by James Craig
Slumping back into the armchair, Carlyle wearily wafted a hand in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Help yourself – and make me a green tea while you’re at it.’
Umar reappeared with two mugs of freshly made tea. Handing one to Carlyle, he took a grateful sip from the other. ‘Why have you got a cut-up sim card in the sink?’ he asked, taking a seat on the sofa.
Fuck. ‘Er, it was Alice’s,’ Carlyle lied. ‘She ran up a ridiculous bill on her phone, so I cut it up.’
‘Tough love,’ Umar noted.
‘Quite. How did you get on in the sticks?’
‘Oh, a complete waste of time. Spoke to some snotty pen-pusher in uniform who told me absolutely nothing that wasn’t on Dr Bell’s piece of paper.’
Carlyle let out a long breath. Events had overtaken Adrian Gasparino. Now he had more pressing things to worry about than the hapless soldier. ‘Did you see his missus?’
‘Yeah.’ Umar blew on his tea. ‘Their kid was born four days ago. She had just returned home. In a bit of a daze.’
Carlyle surprised himself by dredging a scintilla of empathy from somewhere. ‘You would be.’
‘She says she never even saw Adrian when he got back from Afghanistan.’
‘So, all in all, it was a complete waste of time, then?’ Carlyle could feel his eyelids drooping. He wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for at least ten hours.
Umar beamed. ‘Luckily for you, though, I can multi-task.’
A pained expression settled on Carlyle’s face. I want to go to sleep, he thought. Why don’t you go home? ‘Eh?’
‘Milch came up with a DNA sample that I was able to match to Clive Martin.’ Umar sat back on the sofa, waiting for the applause to start.
Placing his mug on the coffee table, Carlyle slowly processed that piece of information. ‘The strip-club guy? Abigail Slater’s client?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Umar smiled. ‘Mr Everton’s, no less.’
Can I please go to bed now? Carlyle wondered. His brain, however, kept ticking over. ‘How come we have his DNA in the database?’
‘He was done for driving while banned – and being three times over the legal limit – ten years ago. One of the people who kicked Gasparino to death was a close family member. I’m guessing a grandson.’
‘Result,’ Carlyle nodded. ‘Well done.’
Umar looked at his watch. ‘We could head round to Everton’s now, if you want.’
You’ve got to be fucking kidding. Carlyle shook his head. ‘Nah. Bring the offending toe-rag in and work out the details. You’ll have the case closed by tomorrow night.’
‘Okay.’
‘And say thanks to Milch for me.’ Carlyle got to his feet and gestured towards the hall. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, it’s my bedtime. I need to get my beauty sleep.’
THIRTY-SEVEN
Placing his beer bottle on the bar, Dominic Silver scanned the story in the Standard – Gavin Swann: MY KISS ’N’ TELL SHAME – and muttered to himself, ‘Bloody footballers, they should be outlawed.’
Gideon Spanner appeared at his shoulder. ‘He’s here.’
Taking a moment to finish the story, Dom closed the newspaper, folding it in half, before placing it next to the beer bottle. Leaning against the bar, he looked past his business partner, towards the guy flanked by the minder with the gun in his pocket and the pneumatic black woman.
‘Tuco,’ Dom said cheerily, ‘can I buy you a drink?’
Tuco Martinez looked contemptuously around Zatoichi’s. The place was a long way from full but it wasn’t empty either. ‘We need to talk,’ he said. ‘Somewhere private.’
‘Here is fine,’ Dom said airily, plucking the beer from the bar and lifting it to his lips.
Tuco took a step closer. ‘Our partnership,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘is not going as planned.’
‘The police raid was unfortunate,’ Silver told him. ‘But out of my control. This kind of thing is just part of the cost of doing business, as you well know.’
‘But we haven’t done any damn business!’ Tuco waved an angry finger under Dominic’s nose. ‘Don’t think you can rip me off like this.’ Red in the face, his eyes bulged as if they were about to pop out of his head.
‘Calmes-toi, Tuco.’ The woman put a hand on the old man’s shoulder.
