Then We Die ic-5

by James Craig

  ‘Better that than calling your sprog something like Kylie or Jason,’ Carlyle mused, taking a sip of his Jameson Redbreast twelve-year-old Irish whiskey.

  ‘The other was called La Mariposa, the Butterfly,’ Dom continued.

  ‘Do you have a nickname yourself?’

  ‘What?’ Dom took a sip of his Chateau La Fleur de Gay 2005, irritated at Carlyle’s repeated interruptions.

  ‘You could be, like. . I dunno — the Professor. . or the Scorpion.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ Dom scowled. ‘I’m a serious businessman.’

  ‘Maybe the Cobra?’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  ‘It might be a good idea. It’s all about marketing, after all.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Dom sighed theatrically, keen to get his story back on track, ‘the Black Widow and the Butterfly were on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Most Wanted list back in the 1980s. One of them — I can’t remember which — was captured in Venezuela and sent back to America naked, in chains, in a dog cage.’

  ‘Nice,’ Carlyle grinned. ‘You’d better hope the Americans never get hold of you.’

  ‘They don’t care about me,’ Dom sniffed. ‘I am a very small-scale, local operator. And I am very careful to have no dealings with anyone who does anything at all in the US.’

  ‘You wouldn’t go on holiday there, though, would you?’

  ‘No,’ Dom admitted. ‘Why take the risk? Anyway, we prefer Tuscany.’

  ‘In terms of the women?’ Carlyle prompted, glancing at his watch.

  ‘Yes. . right, there are some women at high levels in the Mexican cartels; other women who are awaiting trial on charges of trafficking large quantities of cocaine into the US. And why not? The drugs business is the same as any other. It reflects the wider trends in society. And it is more meritocratic than most. If a woman has the necessary skills to do the job, she can get on.’

  ‘And this model?’

  ‘Lottie seems very good at organizing people and handling money. She’s wasted as a model, in fact.’

  ‘So why not give her a job?’ Carlyle asked. ‘Rather than dragging me into it.’

  ‘I did try and broach the subject, but she’s a bit. . headstrong. And I think she thought that I was just trying to get into her knickers.’ Dom raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘People management is a really shit part of the job. I don’t really want any more high-maintenance employees if I can possibly help it. Anyway, I don’t have a vacancy. The boys of Class A Company are doing a really good job.’

  As it happened, the boys of Class A Company — named after the UK’s A, B, C classification system for illegal drugs — came from A Company, the Ninth Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Over the last few years, they had divided their time between ceremonial duties, guarding Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London, and conducting rather more stressful tours in Afghanistan. They were famous for spending 107 consecutive days fighting the Taliban at Now Zad in a single summer.

  They were also famous, in some quarters, for their recreational activities. Four Fusiliers had been caught taking cocaine on a rifle range during a live firing exercise. Others had tested positive for cocaine or cannabis in compulsory drug tests. When the young culprits were unceremoniously thrown back on to Civvie Street, Dominic Silver was waiting for them with the offer of a new job, and a new ‘family’ to go with it.

  ‘The Ninth Battalion is getting the chop, you know.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘It’s being disbanded as part of the latest defence review.’

  ‘Bummer.’

  ‘Bad news for the Army,’ Dom said, ‘but good news for me. Plenty of fresh talent coming onto the market.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘It’s just one more reason why I don’t need Lottie,’ Dom explained. ‘I can’t see any way round it — she has to go.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Dom clapped him on the back. ‘Think of it as one small victory in the never-ending war against drugs.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Seriously, this is one of these classic win-win situations.’

  Carlyle placed his glass back on the table. Whenever Dom used the phrase ‘win-win’, he knew that trouble lay ahead.

  With the show finally over, the multi-talented Lottie was pulling on a pair of skinny jeans as Carlyle approached her.

  ‘Ms Gondomar?’

  Zipping up her trousers, a look of recognition mixed with disgust crept across the girl’s face. ‘Rollo!’

  But the fat man was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Rollo!’

