll sort myself out with something to eat.’
Carlyle was just pouring some olive oil onto a plate of penne, when Alice reappeared in the kitchen doorway.
‘I forgot,’ she said, putting a small packet onto the kitchen top next to the plate. ‘Someone asked me to give you this.’
Carlyle looked at the envelope and frowned. ‘What?’
‘When I was coming out of school this afternoon,’ Alice explained, ‘a guy handed it to me and asked me to give it to you.’
Carlyle’s mind went off in a dozen different directions, none of them good. ‘Is that all he said?’
‘Yeah. He asked me if I was Alice Carlyle and then he gave me your package.’
‘He didn’t say anything else?’ Carlyle asked, careful to keep any edge from his voice.
‘Dad,’ she complained, ‘if he’d said anything else, I’d have told you.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Leaving the packet where it was, Carlyle opened a drawer and pulled out a fork. Picking up his plate, he headed for the living room. ‘What did this guy look like?’
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’
‘Later,’ Carlyle said, spearing a couple of tubes of pasta and popping them into his mouth. ‘What was he like?’
Alice blushed slightly. ‘He was a young guy, quite cute.’
Carlyle nodded. ‘What did he look like?’
‘I dunno, just cute.’
Stepping into the living room, Carlyle grabbed the remote and switched on the TV.
Alice stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Sounds like one of my snitches,’ Carlyle lied.
‘Ooh,’ Alice squealed. ‘An undercover operation!’
‘Something like that.’ Flicking through the channels, he opted for Sky Sports News. Sitting down on the sofa, he said to his daughter, ‘Thanks for bringing it to me. Now go and finish your homework.’
Umar Sligo stood in the away dressing room wondering why Paul Groom needed to have a shower. The goalie had just sat on the bench for the last 120 minutes plus penalties, watching glumly as his team had gone down to a predictable but embarrassing defeat in front of a four-fifths empty Riverside Stadium. Despite that, the only person who seemed in any way pissed off was Umar himself. The players and coaches were going mechanically about their business. Everyone just wanted to get back on the motorway and head for home. Umar could relate to that. Glancing at his watch, he realized that it would probably be about 4 a.m. before they made it back to London.
The team manager, a former England international rumoured to have a serious coke habit and an underage mistress, glared at the sergeant. When Umar had taken him aside and explained why he was there, the manager’s only response had been: ‘You plod, you pick your moments, don’t you?’ After a few minutes pacing the room like a demented hamster, he had skulked off to do his post-match press conference and answered the inevitable questions about his future or, more accurately, lack of one.
‘Twat!’ one of the players hissed after the boss as the door shut behind him.
‘Yeah,’ another laughed, ‘surely they’ve got to sack the bastard now.’
Keeping his gaze on the floor, Umar tried not to be too obvious in his eavesdropping.
Finally, Groom appeared from the showers. Umar recognized him from his picture on the club website. Naked, he was drying off his hair with a towel, which only served to draw the sergeant’s attention to the goalkeeper’s most celebrated asset. And, sweet Jesus, it was most certainly worthy of celebration. He cleared his throat but kept his voice low. ‘Paul Groom?’
The keeper eyed Umar with dull resentment. ‘Yeah?’ He began drying his genitals with the towel.
‘I’m . . .’
‘I know who you are,’ Groom said sullenly. He nodded at the door. ‘Give me five minutes to get dressed and I’ll meet you outside.’
The civilians who worked the scanning machine in the post room at Charing Cross police station had long since gone home. Scratching his head, Carlyle tried to convince himself that it couldn’t be that difficult to use. Basically, it looked like a smaller version of the X-ray machines at airports. On the side of the tunnel was the legend: ‘Threat Protection Systems: Next Generation X-Ray Screening Solutions’.
Sounds good, Carlyle thought. Now all I’ve got to do is work out how to switch the bloody thing on.
‘Inspector?’
