by James Craig
Somewhere in the distance a siren wailed. ‘Nice tits!’ came a cry from the crowd, followed by peals of plebeian laughter. Melissa looked up to see who had been shouting, only to be greeted by a random mixture of bemused and lecherous faces – a united nations of wankers. Even the small knot of policemen – and one WPC – standing in front of a taxi that had stopped to take in the show seemed to think that the whole thing was hilarious. A few yards further on, a reporter was doing a piece to camera while a couple of other TV crews were filming the cyclists, many of whom were waving or mooning as they went by, flourishing their little anti-nuclear and anti-capitalist flags and banners as they did so.
Shit, shit, shit. She felt like crying. What happens if they see me at work? What if my parents are watching this, live, on News 24?
Melissa badly wanted to stop, get off her bike, pull out some shorts and a T-shirt from her pannier and get dressed. But that would only serve to draw attention to her and her embarrassment. All she could do now was try and get to the end as quickly as possible and slink off, putting it down as a never-to-be-repeated learning experience.
One thing was for sure, clothed or unclothed, she would never be getting on a bloody bike again.
A man on the bike next to her began scratching his balls vigorously. Catching her watching, he gave her a cheeky grin. Melissa quickly returned her gaze to the road. She was careful to remain tucked into the middle of the group, well away from any would-be gropers lurking between parked cars. But the turnout for the ride had been poor – at most, only about a third of the number that had been confidently predicted by the organizers had turned up – and there was really nowhere to hide. The whole thing made her skin crawl. By her tally, there were at least four times as many men on the ride as women. There were a broad range of specimens – a wide variety of ages and physical conditions – but all of them seemed ecstatic at the opportunity to let their willies dangle from the side of the frame of their bike while they ogled some naked female flesh.
As the cyclists picked up pace slightly, she glanced over at Will. About two bike rides in front, off to the right, her boyfriend was holding the position that he’d taken from the very start of the ride – up close beside Kara Johnson, whose massive breasts had been painted bright red for the occasion. Will was transfixed; Melissa was convinced that he’d had a semi-chub on for the last mile and a half, at least. He looked like he wanted to jump Kara on the spot. And she didn’t look too dismayed at the idea, either.
What annoyed Melissa more than anything was the knowledge that if she and Will had sex tonight, he would be thinking about Kara and her gigantic – no doubt fake – tits.
Tosser.
The pace of the riders had slowed once again, this time to little more than a crawl. Taking a drink of lukewarm water from her bidon, Melissa spat the water out onto the tarmac. ‘Urgh.’ She was thirsty but she also really needed to pee. She recalled the case of the London marathon runner who’d squatted down in the gutter, mid-race, to go. Somehow she didn’t think she’d be able to get away with that not so close to Nelson’s Column at least.
As the front of the ride reached the south-east corner of the square, everything came to a complete standstill. Amid the general grumbling, Melissa gleaned that the police were holding them up to let regular traffic through first. This was not what the organizers had promised would happen and she could sense the group’s humour levels begin to ebb still further. Doubtless she wasn’t the only participant who was tired and fed up. She tried to catch Will’s eye but he remained focused on the Amazonian Kara, his head so close to her arse that he looked like he was poised to lick the sweat from her glistening buttocks. Catching sight of ripples of cellulite on the backs of her thighs, Melissa felt a grim glimmer of satisfaction. ‘You should cover that up,’ she hissed to herself, ‘you fat bitch.’
The need to pee was now becoming more urgent. Hopping from foot to foot, she tried to make out what was happening up ahead. Still there was no sign of the riders moving off. Melissa realized that if she didn’t find a loo soon, she would just have to go in the street after all. To her left, she caught sight of a teenage boy in a replica Manchester United shirt standing on the pavement with his left arm aloft, filming her on his mobile phone. His right hand was shuffling in the pocket of his jeans. Their eyes met and the boy’s grin grew wider.
