by James Craig
‘. . . which was considered blasphemous by various Muslim groups around the world. One of them put a million-dollar bounty on his head.’
‘So that explains the panic room,’ Carlyle said. ‘Looks like he’s a kind of poor man’s Salman Rushdie.’
Umar gave him a quizzical look. ‘Who?’
‘Never mind.’
The sergeant looked back down at his notes. ‘Just before seven, a man smashed his way into the flat with an axe.’
Carlyle frowned. ‘If he had a panic room, why didn’t they reinforce the front door?’
‘Good question, to which we do not yet have any answer. There was supposed to be twenty-four-seven security on the ground floor but the guy there had gone to take a dump.’
‘Urgh. Too much information.’
‘Probably just as well. The guard was an old bloke of about seventy.’
‘Everybody has to work longer these days.’
‘If he’d tried to stop the guy with the axe he’d have come a cropper and we might have a death on our hands.’
‘God. Imagine getting your skull split in two because of a bloody cartoon.’
‘Stranger things have happened.’
‘Yes, I suppose they have.’ An image of Jack Nicholson in The Shining floated into the inspector’s head. ‘How big was the axe?’
‘Not that big.’ Umar held his hands in front of his face like a fisherman illustrating the size of his catch. ‘About this big. A four-inch blade.’ He pulled out his BlackBerry, hit a few buttons and passed it to the inspector. ‘That’s it.’
Carlyle looked at the image on the screen. ‘Estwing Sportsman Axe. Nice bit of kit.’
‘Not the kind of thing you would normally have much need for in Central London.’
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘So, the axeman smashes in the front door and chases Belsky through the flat, screaming, “Your time has come!” ’
‘But he didn’t touch the kid?’
‘No, he didn’t pay any attention to her at all. When the first uniforms arrived on the scene, approximately twelve minutes after Belsky called 999, he was still trying to smash the bathroom door down.’
‘So this guy’s not the sharpest tool in the box then?’
‘Boom, boom.’ Umar gave him a sickly smile. ‘But they never are, are they?’ With an Irish father and a Pakistani mother, the sergeant had considerable experience when it came to dealing with nutters of all persuasions.
‘No,’ his boss agreed, ‘they never are. Who is he?’
‘When they arrested him, he gave his name as Taimur Rage.’
‘That doesn’t sound very Islamic militant to me,’ Carlyle noted. ‘Not that my knowledge of this kind of thing is that great. Once you get past Osama bin Laden there isn’t much brand recognition.’
‘He’s from Shepherd’s Bush.’
‘Osama?’
‘Taimur Rage.’
‘Mm. Nothing good ever came out of Shepherd’s Bush,’ said Carlyle with feeling. In the early 1980s, as a young constable straight out of training college, he had pounded the less than salubrious West London streets. His experiences of the Shepherd’s Bush station were not particularly good ones.
Umar stroked his chin. ‘What about QPR? Or the BBC? Or that giant shopping centre?’
The inspector shook his head, as if trying to dislodge the unhappy memories. ‘I rest my case.’
‘Anyway,’ said Umar, getting back to the matter in hand, ‘we need to check out the address that the axe man gave us, but it looks like he’s local.’
‘Excellent,’ Carlyle groaned. ‘A home-grown terrorist. That’s just what we need. Why couldn’t he just go on the dole and lounge around playing computer games all day? Loot the odd pair of trainers when there’s a riot going on. That’s what normal British kids do, isn’t it?’
‘I thought that you were supposed to be the parenting expert.’
‘Is our man on any of the databases?’ Carlyle asked, ignoring the jibe.
‘Not as far as I know, but we’re still checking.’
‘Good. Where is he now?’
‘They took him back to Charing Cross.’
Carlyle suddenly remembered Seymour Erikssen. ‘Shit.’ He glanced at his watch. Time was running out. If he didn’t formally charge the burglar in the next hour or so, the old bugger would walk.
‘What?’
‘Need to get going.’ Jumping to his feet, Carlyle fished a twenty-pound note out of his pocket and signalled to Laura that he wanted to settle the bill. ‘Let’s go and see if they’ve managed to rescue our cartoonist yet – then I’ve got to get back to the station sharpish.’
