by James Craig
‘Chief Inspector French is no longer involved in this investigation,’ Hall said, trying – and failing – to keep the smirk out of his voice.
Bloody hell, Carlyle thought. He didn’t last long.
‘I will be conducting your interview,’ Hall explained, taking a seat at the table opposite the inspector.
‘And who are you?’
In a cheap suit and wearing a blue and white checked shirt open at the neck, the little scrote only looked about thirteen. Carlyle couldn’t believe he could be anything higher than a constable, so what the hell was going on here?
The youngster leaned back in his chair, while assessing the situation. ‘This,’ he said finally, sitting back up straight, ‘is all highly confidential.’
Yeah, yeah, whatever. ‘Of course,’ Carlyle replied solemnly.
‘Nothing said in this room can be repeated to anyone – anyone at all – outside.’
Get on with it, you little twat.
‘Of course,’ Carlyle repeated. For emphasis, he nodded and smiled a fake modest smile.
‘Good,’ Hall said slowly. ‘For your information only, I work for MI6. We are now handling this investigation.’
MI6, technically known as SIS, meaning the Secret Intelligence Service, was the UK’s external intelligence agency. It was famous for being the home of James Bond and, more recently, for spending £150 million on its not very secret HQ on the southern bank of the Thames in that no-man’s land called Vauxhall.
Carlyle took a moment to show the boy that he was digesting this bombshell news. ‘I take it,’ he said finally, ‘that this means that we don’t think this was the same gang who were taking down rich folk in their hotel rooms.’
Hall put on his best approximation of a poker face. ‘I am not at liberty to discuss anything relating to the matter.’
Carlyle held up a hand. ‘Fine, fine, I understand.’ He gave Hall a hard stare. ‘Just remember, though, it was my partner who was killed by those cocksuckers. I will not just walk away from this.’
The kid blushed, saying nothing.
‘So do not fuck this up.’
‘Rest assured, Inspector,’ Hall stammered, ‘that will not happen.’
Sorry, Joe, Carlyle thought. It looks like things are moving away from us. But I promise I will do what I can to stop these spook bastards letting you down. ‘Okay,’ he said, nodding towards the tape recorder on the table. ‘Let’s get started.’
Twenty-five minutes after completing his interview with the junior spy, Carlyle emerged from Edgware Road tube station, heading towards Paddington Green police station, a brutalist Sixties cube straight out of the couldn’t-give-a-fuck school of architecture that had been fashionable at the time. Ten minutes later, he was sitting in Simpson’s office, waiting politely for her to finish off a phone call. Her desk was bare save for a copy of the British Medical Journal. Carlyle tried to read the contents of the cover page, but it was upside down and the text was too small.
Simpson finished her call and put down the phone. ‘How are you, John?’
‘Fine,’ he replied. ‘A few aches and pains but basically okay.’
She nodded. ‘Good.’
‘I’ve just been to West End Central . . .’
‘Oh yes?’
‘. . . and MI6 have taken over the investigation into Joe’s death.’
‘Have they indeed.’
Simpson’s smile suggested that she already knew what was going on, and that she was not going to share.
Deeply annoyed, Carlyle went on: ‘That tells me two things.’
‘Does it, Inspector?’ Simpson’s eyes positively sparkled with amusement. ‘And what would they be?’
‘First, this is something political. The guy shot in his hotel room must have been someone important.’
‘Someone dangerous.’
‘Whatever.’
‘And the second point?’
‘The second point is that if our little spook pals are primarily investigating this bloke, then they won’t much care about what happened to Joe.’
‘But the same man was responsible for both deaths, was he not?’
‘Yes.’
‘So the Security Services can kill two birds with one stone, as it were.’
‘Let’s hope so.’
‘I am sure they will do what they can.’
‘Will you keep me informed?’
‘To the extent that I can.’ Simpson’s eyes lost their sparkle. ‘The quid pro quo here is that you leave well alone.’
‘Of course.’