Fuck this, Melissa thought. I’ve simply got to get out of here. Turning around, she had just reached for her pannier when an ear-splitting scream suddenly cascaded down the road towards her. Looking up, she could see people ahead jumping off their bikes and letting them drop to the ground as they ran to converge on an hysterical woman in a red bikini. Through gaps in the crowd, Melissa could see that the woman was standing over a bearded man who had apparently fallen from his bike and was lying on his back in the road. A couple of the police officers who had been watching the ride go past were trying to make their way through the crowd towards the prostrate man. A third was calling for an ambulance.
‘Excuse me.’ Melissa felt a hand on her shoulder and looked round to see a tall Asian guy gently manoeuvring her out of the way so that he could get past.
‘I think the police are dealing with it,’ she mumbled, grateful that the guy was at least making an effort to look at her face, rather than her chest. He was wearing jeans and a navy T-shirt bearing the legend EVERTON’S
Handsome, Melissa thought, but knackered-looking.
‘I am the police,’ he replied with a slight Northern accent, producing an ID badge on a chain and pulling it over his head.
‘What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know,’ the officer replied. ‘But don’t worry. Just stay here for the moment and we’ll find out.’ Stepping backwards, he took a moment – a long moment – to check her out from tip to toe. ‘Maybe put some clothes on,’ he said, giving every indication of liking what he saw. ‘This may take a while.’
Not for the first time in his police career, Umar was almost completely distracted by the naked woman in front of him. The girl was very pretty – petite, slim, with pert breasts that ended in enormous nipples – and it took him a moment to tune back in to the screaming just down the road. There were various uniforms milling about but no one appeared to be taking control of the situation.
‘Police!’ he shouted, waving the ID in front of his face. ‘Let me through.’ Slowly a narrow pathway opened up in front of him. Moving away from the girl, he slalomed past a series of cyclists until he came to the guy on the ground. A WPC was kneeling over him, searching for a pulse. She looked up at Umar and shook her head. Behind her, he could see a dark mess sticking to the tarmac – blood. Lying in the blood, glinting in the sunlight, was what looked like a kitchen knife.
Not natural causes then, Umar mused.
‘Looks like he’s been stabbed,’ said the uniform. The woman who had been screaming was now sobbing quietly into the chest of a fellow rider whose yellow Speedos left nothing to the imagination. All around him, Umar could make out a low murmour among the onlookers, the sound of curiosity rather than fear.
Christ, he thought, how are we going to secure this scene? From the direction of Charing Cross Road came the sound of an ambulance siren rushing towards them. Speaking into her walkie-talkie, the WPC was asking the station for more officers to help secure the scene and corral witnesses. Already, however, people were beginning to slip away. There was no way that the police officers would be able to stop them. Another group of cyclists had peeled off to buy ice creams from a van parked by one of the exits to Charing Cross tube station. Already, the dead man was no more than a mildly diverting topic of conversation.
Hands on hips, Umar watched a buxom wench, her breasts painted red for the occasion, chatting happily to some chinless wonder. As the ambulance pulled up in the eastbound lane, the paramedics jumped out and began retrieving their kit. They went about their task with practised efficiency, but lacking the high tempo that marked a life and death situation. Ten yards further down
the road, a couple of uniforms were cordoning off the street, much to the annoyance of a bus driver who’d just had his route abruptly curtailed. More uniforms started trickling out of the nearby station. Umar watched to see if any more senior officers followed them. What he needed was someone to take charge as quickly as possible, so that he could slink off. Otherwise, his evening would go up in smoke. He would have to cancel dinner. Doubtless, Carlyle would be delighted at having avoided babysitting duties, but Christina would kill him. And the sergeant knew full well which of the two scared him most.
‘My God. What’s happened?’
It took Umar a couple of seconds to recognize the girl he’d spoken to just minutes before. Having slipped into a pair of white shorts and a Nike T-shirt, she looked completely different – if anything, even prettier. ‘The bloke over there,’ Umar pointed at the prostrate cyclists, ‘it looks like he’s been stabbed.’
Pulling off her sunglasses, Melissa Graham squinted at the victim. ‘Is he dead?’
Umar shrugged. The hovering paramedics told their own story. ‘Yeah.’
‘Holy shit.’ She giggled nervously.
