by James Craig
‘I thought his lead was slipping,’ Carlyle said mischievously, vaguely remembering reading something about it in The Times that morning.
‘You always get the odd rogue poll,’ she replied. ‘It doesn’t matter. He’s a certainty.’
Carlyle looked at Simpson carefully: ‘That doesn’t make any difference, though, does it?’
‘To what?’
‘To the way we handle the case.’
‘Of course not,’ she said stiffly. ‘What it means is that the killer, if he is after these remaining gentlemen, is very unlikely to be able to get close to at least three of them. Out on the stump, in the public eye and surrounded by security, they’re pretty safe.’
‘Unless our guy changes his MO,’ Carlyle mused.
‘The thing to do,’ said Simpson, ignoring this thought, ‘will be to concentrate on the others… once I have spoken to them.’
‘Understood,’ he repeated.
‘Remember,’ Simpson said with some feeling, ‘there absolutely must be a media blackout on this. It cannot be allowed to… pollute the election. You know how the Met would get the blame. The mess would cover us all. Maybe we should get a DA-Notice out tonight?’
‘Good idea,’ said Carlyle, injecting a little false enthusiasm into his voice, trying to sound supportive. ‘But maybe that would be a bit over the top.’ DA-Notices were issued by The Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee, requesting that editors not publish or broadcast items on specified subjects for reasons of ‘national security’. This present case might be a serious matter, but describing it as a national-security issue would be rather stretching it a bit. ‘A Defence Advisory Notice is probably inappropriate here, and this is not really a matter for the Press Complaints Commission,’ he continued, ‘but we could go through the Society of Editors. That’s what the Palace did a while back, when one of the young princes went to Iraq.’
‘Very brave of him,’ Simpson mused.
‘Far better for him than rolling around in the gutter outside some nightclub,’ Carlyle muttered, recalling one of the same young royal’s other hobbies.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Now is not the time for any lack of focus, Inspector,’ Simpson said with smooth menace.
Carlyle ignored her tone and ploughed on. ‘Editors might accept a purely voluntary “understanding”, in return for special access later on.’
Simpson thought about it for a minute. ‘I would need to agree that with their people.’ Their people meaning the Carltons’ entourage.
This game is getting very complicated, Carlyle thought.
‘In the meantime,’ Simpson continued, ‘let’s avoid any leaks. And, of course, the quicker we can get this solved, the fewer problems there will be. Let me have a full verbal report every twenty-fours hours. Whatever you need to get the job done, take it.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, forcing himself to maintain eye contact.
‘John,’ Simpson smiled one of the fakest smiles he had ever seen in his life, ‘I am always here if you need me. You know that, don’t you?’
‘That is a great help,’ Carlyle lied.
‘Good. I’m glad,’ Simpson lied back. Picking up one of the papers on her desk, she began reading it.
This was his cue to leave, and he took it.
Feeling much happier than when he had arrived, Carlyle quickly left the station and sauntered down the Edgware Road. Heading south, in the direction of Marble Arch, he realised that he was in London’s North African neighbourhood and therefore spoilt for choice in terms of coffee and cake. He passed a succession of cafes with men in shalwar kameez smoking oversized hookah pipes at pavement tables. Taking a right turn, he passed the north end of Connaught Square, glancing up at the inevitable pair of heavily armed policemen guarding the fantastically expensive town house of a previous prime minister. It had been bought a couple of years just before he left office and as the lucrative lecture and non-executive director circuit hove into view. With his current successor struggling so badly, it looked as if Edgar Carlton would soon be the third PM in short order. All political careers end in failure, some more quickly than others, Carlyle reflected. He knew that, within twelve months of getting the job he so shamelessly coveted, Carlton’s ratings would be lower than a snake’s belly in a storm drain. People might want the old guy back, even though they had hated him when he was in the job. What a shit job: it was even worse than being a policeman.