SIX
‘Oooh, that’s good . . . that’s so good.’ Elma Reyes reached for the large glass of very expensive wine that was perched on the edge of the massage table near her head. Conscious of a delicious tingling sensation at the base of her spine, she smiled and purred, ‘Don’t stop,’ arching her back as she pushed her thighs half an inch wider apart. ‘Deeper. You know what I like, Harry.’
Warming some Raw Gaia oil in his hands, Harry Gomes, Elma’s regular masseur for the best part of a decade, laughed quietly to himself. ‘Yes, I do. Deep-tissue massage to relieve the tension. And you’ve got lots of tension.’ Lazily letting the oil drip onto her buttocks, he began drizzling it into the crack of her ass, chasing after it with the tips of his fingers.
‘Deeep tissue . . .’ Elma took a slurp of the wine – you couldn’t beat a decent Bordeaux in her book – and breathed in the scent of the lavender candle burning in the corner of her hotel bedroom. As Harry’s probing intensified, she wondered if she should have had a shower before climbing on to the table. Too late now, girl, she thought to herself. Anyway, Harry’s not the sort to complain, he can take most things in his stride.
Placing the glass carefully back down on the table, she lowered her head onto the towel. ‘Those thumbs of yours get into places . . .’ She sighed as his hands gently prised her buttocks apart. The foreplay was over and now it was time to finish her off.
‘You ready?’
‘Uhuh.’ She gasped slightly as he entered her.
‘Just relax.’
‘I’m relaxed, Harry.’
‘Good. Leave everything to me.’
‘Sure thing.’
Harry was a squat, fifty-something guy who originally hailed from Jamaica, arriving in London with his parents in the late seventies. After winning three medals (two silver and a bronze) in power lifting at the Auckland Commonwealth Games, he had taken a three-year course in Healing Therapies and Eastern Philosophy at the University of South Berkshire and set up as an out-call masseur, servicing primarily athletes and minor celebrities. He first met Elma at a Let Jesus In conference in Crystal Palace. It was one of her earliest gigs, supporting Silas Spelman (the Guru of South London), and as the time approached for her to leap on stage, Elma was so stressed that she could hardly speak. However, after twenty minutes with Harry and his healing hands, she had knocked them dead. As far as Elma was concerned, it was just about the best fifty quid she had ever spent. As soon as she bounded off the stage, the whoops of the congregation ringing in her ears, she had made a regular booking. Since then, Harry had been ‘working on her issues’ for an hour once a week, plus an extra hour immediately before any performance. Their relationship had grown over the years, surviving the collapse of Harry’s business after he was convicted at the Old Bailey of sexually assaulting thirteen clients. Following Harry’s re-emergence from Wormwood Scrubs, Elma was one of the few people who stood by him. Despite, or rather because of, his controversial technique, she valued his ministrations more than ever. Put simply, Harry was the only guy who had been able to make her orgasm – or even brought her close – since she’d left her husband.
He was, she acknowledged, her gift from God.
Elma Reyes was well on the way to heaven when there was a knock at the door. She tried to ignore it but, fatally, Harry hesitated. As his
fingers stopped their insistent probing, she immediately growled, ‘Don’t stop.’
‘You want me to get that?’ Harry mumbled.
‘No, no,’ she gasped. ‘Keep going.’
‘Elma?’ The knock was sharper this time, more insistent. ‘Are you in there?’
‘Shit.’ Elma felt Harry’s hands slip over her backside as he stepped away from the table. With a sigh, she rolled over, giving him a full view of her goodies, and reached for a fresh towel.
Embarrassed, Harry looked down at the stains on his shirt. ‘The door.’
‘I know. I heard it.’ You’ve never tried to fuck me, Elma thought sourly as she slipped off the damp massage table. She tried to stare him down, demand that he contemplate her nakedness, but he wouldn’t catch her eye. I’ve not even seen the remotest sign of a boner. Not even a lick of those thin old lips of yours. What in the world is wrong with you, man? Are you gay or somethin’? How can that possibly be? Didn’t you want to screw those white women who took you to court for tryin’ to touch them up?
The third knock was louder still.