  ‘I’m police,’ Carlyle said quietly, brandishing a warrant card in one hand and a pair of speedcuffs in the other. He gestured towards the shoulder bag sitting on the floor by the girl’s feet, as if that was the only explanation necessary for his presence here. ‘Please put on a shirt, before we head to the station.’

  SIX

  After almost four hours of emergency surgery, Joe Szyszkowski had been placed in a private room at one end of the Sarah Swift Ward, the short-stay acute medical admissions unit at St Thomas’ Hospital. Standing guard outside was his wife Anita, flanked by two of her brothers.

  Skulking round the corner was John Carlyle.

  After dropping off an outraged but clearly guilty Lottie Gondomar in a holding cell at Charing Cross, he had grabbed a sandwich from a newsagent’s just off Trafalgar Square and headed straight down to Westminster Bridge Road. Not wishing to face his sergeant’s family, he had slumped on a sofa in a nearby waiting room and promptly fallen asleep.

  ‘John?’

  Waking with a jerk, he found his boss, Commander Carole Simpson, standing over him.

  ‘Was I snoring?’ he asked, embarrassed.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she smiled, handing him a coffee. ‘Here.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Taking the lid off the cardboard cup, he took a sip before looking her up and down. Out of uniform, in jeans and a fleece, with no make-up, she looked tired and frail. Just about as tired and frail as Carlyle himself felt.

  God, he thought, is this what The Job does to us?

  Simpson was five or six years younger than Carlyle. They had worked together for almost fifteen years now. Unlike Carlyle, she had spent most of that time on the fast track to success. But any aspirations Simpson might have had of a Deputy Commissioner’s job had been derailed when her husband, Joshua Hunt, had been jailed for financial fraud. Simpson had kept her head down, refused to resign, and taken whatever solace that her work could offer. But she knew that she was considered damaged goods. There would be no more promotions. Now, like the inspector himself, she was basically doing her job because she didn’t know how to do anything else.

  Ironically, the collapse of Simpson’s own career had paved the way for a much improved relationship with her troublesome inspector. Whereas Carlyle had been deeply suspicious of her on the way up, he felt far more sympathetic to her current plight. For her part, Simpson had responded to Carlyle’s belated ability to show some empathy at a time when others were all too ready to keep their distance from her.

  ‘Did you speak to Anita?’

  Carlyle put the lid back on his coffee. ‘No, I don’t think she’d be too happy to see me right now.’

  Simpson gazed out of the window. ‘So what’s the latest news?’

  ‘Dunno. . I’m still waiting for a doctor to show up.’

  Simpson sat down glumly. ‘I hate hospitals.’

  ‘Me too,’ Carlyle yawned, wishing he could just go back to sleep.

  ‘Joshua’s been in and out of here God knows how many times in the last six months. It’s been horrible.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Carlyle lied. No chance now of nodding back off, so he pushed himself upright. While he was in prison, Joshua Hunt had been diagnosed with cancer of the colon. Karma, or just shit bad luck? Either way, he had been released on compassionate grounds on the expectation that his illness would prove terminal in fairly short order. ‘How’s
that going?’

  Simpson stared at her sensible shoes for a long time. ‘Well,’ she said finally, ‘he’s lasted longer than they thought he would.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  She looked at him defiantly. It was the kind of Don’t patronize me, John Carlyle expression that he was more than familiar with from receiving it regularly at home.

  ‘The end result is always going to be the same, though, isn’t it?’

  Mumbling something meaningless, he quickly retreated back into his own thoughts and fears.

  From the corridor outside came a woman’s scream. It was soon followed by a generalized commotion. The inspector knew only too well what that meant.

  For as long as he dared, he sat still, staring vacantly into space at the floor, refusing to move. Finally he got to his feet. As he did so, the door opened and a small, dark-haired woman in a white coat stepped into the waiting room. Turning to Simpson, she offered her hand. ‘I’m Dr Victoria Taylor, one of the consultants in Emergency Medicine.’

  Simpson stood up sharply and shook her hand, gesturing in the direction of her subordinate as she did so. ‘Commander Carole Simpson and this is Inspector John Carlyle. We’re colleagues of Sergeant Szyszkowski.’

