Nobody's Hero (Inspector Carlyle)

by James Craig

  NINE

  During the couple of minutes that the inspector had spent on the pavement outside, a large mug bearing the image of a crown and the legend KEEP CALM AND GO AWAY had materialized by the desk sergeant’s elbow. As he approached the desk, Carlyle saw that his slow-reading colleague had moved on two pages. Now he was engrossed in a story about tourists dying – allegedly – of blowfish poisoning in Bangkok.

  ‘Are all the stories in that paper about fish?’ Carlyle quipped.

  All he got by way of reply was a blank look.

  ‘Never mind.’

  The sergeant pointed to the briefcase which he had moved to the end of the desk, as far away from his person as possible. ‘What d’ya want me to do with that?’

  ‘A guy had a fatal heart attack on Waterloo Bridge,’ Carlyle explained. ‘The uniforms left his case sitting on the pavement.’

  The sergeant’s gaze started drifting back to his paper.

  ‘Book it, stick it in the evidence locker and we’ll sort it out later.’

  The sergeant made a noise that could have been a grunt or perhaps indigestion.

  The inspector took that as a, ‘Yes, of course, sir, three bloody bags full, sir,’ and decided to move on. ‘Right now, I need to speak to Taimur Rage.’

  ‘The mad axeman,’ said the sergeant languidly, not looking up. Finally tiring of international fish news, he turned the paper over and began scanning the sports pages.

  ‘That’s the one,’ said Carlyle, beginning to get ever so slightly annoyed.

  ‘He’s in Interview Room Three – or maybe Five. Mason is keeping an eye on him.’

  ‘Good.’ WPC Sonia Mason was that rarest of creatures – a uniform that Carlyle could actually pick out of a line-up. Mason, barely a year out of officer training at Hendon, was one of the most sensible young officers that the inspector had come across in a long while. She had a good manner, to boot, and he was sure that she would go far in her police career, unlike the essentially inert lump in front of him. ‘Has the axeman had his call?’ Normally, Carlyle wasn’t keen on allowing suspects to get on the phone too quickly, to make their statutory phone call to their lawyer. In this case, however, with the guy completely bang to rights, he was rather more relaxed.

  ‘I believe so.’ The sergeant looked up, to let Carlyle know that he was getting pretty fed up himself with the constant interruptions to his reading. ‘Maybe. We haven’t had a lawyer turn up yet.’

  ‘Okay.’ As he was about to leave, Carlyle was conscious of someone arriving at his shoulder. Turning, he faced a guy much taller than himself, maybe six foot, give or take. Tanned, with a light five o’clock shadow, he was wearing a grey pinstripe suit with a blue shirt, open at the neck. Ignoring the inspector, the civilian addressed the sergeant in a businesslike tone. ‘Michelangelo Federici. I’m Mr Rage’s legal adviser.’

  The sergeant shot Carlyle an over to you look.

  Turning to the inspector, the lawyer held out a hand. ‘Michelangelo Federici,’ he repeated.

  With no particular enthusiasm, the inspector took his hand. ‘Inspector John Carlyle. I’m in charge of this case.’

  ‘Good. In that case, I wonder if you could show me to my client, please.’

  ‘Come this way,’ said Carlyle, gesturing towards the doors leading to the station proper. ‘We can go and see him together.’

  * * *

  Downstairs, Carlyle paused at the door to the interview room. Turning to the axeman’s lawyer, he adopted what he hoped sounded like a worldly-wise, we’re all in this together tone. ‘The basic situation here appears to be very straightforward,’ he said quietly. ‘Your client smashed his way into the victim’s flat and then tried to kill him. Taimur is lucky that Mr Belsky was able to lock himself in the bog or we would no doubt be looking at a murder charge.’

  Federici nodded in polite agreement. ‘I understand all of that, Inspector. Taimur explained to me very clearly what happened. And I know that you will want to pursue a quick and uncomplicated investigation.’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘For my part, I have no intention of dragging this out any longer than is necessary. No one benefits from turning this into a circus.’

  Carlyle could feel a but coming on. Taking a deep breath, he braced himself for the weasel words that would inevitably follow.