Fifty yards down the road, Carlyle took a seat outside the Cafe du Liban and ordered some of their thick, strong, black coffee sprinkled with cardamom seeds, along with a heavy, sticky pastry. At this time of the evening, the place was basically empty, since he had been lucky enough to hit the gap between office workers leaving for home and the locals arriving for a post-dinner coffee and gossip. Enjoying the peace, Carlyle settled down to turn things over in his head and map out what to do next. However, with his mind flitting from one thing to another, he found it impossible to focus on the case.
Letting his gaze roam over the middle distance, he was distracted by the sight of a dwarf chatting with a Big Issue seller on a street corner across the road. The dwarf was waving his arms about, and the magazine vendor was scratching at his beard and nodding vigorously. I’m in one of the crazier David Lynch movies, Carlyle thought unhappily, rummaging in his pockets for his BlackBerry and his different mobiles. If he couldn’t process information in his head, he could at least do it on his various machines.
As it turned out, the only thing of note on any of them was a voicemail from Rosanna Snowdon on his ‘work’ mobile (as opposed to his ‘private’, untraceable, pay-as-you go phone). Snowdon hinted at some new development in ‘the story’ and asked him to call her. He wondered how she had got his number. The message was timed at 4.20 p.m., so he assumed that he’d missed her deadline for today. He would give her a call tomorrow, even if only to discover what she knew. Carlyle saw journalists primarily as people to get information from, rather than the other way round. On that basis, he liked them well enough. He understood the rules of the game, and so did Rosanna. When the time came, both of them would be happy enough to share.
Carlyle was about to switch off his phone and return it to his pocket when it started vibrating again. A text told him he had another message. Irritated, he pulled up the number for his answerphone and hit the call button.
‘This is a message for Inspector John Carlyle. My name is Harry Allen. I was looking to speak to you about Ian Blake…’
‘Fuck!’ Carlyle punched the recall button.
‘I’m sorry,’ said a prim electronic voice, ‘but the number you are calling is not available. We are unable to connect you…’
‘Fuck, fuck,’ he looked at the handset with a mixture of resignation, disbelief and genuine hatred. Punching another button, he waited for the message to return.
‘This is a message for Inspector John Carlyle. My name is Harry Allen. I was looking to speak to you about Ian Blake. I am out of the country at the moment, but I should be back in London next week. I will give you another call when I return.’
‘When you return?’ Carlyle hissed at the phone. ‘When you fucking return? This is a murder investigation, for God’s sake! What is wrong with you people?’ Flicking through his missed-call list, he also had a ‘no number’ from three minutes ago. How could I miss that? he thought. The bloody thing just didn’t ring. Resisting a strong urge to throw the handset under a passing taxi, he wondered if there was some way he could trace that call. At the very least, he could get Joe to track down Allen’s number, and they should be able to get hold of him eventually. The good news was that at least someone was offering to talk.
His coffee arrived along with a generous slice of baklava. His attention now focusing on the humble delights in front of him, Carlyle finally dropped the mobile into his pocket and began to let the vexations of the day slip from his mind.
EIGHTEEN
As instructed, the Ran
ge Rover Vogue SE pulled into parking space U3A28 Horseferry Road car park in Westminster, just a few blocks north of the Palace of Westminster. Killing the engine, Nicholas Hogarth switched off the Coldplay CD that had been burbling along in the background during his journey into town. The drive from Heathrow airport was easier than expected, and he was actually fifteen minutes early. He undid his seat belt and sat in silence, listening to his heartbeat ticking over in syncopation with the cooling engine.
After yet another sixteen-hour day, he felt exhausted but elated. The four espressos on the plane (and another in the airport) were doing their job. It was a relief that he was finally back in London, for advising on the restructuring of Moscow’s Dzhugashvili Bank had been hard going. Russia was still very much the Wild West of global capitalism, which was saying something these days, and everything there was chaotic. With the financial markets in freefall, floating the bank on three different stock markets simultaneously – a tricky manoeuvre at the best of times – was taking much longer than it was supposed to. This latest trip had been scheduled to last three days, but, eventually, he had been stuck out there for almost two weeks. His Russian clients were driving him mad, too, but at least he had been paid this time, which was another reason to party.
Nicholas liked to party. His wife wasn’t expecting him home for another twelve hours and, for the first time in a long time, he could enjoy a little freedom.