  Carlyle knew what was coming but held his breath anyway. He had been on the other side of this conversation many times before, and knew that there was no point in messing around.

  Taylor nodded. ‘I’m sorry to have to inform you that Joseph Szyszkowski died approximately ten minutes ago. He went into cardiac arrest after suffering considerable blood loss.’

  Staring at the floor, Carlyle kept his jaw clamped firmly shut as he again tried to fight back the tears.

  ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Simpson said. ‘How are the family?’

  ‘The wife has been sedated,’ Taylor said matter-of-factly. ‘She was in quite a state.’

  Carlyle needed to get out of there. Bringing his emotions under control, he thanked the doctor and walked out.

  In the corridor, he walked straight into a large Asian bloke, six-foot-plus, with the over-developed torso of a bodybuilder. He had clearly been crying, and a flash of anger sparked in his eyes when he saw Carlyle.

  ‘You’re the bastard who got Joe killed!’

  Before Carlyle could say or do anything, the guy took half a step backwards and unleashed a thunderbolt left hook that hit Carlyle squarely on the chin. For the second time that day, the inspector’s lights were well and truly extinguished.

  Carlyle pushed away the smelling salts that Dr Taylor held under his nose. I’m far too old for this, he thought unhappily. Getting beaten up once was unfortunate — but twice in the same bloody day! His headache was now so bad that he could barely open his eyes under the harsh strip-lighting. Forcing himself to his feet, it took him a moment to realize that Simpson was still beside him in the corridor, while his assailant, staring defiantly into space as if he had nothing to do with any of this, was in handcuffs.

  ‘How did you manage that?’ Carlyle asked groggily, gesturing at the cuffs.

  Simpson shrugged.

  As the nausea passed, Taylor handed him a small bottle of Scottish spring mineral water and he took a large gulp. Screwing the lid back on the bottle, he turned again to Simpson. ‘Let him go.’

  She gave him a frown. ‘There’s a van on the way to pick him up.’

  Carlyle shook his head. ‘Stand them down.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘Let him go. It’s been an unbelievably shit day. . for everyone.’ He gingerly felt his jaw. ‘It’s not a big deal. No one wants any more hassle. And he needs to help look after his sister and the kids.’

  Sighing, Simpson did as he requested. After the cuffs were removed, the big guy glared at Carlyle before walking off slowly down the corridor without saying a word.

  Carlyle watched him disappear round a corner.

  ‘Time to go home,’ he said.

  ‘Are you feeling okay?’ Taylor asked.

  ‘Yeah, fine.’ He turned to Simpson. ‘Let’s speak tomorrow. I need to go up to West End Central first, to give Chief Inspector French my statement, so I’ll swing over by Paddington after that.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Meantime, I’ll make sure all the necessary arrangements are being taken care of regarding the family.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Carlyle, already turning away and heading off in search of an exit and some cold, fresh air.

  SEVEN

  He was vaguely aware of a phone vibrating somewhere in the bedroom.

  ‘Yes?’ Helen enquired. ‘Hold on.’ She bowled the phone underarm onto the duvet, where it landed next to his head. ‘It’s for you.’ It was an accusation rather than an observation.

  You didn’t need to answer it, he thought grumpily. Slowly, he opened his eyes to acknowledge another grey London morning. He looked at the alarm clock: 8.05 a.m. He had been asleep for barely two hours.

  He picked up the phone. ‘Carlyle.’

  ‘Inspector, it’s Kevin Price from the station.’

  Carlyle grunted. Price was the third desk sergeant they’d had working at Charing Cross police station in less than nine months. That kind of staff turnover was a real pain; it meant you never really got to know who you were dealing with. When Carlyle had first arrived at Charing Cross, Dave Prentice was the main man working the desk. He had been doing the job for ever, but once he’d retired, they couldn’t get anyone else to stay for more than two bloody minutes. All in all, Prentice had been a lazy so-and-so, but even Carlyle was beginning to miss him.

