by James Craig
‘Hey! Open the bloody door!’
When no one responded, she sat back on the bed and took out her mobile. Paul’s number was at the top of the dialled list. She hit call and listened to it ring. As it went to voicemail, she didn’t know what to say. The whole thing just seemed too stupid, too embarrassing. Ending the call, she wondered who to try next. No one came to mind.
At least the headache was gone. ‘Who you gonna call?’ she asked herself. In the absence of Ghostbusters, she dialled 999.
FORTY-THREE
The morning sun sneaking through the West London cloud glinted off the bald dome of Ron Flux, causing Carlyle to shield his eyes with the back of his hand. This morning, the Detective Inspector from Hammersmith was wearing a gruesome green blazer with a red check, and a pair of chinos that seemed too small at the waist and too long in the leg. Nothing, however, could distract from the look of agitation on the man’s face.
Carlyle looked down at the body laid out on the platform under a blue plastic sheet as a trio of technicians buzzed around the shed where it had been dumped. A familiar sense of despair and anger washed over him. He tried to remember the girl’s name, but his mind was blank. ‘Is that her?’
‘Sandra Middlemass? Yeah, that’s her.’ Hands on hips, Flux stared at the board indicating that all west-bound Central Line services had been suspended. He signalled towards a couple of women standing further down the platform, just inside the police tape. The pair of them looked like they would do a runner at any moment if it wasn’t for the attentions of a couple of uniforms hovering nearby. ‘The cleaner found her about six this morning and got her supervisor to call it in. How long she’d been there, we don’t know yet.’
Couldn’t have been that long, Carlyle thought, otherwise someone would have smelled something. ‘So, what’s next?’
‘Get her out of here,’ Flux replied, ‘find out how and when she died. See if we can link it back to the Persian Palace.’ He took out his mobile and made a call.
‘Fair enough.’ The inspector still wasn’t sure why Flux had called him out here. ‘How can I help?’
Flux made a face, indicating that the call was being diverted to voicemail. He hung up without leaving a message. ‘I just want to make sure you don’t get in the way.’
‘Don’t worry about that. We won’t do anything that obstructs you and your sergeant.’
Flux toyed with the phone in his hand. ‘Bloody Napper,’ he said. ‘Where the hell is he?’
Bloody Umar, for that matter – where is he? ‘And, of course, if there is anything we can do . . .’
Still playing with his phone, Flux gave him a perfunctory nod. A couple of paramedics appeared on the platform, sliding their gurney under the police tape. Carlyle thought back to his meeting with Calvin Safi and the vacant girl in the leather jacket sitting in the back booth. He turned his attention back to Flux. ‘Are there any other girls who have been reported missing?’
‘There are plenty of girls that are reported missing,’ the DI sighed, ‘but none that we have been able to connect to the kebab shop.’
‘Okay.’ Carlyle stepped aside to let the paramedics past. ‘I’m going to head off, but let’s keep in touch.’
‘Yeah, sure,’ Flux replied, his thoughts elsewhere.
On his way out of the tube station, Carlyle tried calling Umar. When the sergeant’s voicemail kicked in, he hung up and stomped unhappily across a zebra crossing, forcing an onrushing Vauxhall Corsa to slam on the brakes. The driver, a skinhead with a tattoo on his forearm, looked as if he wanted to give the pedestrian a piece of his mind, but thought better of it when the inspector gave him a defiant glare. As he reached the kerbside, it occurred to Carlyle that the man looked vaguely familiar, but he dismissed the notion without even looking round. ‘All these wankers look the same,’ he mumbled to himself as he scanned the horizon in search of sustenance.
In the end, he chose a café with strawberry tablecloths run by a couple from Thailand. In the background, a commercial radio station was playing at a mercifully low volume. Aside from an old guy sitting under a poster advertising holidays in Phuket, the place was empty. Stepping up to the counter, the inspector considered the modest fare on offer.