‘Do you know who he is, or, rather, who he was?’
‘No idea.’
Umar pointed at the woman in the red bikini. ‘Or her?’
‘No, sorry.’
‘Do you know who’s in charge here? Who are the organizers?’
‘I’m not really the person to ask, Officer.’ Melissa perched the sunglasses back on her nose. ‘I just came along for the ride, so to speak.’ Half-turning, she pointed to the chinless bloke talking to the girl with the red chest. ‘Will should know, though. He was the one who got me involved in this.’
Umar thought he detected a hint of bitterness in her voice. ‘Okay, thanks.’ Digging out a business card from the pocket of his jeans, he handed it over. ‘This is me. What’s your name?’
‘Melissa . . . Melissa Graham.’
‘Okay, Melissa. You have to stay here now until someone takes a statement.’
‘But I didn’t see anything,’ Melissa complained, ‘and I need to pee.’
‘It shouldn’t take long,’ Umar lied.
‘But I need to pee right now,’ she protested. ‘Otherwise I’m going to look like the woman in that Harvey Nichols advert.’
The policeman looked at her blankly.
‘The advert of the woman pissing herself with excitement at the Harvey Nicks sale?’
Umar shrugged. The upmarket department store was way out of his league. ‘Must’ve missed that one.’ From the corner of his eye, he saw Detective Inspector Julie Postic marching down the empty eastbound lanes of the Strand, her faithful lackey, Sergeant Lawrence Shames, in tow, along with a couple of uniforms who were having to jog to keep up. Postic was already waving her arms in the air and generally asserting her authority.
‘Thank God for that,’ Umar mumbled to himself, carefully plotting an exit route that would keep him away from the beady eyes of the DI. ‘The cavalry have finally arrived.’
‘What?’
‘Never mind.’ Once again, he placed a hand on Melissa’s shoulder. ‘Tell you what, come with me.’ He pointed in the direction of Agar Street. ‘My station is just up there. You can come and use the facilities and then we’ll take a quick statement. Then you can be on your way.’
‘That would be great, thanks.’ With a final glance towards the chinless wonder, Melissa began pushing her bike back through the crowd, towards the pavement. With a broad grin, the sergeant followed on, right behind her.
‘Police. Coming through.’
TWENTY-FIVE
After an hour or so of semi-careful reading, the inspector had sorted the papers from the dead lawyer’s briefcase into three piles. The first was personal: a series of letters and statements relating to a two-million-euro mortgage on a property Winters had bought in France. Two million euros was what? Carlyle’s best guess was something like one point seven million quid or thereabouts. One point seven mil. That was a lot for a mere copper, but not necessarily such a big deal for a City lawyer.
The second pile of papers were also personal: a series of letters from a legal firm in North London asking for details of Winter’s assets – bank accounts, pensions, property and so on. Apparently, Mrs Giselle Winters – née Aceveda – was seeking a divorce on the grounds of ‘unreasonable behaviour’.
‘Unreasonable behaviour,’ Carlyle mumbled to himself. ‘That doesn’t exactly narrow it down.’ He felt a sudden stab of male solidarity. ‘No wonder the guy was so stressed.’ On the other hand, the disaffected widow must now be sitting pretty.
The final set of papers was presumably what Chris Brennan was after: three copies of unsigned contracts concerning the merger of WBK – Winters Brennan & King – with an American legal firm called Austerlitz & Co. Nothing particularly interesting as far as Carlyle could see.
‘Here you are.’ He looked up to see Sonia Mason’s head popped round the door. ‘I’ve been looking for you all over the station.’
‘Sorry,’ Carlyle shrugged. ‘I just wanted somewhere quiet to sit and do some reading.’
Mason slipped through the door, waving a set of papers of her own. ‘I’ve been doing some reading too.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, your man Winters – very interesting.’ Pulling out a chair, she dropped the documents on the table and sat down opposite him.
Behind her head, Carlyle caught sight of the clock on the wall. Christ, he thought, is that the time? If he wasn’t home in the next forty-five minutes or so, Helen would kill him.