Looking up, Carlyle saw a mixture of amusement and concern on Angie Middleton’s face.
‘Hi.’
‘What are you doing?’ the sergeant asked. ‘I thought you’d gone home.’
‘I came back. You’re on late tonight.’
‘My replacement called in sick. I had to pull a double shift.’ Middleton carefully took a bar of milk chocolate from her shirt pocket and placed it on the top of the machine. ‘I was just on my way back from the canteen.’
The inspector said, ‘I don’t suppose you know where the “on” switch is, by any chance?’
Middleton crossed her arms over her more than ample bosom. ‘Only properly qualified personnel are supposed to operate this machine.’
‘I know.’
‘And everything that goes through it needs to be logged.’
‘Of course.’ Carlyle gestured at the packet that he had carefully placed in the middle of the conveyor belt. ‘But I just need to look at something quickly.’
Sighing, Middleton stepped round the back of the machine and flicked a switch. ‘Come here.’
Carlyle did as he was told.
‘See?’
‘Mm.’
At the back of the machine was a monitor next to a control panel with four buttons. Middleton switched on the monitor and an image of inside the machine appeared on the screen. ‘It’s very simple,’ she explained, running her finger down the buttons. ‘Start. Stop. Backwards. Magnify.’
‘Okay,’ Carlyle nodded. ‘I’m sure I’ll be fine from here. Thanks, Angie.’
Angie gave him a weary shake of the head. ‘I’ll be at the desk if you need any more help. Remember to switch everything off when you go.’
‘I will,’ Carlyle smiled. ‘Thanks again.’
Retrieving her chocolate bar, she headed for the door. Once she had gone, the inspector quickly pressed the start button and listened to the machine rumble into action.
By the time Carlyle made it home for the second time that evening, the flat was dark and silent. After brushing his teeth, he had a piss before undressing in the bathroom. Tiptoeing naked into the bedroom, he slipped under the duvet.
Rolling into the middle of the bed, Helen pulled him towards her. ‘So what was in the envelope?’ she asked sleepily.
‘I don’t know,’ he whispered. ‘Anything like that has to go through the scanner at work. The scanner guys knock off at six, so I logged it in and they’ll check in the morning.’ He had composed the lie on the way home; it sounded good enough.
Helen slipped a hand between his legs and he felt a pleasing tingle in his crotch. ‘Couldn’t it have waited until the morning, then?’ she asked, sounding rather more awake now.
Her hand slid away from him and Carlyle pulled it gently back. ‘I won’t be at the station first thing,’ he murmured, ‘so
my sergeant can get on with it.’ He wondered how Umar was doing on the road back to London and stifled a chuckle.
‘What’s so funny?’ This time when Helen removed her hand, she did not let him guide it back.
‘My poor bastard of a sergeant had to go up to Middlesbrough tonight to track down a suspect.’
‘Look, John,’ said Helen, clearly not interested in the fate of Umar Sligo, ‘I don’t like Alice being accosted outside the school. Who is this informer anyway?’
‘Eh?’
‘Alice said it was a snitch.’
‘Yeah. He thought he was using his initiative. I’ll speak to him. It won’t happen again.’
‘If he’s someone you know,’ Helen persisted, ‘why do you have to go through such a performance?’
‘He thought he was being helpful.’ It was time to change the subject. ‘How was your meeting?’ he asked.
‘Good. We’ve got the confirmed dates for the Liberia trip.’
‘That’s great.’
Turning to face him, Helen looked her husband in the eye, the way she did when she wanted to steamroller him on something. ‘It’s been moved forward.’ She mentioned some dates.
Frowning, Carlyle thought it through. ‘You’re going next week then?’
‘Alice really wants you to come.’
‘Shouldn’t she be in school?’
‘I spoke to the Headmaster. He’s happy for me to take her out of school for such an educational trip.’
‘For two weeks?’
‘It takes forever to get around,’ Helen explained. ‘It’s not just like jumping in a car and zooming up the M1.’