‘Who is it?’ she shouted, giving in to the inevitable, finally wrapping the towel around her diminutive frame.
‘It’s Jerome.’
‘Uhuh.’ Elma glanced at Harry, who was now busy cleaning his hands with a handiwipe, and rolled her eyes towards the heavens. The Reverend Jerome Mears was Elma’s star turn for the Miracles Conference. It had cost her fifteen grand, plus expenses, to get him over to London for this one single appearance – a ridiculous amount of money, but a sum she deemed it worth paying if it ended up helping catapult the Christian Salvation Centre into the big league of international worship.
Billed as America’s leading healing evangelist, Jerome Cameron Mears III came with an impeccable pedigree. Voted Texan Church of the Year in three of the last seven years (a record), the Mears Ministry had taken twenty-first-century churchgoing to a whole new level. In its digital database were lodged thousands of documented cases of believers who had been cured of a broad range of ailments and injuries, thanks exclusively to Jerome’s hotline to God and the power of his preaching. According to his promotional literature contained in the Ministry’s online Media Pack, there were also ‘at least eleven documented cases of people who have been raised from the dead’ as a direct result of the Reverend’s blessing.
To date, Elma Reyes could not claim to have cured anyone of anything, never mind brought a parishioner back from the dead. On first reading about Jerome’s claims, the streetwise South London girl in her had been doubtful as to their veracity. Even allowing for the fact that she was dealing with a bunch of Americans, the language of it all struck her as odd. At least eleven cases? How could you not be sure of the number? Surely if there was anyone else out there who had been reanimated as a result of your silver tongue, you would know about it?
Before handing over the down payment on the Reverend’s fee, Elma had toyed with the idea of asking to see his ‘documentation’. In the end, however, she decided that such a request would have been demeaning to their professional relationship. As her dear, late father – a thirty-year veteran of the 171 Tabernacle and the Forest Hill bus depot – used to say: doubt, scepticism and an empirical-based approach to life were the way of the dullard and of the apostate. And, God knows, there were enough of both of those in the world already.
Stifling a yawn, Elma made no effort to move towards the door. ‘What is it that you need, Jerome?’
‘Can I have a word? We should talk.’
‘I’m kinda busy right now.’ Elma reached for her glass and took another mouthful of wine. ‘Can I come and grab you in ten?’
‘It’s kind of urgent.’
Elma sighed. ‘Okay, okay. Hold on.’ Feeling deeply unsatisfied, she padded across the room and flicked open the lock. Pulling the door open she waved Jerome inside.
‘Come in.’
Following her through the tiny hallway, the Reverend sniffed the air suspiciously. ‘You havin’ a party?’ Resplendent in a bespoke yellow MacLeod dress tartan suit, he looked like a refugee from children’s television. The suit had been created by Lewis & Hayward on Savile Row; Elma knew that it had cost more than two grand, but it made the man feel good and that was what counted. Plus, it would go down a storm back home.
London, however, was a different matter. Elma frowned. ‘Are you wearing that on stage?’
‘Sure.’ Jerome’s grin grew so wide, it looked like it might eat his entire face. ‘Ain’t it great?’
I’m gonna need some sunglasses, Elma thought.
Looking her up and down, the American did not seem that impressed. ‘Are you good to go?’
‘Just getting myself in the zone,’ she said defensively.
‘Hm.’ Jerome nodded at Harry, who avoided his gaze.
I’m never gonna come now, Elma thought miserably. ‘Harry . . .’
Finally realizing that the session was over, the masseur blew out the candle, made his excuses and quickly left.
As the door clicked shut, Elma tried to smile at Jerome while he took in the details of the chaotic scene. ‘I need to relax before a performance.’
‘Indeed.’ The Reverend smiled lasciviously. As a man who had been arrested in a hotel room not unlike this one with two fifteen-year-old girls, a quart of Jack Daniel’s and three grams of cocaine (scented candles were not his thing) just before his keynote address to the 2013 Jesus Gets You More conference in Atlanta, Jerome knew exactly what the woman meant. Performance anxiety was a terrible thing – you couldn’t let it bring you down or someone else would take your place in the spotlight in the blink of an eye. God suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder just the same as everyone else. ‘Gotta be at your best when you hit that stage.’