Outside the car, the top floor of the garage was silent, bathed in an industrial yellow glow from the sporadic strip lighting dotted about the concrete ceiling. Most of the parking spaces were empty, and he had seen no other people since he arrived. Gripping the steering wheel, he rocked slowly backwards and forwards in his seat, feeling a huge surge of adrenaline as he thought about what was coming next.
Within half an hour, he would get to fuck a total stranger with abandon. This was always the best part of these sessions: the anticipation of imminent, guaranteed, greedy sex. Exotic sex. Strange sex. Degrading sex. Expensive sex. Sex that was all about him.
That was what Serenissima was all about.
Serenissima was a Swiss-based agency that he had been introduced to by a business contact in Zurich, three years ago. It was a ‘complete-experience agency’, and he used them every couple of months. Usually at the end of a tough business trip like this one, or when his regular life just became too boring for words.
The agency was invisible. It billed one of his trading partners in Liechtenstein, so that the cost was lost amongst the thousands of transactions that went through the books at his financial services boutique in St James’s every year.
He paid Serenissima to take control, and its slogan was No limits, no boundaries, no preconceptions. He set the time; they set the where and the how. And the who.
It could be anyone, male or female, aged eighteen to seventy. That was part of the delicious pleasure of the game: the freedom from choice. When you met your host, you could say ‘No, thank you’, of course. But if you ended it then and there, it was your loss… and your cost. He always accepted what he had paid for, and had found that there was an important lesson there, too – don’t prejudge things. The regulation-pretty girls were fine, but they were the least eager to please, the least imaginative and the least welcoming. On the other hand, the best session he’d ever had was with a sixteen-stone, sixty-two-year-old black lady who had jumped straight on to his dick and fucked him raw for three hours straight. He could barely walk for days afterwards. Thinking about it later, he’d decided that it was probably the best sex of his life, even better than the Peruvian triplets he’d enjoyed in Chiclayo one time. He’d tried to re-book her, but that was not allowed. Serenissima’s strict rule was that everything was a one-time-only arrangement.
Another agency rule was no artificial time limits – once you come, they go. He therefore knew all about the dangers of getting too excited too quickly. The one encounter where he had felt short-changed had lasted barely five minutes, from start to finish. The boy had deliberately brought him to a frenzy in record time. The little whore had then spat out his juices, got dressed and was out the door almost before Hogarth realised what had happened. It was, he thought ruefully afterwards, probably one of the most expensive blowjobs in history.
From then on he had always made sure that he got value for money. As part of his pre-Serenissima ritual, he now reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a packet of tissues. From a bag on the back seat, he fished out an Armenian porn mag that he had acquired on his trip, and propped it up against the dashboard. With a contented sigh, he unzipped his fly and got to work.
After a couple of minutes’ uncomplicated pleasure, he had completed the job. Dropping the used tissues out of the window, he felt sated, and wondered if he might not just go home. But, before he could reach a conclusion, there was a click, the passenger door opened, and a modest frame slid into the seat next to him. There was a glimpse of flesh and the sound of leather against leather.
‘I see you’ve started without me,’ said an amused voice.
‘Well…’ Hogarth gasped as a cold hand gently grasped his still exposed member.
‘Leave the talking to me. Just sit back, eyes front.’
He did as he was told, bringing his breathing under control as the hand was replaced by something else. Hogarth let his mind wander, relaxing completely as he was gently brought back to life.
Several minutes later, the oral ministrations came to an abrupt end. He opened his eyes, but found it hard to focus.
‘Get out of the car.’
Slowly he did as he was told.
‘Face the windscreen. Hands on the bonnet. Spread your legs.’
Hogarth moved around the front of the car, watching his reflection in the cool Galway Green paintwork. From behind, he felt a pair of hands roughly undo his belt buckle and push his trousers to the floor. His underpants quickly followed. A hand came up between his legs, caressing his balls. Something cool tickled his anus. He was completely hard again now, and poised to explode. Don’t rush it, he thought. Slow down.