‘This is a dangerous game, John,’ she added firmly, ‘one for the big boys. You have to accept that it is no longer a police matter. That has come down from the top. The very top.’
Carlyle stiffened. ‘That’s what the guy said as well.’
‘What?’ Simpson frowned. This part of their conversation had already gone on far too long.
What the hell, Carlyle thought. I might as well go for the sympathy vote, and he launched into his mini-monologue. ‘When I was on my knees in that hotel room, looking down the barrel of his semi-automatic, waiting for him to pull the trigger,’ he stole a quick glance at Simpson, not wanting to overdo it, ‘he said, “You’re playing with the big boys now”. I still don’t understand why he didn’t pull the trigger.’
Simpson gave him a sceptical look. She knew Carlyle was no delicate flower, but she didn’t want to call his bluff. ‘If you need to see a psychologist . . .’
Carlyle dropped his gaze to his lap. ‘No, no.’
‘Okay,’ Simpson said primly, ‘but don’t rule it out. Anyway, that’s not what we really need to talk about.’
Carlyle looked up. ‘Oh?’
‘Charlotte Gondomar.’
Carlyle held up a hand. ‘Don’t applaud, as they say – just throw money.’
‘Now is no time for one of your lame jokes.’ Simpson gave him a stern look. ‘She was found hanged in her prison cell this morning.’
Fucking great. ‘Ah . . .’
Simpson’s mobile started ringing. She looked at the number on the screen, and cut it off. ‘So – we have a problem.’
‘We do?’
‘Don’t mess me about, John,’ Simpson hissed. ‘First, we have to explain why we didn’t show proper care and attention to a vulnerable girl in custody. Initial indications are that she died around five a.m. It seems that she wasn’t checked after one a.m.’
‘Someone fucked up.’
‘Too bloody right,’ Simpson snorted. ‘And there will be hell to pay over that. And with hindsight . . .’
‘Hindsight,’ Carlyle scoffed.
‘I know, I know,’ Simpson sighed. ‘But that won’t stop the press and the politicians from coming on board and giving us a good kicking. Did you really have to stick her in that cell?’
‘She was a drug-trafficker,’ he protested. ‘What was I supposed to do?’
‘She was a vulnerable young girl who you picked up with a large quantity of cocaine about her person.’
His patience snapped. ‘Don’t start trying to spin it.’
‘Plenty of other people will. Then there’s the question of why you didn’t hand this over to the Drugs Squad?’
‘It was my tip,’ he explained. ‘I was supposed to go to that fashion show with Joe.’ Carlyle sat back in his chair and folded his arms. Almost immediately, he decided that gesture could be interpreted as defensive body language, so he unfolded them again. All of a sudden, he didn’t know what to do with his bloody limbs. Finally, he clasped his hands as if in prayer and forced them down into his lap. He looked up, to give Simpson some good eye-contact: ‘My tip, my arrest.’
Simpson sniffed. ‘Never were much of a team player, were you, John?’
Knowing she was right, Carlyle shrugged.
‘Anyway, you will be contacted about the IPCC investigation within the next couple of days.’
‘That’s fine.’ Carlyle knew he had done everything by the book. The Independent
Police Complaints Commission investigated deaths that occurred in custody as a matter of routine.
‘You might want to speak to your Union rep.’
Carlyle shook his head. ‘No need.’
Simpson looked at him. ‘It would be a good idea – if not for the IPCC, then maybe for the Middle Market Drugs Project investigation.’
Carlyle made a face. ‘What the hell’s that?’
‘It’s a new joint venture between the Met and Customs and Excise, aimed at targeting dealers acting as the link between smugglers and street-sellers. After a successful trial, it has been given a mandate by the Home Office to disrupt criminal networks, stifle supply, arrest traffickers and seize their assets.’