After ordering toast and a mug of green tea, he grabbed a copy of Metro from one of the tables and took a seat by the window. Looking across the Green, he had a reasonable view of the Persian Palace – good enough at least to see that the place was closed. Carlyle carefully scrutinized the windows on the upper floors for signs of life. There were none. With a sigh, he turned his attention to the newspaper.
He was halfway through a story about an MPS staff survey when his breakfast arrived. Thanking the waitress, he picked up a slice of toast and took a large bite as he continued reading. The survey, which had been released after a request under the Freedom of Information Act, looked at officers’ attitudes towards the job and towards the public. ‘Nobody bloody asked me,’ Carlyle muttered, washing down the toast with some tea as he scanned the findings. One stat caught his eye: 32.7% of officers agreed with the statement: ‘It’s a waste of time trying to help some people’.
‘That must make the other 67.3 per cent liars,’ he mused, reaching for another piece of toast. An Assistant Commissioner was quoted as saying: ‘We strive to be an organization which is as open and transparent as possible and within which all our staff support each other in providing the best service possible to the public.’
‘You make it sound like the Waltons,’ Carlyle snorted, turning to the sports pages. Folding the paper in half, he began to read a story about Fulham’s latest transfer target when he was distracted by a pair of pretty black girls walking past the window. As they disappeared from his field of vision, the inspector noticed activity at the kebab shop. He watched as a fat white bloke put a key in the front door, went inside and locked the door behind him. Dropping the newspaper onto the table, Carlyle slurped down the rest of his tea before reaching into his pocket. Pulling out a tenner, he headed over to the counter to pay his bill.
Crossing the Green, he looked up at the clouds. The early morning sunshine had given way to more familiar grey skies. The forecast was for rain. For once it looked like the Meteorological Office had got it right. It was only a matter of time. Outside the Persian Palace, he gave a short sharp blast on the buzzer and waited.
No response.
He pressed again.
Still nothing.
I know you’re in there. He left his finger on the buzzer and started counting in his head as he listened to its insistent whine inside the shop. Breathing in the smells of old kebabs and car exhausts was making him feel dizzy, and Carlyle tried to shake the fuzziness from his head. Despite his breakfast, he was still feeling hungry and his mood darkened with every passing second.
He had reached seventy-six when the white guy he had seen going inside a few minutes earlier appeared from the back of the shop. ‘What’re you doing?’ he snarled through the glass as he scratched at a tattoo on his forearm. He was wearing a red Fred Perry polo shirt under a black Harrington jacket. Dirty jeans and a pair of white Nikes made up a fairly standard blue-collar ensemble.
Was this the guy who’d nearly run him over at the zebra crossing? He might have been, but the inspector was by no means sure. ‘Open the door.’
‘We’re closed. Fuck off.’
Carlyle pulled up his ID and held it up against the glass. ‘I want to talk to Calvin.’
The man scratched his head. ‘Guess what? He’s not here. So fuck off.’ Stepping to his left, he hit a switch and a security shutter started descending on the inside of the shop. Not waiting for it to fully close, the man turned and headed further inside.
Standing on the pavement, Carlyle considered his options. A sign next to the door said that the shop wasn’t due to open for another three hours. He could come back later. Or what? Unsure of his next move, he began walking aimlessly along the pavement in the direction of Shepherd’s Bush tube. Twenty yards be
fore the station, a bus pulled up at the stop and a dozen or so passengers swarmed onto the pavement. Brought to a halt, Carlyle noticed a narrow passageway leading behind the row of shops that included the Persian Palace. For want of anything better to do, he decided to take a look.
The passageway led to a cobbled alley that was barely wide enough to accommodate two cars. One end was blocked off by the tube, while the other led back to the main road. Looking towards the road, Carlyle surveyed the scene. To his right was a row of single-storey garages, backing on to the shops in front. Between each garage was a small yard, each with a metal gate set into a brick wall. Each section of wall was topped by its own style of razor wire fencing. The wire must have been deemed sufficient to keep out any unwanted visitors for there was no sign of the otherwise ubiquitous CCTV cameras that covered the city.