When the explosion came, however, it was at the base of his neck, rather than in his groin. He tried to push himself up off the car, but instead found his head being smashed back on to the bonnet. His nose exploded, and blood mixed with the tears welling in his eyes. Dazed, he felt his legs buckle. His vision blurred and then there was darkness.
‘Wakey, wakey!’
Hogarth regained consciousness as a bottle of water was poured over his head. Confused, with a throbbing ache behind his eyes, he took a moment to remember what had happened. Slowly, the world stopped spinning around him. He was lying face down, on the car bonnet, with his arms raised as if in surrender. The bonnet still felt warm, suggesting he hadn’t been unconscious for long, and there was a sickly smell in his nostrils. Grunting, he tried to push himself up, but to no avail.
He was stuck.
Literally.
‘Don’t struggle, or you’ll do yourself some serious damage.’
As his eyes regained focus, he saw the knife resting on the windshield. Next to it was a small photograph. Unable to move his head, it was hard to make it out clearly – but he could guess. A hand snatched up the blade and Hogarth clenched his whole body, in anticipation of the imminent blow.
‘Help me,’ he whispered, but only so that he could hear the sound of his own voice one last time. ‘Please, help me.’
Hopping from foot to foot to try to stay awake, Carlyle stood as far away from the body as he reasonably could without looking too much like a wimp. He fiddled with his BlackBerry and looked over at Joe Szyszkowski, who was talking to one of the other policemen attending the scene. Even at this distance, the smell was appalling. He could feel the bile rising in his throat and he was only glad that his stomach was empty.
It was ten to five in the morning and he felt like shit. Those bastard students who rented the flat below him in Winter Garden House had woken him up at two a.m. with their bloody computer war g
ames. It was the third or fourth time this had happened in recent weeks. They would stay up all night playing Mercenaries: World in Flames or Call of Duty: World at War. The first time it had happened, Carlyle literally thought that a bomb had gone off inside the building. It wasn’t much better once he realised that it was only a game. There would be stretches of silence and then a monumental explosion. It was like World War III was taking place right under his fucking bed. Every time Carlyle went to complain, they would sheepishly apologise and call it a night. Then a few days later they’d start again. The fact that he was a policeman didn’t seem to concern them in the slightest. He started giving serious consideration to having the little fuckers arrested for something. Better still, he would ask Dominic Silver to send someone round to trash their games consoles and break their fingers.
Carlyle really needed his sleep: anything less than seven hours and he was in bad shape for the next day. In the event, he had managed to grab less than an hour because, what had seemed like only two minutes after his eyes had finally closed, he had received the call about the body. Joe had picked him up just after four, and they reached the scene in less than ten minutes.
The body had been identified from a marketing brochure found inside the Range Rover. There was the by now familiar knife sticking out of his arse, and a pool of congealed blood extended several feet away from the body. Nearby, an extremely impressive stream of vomit had run almost the whole length of the vehicle.
Joe wandered over.
‘Why is he still here?’ Carlyle asked.
‘They superglued him to the car,’ Joe explained, trying to stifle a giggle. ‘The paintwork is going to be ruined.’
‘What?’
‘He is stuck to the bonnet. They found a jumbo bottle of Lockdown “brush on” superglue.’ He gestured to a small group of officers gathered by the car, lowering his voice a little.
‘Lovely.’ Carlyle already knew that superglue was a more common problem for the police than most people would imagine. Once, in East London, he had been called to a flat where a man in a wheelchair had starved to death after his upper and lower jaws were glued together. The coroner recorded an open verdict, but for a long time afterwards Carlyle wondered what had happened. Was it an accident? Or suicide? They were real teeth, so how could you glue them together by accident? If the guy had done it deliberately, then what a truly terrible way to kill yourself. Or maybe someone else had done it to him? Carlyle had lain awake at night trying to work it through, but a plausible explanation would always elude him. Another time he had to deal with a man suspected of breaking his bail curfew, who had glued himself to his girlfriend in an attempt to avoid being arrested. Carlyle packed both of them off to the station and had her charged with obstruction, before making himself scarce so that he didn’t have to hang around for the business of separating them.