Fuck, thought Carlyle. I don’t like the sound of that. I don’t like the sound of that at all. He had a big problem when it came to any kind of internal police investigation – and that problem was called Dominic Silver. How do you explain your thirty-year relationship with a successful drug dealer to someone trying to winkle out even the merest whiff of corruption on the police force? The simple answer was that you can’t. Hell, most of the time, he couldn’t even explain it to himself. Did Simpson know about Silver? He had no reason to believe so; certainly he had never discussed his contact with her. And, despite the fact that his relationship with his boss had improved significantly over the last few years, he wasn’t going to start now.
‘Apparently,’ Simpson continued, ‘they had Charlotte Gondomar already under surveillance when you arrested her.’
Ignoring the sick feeling in his stomach, Carlyle smiled blandly. ‘I’m perfectly happy to talk to them at any time.’
‘Good.’ Simpson looked down at her desk, as if surprised to see it bare of paperwork. ‘Anything else?’
‘The usual.’ Running through the list of his current cases, it took a moment for Carlyle to recall the skeleton in the park. After his run-in with Spy Boy and now Simpson’s unwelcome news, that discovery seemed years ago now. ‘The council dug up a skeleton in Lincoln’s Inn Fields this morning,’ he said flatly. ‘An adult male, shot in the head.’
He paused to let Simpson give him a funny look.
‘Susan Phillips reckons that the victim has been in the ground for more than fifty years.’
‘That’s a bit of a turn-up for the books,’ Simpson observed. ‘Okay. Make sure the paperwork is dealt with, and then move on to more pressing matters.’ She lifted a large shoulder bag onto her desk and started rummaging inside. ‘And ask my PA to come in on your way out, will you?’
TEN
Helen had spent the early part of the evening working herself into a state. ‘You don’t mess with bloody Mossad!’ were the first words out of her mouth as Carlyle stuck his head through the living-room door.
Alice wandered in from the kitchen, a glass of orange juice in one hand and a sandwich in the other. ‘Mum says you’d better be careful or they’re going to kick your arse,’ she said cheerily, before stuffing half of the sandwich into her mouth and flopping down on the sofa beside her mother.
‘What the hell are you two talking about?’ he asked, stepping into the middle of the room.
‘It’s all over the bloody television!’ Helen replied angrily, waving the remote control at the screen.
The television was tuned to News 24, with the sound muted. The anchor, a middle-aged Irishwoman with big hair who always looked like she was reading someone’s obituary, was talking to some politician about tax rises. What’s that got to do with me? Carlyle thought irritably. Then his eye caught the ticker running across the bottom of the screen.
BREAKING NEWS: Intelligence sources have told the BBC that Israeli Secret Service Agents are suspected of being behind the double murder at a top London hotel.
That’s great, Carlyle thought. Just fucking great! Can no one in this country keep their bloody mouth shut for more than two minutes?
He sat down on the sofa, prompting Alice to jump up and head for her room, mumbling something about ‘homework’. Careful not to make eye-contact with his wife, he stared intently at the screen.
‘Well, John Carlyle,’ she said finally, once it was clear that he wasn’t going to volunteer any information unprompted, ‘have you not got something to tell me?’
Sighing, he braced himself for another political lecture. Helen worked for an international medical charity called Avalon. After several years as a senior administrative manager, she had recently been promoted to the role of Chief Operating Officer. That meant she was directly responsible for a budget of almost £40 million and a team of 200 people working in 30 countries, including the Palestinian Territories. Carlyle was well aware of her views on the Israeli checkpoints, roadblocks and border closures that made it difficult for ordinary people to access healthcare. He knew her mantra off by heart, how the recent violence in the Gaza Strip had left more than 1,300 people dead and over 5,000 people wounded. The safety of Avalon health educators, nurses and volunteers was a constant source of concern to his wife.
She looked at him with fury in her eyes. ‘It could have been you.’
‘What?’
‘It could have been you, bleeding to death on that dirty pavement.’
‘Joe didn’t bleed to death.’
‘You know what I mean, you stupid man.’
Clumsily, he reached out to hug her but she shied away and punched him hard on the arm.
‘Hey! That hurt!’
‘You bloody deserve it,’ she sniffed, half-crying, half-laughing, then hitting him again, not quite as hard this time.