‘I am calm!’ Tuco hissed. Pushing her hand away, he turned back to Silver. ‘I have told your corrupt flic that he has to return my dope – and my boy.’
Gideon casually pushed himself off the bar and set his stance for action.
‘None of this is in our power and control,’ Dominic repeated. ‘I will, of course, see what I can do. But I would never waste your time with false promises or meaningless guarantees.’
‘You have one week,’ Tuco threatened him. ‘If I have to come back to this stinking city of yours, you will all die.’
Silver watched the French trio leave the bar and turned to Gideon Spanner. ‘Well,’ he said perkily, ‘I think that went well.’ Finishing his beer, he signalled to Michela for another bottle.
As usual, Gideon kept his own counsel.
The first floor of Honeymann’s Finsbury Square offices was busier than the middle of Oxford Street in the January sales. Young, animated professionals descended from all directions on the open-plan canteen. All around were screens showing the current output of Honeymann TV. The place hummed with excitement and activity.
Baseer Yazdani contemplated the inspector with wry amusement as he took it all in. ‘The offices are designed to create what’s called “pandemonium with a purpose” – loads of technology, lots of activity and . . .’ he smiled at an attractive Asian girl who was headed for the drinks machine, ‘lots of babes. What more could you want?’
‘Bloody hell!’ Carlyle laughed. ‘I want to work here.’
‘What you’ve got to remember,’ Baseer explained, ‘is that it’s a young person’s game. The average age here is thirty-one, thirty-two, something like that.’
‘Yeah,’ Carlyle said, ‘I’m past it. I know.’
The journalist held up a hand by way of apology. ‘Sorry . . .’
Carlyle frowned. ‘Don’t worry. I’m the only person in here with grey hair. I’m not going to take offence.’
‘I didn’t mean . . .’
‘Not a problem. We all get older.’ Carlyle gestured at the scene in front of them. ‘Even this lot. Mr Honeymann won’t be able to save them from that. Not that they’ll be worrying about that right now.’
‘It’s a working space that is designed for incidental contact and accidental creativity.’ Baseer pointed towards the lifts. ‘Let’s make a move. I’ve been here for three years now. It’s great. Twice I’ve been offered jobs at the BBC but I’d never move. I think I would die of boredom over there. Too many rules.’
They reached the lifts as the doors of one opened and another splurge of journalistic humanity spilled out, heading for the free muesli and bananas. Once it had emptied, Baseer stepped inside and hit the button for the third floor.
Upstairs, parked in a glass cube of a meeting room, Carlyle watched a presenter interview a suit on the set outside. With some effort, he tried to focus on what the suit was talking about – something about Zimbabwe’s latest export plans – before losing interest immediately.
‘Here we go.’ Baseer dropped a thick blue file onto the desk.
Carlyle looked at the file. ‘What have you got?’
‘These are some of the documents from our investigation into Dino Mottram.’
Carlyle pulled his chair towards the desk and sat up straight.
‘We have got a lot of material,’ Baseer informed him, ‘but so far, nothing I can publish. It is simply not enough to get it past my editors.’
Folding his arms, Carlyle smiled. ‘So you want me to help you with some more proof?’
‘No. I simply thought you might be interested in the stuff relating to Clifford Blitz and Gavin Swann.’
Carlyle nodded. ‘You thought right.’
; Baseer tapped the file. ‘Much of this stuff is publicly available documentation. Some, however, has come from my sources, whom I cannot reveal.’
‘I understand.’
‘Okay. The deal is that you can look through this material here and take notes, but you cannot take it away or make copies. Our relationship has to remain confidential. When you have progress in your investigation, you give me a heads-up first.’
‘That’s fine.’ Carlyle produced a notepad and pen and said, ‘Give me the executive summary, please.’
Baseer took a deep breath. ‘The top rate of tax has gone up and the expectation is that it will go up further.’
Good, thought Carlyle.
‘Footballers and their agents are keener than ever to minimize their tax bill. One tactic that has been used by Blitz is for Swann to take a director’s loan from his image rights company.’
Carlyle began to make notes approximating the journalist’s briefing. The reality, however, was that the detail was lost on him and the words were just bouncing off his brain with nothing going in.
