by James Craig
The current £10 charge was a complete joke, Carlyle thought. The traffic was as bad as ever. Meanwhile, all you ever heard was the endless moaning of lazy rich people who thought that it was their inalienable human right to clog the place up with their monster, gas-guzzling, road-hogging 4x4s, popularly known as ‘Chelsea tractors’. These were the people who got Holyrod elected, so the charge wouldn’t be raised to a sensible level any time soon.
It was only after they had slalomed through two lanes of stationary traffic that Carlyle realised that this particular jam was primarily the result of a number 55 bus which had been brought to a halt at a forty-five-degree angle across three lanes of traffic at the corner of Bloomsbury Street and St Giles High Street. Standing in the middle of Shaftesbury Avenue, it took him a little while longer to appreciate that the bus was also on the wrong route. The 55, a single-operator, red double-decker Plaxton President, which came in from Leyton in the east, normally went along Bloomsbury Way and New Oxford Street, before terminating at Oxford Circus. For some reason, it had left its route and was a block south of where it should be.
Bemused, Carlyle took a couple of steps forward and squinted at the vehicle, which was about twenty feet in front of him. The 55 wasn’t indicating that it was out of service and he could see that a couple of passengers were still on board. Nor did the driver appear injured or incapacitated in any way. Rather, he was sitting in his cab like a lemon, watching the chaos unfold all around him, seemingly oblivious to a couple of tourists who were standing straight in front of the bus, videoing him.
The noise levels were rising as more and more drivers vented their displeasure. The temperature felt as if it had risen ten degrees in the last couple of minutes and the exhaust fumes were making Carlyle nauseous. He could taste the pollution collecting in the back of his throat. A familiar grinding sensation at the top of his spine, where it joined his skull, meant a monster headache was on the way. What he most wanted to do now was skip through the rest of the traffic and leave them all to it.
‘We’d better find out what this is all about,’ he shouted to Joe.
They made their way over to the bus and Carlyle rapped on the door at the front opposite the driver. The man was an unhealthy-looking off-white colour, in his twenties, with terrible skin and a pudding-bowl haircut. He gazed at them and then looked away. The passengers on the back seats sat gazing blankly out of the windows. Well used to the vagaries of London’s public transport, they were apparently unconcerned at events.
Walking round to the front of the bus, Carlyle pressed his ID up against the window, in front of the driver’s face. ‘We’re the police!’ he shouted. ‘Open the door!’
The driver blinked a couple of times, but said nothing. Instead, he sat with his hands on the steering wheel and didn’t move. Maybe he’s on drugs, Carlyle thought. His mood was deteriorating by the second. He could sense that a small crowd was gathering behind him and he needed to get the bus moved.
‘This guy is heading for the cells,’ Joe sighed.
The inspector banged his fist on the window. ‘Open the fucking door!’
Joe put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Hold on a second.’
Carlyle followed his sergeant back round to the side of the bus. He watched Joe reach down and open a small panel by the left-hand side of the exit doors. Inside was a green button about the size of a 10p piece, with the legend emergency door open above it in small script. Joe pressed the button and the doors whooshed open.
‘Why didn’t you do that in the first place?’ Carlyle snapped.
Joe just smiled and stepped back, moving slightly to allow his boss to get on.
‘Get rid of the gawkers,’ Carlyle barked, ‘and call for some uniforms.’ He jumped on the bus and slammed the palm of his hand into the Plexiglas partition that kept the driver safe from the travelling public. ‘What the fuck is going on?’ he asked. ‘Are you lost?’
The driver looked straight ahead, ignoring Carlyle and remaining mute.
‘Is this your bus?’
Finally, the man turned to look straight at Carlyle. Taking the right lapel of his jacket between his thumb and forefinger, he indicated his name badge to the policeman. ‘Yes,’ he said in a shaky voice, ‘it’s my bus. And this is a protest. What does it look like?’
