by James Craig
‘It’s going fine.’
‘Uhuh. Making money?’
‘Of course.’ Elma scratched absentmindedly at her chest. Her mouth felt dry and she had a strong desire for some more wine. Gazing at the bottle, she estimated that there was at least another glass and a half in there before it was empty.
‘Good. Your cash flow could do with some extra oomph.’
Elma tip-toed around the end of the bed, looking to retrieve her wine glass. ‘You’re my lawyer, Mikey,’ she said, grunting as she bent over to pick it up, ‘not my damn accountant. What do you want?’
‘Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,’ the lawyer replied, ‘when you’re busy saving people and stuff . . .’
‘But?’
‘But you’ve got a problem.’
‘Oh Christ,’ Elma mumbled, wedging the phone under her ear as she reached for the booze.
From the other end of the phone came the gentle chuckle of the true non-believer. ‘You can try calling the Boss,’ Federici said, almost gently, ‘but I don’t think He’s going to be much help to you on this one.’
SEVEN
They returned to the South Bank to find that Joseph Belsky was still securely locked inside his reinforced toilet. With much headshaking and sucking of teeth, a perplexed-looking panic room consultant refused to be drawn either on the precise nature of the problem, or the amount of time it might take for it to be resolved. Leaving Umar in charge of proceedings, the inspector quickly headed back towards the relative safety of the north side of the river.
Normally, there was nothing that Carlyle liked better than a stroll across Waterloo Bridge. With the Palace of Westminster on one side and St Paul’s Cathedral on the other, and the murky, mighty Thames under your feet, it offered, in his humble opinion, the best views in the capital, especially at night. Tonight, however, there was no time to stop and dawdle; Carlyle was rapidly running out of time if he was to charge Seymour Erikssen and keep London safe from the capital’s most prolific, if incompetent, thief.
‘Idiot,’ he chanted under his breath as he steamed northwards. ‘Idiot, idiot, idiot.’ It was beginning to look rather as if he’d been a bit too cute in leaking the story to the press; if ‘London’s worst criminal’ walked free thanks to a bureaucratic cock-up, Carlyle would get it in the neck for sure. He knew from bitter experience that Bernie Gilmore, with his sources deep inside the police force, would be on the phone even before Seymour had managed to nip to the bar of the Jolly Friar on Charing Cross Road and order his first pint of London Pride. And where Bernie went, others followed, all of them full of the manufactured bemusement and outrage that was handed out to all journalists at birth.
‘Idiot.’ The last thing Carlyle needed was a lashing in the press – especially when he deserved it. Patting the mobile phone in the breast pocket of his jacket, he wondered if he should call his boss and give her a heads-up. Happily, Commander Carole Simpson had quite a high pain threshold when it came to the inspector’s occasional errors of judgement. Over the years she had demonstrated a creditable willingness to watch his back. Carlyle liked to think that this was the result of her appreciation – almost unique among commanding officers during the course of his career – of his positive qualities. In reality, he knew it was as much to do with her desire for a quiet life as her own career began to wind down.
‘Idiot.’ Should he call Simpson or not? If he marked her card now, the fallout later might be less severe. On other hand, he didn’t want to flag a problem that might not, in the end, materialize. The basic rule for all top brass – the less they know the better – still applied to Simpson, despite her positive qualities. Skipping past a shabby woman pushing a baby buggy, he lengthened his stride, keeping his gaze focused on the patch of pavement immediately in front of his feet.
The police station in Agar Street was at least five minutes’ walk away, even at a brisk pace. Heading north, on the west side of the bridge, the inspector continued to curse himself for not paying more attention to the time as he slalomed between the promenading tourists, theatregoers coming out of the South Bank’s latest hit show, Frankenstein the Musical, and straggling commuters coming the other way as they headed for Waterloo station.
As he reached the middle of the bridge, a familiar voice appeared out of the background hum.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Huh?’ Letting his head fall even closer to his chest, the inspector had no intention of stopping.
‘John.’