‘As a result, Swann has been able to cut his tax bill by ninety-eight per cent,’ Baseer concluded.
Carlyle raised an eyebrow. ‘How much?’
‘He has borrowed nearly ten million from Monkeyface 286, his image rights company, over the past four years. Had he taken this money as a salary, he would have been liable for more than four million in tax.’
‘But this is legal, isn’t it?’
Baseer smiled. ‘With the taxman, you never really know, do you?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Getting into things like this means you are treading a very fine line. You would expect the Revenue to be all over it.’
Carlyle looked the young journalist up and down. ‘And you would help HMRC with their enquiries?’
‘If I can . . . and if I can get some copy out of it.’
‘Okay. Let me make a few calls.’ Stuffing his notes in his pocket, Carlyle got to his feet. ‘In the meantime, I think I’m gonna have to grab a little snack on the way out.’
Pushing up the half-opened shutter, Umar Sligo stepped inside Everton’s and was immediately confronted by a shaven-headed bouncer who was almost as wide as he was tall. In one of his meaty paws was a mug with a Chelsea FC crest on the side.
‘Come back later,’ the man growled, taking a mouthful of tea. ‘We’re closed.’
Umar pulled out his warrant card and let the man slowly read the text.
‘I’m looking for Clive Martin,’ he said.
‘Haven’t seen him,’ the man shrugged, standing aside, ‘but he might be in the back.’
Replacing the ID in his pocket, Umar wandered into the club proper. Aside from a delivery man placing boxes of spirits on the bar and an old woman mopping the floor, the place was empty.
‘The boss isn’t around.’
Umar turned to see the American girl who had whacked the unlucky PC Lea stroll across the room towards him. If anything, she looked even more of an Amazonian goddess with her clothes on, and, without any make-up on her face, he could see that she was definitely on the beautiful side of pretty. Pretending not to recognize her, Umar lifted his gaze to the middle distance.
Christina O’Brien grinned. She was used to making men flustered and the cute cop was not the best when it came to hiding his thoughts. She flashed him a smile, dazzling him with her impossibly white, impossibly perfect American teeth. ‘Clive’s probably in bed with a couple of the girls and a monster hangover. You won’t see him around here until tonight.’
Umar gazed at his shoes. He felt like a deer being circled by a lion; usually it was the other way round and he felt distinctly uncomfortable with this role reversal. ‘Where does he live?’
The bouncer appeared by the bar and glared at Christina.
‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged, enjoying the obvious lie, before heading for the door at the back of the stage. When Umar followed, she stopped, turned and tapped him on the chest with an immaculately manicured index finger. ‘A bit early for a private dance, isn’t it?’ she grinned, looking over Umar’s shoulder at the bouncer.
Umar felt himself blush but soldiered on. ‘Have you met any of his family?’ he asked, lowering his voice.
Leading him through the door, Christina closed it behind them before answering. ‘He has two sons,’ she said quietly. ‘Both in their 40s, I think. One of them is an accountant or something – he’s never here, which is not surprising seeing as he’s gay.’ She laughed mirthlessly. ‘Clive, being a stupid old bugger, is quite put out about it.’
‘The other?’ Umar asked.
‘A right pig. Never worked a day in his life. He uses the place as if it’s his own private knocking shop; I don’t know how his wife puts up with it.’
Umar wasn’t looking for a middle-aged man. ‘What about a grandson?’
Christina gave him a funny look but knew better than to ask any questions herself. ‘No idea.’ Umar frowned.
‘Anyway, you can ask him yourself. He has a flat in Covent Garden.’ She gave him an address on Maiden Lane, off Garrick Street, near the piazza.
‘Thanks. I won’t let slip where I got the information from.’ Umar turned away. He had the door half-open when he felt her hand on his shoulder.
‘Where are you going?’ she whispered. ‘There’s no rush. Clive will definitely still be asleep.’
Umar felt an unfamiliar sense of panic as she led him towards one of the back rooms. Pushing him through the nearest door, Christina ran her tongue along her bottom lip. ‘I came in early to try out a new routine. You can give me a hand.’