‘It looks like piss-poor parking,’ said Carlyle, relaxing slightly. At least the silly sod seemed compos mentis. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Clive.’
‘And what exactly are you protesting about, Clive?’
‘The advertising.’
Carlyle was confused. ‘What advertising?’
‘The advertising on this side of the bus,’ said Clive huffily, as if that was obvious.
Carlyle frowned. Turning round, he stepped back off the bus and stared up at the poster running horizontally between the upper and lower decks.
In disgusting pink letters, the text read: there’s probably no god. now stop worrying and enjoy your life.
Carlyle blinked, did a double-take and started laughing. He stepped back on the bus and said to the driver: ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘It offends my religious beliefs.’ Clive actually looked hurt.
‘And what are those, exactly?’ Carlyle asked, failing to keep the as-if-I-could-give-a-fuck tone out of his voice.
‘I am a member of the East London Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church,’ Clive said solemnly. ‘Haven’t missed a Sunday in almost six years.’
‘Very impressive,’ said Carlyle. He knew nothing much about religion and cared less. As far as he was concerned, people could believe what they liked, as long as they didn’t make a song and dance about it and kept within the law. ‘Now that we’ve got that sorted out, it’s time to move the bus.’
‘No.’
Fuck it, Carlyle thought, no more Mr Nice Guy. ‘Move the bus or I will arrest you.’
Clive gave him a look as if he was a hurt puppy, but said nothing.
‘You will go to jail. That means no more Missionary . . . whatnot Church for you for a long time.’
For the first time, a look of discomfort passed across Clive’s face.
‘They’re all atheists in prison, you know,’ Carlyle continued. ‘They’ll fuck you up the arse every night. God won’t save you then.’
Clive’s bottom lip quivered, but still he remained mute.
So much for psychology, Carlyle thought. Taking half a step forwards, he hit the Perspex so hard his hand hurt. ‘Wait till I get you out of there, you little bastard. Move the fucking bus!’
‘No,’ replied a tiny voice.
‘For fuck’s sake, Clive!’ Seething, Carlyle wheeled away and walked straight into a woman holding a small video camera. She stepped back towards the stairs leading to the upper deck, bringing the camera back up to her face, keeping it focused on Carlyle.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Carlyle growled. He wished that he had stayed at the station. The feeling that some kind of cosmic conspiracy was determined to fuck up his day was beginning to eat into his brain. With some effort, he resisted the urge to stick his hand over the lens. The woman took another step backwards towards a ratty-looking bloke, and he realised that they were the pair of ‘tourists’ he had seen outside the bus earlier.
Letting the camera drop to her side, the woman stopped filming. ‘We’re the Daughters of Dismas. We’re recording this protest for our website.’
‘The what?’
‘The Daughters of Dismas,’ the woman repeated slowly. ‘It’s the feminist wing of the Tabernacle Church.’
Carlyle gestured at the man behind her. ‘What’s he doing here then?’
‘Stuart is an honorary member of the DoD. He’s my boyfriend.’
‘Lucky boy,’ Carlyle leered, looking the woman up and down. Thin, pasty-faced, wearing a red T-shirt and green combat pants, she could have been anywhere from eighteen to thirty-eight. It struck him that she looked like a weedy heroine from one of those wretched Mike Leigh movie
s that Helen sometimes made him watch; boring people pissing about masquerading as ‘social realism’.
The woman ignored his sarcastic tone. ‘Dismas was the Penitent Thief, a friend of Jesus.’
‘Good for him,’ Carlyle said, not having the remotest clue what she was talking about. Dismas could have been a character on Sesame Street for all he knew. Or Fulham’s new Hungarian left-back. He held out his right hand. ‘Give me the camera.’
The woman immediately lifted the machine back to her face and resumed filming. ‘We have a perfect right to be here. Are you arresting Clive?’
Carlyle glanced over at Joe, who was standing in the doorway trying not to laugh. Turning back to the woman, he said, ‘Give me the camera,’ as calmly as he could manage. ‘Please.’