On a metal gate he noticed a black and white sticker: BEWARE OF DOG: KEEP OUT. Right on cue came the sound of vigorous barking. Carlyle stopped; he didn’t like animals at the best of times. After a few moments, however, it became apparent that no one was paying any attention and the animal quickly stopped.
Moving along the alley, the inspector glanced at the graffiti sprayed on the brick wall to his left. In black paint, someone had written: some people do this for fun – I’m just a cunt. Laughing, he kicked an empty Sprite can across the cobbles into a nearby pothole.
Running the full length of the alley, the wall gave on to the railway line. This was the point where trains heading west on the Central Line came up to the surface. Sticking his hands in his pockets, Carlyle listened to a train rumble past, making for White City and the distant suburbs beyond.
Looks like the service is back up and running, he thought. They must have removed Sandra Middlemass’s body from the platform. Whether the forensics guys would have been given enough time to properly do their job was another matter. The inspector knew from his own experience that the Mayor’s office would always prioritize the needs of the transport network over an inconvenient murder. Poor old Flux would have been under immense pressure to get the station open and have trains running through it again as quickly as possible. Preserving the crime scene was always a major struggle.
Moving past a parked Mercedes, Carlyle came to a stop where he estimated the back of the kebab shop should be. He wrinkled his nose as the familiar smell of ammonia caressed his nostrils. Looking down, he could see where someone had relieved himself on a rusted garage door. ‘Dirty bastard.’ Carlyle tutted. There were times when London just seemed like one big outside toilet.
At least it seemed that the guy hadn’t pissed on the door handle. After glancing up and down the alley, Carlyle gave it a cautious tug. Locked. Stepping to his right, he tried the next gate along – a solid metal construction, painted military green: same story.
Okay . . .
At least the small handwritten sign stuck to the gate – Persian Palace ring bell for deliveries – told him that he was in the right place. Taking a step backwards, the inspector looked up aimlessly at the back of the building, as if that might reveal his next move. Just then, there was the sound of a door opening and footsteps in the yard on the other side of the wall. Carlyle froze, his eyes on the gate. It didn’t open. Instead, there was a sound of coughing, followed by a stream of smoke appearing behind the barbed wire. Someone was having a smoke. More footsteps. Voices. Edging back towards the gate, the inspector strained to hear above the traffic noise in the distance. It sounded like Safi and the guy with the tattoo, but he couldn’t be sure.
‘Bloody policeman.’
‘You need to calm down.’
A cigarette butt flew over the wire and landed on the cobbles near his feet. Standing to the left of the gate, Carlyle pressed himself against the wall, trying to catch more of the conversation.
‘What about the girl?’
‘That’s your problem, you didn’t have to—’
At that moment, the dog in the nearby yard started up again. Looking round, willing the barking to stop, Carlyle saw a guy – presumably the dog’s owner – appear in the alley, glancing in both directions. The inspector hesitated: should he stay? Or had he pushed his luck far enough already? The sight of a large Alsatian at the guy’s side made his decision a lot easier. Turning on his heel, he headed for the far end of the alley at a brisk clip.
Back where he started, the inspector made his way along the north side of Shepherd’s Bush Green, his intended destination the Central Line. He was literally walking round in circles; doing nothing but wasting time. As he walked past the Persian Palace, he saw that the shutters remained down. Further along, he glanced back down the passageway – it was empty and there was no sign of the Alsatian or its owner. Grumbling to himself, he reached the tube station and fished out his Oyster card. As he went through the barriers, he felt his mobile start to vibrate in his pocket. Ignoring it, he let the escalator take him down towards the east-bound platform.
Twenty-five minutes later, he was back at his desk. He had barely sat down when WPC Mason came in and perched on the edge of his desk. She looked tired, as if she was just coming off a night shift.
‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.
She stifled a yawn. ‘I’ve been looking for Sergeant Sligo.’
Good point. Where the bloody hell is Umar?
‘Giselle Winters has been trying to get hold of him,’ the WPC went on.
‘The lawyer’s wife?’
‘She says he’s not responding to his mobile.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ Carlyle said. ‘He’s probably just catching up on some sleep.’