Reluctantly slowing his pace, he half-turned to face the cheery smile of Susan Phillips.
The Met pathologist gently placed a hand on his arm. ‘You’re not trying to avoid me, are you?’
‘Um. No. Not at all. Just a bit pushed for time.’ Sticking a brittle smile on his face, the inspector finally came to a reluctant halt, stepping into the narrow cycle lane in order to get out of the steady two-way flow of pedestrians on the pavement. As he did so, a taxi advertising the latest Tom Cruise movie slid slowly past, moving out into the middle lane as the driver sought to slip round an obstacle that lay up ahead. Carlyle checked and saw that a yellow-green ambulance less than ten yards in front of him was blocking off the nearside lane for motorists. The back doors were open and a couple of paramedics were lifting a body on a gurney inside. Their unhurried manner indicated that their patient hadn’t made it.
‘So this one’s not yours?’ Phillips asked, gesturing towards the ambulance as she reached over to give him a kiss on the cheek.
Carlyle felt himself redden slightly. He had worked with Phillips for decades; she was one of the colleagues that he liked the most. But he couldn’t remember her ever pecking him on the cheek before. When had they become so . . . European? The thought floated through his head that maybe she had acquired a continental boyfriend. Phillips, more than attractive even as she reached her fifties, went through men faster than other people went through shoes.
‘The stiff?’ he answered. ‘No, no.’ Momentarily forgetting that he was in a rush, the inspector watched one of the paramedics slam the doors shut and move round to the driver’s door. ‘Not at all. What happened?’
‘Some guy dropped down dead on the pavement. Looks like a heart attack. I don’t really know why they bothered calling me out. Nothing suspicious, as far as I can see.’
Carlyle sighed. ‘Shit happens. Who was he?’
‘Dunno.’ Arms folded, she watched as the ambulance began slowly pulling away from the kerb. The small knot of rubberneckers who had been hovering on the pavement to catch the free show began dispersing, and the backed-up traffic started moving more freely. Within seconds, it was as if the dead man had never existed.
Apart from the battered black leather briefcase left standing in the gutter, next to a drain cover.
Still standing in the bike lane, forcing the oncoming cyclists to give him a wide berth, the inspector frowned. ‘Does that belong to the dead guy?’
‘What?’
Carlyle pointed at the case. ‘That.’
‘Shit.’ A look of irritation swept across the normally relaxed pathologist’s face.
Carlyle glanced up and down the bridge. ‘Where are the uniforms?’
‘There was a PC and a plastic,’ Phillips explained. ‘Plastic policemen’ was the less than flattering name that regular officers had chosen for their volunteer colleagues, the Community Support Officers who were drafted in to beef up the numbers. ‘They must have buggered off back to the station.’
‘Brilliant.’ Carlyle shook his head in disgust. ‘Absolutely brilliant.’
‘It happens,’ Phillips said philosophically.
‘Where were they from? Charing Cross?’
‘I don’t think so. I think it was Waterloo.’ She mentioned a couple of names.
Carlyle made a face. ‘Don’t know them.’ But he would certainly make a point of tracking them down.
‘I can check.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Glancing up at the digital clock on the façade o
f the National Theatre, he remembered why he had been hurrying back north. ‘I really need to get going.’ Grabbing the briefcase, he jumped back onto the pavement. ‘Don’t worry though, I’ll sort this out.’
‘Thanks, John,’ Phillips shouted after him as he scuttled away.
‘No problem,’ he called back over his shoulder, but he was already too far away for her to hear.
EIGHT
Carlyle’s eye was drawn to the picture of the young woman wearing nothing but a cyclist’s crash helmet and a smile. With her back to the camera, she had a bright red handprint emblazoned on each buttock. Is that PhotoShop? he wondered. Or did someone actually plant their hand on her backside?
Dropping the briefcase he’d recovered from Waterloo Bridge onto the floor, he felt a stab of regret. Why had he never met the kind of girl who would let you paint her bum and photograph it for posterity?
Story of his life.
Underneath the image was the legend: Don’t forget WNBR Day.