‘Look,’ he said, finally getting close enough to slide his arm round her. ‘It was a very strange situation. Maybe it could have been me. But it wasn’t. I’m okay.’
The expression of anguish on her face almost broke his heart.
‘Look,’ he repeated gently, ‘I’ve been a cop now for – what? Almost thirty years. Nothing like that has ever happened before. Nothing like it will ever happen again. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event, at the very most.’
Helen blew her nose on her sleeve, desperately wanting to be convinced.
However, they both knew, deep down, that such assertions were all just talk.
As husband and wife they didn’t do awkward silences. Holding his breath, Carlyle felt a tension such as he hadn’t experienced since their early courting days, those agonizing times when he worried that she might pack him in.
‘Poor Anita,’ she said finally.
Breathing out at last, Carlyle felt himself relax slightly. ‘I know,’ he murmured. ‘I know.’
‘Poor Anita,’ Helen repeated.
Poor Anita? She would have quite happily let one of her brothers beat me to a pulp. ‘She is being well looked after,’ he said.
‘And the kids?’
‘Yes, them too,’ Carlyle nodded solemnly, happy to give any reassurance now that they were over the worst of their conversation.
‘And,’ Helen jabbed a gentle finger into his chest, ‘I had your bloody mother on the phone, moaning that she went to the loo at the Ritz and came back to find that you’d done a runner.’
His mother! Carlyle suddenly realized that he’d forgotten all about her. ‘Oh fuck.’ He remembered the conversation they’d been having at the time, but decided not to get into that with Helen right at this moment. ‘I’ll give her a call. Did she see all the fuss?’
‘I don’t think so. Anyway, she didn’t mention it.’ Helen pushed herself away from him. ‘She said how she told you that she was divorcing your dad.’
‘Er . . . yeah.’
Helen gave him one of her Why didn’t you tell me this? stares. ‘And?’
Carlyle shrugged. ‘Well, we didn’t really get into the details. She just dropped her little bombshell and then went off to the Ladies. Everything kicked off while she was still in there.’
‘You must have sensed something before.’
‘No.’ Carlyle shook his head. ‘Everything seemed pretty much normal to me. When she said she want
ed to talk about my father, I assumed she was about to tell me that he had developed cancer or something.’
‘John . . .’ They both knew how he paid minimal attention to wider family issues beyond the walls of their own flat.
‘Come on!+-’ Carlyle allowed himself the smallest of smiles. ‘How could I have suspected anything? They’ve been married for almost fifty years! What’s the point of getting a divorce now?’
Helen gave him a sly look, one that he interpreted as saying: Why not? You should never rule anything out. He felt his balls shrink up inside him. Message received and understood.
‘Maybe she’s found someone else.’
‘Mum? Nah.’ Carlyle felt funny just thinking about the possibility.
‘Maybe he’s found someone else.’
‘I got the impression that this is all her initiative,’ Carlyle said. ‘I can’t see either of them ever playing away from home. So, I suppose that she’s just decided she needs a change – or something.’
‘Well, anyway, you need to talk to her about it. And to your dad, as well.’
‘Yes, yes – in a minute.’
Helen unmuted the television. A reporter was standing on the north side of the Thames, with MI6’s lego-like headquarters clearly identifiable on the other side. He was saying, ‘It is very unusual for MI6 to become involved in this type of investigation. Sources have told the BBC that this is because the man killed in the Ritz Hotel . . .’
One of the men, Carlyle thought sourly.
‘. . . is thought to have been a certain,’ the reporter glanced down at his notes, ‘. . . Omid Jarragh Ajab. Now, Mr Ajab is believed to have been one of the founders of the military wing of the Hamas militant movement which had control of the Gaza Strip. One line of thinking is that he was visiting London in order to buy weapons for Hamas. If this information is correct . . .’
Not that you really have a clue whether it is true or not, Carlyle thought.
‘. . . then the prime suspects in his assassination will inevitably include Israel’s secret service, Mossad. Which, of course, is where MI6 comes in.’