  ‘We’ve found a body.’

  Fuck me, Carlyle thought, what is this? Wild West Week? He pushed himself up into a sitting position. ‘Where?’

  ‘Are you still in bed?’ Price asked.

  ‘Where’s the fucking body?’ Carlyle said irritably, ignoring the question.

  ‘Lincoln’s Inn Fields,’ Price replied.

  Lincoln’s Inn was one of the Inns of Court where barristers worked. The ‘fields’ referred to the park next door. ‘Maybe it’s a lawyer,’ the inspector quipped, ‘if we’re lucky.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘They need you over there,’ Price persisted.

  ‘Okay.’ Carlyle jumped out of bed, scratching his balls with his free hand. He looked at Helen, who was in the middle of applying some lipstick, and realized that she was considering his naked form with something that seemed closer to amusement than admiration. ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’

  The park was a short walk away from Carlyle’s flat in Covent Garden. After pulling on some jeans and a sweatshirt, he kissed his wife goodbye, grabbed his North Face Lightspeed jacket, and headed outside. Picking up a latte and an outsized raisin Danish from Marcello in Il Buffone, the tiny 1950s-style Italian cafe situated opposite his block of flats, he walked on down Macklin Street, eating his breakfast and wondering why he still couldn’t feel anything about Joe’s death. They had worked together for more than eight years. Standing in the middle of the roadway, he lifted his polystyrene coffee cup in a mock toast.

  ‘God bless you, Joe Szyszkowski,’ he roared, ‘you stupid bastard!’

  A woman walking past gave him a concerned look.

  Carlyle sucked down more coffee and walked on.

  The chill wind helped bring him back to the land of the living. It was the kind of unpleasant, all too bloody common London day that made you fantasize about emigrating to Australia. Pulling up the hood on his jacket, he dropped into Parker Street, and then on to Kingsway. Waiting to cross the road, he attacked the remains of his pastry with gusto, relying on the trusty mix of sugar and caffeine to get him properly going.

  London’s largest public square, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, wasn’t much of a park but it was the only green space near where he lived, and so Carlyle liked it well enough. Allegedly the inspiration for New York’s Central Park, it consisted merely of a couple of scruffy patches of grass, a decaying bandstand and some tennis courts. In the 1990s
, a group of homeless people set up home there, leading the council to close it for the best part of a year. These days, the vagrants only appeared in ones and twos to sit on the park benches, congregating en masse only at dusk, when a mobile soup kitchen made its nightly appearance.

  Tossing his breakfast rubbish in a bin, Carlyle entered by the north-west corner of the park just after eight-thirty. A couple of joggers were moving slowly around the path that followed the perimeter fence while a handful of workers went scurrying, heads down, to their nearby offices. A few familiar faces from the halfway house on Parker Street already occupied various benches. Otherwise, the space was almost deserted.

  The small white tent set up by a tree at the far end, next to a small digger, showed him where he was going. A group of technicians were working behind a blue tape, while a uniform chatted to a gaunt-looking woman out walking her dog. Another day at the office beckoned. Carlyle’s bones ached with fatigue, and he felt a sudden keen desire for a second cup of coffee. Ignoring the craving, he thrust his hands into his pockets and marched on.

  Approaching the blue and white police tape, he was stopped by a woman in her thirties. She was almost as tall as him, a tired-looking redhead enveloped in an outsize puffa jacket.

  She gave him the once-over with her dull green eyes. ‘Inspector Carlyle?’

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted, without any enthusiasm.

  She held out a hand. He shook it limply.

  ‘Alison Roche. They’ve sent me over from the Leyton station to stand in for Joseph Siz. .’

  ‘Joe — Joe Szyszkowski.’

  ‘Yes.’ Roche blushed, gazing down at the grey mud under her feet. ‘How’s he doing?’

  Carlyle looked at his own shoes sinking into the mush. ‘Didn’t make it. Heart attack.’

  ‘Oh — I’m sorry.’

  Carlyle nodded towards the tent. ‘What have we got here?’