‘Gimme the quick version.’
‘Brian Winters seems to have had a fairly spectacular mid-life crisis, or rather, late mid-life crisis.’
Carlyle watched his mobile vibrating across the desk. He didn’t need to check the screen to know that it was his wife. As the phone’s voicemail kicked in, he eyed Mason. Get on with it, he thought.
‘According to the gossip column in the innkeeper . . .’
‘The what?’
‘It’s a website for lawyers. The name references Lincoln’s Inn, where the legal bods hang out.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’
‘He had set up home on the Cote d’Azur with an escort, was getting a divorce and threatening to scupper his firm’s merger with some American outfit.’
‘Why the latter?’
‘Because, allegedly, he didn’t think he would get enough of a pay-out.’
Money and sex, Carlyle mused. It always came back down to money and sex. In a way that was reassuring. It certainly made life a lot simpler. However, it still didn’t mean that the guy had died of anything other than a bog standard heart attack. His mobile phone started ringing again. Once again, without looking at the screen, he knew that it would be his wife.
You can run, but you can’t hide.
He picked up the handset and hit receive.
‘I’m coming right now.’
‘Good,’ said Helen firmly, ‘and make sure you bring Umar with you.’
He found his sergeant sitting at his desk, chatting away happily to a young blonde girl. It was impossible not to notice that she was wearing nothing more than a flimsy T-shirt and the skimpiest pair of shorts that the inspector had seen in a long time.
‘Managed to tear yourself away from sexyuniforms.com then?’ Carlyle asked as he hovered behind Umar’s chair.
The sergeant chose to ignore the bait. ‘Inspector, this is Melissa Graham.’ The girl smiled at him politely. ‘She was on the bike ride today.’
‘Glad to see you’ve managed to get some clothes on before you came in here,’ Carlyle quipped, gesturing round the office, ‘or the forces of law and order would have ground to a complete halt.’
Melissa’s smile wavered but she said nothing.
‘And the bike ride,’ he asked, ‘how did it go?’
‘Not too good,’ Umar said. ‘A bloke got stabbed.’
‘Not seriously, I hope.’
‘Dead
.’
Carlyle looked at the girl and frowned. ‘By her?’
‘No, no,’ said Melissa, blushing violently. ‘I was just—’
‘She was just a witness,’ Umar explained. ‘I was taking a statement.’
Yeah, right, Carlyle thought. Along with an email address and a phone number, you dirty little sod. ‘I see.’ Slowly, he looked around the room. ‘So where are all the other witnesses?’
‘Lawrence Shames and DI Postic are rounding them up now; it looks like it’s gonna be their case.’
Thank God for that. The last thing he wanted at the moment was more on his plate. ‘I’m sure they’ll get to the bottom of it . . . no pun intended.’
Umar raised his eyes to the heavens.
‘It’s really Sergeant Shames you should be talking to.’ Carlyle smiled at the girl. ‘He’s a very nice man.’
‘I needed to pee,’ Melissa said, ‘so Umar brought me back here.’
Umar, is it?
The sergeant shrugged. ‘All part of the service.’
‘Very good.’ The inspector stepped forward, half-turning so that he could better look his colleague in the face. ‘Anyway, Umar, we’d better get going.’ He smiled maliciously. ‘You don’t want to be late for your date with your wife.’
Steve Metcalf dropped the last of the lamb kebab into his gaping maw and wiped his hands on the front of his faded T-shirt. Washing it down with the last dregs from a half-litre bottle of Kingfisher lager, he looked expectantly across the table at Calvin Safi.
‘You shouldn’t be drinking that in here,’ Safi pointed out. ‘You know I don’t have a licence.’
‘Calvin, old son, relax. Why do you let yourself get so wound up about shit?’
‘I could get shut down,’ Safi grumbled.
‘Ha.’ Metcalf let out a ferocious belch. ‘Who’s gonna complain?’ With the empty bottle, he gestured round the almost empty kebab shop. Aside from Aqib and his mate Rasheed, sitting near the counter, their faces a study in concentration as they wolfed down a couple of hamburgers, there were no other customers.