Painted Bum Day.
Looking up from his copy of the Daily Mail, the desk sergeant caught him staring. ‘Not bad, eh?’
Trying not to look sheepish, Carlyle mumbled something noncommittal.
‘It’ll stop the traffic,’ the sergeant went on.
‘What will?’
‘World Naked Bike Ride Day,’ the man explained.
What? ‘Ah, yes, of course.’
‘The London ride comes across Waterloo Bridge, down the Strand and round Trafalgar Square.’
Carlyle took another look at the girl in the poster. ‘So what’s it got to do with painting your bum?’
The sergeant shrugged. ‘Who knows? It’s some kind of protest about something or other.’
I suppose there are worse things than people riding round in the altogether, Carlyle thought, unable to decide whether he found the event amusing or annoying.
‘But really,’ the sergeant scoffed, ‘who cares?’
An image popped into the inspector’s head of a sea of colourful arseholes riding past Nelson’s Column. ‘What about public decency?’ he asked. ‘Won’t there be a lot of complaints?’
‘Yeah. We’ll get some. Usually from the people busy taking the most photos.’
‘But isn’t it illegal?’
‘Of course it’s bloody illegal,’ the sergeant snorted. ‘Not to mention cold and uncomfortable. But it’s been going on for three or four years now. They are expecting as many as six thousand riders to turn up this time around.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘It’s described as “clothes optional”, so not all of them will be naked, but most of them will – at least, they will if the weather’s good.’
Carlyle shook his head. Why anyone would want to cycle through Central London in their birthday suit was totally beyond him. Biking in London was dangerous enough, even if you kept all of your clothes on. What if you got knocked off in the buff? It didn’t bear thinking about.
‘And at the end of the day, there’s not a lot of point in arresting them just for getting their kit off, is there?’
‘I suppose not,’ the inspector agreed.
‘Apart from anything else, think of the practicalities.’
‘Yes.’
The sergeant raised an inquisitive eyebrow. ‘Have you ever tried to arrest anyone who didn’t have any clothes on?’
Carlyle thought about it for a moment. The only person that came to mind was Christina O’Brien, Umar’s partner. He recalled with some admiration the night he had witnessed Christina’s brisk and expert assault on a uniform on the stage of Everton’s Gentleman’s Club. That, however, was not something he was going to share with the desk sergeant.
‘Not that I recall,’ he lied.
‘It’s difficult to know where to put your hands.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘And the press go bananas – any excuse to publish a photo of someone getting their tits out.’
‘Mm.’
‘You’ve got to be realistic. There is only so much we can do.’
‘Yeah,’ Carlyle nodded, having no idea what the sergeant was talking about. ‘When it comes down to it, our priority will be to keep an eye out for any lurking perverts using it as an excuse to get their todgers out in public.’ He thought about that for a moment. ‘Of course, distinguishing the pervs from the legitimate protestors will be a doddle.’
‘Ultimately, it’s not my problem,’ the sergeant observed. ‘As you can imagine, we are not short of volunteers to cover the event.’
‘I bet.’
‘After all, it beats bike marking outside Tesco.’
‘Sure.’ Carlyle wasn’t sure what bike marking was, but it didn’t sound like much fun.
‘Want me to put you down on the rota? It’s guaranteed overtime – should be at least three or four hours.’
The promise of additional cash caused the inspector to hesitate. Once an inalienable right, a key component of an officer’s income, overtime was now an occasional perk and getting rarer all the time. When it came your way, you normally didn’t think twice. As always, he could do with the money. Alice’s school fees would be due soon and the family finances were feeling the squeeze.
At the same time, however, Carlyle knew that he needed extra shifts like a hole in the head. He had little enough time off as it was. And, perhaps more importantly, explaining to his wife that he was off to observe naked girls with painted rears would be difficult.
Very difficult indeed.
Actually, it would be impossible.
The sergeant looked at him expectantly.
‘It’s okay,’ said Carlyle, somewhat reluctantly, ‘I’ll pass.’