  ‘But, as you know, things are rarely as simple as they seem.’

  Exhaling, the inspector replied, ‘On the contrary,’ trying to sound as philosophical as possible. ‘In my experience, things are often exactly as simple as they seem.’

  Federici dropped his case onto the threadbare carpet. ‘As I said, you will get no interference or obfuscation from me.’

  That’ll be a first for a lawyer, the inspector thought sourly. ‘I appreciate it,’ he said aloud.

  ‘And I don’t think you’ll have too many problems with Taimur himself. He’s a nice, quiet boy.’

  ‘Who tried to put an axe in a guy’s head,’ Carlyle interjected.

  ‘For what it’s worth,’ said the lawyer apologetically, ‘I don’t think he would have gone through with it.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘Have you spoken to him yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s not some kind of religious fanatic, rocking backwards and forwards, mumbling passages from the Koran.’

  ‘I’m sure, like you say, he’s just a normal kid who took a wrong turn. But you know better than I do that all that stuff should be saved for the judge. All I want to do is get the facts down on paper and then it’s a matter for the CPS.’

  ‘I understand perfectly.’ The lawyer held up his hands. ‘But surely you are interested in the boy’s backstory? Presumably you want an explanation of what happened?’

  ‘Explanations . . . excuses. It’s all the same thing. Keep it for court.’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ the lawyer snapped. ‘What are you going to tell the media?’

  Carlyle thought about his run-in with Bernie Gilmore. ‘As little as possible.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘It’ll be quite the little shit storm as it is.’

  ‘Yes.’ The lawyer did not seem that distressed by the prospect.

  ‘I would suggest the less all of us say, the better,’ Carlyle went on.

  ‘Agreed.’ There was a moment’s reflection before Federici added, ‘However . . .’

  Here we go, Carlyle thought. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I fear that we will have some problems with the boy’s parents.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They can be difficult.’

  ‘If they’re that bothered,’ Carlyle snorted, ‘where are they?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘If they are that worried about their son,’ he repeated, speaking slowly, ‘why have they not come to the station to see what’s going on with him?’

  ‘They’re working,’ Federici said lamely. ‘At least, the mother is. Technically, she is my client.’

  ‘She pays the bills.’

  At the mention of money, a pained expression crossed the lawyer’s face. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the father?’

  ‘I have only met him a couple of times,’ Federici explained, ‘but he doesn’t seem to have any problem with me representing his son.’

  ‘So this is not the first time Taimur has been in trouble?’ Carlyle asked, looking through the window in the cell door and nodding at the youngster who still sat, staring vacantly into space.

  ‘There’s been nothing like this before,’ the lawyer said hastily. ‘Have you not read the file?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Carlyle admitted. The reality was he hadn’t even seen the damn thing yet. ‘Anyway, the parents have not been able to keep him on the straight and narrow.’

  ‘They are long divorced, which is part of the problem.’

  Carlyle scratched his head. He was about as interested in dysfunctional families as he was in religion. What was it that Tolstoy had said? ‘All happy families are the same, each u
nhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ The quote was one of the few things rattling around his head from his largely long-forgotten school days. ‘However . . . strained the domestic arrangements, I would impress upon both parents,’ he said, slipping into his best approximation of social worker mode, ‘the need to support their son at this time.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You should stress that they will not do that, however, by shouting their mouths off to the press.’ The thought popped into the inspector’s head that Bernie Gilmore was probably tracking them down already and Carlyle realized that he was almost certainly wasting his breath.

  ‘I will see what I can do, but there are no guarantees.’ The lawyer reached down for his bag. ‘I’ll talk you through the family situation in more detail later. Let me speak to my client first and then we can deal with your questions.’

  ‘Okay,’ Carlyle agreed, suddenly distracted by the smells that had started coming down the hallway from the nearby canteen. Despite his recent visit to the 93 Coffee Bar, he was still feeling hungry. In the back of his mind the idea was growing that an egg roll, smothered in ketchup, and a mug of green tea would be just the thing to hit the spot. ‘Talk to your client,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in fifteen minutes or so.’