‘That’s right.’ Elma belatedly became aware that she was feeling more than a little drunk.
‘Gotta be all loose.’ Jerome waved his arms around like a dancing jellyfish. He liked to think of himself as God’s answer to Charlie Sheen; he did the sinning so that his grateful flock didn’t have to engage in any of that unfortunate behaviour themselves. If others took a similar approach he was cool with that. As long as he got the balance of his fee, he was not going to judge a small-time player like Elma Reyes one way or the other.
Elma waved the wine glass in front of her face. ‘Fancy a drink? A little loosener before the show starts?’
‘I’m good, thanks.’ Hands on hips, Jerome stood in the middle of the room, looking not unlike a middle-aged Eminem gone badly to seed.
‘Sure?’
‘Sure.’ The preacher stepped over to the window in order to let out a small but surprisingly pungent fart. ‘I don’t want to sound a note of alarm,’ he drawled, laying the Texan accent on thick for the Brit woman, ‘but we are due to start quite soon and the crowd out there,’ he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, ‘is still rather thin.’
And you’re worried about the rest of your money. Holding her towel closed with one hand, Elma grasped her wine glass firmly in the other. ‘Don’t worry, there’s plenty of time.’ She tried to force a smile on her face. ‘People here arrive late.’
‘You tend to do things differently here in England,’ Jerome mused, not exactly happy about it.
‘Exactly. The general assumption is that we will start at least half an hour late.’
Jerome grimaced. He had plans for this evening; they included hanging out with a magnum of bubbly and some party girls. He didn’t want things to be derailed by poor timekeeping.
‘It’s not a big deal,’ Elma continued. ‘We are committed to making this a truly unforgettable experience for all of those who attend.’
‘I understand that,’ Jerome persisted, ‘I truly do. But if I’m going to put a live feed of this . . . event on my website, the place is gonna have to look full; fuller than it is right now, at least. How will it look to my congregation if they see that I came all the way over here to perform in front of a mere handful of people?’ H
e gave Elma an embarrassed shrug. ‘You promised me a sell-out crowd.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Elma tried to sound reassuring. ‘My people will make sure that the venue fills out in good time.’ If the worst came to the worst, she would have to get Melville to pay some of his mates again. For thirty quid a head, those boys could go crazy like the best of them. ‘Depending on developments, we can, ah, mobilize significant numbers at very short notice.’
‘Well, mobilize them, then,’ Jerome said, a testiness creeping into his voice that she hadn’t heard before. ‘We haven’t got time to waste here. Don’t people here in London town need to have miracles performed for them?’
I certainly do, thought Elma. There was an awkward pause before the sound of Lincoln Brewster’s ‘Let Your Glory Shine’ started up from inside her Victoria Beckham satchel. Saved by the bell, Elma thought, halleluiah. Ask and He shall deliver. ‘Sorry,’ she smiled, ‘that’s my phone. I’m afraid I need to get it.’
Looking less than pleased, Jerome gave her a curt nod. Reaching into the bag, she let the towel fall to the carpet as she pulled out her iPhone 6. ‘Hold on one second, please,’ she said into it, and placing her hand over the mouthpiece, she turned to face the Reverend, who had gone slightly pale. ‘Let me deal with this and I’ll see you downstairs in a couple of minutes.’
‘Sure thing.’ Trying to keep his gaze somewhere above her head, Jerome was already skipping towards the door with a certain alacrity. ‘I’ll see you there.’
‘Alrighty.’ As the American disappeared, Elma returned her attention to the phone. ‘Sorry for keeping you waiting,’ she trilled. ‘This is Elma Rayes, Founder and CEO of the Christian Salvation Centre. We promise you more miracles for your money, guaranteed. How can I be of assistance?’
There was a snort from the other end of the phone. ‘Cut the shit, girl. Are you high?’
‘No, I am not high.’ Hurling the wine glass across the room, Elma watched it bounce off the bed without breaking. ‘As you well know, I am working. And I am working sober.’
‘Good for you,’ Michelangelo Federici laughed, ‘good for you. And how are things in King’s Cross? How is the conference going?’