‘Suit yourself,’ the sergeant replied. ‘Anyway, back to more pressing matters . . .’
Knowing exactly what he meant, Carlyle’s heart sank. ‘Seymour Erikssen?’
‘Gone.’
‘You let him walk?’
‘Not that I had any choice in the matter. You ran out of time. He left about ten minutes ago.’
‘Shit.’
‘On the way out, he gave me a cheery wave and asked me to give you his best regards – said that he’d see you next time.’
‘The cheeky old bastard,’ Carlyle grumbled.
‘There’s no messing about with Seymour. He knows the drill.’
‘Well, he bloody would, wouldn’t he?’ Carlyle said, hoisting the briefcase he’d recovered from Waterloo Bridge onto the desk. ‘It could be his specialist subject on Mastermind.’
Studiously ignoring the briefcase on his desk, the sergeant went back to reading a story in his newspaper. The headline, as far as Carlyle could make out, reading it upside down, was about a woman who had been impregnated by a squid. Not for the first time, he contemplated the benefits of the internet destroying the newspaper industry completely.
‘Bloody hell,’ the sergeant mumbled to himself.
Bloody hell indeed, thought the inspector. The phone started vibrating in his pocket. With a sigh, he pulled it out, checked the name on the screen and said, ‘Hello, Bernie.’
‘What’s all this I hear about Britain’s most notorious criminal being allowed to walk right out of your nick?’ was the journalist’s cheery opening gambit.
‘He was London’s most hopeless criminal, last time I looked,’ said Carlyle wearily.
‘Whatever his bloody moniker was is irrelevant. I wrote about him yesterday. What’s going on?’
‘Nothing much.’ Even to his own ears, the inspector’s attempt at insouciance fell completely flat.
‘Don’t muck me about, I’m on deadline,’ Bernie huffed, bashing noisily away at a keyboard to make his point.
‘You’re always on deadline,’ Carlyle pointed out.
‘Exactly. So, why did you let him go?’
‘No comment.’
Bernie started typing even harder. It sounded like he wanted to break his computer, such was the fury of his news-gathering frenzy. ‘Don’t try and play that bloo
dy game with me. After all, you’re the one who wanted a puff piece only yesterday.’ There was a menacing pause as he hit some more keys. ‘You don’t want to see your name in print, do you?’
‘No,’ Carlyle said testily, not happy at being threatened. ‘Of course not.’
‘Stop messing about then, and give me something.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Stepping away from the desk, Carlyle lowered his voice. ‘On background, not for quotation, we haven’t let him walk: investigations are continuing.’ He tried to explain the essence of what had happened without having to actually spell out the reality of the situation.
‘So,’ Bernie asked suspiciously, ‘Seymour’s still under lock and key in the station?’
Pushing through the front doors, Carlyle jogged down the steps and across the street. ‘I’m not at the station at the moment.’ A motorbike roared by, providing a convenient alibi.
‘You know less than me,’ Bernie scoffed.
It wouldn’t be the first time, Carlyle mused. ‘Why don’t you just quote a source familiar with the investigation saying that Seymour Erikssen is a priority case and will be dealt with accordingly.’
‘Meaningless crap,’ the hack snorted, typing the quote straight into his piece.
Should fit right in then, Carlyle thought.
‘Let me know when you find out more.’
‘Will do.’
‘And the next time you want me to run a story, make sure it has a happy ending.’
‘You don’t like happy endings,’ Carlyle grumped.
‘I don’t like stories where a cop tries to claim a much-overdue win,’ Bernie thundered, ‘and then, after I’ve put my name to the story, somehow contrives to snatch defeat from the jaws of bloody victory.’
‘But Bernie—’ Before the inspector had the chance to say any more, the call was terminated. He thought about calling the journalist back – but what was the point? Carlyle knew that he had nothing more to say about Seymour Erikssen. For a moment, he contemplated trading something on the axeman, but decided against it. His media-handling skills simply weren’t up to it. Putting the phone back into his pocket, he took a couple of deep breaths and headed back inside.