  Pushing open the door, Federici gave him a broad smile. ‘Perfect.’

  TEN

  Having sauntered out of the police station at Charing Cross without a care in the world, Seymour Erikssen decided to celebrate his unexpected release from the cells with a pint of ridiculously expensive Estonian lager in the Enclosure Bar, just off Seven Dials. All black paint and chrome fittings, the Enclosure wasn’t really Seymour’s type of place, but the clientele – a mixture of loud Eurotrash, gormless tourists and working girls – potentially provided some interesting pickings. Thanks to the best efforts of the Metropolitan Police, his timing was good. It was getting late; people were becoming drunk and drunks made good victims.

  Sipping his £8 beer, Seymour settled down for some people-watching. It crossed his mind that someone might recognize him from the story in the Standard but, then again, the Enclosure crowd weren’t the kind of people who read newspapers, even free ones. ‘Bloody journalists,’ Seymour clucked to himself. ‘They write rubbish that nobody bothers to read any more.’ The papers might think of him as hopeless, but that was because they only knew about the times when things hadn’t worked out. In his line of employment, being arrested was an occupational hazard – and it didn’t happen nearly as often as those poking fun at him liked to think.

  By the far wall, a platinum blonde with a pageboy haircut was pawing a smug-looking pretty boy. On a large TV above their heads, a music video was playing. The sound was muted and Seymour slowly realized that a completely different song was playing over the bar’s sound system. On the screen, some girl singer and a group of dancers in combat uniforms were stomping around a derelict factory in front of a burned-out car. The whole thing looked exactly like a million other videos before it, and even the performers themselves appeared bored by what they were doing.

  Seymour drained the last of his drink and was unsuccessfully trying to signal to the barman that he wanted another when he caught a flash of yellow out of the corner of his eye. Turning his head, he clocked a man in the most outrageous suit he’d ever seen – some kind of yellow tartan number – flanked by a couple of girls whose short skirts, perfect teeth and ridiculously inflated chests immediately screamed hookers.

  Pulling out his wallet, the guy waved a black credit card and a barman came scurrying. In a comedy American accent that was clearly fake, the punter ordered a magnum of Bollinger champagne. Placing his empty glass on the bar, Seymour smiled. His guests had arrived. It was time to get back to work.

  ELEVEN

  Did she have a condom in her bag? Did she care? Feeling more than a little drunk, Carole Simpson slipped off her T-bar sandals and scrunched her toes into the carpet. ‘Aahhh, that feels nice.’

  After a long, boring day at the Home Office’s Modern Policing Conference (Theme: ‘Accountability and Value Delivery’) she felt recklessly exhausted. Ten hours stuck in the windowless basement of a Central London hotel, listening to presentations on delivering policing and justice reforms i.e. keeping your crime stats looking reasonable while sacking as many people as possible in order to meet the Government’s budget cuts – was enough to sap anyone’s will to live. The day’s events had been followed by a drinks reception and an interminable Awards dinner. And all that tomorrow offered was the prospect of more of the same. No wonder she had downed two G&Ts, a bottle and a half of wine and a very large cognac at dinner.

  Taking a swig from her glass of Sancerre, she staggered against the wall.

  ‘Carole.’ Laughing, her companion picked up the shoes and began weaving his way down the corridor.

  You’re as drunk as I am, Simpson thought, hiccupng. Somewhere in the far recesses of her mushy brain, the Commander knew that the sensible course of action would be to go home. She started to look at her watch but thought better of it. Really, she should have gone home hours ago. Instead, she watched the Deputy Chief Constable of Cleveland – or was it Cumbria? – stop in front of the door to his hotel room and begin fumbling with his key card.

  Swaying gently in the air conditioning, she watched as it took Lover Boy three attempts to unlock the door. Correction, said the distant voice inside her head, you’re even drunker than I am.

  Holding the door open, he threw her shoes into the room and beckoned for her to follow. For a moment, her legs seemed unable to move. When was the last time she had had sex? The sad truth was, it was too long ago to remember. Another hiccup. She started to giggle like a teenager. I wonder – will he be able to get it up?