Hemmed in by her boyfriend, the woman kicked Carlyle in the shin.
Instinctively, Carlyle kicked her back.
‘Ouch!’ she squealed. ‘That hurt!’
Without waiting for her to start screaming about ‘police brutality’, Carlyle grabbed the camera and quickly tossed it to Joe. ‘You are under arrest,’ he said, spinning her round and snapping on a pair of cuffs, ‘for breach of the peace and assaulting a police officer.’ He pointed at the boyfriend. ‘That goes for you too, Stuart.’
‘Boss,’ said Joe from behind him, ‘the uniforms are here.’
‘Good. Tell ’em to take these two and the driver back to the station and we’ll get them charged. And get someone out here to move this bloody bus.’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘What about my camera?’ the woman whined.
‘That’s evidence, love,’ said Joe, smiling. ‘But don’t worry – we’ll look after it.’
SIXTEEN
Today I write not to gloat. Instead, I am writing to say goodbye.
Commander Carole Simpson dropped the letter on to her desk and sighed. Why her ‘genius’ fund manager husband had decided to write a ‘fuck you’ letter to the world in general and to his clients in particular, was beyond her. Simpson had never quite understood how her husband, Joshua Hunt, had transformed himself from the rather geeky Imperial College computer scientist that she had married into a financial guru with an estimated net worth – so she read in the papers – of almost £120 million. For a long time, she had taken comfort in the belief that the 4,000 square-foot house in Highgate, the expensive restaurants, the needy clients and the political networking had not turned Joshua into a completely different person, robbing her of what she had seen in him in the first place. Now, however, she wasn’t so sure. Maybe the money had finally gone to his head.
Joshua Hunt’s company, McGowan Capital, had run four of the best performing investment funds in London for each of the last six years. In the last two years, as the world’s financial markets had imploded, he had made an incredible 723 per cent return, mostly from betting against bank stocks and sterling. However, he had taken a beating in the last quarter, calling the oil market wrong, and was finding it harder and harder to convince his clients that this was not the time that they should be pulling out their money.
Sitting at the kitchen table a couple of weeks earlier, he had told her that he was shutting down the firm. He wanted to retire. Retire to what? He didn’t know. Still, that was fine by her – Joshua had never been the type of man who had allowed himself to be defined by his work. But now he had written this goodbye letter. That worried her. Glossing over recent losses, it smacked of hubris.
What I have learned about the investment business is that I hate it. I was in the game simply for the money. The low-hanging fruit – the idiots whose parents paid for public school and then the MBA – was there for the taking. These people were truly not worthy of everything they received as they rose effortlessly to the top of corporate and public life as if it was their right – which, of course, it was. All of this behaviour supporting the continuation of the Establishment, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless you all.
There are many people for me to sincerely thank for my success. However, I do not want to sound like a credulous actor accepting a meaningless award. The money was reward enough. Furthermore, the people on the long, long list of those deserving thanks are almost certainly too stupid to appreciate who they are.
I will no longer manage money for other people. I have enough of my own. I am more than happy with my remuneration in exchange for ten prime years of my life. My message to the rest of you is: throw the BlackBerry away and enjoy life.
Goodbye and good luck.
Carole Simpson had no idea where all of this bile had come from. It seemed completely out of character. Deciding to walk away from the City with an obscene amount of money was one thing. Rubbing everyone else’s noses in it was quite another. Particularly as Joshua still had his political ambitions. If anything, they seemed to be growing. She fretted that this farewell message would come back to haunt him. It was juvenile. Biting the hand that feeds you is never a good idea.
The letter had yet to be posted to investors or published on McGowan Capital’s website, so maybe she could talk him out of it at tonight’s reception. Drinks followed by dinner. Another evening lost to playing the dutiful wife, as if she didn’t have a career of her own. The heavy card invite lay on her desk. Glancing at it, Simpson calculated that she would have to leave in about fifteen minutes. That would be more than enough time.