‘Probably.’ This time Mason did yawn. ‘He’s not the only one who needs to do that.’
‘Anyway, I’ll tell him when I see him. I’m sure he’ll be only too happy to go back and speak to the lady again.’
Ignoring the innuendo, Mason slipped off the desk and set off towards the stairs. ‘Okay. Thank you, Inspector.’
‘Hope you manage to get a decent kip.’ He knew from experience how difficult it could be to sleep during the day. Whenever possible, he avoided working nights. It buggered up your body clock and was bad for your health.
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Good. See you later.’ As he watched her disappear, his mobile started up again. Pulling it out of his pocket, he answered. ‘Yes?’
‘Carlyle? It’s Flux. I’ve been trying to get hold of you for ages.’ The irritation in the DI’s voice was clear. ‘Don’t you ever answer your bloody phone?’
Not one of my strong points, Carlyle had to admit. His ability to miss calls and lose voicemails was something that many people had commented on over the years. ‘I’m back at Charing Cross.’
‘Well, I’m back at the Persian Palace,’ Flux said sharply. ‘Look, you need to get over here pronto.’
‘But I’ve just come from there,’ Carlyle complained.
‘Well, you might want to come back. Another girl’s gone missing.’
FORTY-FOUR
Why the hell am I chasing backwards and forwards across London for the sake of someone else’s case? With the argument still raging in his brain, Carlyle found Flux waiting for him outside the kebab shop. The shutters had been raised and the place was open, but there was no sign of any activity inside. The Detective Inspector, meanwhile, looked like he’d aged five years in the last couple of hours. The guy looked so weary, Carlyle felt energized by comparison.
‘What have you got?’ he asked brusquely, by way of introduction.
‘Jade Jones,’ Flux told him, ‘nineteen years old. She went missing from Maidenhead last night after a row with her boyfriend. This morning, she makes a 999 call saying she’s being held captive by some guys who picked her up outside Paddington station.’ He pointed towards a dry cleaner’s three doors down from the Persian Palace. ‘They traced the call to a mast on the top of that building. When I heard it come over the radio I came right down here.’
‘And?’
Flux shrugged. �
�And nothing. Safi was still in bed. No sign of the girl. No one else on the premises.’
‘Hm.’ Carlyle thought about the white guy and the inaudible conversation in the back yard. ‘Have you tried ringing her mobile?’
‘Of course,’ Flux snapped. ‘It’s switched off. We’ve lost track of her. Safi, naturally, claims he knows nothing about her.’
‘Can I go and talk to him?’
Flux’s expression said Be my guest. ‘I’ve got to get back to the station. Let me know if you manage to get any more out of him.’
‘Sure.’ Carlyle watched the DI weave between the almost stationary traffic and disappear across the Green. On the side of a bus, an advert for the nearby shopping centre caught his eye; the latest American teenybopper was due to make an appearance at the weekend, sing a few songs, sign a few autographs. Do they still call them teenyboppers? he wondered as he headed inside the kebab shop.
Ignoring the fetid atmosphere, he turned the lock and flipped the Closed sign before walking through to the back. Calvin Safi was in the yard smoking a cigarette. He was wearing a pair of light grey sweatpants, along with a ratty-looking navy V-neck jumper over a white T-shirt. Unshaven and bleary-eyed, he looked like he’d had a heavy night.
‘Good party?’ Carlyle asked.
Safi eyed the inspector sullenly. ‘What do you want?’
Stepping forward, Carlyle replied with a fist to the gut.
‘Pfff . . .’ Surprised as much as winded, Safi made a noise like a deflating balloon. Doubling over, the cigarette fell from his lips on to a cracked paving stone. Grabbing the back of his jumper, Carlyle smacked his face into the wall. ‘Argh.’ There was a thud, and the shop owner slid to the ground, blood pouring from his nose. Scrambling into a sitting position, he watched warily, ready to defend himself from further blows. ‘What are you doing?’ he managed, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
Stomping on the smouldering cigarette butt, Carlyle moved forward, readying himself to give Safi a good kick.