  ‘C’mon,’ slurred her host as he fell through the door.

  ‘Hold on,’ she giggled, embarrassed if anyone should hear, ‘I’m coming.’

  Trying to look thoroughly pissed off, Carlyle tapped an index finger on the sheets of paper lying on the desk in front of him. ‘I’m sorry, but this isn’t anywhere near good enough.’

  Looking at the paint peeling on the ceiling, arms folded, the would-be axe murderer, Taimur Rage, licked his lips, saying nothing. The inspector had to admit that the youth sitting in front of him wasn’t quite what he had expected. Cleanshaven, with curly chestnut hair and intense brown eyes, the boy appeared considerably younger than his stated age of nineteen. Wearing jeans and a Rage Against the Machine T-shirt under a stylish navy cardigan, with an expensive pair of grey trainers on his feet, he didn’t much look like a poster boy for al-Qaeda either.

  Still, Carlyle thought, stranger things have happened.

  Michelangelo Federici gave his client a gentle pat on the shoulder before turning his attention to the inspector. ‘All in all, it looks like a full confession to me.’

  ‘A confession, but hardly a full one.’ Carlyle looked at Taimur. ‘I need the names of his associates and the details of his . . .’ he struggled to find the right word ‘. . . cell.’

  ‘His cell?’ Federici frowned. ‘What is the narrative that you are trying to create here? We have explained what happened and my client has already expressed contrition for his momentary lapse of sanity. There isn’t any—’

  Carlyle held up a hand. Whatever happened to no obfuscation? he thought wearily. ‘The attempted murder of Joseph Belsky is clearly a terrorist hate crime,’ he snapped, cringing at the way the words sounded coming out of his mouth. ‘It was conducted against a man with a price on his head. And you are telling me that this – this kid – did it all on his own?’

  The lawyer shrugged.

  Eyeing both men carefully, Carlyle sat back in his chair. ‘When I walk out of here,’ he said slowly, ‘if all I have in my hand is this pile of . . .’ he waved his hand dismissively at the statement ‘. . . shite, this investigation will take a most unfortunate turn.’

  ‘You have to do your job,’ said Federici equably. ‘We are co-operating fully.�
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  ‘If I am not able to do my job, the security services will be down here in the blink of an eye for a quick waterboarding session.’ Carlyle jabbed a finger towards Taimur’s face. ‘Do you want to end up in Guantanamo Bay?’ He knew that he was talking bollocks – waterboarding was so last decade – but in the absence of anything else, he reckoned it was worth a try.

  Finally meeting his gaze, the boy gave him a blank look.

  ‘Well?’

  Taimur started to say something but was quickly stopped by his lawyer. ‘My client has nothing to add to his statement which is both truthful and very comprehensive. He is adamant that he acted alone, having been radicalised on the basis of information gleaned from the internet.’ Pulling a pen from his jacket pocket, Federici handed it to Taimur and pointed to the bottom of the page. ‘Sign it there.’ The boy did as instructed and Federici handed the statement to the inspector. ‘There you are – a full confession.’

  We’ll see about that, thought Carlyle, reluctantly taking the sheet of paper from the lawyer.

  Pushing back his chair, Federici got to his feet. ‘I told you that we would not waste any of your time this evening.’

  ‘My investigation is continuing,’ Carlyle said lamely.

  ‘No doubt.’ Scooping up the remaining papers, the lawyer tidied them into his briefcase. ‘In the meantime, I’m sure that we could all do with some sleep.’

  He had barely made it to his desk on the third floor of the station when a call came in from Umar.

  ‘Tell me you’ve got the guy out,’ Carlyle said.

  ‘Not yet. They’ve now decided to try and smash through the wall.’

  Carlyle frowned. ‘Why didn’t they think of that earlier?’

  ‘It’s not as easy as a few blows with a sledgehammer,’ Umar explained, the weariness in his voice clear. ‘The walls have steel reinforcements as well.’

  ‘Hasn’t it got a window?’

  ‘Nope. Basically, the guy has locked himself in a big metal box. The door has a computer-generated lock and there’s been some kind of IT meltdown.’