Picking up the telephone, she punched a button and waited for her PA in the room next door to answer. ‘Send him in,’ she said briskly, immediately dropping the receiver back on to its cradle, without waiting for a response.
The office door opened. Simpson watched Carlyle come in and stand in front of her desk. Another man who’s causing me needless aggravation, she thought. Letting him wait there for a few seconds, she looked him up and down, on the off-chance that she might find some new insight into her under-achieving – if sporadically impressive – colleague. There was none to be found.
Scribbling some notes on a pad, she instructed him to sit down with a curt wave of the hand. ‘How are you, Inspector?’ she said finally.
‘Fine.’ Carlyle sat upright in his chair, as if he was back in the Headmaster’s office at the Henry Compton secondary school, thirty years ago, waiting to take his punishment for some minor indiscretion. Unwilling to engage in any fake pleasantries, he kept his response to the one word, and let his gaze wander. Nothing here seemed different from his last visit. Aside from the basics, the office was empty, the desk spectacularly bare save for a photograph of a smug-looking middle-aged man gone to seed. Carlyle assumed that was Simpson’s husband.
The inspector was always on his guard with his boss. They were very different animals and both knew it. Five or six years younger than Carlyle, the commander could still realistically anticipate moving further up the career ladder before her time was up. He had known Simpson for almost twelve years now, coming under her direction not long after his move to Charing Cross. She was, he had to admit, a hell of an operator – she only ever looked upwards – and had taken to her management role like a duck to water. She could be charming too – if you were a man of a certain age (i.e. between ten and fifteen years older than she was) and she wanted something from you.
Simpson rarely wanted anything from Inspector John Carlyle. The inspector knew that she was frustrated by what she saw as his refusal to play the game. Just as important, perhaps more so, was his inability to hide his feelings towards her. Simpson left Carlyle cold. He hated the feeling that he had been co-opted on to her mission for personal glory. Somehow, the collective good always seemed nicely aligned with the interests of the commander. Her approach to the job he found completely introverted, indeed almost demented. She was too busy climbing the greasy pole to worry about anything else.
The way he saw it, she was either extremely selfish or she had the self-awareness of a goldfish. Either way, Carlyle eyed her with a mixture of extreme distrust and antipathy. Howe
ver, with much effort, he found that he could tolerate her well enough, as long as their paths did not cross too often. When they did, he felt as if his brain was overheating, and he was always too close to speaking his mind.
Simpson looked down at the notes she had scribbled on her pad.
‘About this bus . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘There’s been a complaint.’ Simpson kept her voice firmly neutral.
‘Oh?’ He placed what he hoped was a butter-wouldn’t-melt look on his face and concentrated on trying to keep it there.
‘A woman called Sandra Groves says that you assaulted her,’ Simpson continued. ‘She says that there is video evidence.’
Sandra Groves? It suddenly dawned on Carlyle that she must be the religious loony from the bus; he had never checked the woman’s name. He grinned sheepishly and adopted the tone of a casual observer with no axe to grind.
‘Well, what happened was . . .’
For the next few minutes, he talked the commander through the events of the previous week, throwing in as much detail as he could recall, relevant or not, without addressing Ms Groves’s accusation either directly or indirectly. He did this safe in the knowledge that Joe Szyszkowski’s report backed him up 100 per cent. Moreover, Groves and her boyfriend not only had been charged, but already had records for previous public-order offences, as well as a couple of outstanding parking tickets. The only thing that could have caused him any problem, the video, had since been erased from the camera’s memory stick. Just to be on the safe side, the camera itself had accidentally been run over – several times – by the back wheel of a police Range Rover in the garage of Charing Cross police station before being deposited in a rubbish bin on the Strand. Carlyle was confident that its remains were well on their way to some illegal landfill-dump in India by now. The complaint might lead to a formal investigation, but he knew that he was in the clear.