THIRTY-EIGHT
Sitting in the Box Café, Carlyle was enjoying a Coke when a call lit up his mobile. He eyed the machine suspiciously for several seconds before picking it up.
‘Carlyle.’
‘What the fuck do you think you are playing at?’
Pulling the phone away from his head, it took the inspector a moment to realize that the snarling voice on the other end belonged to Gavin Swann’s agent, Clifford Blitz.
Smiling, he put the handset back to his ear.
‘What’s the problem, Mr Blitz?’
‘You know damn well what the problem is!’ Blitz screamed at him. ‘I’ve had the Inland Revenue at my house since six o’clock this morning. They are hoovering up every bit of paper they can find and carting it off for forensic investigation, whatever the fuck that is.’
Struggling to keep the amusement from his voice, Carlyle cleared his throat. ‘I know nothing about this,’ he lied. ‘The Inland Revenue is nothing to do with me.’
‘Don’t fuck with me, Inspector,’ Blitz hissed. ‘We had a deal.’
‘We do, indeed,’ Carlyle agreed, ‘and as you know, I have been scrupulous in keeping to it. Mr Swann has been kept as far from my investigations as you could have hoped – further, in fact.’
Blitz made a noise that sounded like he was in pain.
‘Who is leading the HMRC investigation?’ Carlyle asked.
‘A woman,’ Blitz groaned, as if that somehow added insult to injury. ‘I’ve got a card here . . . Maria March, Special Investigations Department.’
Carlyle took a few seconds to give the impression of carefully searching through his mental contacts list. ‘Never heard of her,’ he said finally. The truth was rather different. The inspector had known Maria March for more than ten years. Back in 2004, as an ambitious young investigator for HM Revenue & Customs, she had been investigating a City scam of the type that came along with monotonous regularity. One of the traders caught in the HMRC web had walked in front of a number 19 bus travelling down Charing Cross Road rather than face the music. Carlyle remembered that his only real surprise at the time was that the bus had been going fast enough to actually kill the bloke, although – if his memory served him correctly – the trader only finally shuffled off this mortal coil after spending a week in a coma.
After his conversation with the Honeymann
journalist Baseer Yazdani, the inspector had spent an hour in Maria’s tiny office in Somerset House, talking her through the alleged fraud involving Gavin Swann. Sitting in front of a floor-to-ceiling bookcase crammed with files, papers and various tax guides, Maria looked even smaller than her five foot two inches. A pretty, raven-haired woman now well into her forties, she had Italian parents and a French husband, with two kids who were Londoners through and through.
‘Okay. I see.’ Maria nodded thoughtfully all the way through Carlyle’s opening monologue, taking copious notes in a hard-backed A4 notebook.
When he couldn’t think of anything else to say, the inspector sat back in his chair, knocking a copy of Tolley’s Tax Guide from the table behind him.
‘Sorry.’
Maria rolled her hazel eyes. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
Carlyle picked the book off the floor and placed it back in its place. ‘So,’ he asked, ‘what do you think?’
‘Well,’ Maria looked at her notes, ‘this kind of thing is fairly common. I should imagine we know all of this stuff – and more – already. It’s clearly a grey area; the question is, how actively are we investigating it?’
‘I see,’ said Carlyle, unable to keep the disappointment from his voice.
‘Don’t worry,’ Maria smiled, ‘I’m sure we will be able to give this guy a hard time for you. My boss is a complerte media tart. He will love the publicity of such a high-profile target. He would have sex with his grandmother in Selfridges window for a couple of minutes on the Today programme.’
‘Urgh.’
‘His words, not mine.’
‘This has to be more than just a publicity stunt.’
She looked at him doubtfully.
‘Really.’
‘Okay. I understand. I’m sure if we put our minds to it we could probably come up with enough to put Mr Blitz away for a year or two, maybe more.’
‘Perfect,’ Carlyle smiled. ‘That would be great.’
‘Never heard of her?’ Blitz parroted, sensing that he was being given some flannel but unable to do anything about it.
‘No, sorry,’ Carlyle replied. ‘But let me see what I can find out.’